On Reputation

From @CJFDillow on the externalities of superinjunctions.

"People can allege that Jemima Khan is shagging Jeremy Clarkson and say that the press isn’t reporting this because of a superinjunction. ... In this way, Ms Khan’s reputation is damaged by the existence of super injunctions (though the social cost of this is mitigated by the fact that Mr Clarkson‘s reputation is enhanced)."

Ms Khan attracted a lot of publicity to herself when she chose to protest about various allegations about her and Mr Clarkson that had been circulated on Twitter. Most people looked at the allegations and dismissed them as highly unlikely. The story, repeated with glamorous pictures in all newspapers, has merely served to remind us about her wealth and beauty, and has probably only enhanced her reputation. Perhaps the real purpose of her protest was to deflect attention and credibility from some other allegations. (See my post on Google-spinning.)

Chris assumes that Ms Khan's reputation would be sullied if she were discovered to have had a relationship with anyone outside the usual round of actors and sportsmen and other good looking airheads. Although I'm not a fan of Mr Clarkson, I imagine that a wealthy and bored woman might find a discreet relationship with him to be quite interesting, and I can't see that her reputation would be particularly damaged. It's not as if she were caught attending one of Mr Berlusconi's or Mr Mosley's parties, or spilling out of nightclubs in a dishevelled state.

Meanwhile, Chris assumes that Mr Clarkson's reputation is enhanced by these allegations. Again, I can't see that a popular and happily married journalist wants to be associated with bored heiresses, let alone by their indignant denials.

Purpose of Denial 3

The more the American mainstream media deny that President Obama is a Moslem, the more Americans choose to believe that he is.

Apparently this belief is more prevalent among college-educated Republicans than the rest of the population. How Republicans Learn That Obama Is Muslim (New Republic, 27 August 2010) This raises some intriguing questions about the relationship between education and knowledge.

Jeff Poor suggests that the media are to blame. "By consistently using questions about Obama's faith and his citizenship as fodder to demean conservatives, specifically the Tea Party movement and thereby creating a general mistrust by saying vile things, have the mainstream media perpetuated the very allegations they are abhorred by (sic)?" (Newsbusters, 19 August 2010) At least on this point, Charlie Brooker seems to agree. "Seriously, broadcasters, journalists: just give up now. Because either you're making things worse, or no one's paying attention anyway."  'Ground Zero mosque'? The reality is less provocative (Guardian 23 August 2010). Brooker complains that the terms of the debate are grossly misleading, and grudgingly admires right-wingers for their ability to create snappy-but-misleading nicknames – like fun-size chocolate bars and the Ground Zero mosque. Buzzwords for blowhards (Guardian 30 August 2010).

Jeff Poor quotes CNN political analyst James Carville, who describes himself as "flummoxed" by this result, and claims that "the quality of information to people today is exponentially higher than it was in 19th century England". Now I wouldn't necessarily expect a political journalist to know what the word "exponential" meant, but I wonder whether the quality is higher at all.

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Once upon a time, some people were bothered whether Disraeli was Christian or Jew, and some people were uncomfortable about electing Kennedy as a Catholic president. But they are now mainly remembered for what they achieved while in office, not their religious affiliation. Meanwhile, Mrs Thatcher's legacy is not feminism but Thatcherism. Obama will not be remembered for his birthplace, or the religion of his forefathers, nor even for being the first black president; he will be remembered for the successes and failures of his presidency. And perhaps one day, people will wonder why anyone cared whether he was a Moslem or not, and moderate Moslems will be as accepted in mainstream American politics as Catholics are now. (Let it not be forgotten that large sums of money were once raised from American Catholics to support Irish terrorism.)

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John T. McGreevy and R. Scott Appleby Catholics, Muslims, and the Mosque Controversy (New York Review, 27 August 2010)

Adam Serwer, Build More Mosques (American Prospect, August 26, 2010)

Cameras and Trust

Here's a side-thought arising from something I said in my previous post on the Purpose of Anonymity.

"Obviously this ban [on camera phones in election booths] doesn't actually prevent voters from selling their votes - votes were being bought and sold long before cameras were invented - but the lack of photographic evidence reduces the economic efficiency of the transaction."

In some societies, nearly everybody has a mobile phone, and nearly every phone can take crude photographs. And while people often leave proper cameras at home, except on special occasions, most people carry a mobile at all time. This has led to a heightened expectation of photographic evidence - including evidence of wrong-doing. For example, gang members recording antisocial behaviour (such as "happy-slapping" - a physically violent form of bullying framed as slapstick) to boost their social standing within the gang.

The same technology can of course be used for more praiseworthy purposes: for example, to record interviews and video diaries from areas where traditional journalism is constrained and independent journalists are banned. The smuggled pictures and video perform the function of samizdat.

As it happens, both happy-slapping and samizdat are subversive, although in very different ways. But the justice system also relies on photographic evidence: older readers may remember the "twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one" taken by Officer Obie in evidence against one Arlo Guthrie for littering on Thanksgiving [source: Alice's Restaurant (lyrics) (track)]. And then of course there are surveillance cameras ...

But this widespread expectation of photographic evidence devalues oral testimony. We don't trust words as much these days: if there aren't any pictures, it probably isn't true. In the past, even bribery and corruption relied on trust, because there wasn't any alternative; the camera (or rather the way society increasingly uses cameras) undermines trust.

Stress

According to the POSIWID principle, the purpose of some complex artefact or phenomenon is what it does. There are people who see positive value in stress. There are also people who, while claiming to dislike stress, still act in ways that increase stress for themselves and other people.

Fight / Flight - Stress provides energy for contingencies and emergencies. It may unlock hidden reserves of power and creativity.

Selection - Stress may act as a selection mechanism. It identifies and promotes those tough enough to withstand stress.

Motivation - Stress may act as a stimulant. Some managers deliberately put their staff, suppliers and other people under stress, in the belief that this will produce better outcomes.

Pleasure - Freud's pleasure principle is based on the balance between excitement and calm.

Trust - Perhaps the most effective way of establishing authentic trust between individuals and teams is to have a shared experience of stress. This is sometimes called "going though fire together".

Explanation - Like many other psychosocial phenomena, stress is a totem in some organizations (in other words, held up as a cause and explanation of all sorts of phenomena), and is taboo in other organizations (in other words, not able to be acknowledged or cited as an excuse). The effects and symptoms of stress are likely to be very different between these organizations.

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Roger Dobson, Does stress help us succeed? (Independent, 4 May 2011)

The Money Trap

An interesting BBC television documentary last night on banks and credit cards: Panorama July 2nd, 2006 (video available). Reported three detailed case studies of people who were permitted (possibly encouraged) to run up impossible debts - two of whom committed suicide. Also provided some inside insight into banking policies that encourage further lending to people in trouble.

The programme featured a whistleblower who accuses the banks of putting profits before what she calls a "duty of care" for the customer, describing their lending practices as "irresponsible".

Clearly many people still have the idea that banks are (or should be) infused with noble ideals of duty and responsibility, and they express disappointment and outrage when the banking industry appears to fall short of these ideals.

Bank executives may well argue that their primary duty and responsibility is to the financially responsible majority of their customers. There is a utilitarian argument (greatest good, greatest number) that the survival of the bank is more important than the survival of one customer. But of course this notion of duty happily coincides with good profits for shareholders and high remuneration for the executives themselves.

So what is the purpose of a bank again?

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Technorati tags: banking credit debt POSIWID responsibility trust

Essay Fraud

What is the purpose of EssayFraud.org? According to the organization website, its members provide freelance research and composition services to students, and it expects students to use these services responsibly.

If a consumer contracts a freelance writer to research and compose an example document from which the consumer intends to glean unique insights/viewpoints on a given topic, the consumer must properly cite that writer and/or that writer's employing Web site when writing his/her own paper.

Yeah, right.

Some people might think that the best clue about the purpose of EssayFraud.org is contained in the name of the organization. See my posts on Cheating 1 and 2.

Essay Fraud is currently engaged in a campaign to encourage students to buy American essays (sorry, I should have said research insights) rather than cheaper services from Pakistan or Ukraine.

The wider effect of the Essay Fraud phenomenon is that essay outsourcing undermines the supposed purposes of the American education system. If Americans are paying Pakistanis and Ukrainians to write their essays, it won't be long before Americans have to pay Pakistanis and Ukrainians to run their companies.

Whoops! According to some software industry leaders, this is already starting to happen. See my post on the Globally Integrated Enterprise.

Who is being clever here, and who is being stupid? (In a later post, Jack van Hoof calls this Paying to Stay Dumb.)

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Valentine's Day

I have always been wary of Valentine's Day, especially since reading Thomas Hardy's ironically named novel Far From the Madding Crowd.

Hardy takes the title from the poem Gray's Elegy, which includes the line "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife" - but Hardy's characters manage to create ignoble strife even in an apparently peaceful countryside setting. And in Hardy's novel, it is a Valentine's Day card that causes all the trouble.

Isn't that just the purpose of Valentine's Day - to cause trouble?

Scott Adams sees the whole thing as a hunter-gatherer competition, in which the alpha males get the best flowers (and consequently the best women). Meanwhile Bruce Schneier sees this as an opportunity for trust to be broken, and broken trust to be exposed.

What a romantic way to celebrate the life and death of Saint Valentine!

Technorati Tag: POSIWID

Female Pleasure 2

Following my previous post on the purpose of female pleasure, my attention has been drawn (by this post in the Now Economy blog) to a piece of research (pdf) that suggests that oxytocin increases trusting behaviour. (The Now Economy blog raises important questions about the reseach method for measuring trusting behaviour, but I'm not going to address these questions here.)

Oxytocin has often been cited as a mechanism linking female pleasure to a range of social and biological effects.

• Oxytocin is an altruistic hormone, a love hormone (Michael Odent)
  
• Oxytocin deficiency enhances stress, obesity and psychotic behavior, impairs cognitive functions and increases breast-cancer risk. (Wai Says)
  

Now if sexual pleasure makes you trust people, then POSIWID suggests that this may be a secondary purpose of sex. We may then intervene in this causal pattern by abstaining prior to those activities where we wish to remain guarded. (For example, sportsmen are often temporarily separated from their bedmates before a major event.) This kind of intervention is similar to that of Ulysses and the Sirens, brilliantly analysed by Jon Elster.

Meanwhile Marnia Robinson and Gary Wilson argue that conventional sex tends to over-stimulate the pleasure/reward center deep within the brain. Over time, this leads to subconscious defensiveness and emotional distance between partners. Once uneasiness enters an intimate relationship, the bond between the partners tends to weaken, ultimately producing less oxytocin. In their view, biology's agenda unravels relationships over time despite oxytocin's bonding properties, and they advocate alternative practices that maintain and increase oxytocin between partners - in other words, intervening to subvert what they believe to be biology's agenda.

So now we have two theories. One in which the quantity of trust depends on the quantity of oxytocin, and one in which the quantity of oxytocin depends on the quantity of trust.

If we can't tell which is the effect, and which the cause, then POSIWID becomes a spiral.

Rats and Ratcatchers

The purpose of rats is to keep ratcatchers busy.

With this POSIWID principle in mind, look at this allegation, suggesting secret coupling between the rats and the ratcatchers. Sometimes it's difficult to know who to trust.