The Agile Mind

Scientific Encounters

Book recommendation (it’s long but worth it):

Koutstaal, Wilma (2012) The Agile Mind; Oxford University Press: New York

For me, this book strengthens the case against simplistic dichotomies that are pervasive  within the field of clinical psychology:  the good (authentic/real/rational/intentional) and the bad (inauthentic/false/irrational/reactive). Such divisions are steeped in ideology and are fundamentally anti-scientific.

The scientific mind thinks in terms of continua. Fuzzy boundaries rule. Context matters.

The ideological mind likes to divide the world into exclusive categories. Purity matters.

Yeah, yeah – that’s just what I did, what with my “scientific mind” and ideological mind”. However, these should be considered  “ideal types”, which rarely exist in their pure form. Categories and ideal types can help us see and appreciate stuff we otherwise may not have noticed, but it’s important to remember they  can also prevent us from seeing and appreciating other things.

In that spirit, here’s a quote from The Agile Mind:

“Although inappropriate reliance on more automatic, heuristic modes of processing has frequently been shown to lead to error and biases, it is essential, indeed vital, that we refrain from any temptation to unilaterally characterize less directed, more intuitive, spontaneous, or nondeliberative modes of processing as inherently pernicious.  Context here is extremely important, both the extreme of too enthusiastically and unequivocally endorsing the virtues of deliberate thought, and the extreme of too strongly endorsing the benefits of undirected and “undeliberate” thought must be avoided. …we need to more fully understand how they work with and complement one another, in dynamic and ongoing moment-to-moment interchange and mutual support.” (p22)

 

Disentangling Poverty, Social Mobility, Wage Stagnation, and Inequality – Part II: Poverty, Food and Housing

Politics and Economics

What does it mean to eliminate poverty? Very generally, it means that everyone can afford some basic minimum of nutritious food, housing, clothing, healthcare, and transportation.

Guaranteeing every adult a basic income (the Basic Income Guarantee, or BIG) may be one way to eliminate poverty. How big would the BIG have to be to accomplish this lofty goal in the US? And is a BIG the best way to help people afford all of life’s basic necessities –   food, housing, clothing, healthcare and transportation – or just some? Let’s take each category of expense one at a time.

Starting with food, I’m thinking the BIG would not be the best way to insure that everyone has the resources to buy nutritious food. Why? Because in my ideal scenario (and we’re talking about the US only), SNAP would continue to be available for low-income households. Applying for SNAP benefits is not particularly complicated or burdensome. The SNAP program is well-run with low administrative costs and keeping the program would insure children and poor money managers would have access to sufficient food to stay healthy. Federal expenditures for healthcare is a huge part of the federal budget (24%) and SNAP is a way to contain public health costs by insuring the poor are able to meet their nutrition needs. In other words, SNAP already pays much of its budget through improved public health. A healthy population is also a more productive population, which is essential to economic growth and maintaining a tax base to fund the BIG in the first place.

Housing would be the main expense that a BIG would help with. But what do we mean by ‘housing’? Should people have the right to afford a place where they don’t need roommates to pay the rent? Some individuals have mental health or temperament issues that prevent them from living with others; others have children and may not be able to rely on relatives or significant others for living arrangements. These individuals may very well need their own place in order to avoid poverty.

On the other hand, you’ve got your single and childless 20-somethings with no serious mental health or social issues preventing them from living with others – should they also receive sufficient income to live alone? As a one-time 20-something myself, I lived quite happily for several years with up to 12 housemates (often sharing a bedroom and for a couple years living in an unshared storage room). Should the BIG be large enough so that such living arrangements would be a matter of choice and not financial need?

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2012, nearly 57 percent of U.S. households were childless. Many of these individuals could take on roommates to help with housing expenses. Of course, some people just can’t live with others. But should the needs of a small subset of the population dictate the size of BIG payments for the vast majority? In other words, let’s say 10% of adults are simply unsuitable for living with anyone else. Should a BIG be large enough to accommodate them, even though 90% of adults could take reasonable measures to reduce housing costs by living with others?

And what about region or neighborhood? Should everyone be able to afford to live anywhere? Or should the standard be the cheapest areas in the city, county or state in which they already live? Given the cost of housing varies hugely throughout the US, should there be a single standard for what is deemed a sufficient amount for housing? Should the BIG be adjusted according to regional cost of living indices (mainly housing)? Should there be the assumption that every person has the right to live where they want (within a certain radius), because they have the right to live near family, friends, and jobs? Should the government make it easier for people to stay in expensive areas by giving them additional income for housing in these areas?

One problem with giving people a bigger BIG in more expensive housing markets is it could exacerbate housing shortages, resulting in higher housing costs and leading to even bigger BIG payments – a vicious circle. And the BIG doesn’t address an important cause of pricey housing: insufficient supply to meet demand.

For instance, housing stocks are often limited in desirable urban locations because of local opposition, zoning laws, and cumbersome approval processes. Should the government really encourage people of limited means to move or stay in these areas by giving them extra money? I think not. The cost of housing has to be addressed on the supply side. Increasing demand when supply can’t flexibly respond to increased demand would trigger a price spiral.

Just getting started….

Disentangling Poverty, Social Mobility, Wage Stagnation, and Inequality – Part I: Poverty

Politics and Economics

The next series of posts will attempt to disentangle the concepts of poverty, income ranking, social mobility, wage stagnation, and inequality. All these posts will focus on the US.

We’ll start with poverty. Poverty means you don’t have sufficient resources to meet the bare necessities of life. Having a disposable income means one has enough to cover the necessities, plus more to spend on non-necessities, invest, or save for a rainy day. Without getting into the sticky details (yet) of how much income is enough to cover what necessities, it seems safe to say that the more disposable income one has, the less poor one is. (For the purpose of this discussion, I’m collapsing all resources into the concept of “income”, acknowledging that in some cases necessities may be provided for in other ways).

Economists Bruce Meyer and James Sullivan looked at income and spending patterns in the US over the past 50 years and concluded that the poverty rate has fallen significantly during that time, from an astonishing 32 percent in 1963 to 12 percent in 1979, and then to 7 percent in 2000. In 2010, 8 percent of Americans were living in poverty, according to their figures. Meyer and Sullivan found that the disposable income of an American at the bottom 20th percentile has risen somewhere between 24 and 41 percent since 1979, depending on what factors were included in the analysis.

Despite this impressive fall in poverty in US, there has been no corresponding increase in intergenerational mobility. This means there has been little social mobility between generations. So, although Americans are less poor than ever, their income ranking tends to be similar to that of their parents. For example, those in the lower quintiles more often than not had parents who were also in the lower quintiles.

Speaking of quintiles, the poor may not always be with us – but the lower income quintiles will be around as long humans have incomes (assuming some inequality, even if minimal). Poverty has to do with standard of living. Quintiles refer to relative rankings of income. Being at the bottom of that ranking may or may not mean one is poor. (Yes, some distinguish  “relative” poverty and “absolute” poverty, but the nature of these problems and their potential solutions are quite different and it doesn’t help to refer to both as types of poverty.)

So when we talk about helping people out of poverty, the conservation should start with what constitutes an acceptable standard of living. What are those necessities that no one should go without?

References for the above: http://www.economics21.org/commentary/persistent%E2%80%94if-insufficient%E2%80%94american-dream

http://www.economics21.org/commentary/actually-we-won-war-poverty

 

Mindfulness and Science

Observing Mindfulness

Even though mindfulness advocates often cite scientific evidence for the positive effects of mindfulness, the religious and ideological nature of the mindfulness movement can be at odds with the values of science. Mindfulness enthusiasts may welcome findings that appear to validate their beliefs but I haven’t found much hand-wringing in the mindfulness community about null or negative findings. To paraphrase Kabat-Zinn: the scientific support is great but we don’t really need it to value mindfulness; we know the truth from the inside.

Of course,  all of us are prone to embrace or ignore evidence according to our pre-existing biases. This tendency is simply stronger if the biases are religious or ideological. As William James noted long ago, the “truth is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion….” (p 77, Varieties of Religious Experience)

In addition to tendencies not unique to mindfulness, there are specific elements in the mindfulness movement that appears incompatible with a scientific perspective. Before elaborating on those elements, I will first discuss what I mean by a “scientific perspective”, starting with a couple quotations.

“Science is not just another enterprise like medicine or engineering or theology. It is the wellspring of all the knowledge we have of the real world that can be tested and fitted to preexisting knowledge. It is the arsenal of technologies and inferential mathematics needed to distinguish the true from the false. It formulates the principles and formulas that tie all this knowledge together. Science belongs to everybody. Its constituent parts can be challenged by anybody in the world who has sufficient information to do so. It is not just “another way of knowing” as often claimed, making it coequal with religious faith.” EO Wilson, Social Conquest of Earth p 4151 (Kindle)

“The values of science: to seek to explain the world, to evaluate candidate explanations objectively, and to be cognizant of the tentativeness and uncertainty of our understanding at any time.” Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature p 4112 (Kindle)

For me, science is about the pursuit of truth combined with an appreciation of one’s own fallibility and the ever-expanding ignorance that each advance of knowledge brings to our attention. To paraphrase David Eagleman: The 3 words that science has given humankind: “I don’t know”.

Science is about loving the questions (without denying that answers are nice too).

Science is also about maintaining a balance between skepticism and openness. As Carl Sagan put it:

“If you’re only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never can learn anything. You become a crotchety misanthrope convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. …At the same time, science requires the most vigorous and uncompromising skepticism, because the vast majority of ideas are simply wrong, and the only way to winnow the wheat from the chaff is by critical experiment and analysis.

No one can be entirely open or completely skeptical. We all must draw the line somewhere. An ancient Chinese proverb advises, “Better to be too credulous than too skeptical,” but this is from an extremely conservative society in which stability was much more prized than freedom and where the rulers had a powerful vested interest in not being challenged. Most scientists, I believe, would say, “Better to be too skeptical than too credulous.” But neither is easy. Responsible, thoroughgoing, rigorous skepticism requires a hardnosed habit of thought that takes practice and training to master.” Sagan, C. (1996). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (pp. 304-306).

In the coming posts, I will discuss three manifestations within mindfulness discourse that go against the spirit of science: triumphalism, the devaluation of cognition, and magical thinking.

The Process: How to Approach and Address Societal Problems

Explorations Outside the Box

The Process, according to a policy wonk: identify policy goal; identify obstacles to goal (the problem); explore and become knowledgeable about the nature of the problem (causal factors, moderators, mediators, interactions); explore possible solutions to problem (pros/cons, trade-offs, incentives/disincentives, consequences, impact on other policy goals, etc.); identify the type of data needed to assess effectiveness and desirability of each solution; set up data collection and analysis system; experiment with possible hypotheses/solutions; analyze findings; refine hypotheses; tweak or reject solutions and experiment again with remaining options, ideally in different conditions (as effectiveness may depend on local contexts).

A few general principles: every step of the way acknowledge possibility of being wrong about the nature of the problem and what works; encourage diverse input on goals, problems, and solutions; when possible, engage in small-scale experimentation with solutions (the better to compare relative effectiveness of different proposed solutions and to minimize collateral damage of implemented bad solutions).

While values and emotions necessarily inform policy goals, the Process is pretty cold-blooded. I’m thinking, as a rule, broad moral imperatives, like justice” or “fairness”, make pretty iffy policy goals – partly due to vagueness and partly because moral indignation tends to distort priorities, discourage open discussion, interfere with assessment of trade-offs and increase confirmation bias.

Helping Scientists serve the Greater Good

Scientific Encounters

“Refutations have often been regarded as establishing the failure of a scientist, or at least of his theory. It should be stressed that this is an inductivist error. Every refutation should be regarded as a great success. … Even if a new theory … should meet an early death, it should not be forgotten; rather its beauty should be remembered, and history should record our gratitude to it.”

– Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)

In Why it’s time to publish research “failures”, Lucy Goodchild van Hilten writes about the movement to counter publishing bias that favors positive results, which leads to under-reporting of negative findings. For instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) is now calling on all results – including null results – to be published within 12 months of study completion. Journals dedicated to negative findings are springing up and there are serious campaigns within the scientific community to get researchers to report negative results.

Of course there’s push-back. And for good reason: scientists are super-busy individuals. Many work 60 or more hours a week. It takes a lot of time, energy and focus to do research and write publishable papers. Given that null results are much more common than positive findings, is it really reasonable to ask scientists to more than double their workload, risking health, career and relationships, for a cause that serves the Greater Good but accrues little personal benefit to themselves? As one researcher put it: “If I chronicled all my negative results during my studies, the thesis would have been 20,000 pages instead of 200.”

To tackle the time requirements, reporting of negative findings needs to be streamlined. Unless otherwise inclined, researchers shouldn’t be expected to engage in lengthy background discussions or analysis when reporting null results. Keep it simple and short when possible. Ideally, publications will develop clear guidelines with fairly low word-limits to encourage submissions. Ideally, funding sources will work closely with researchers to facilitate the collection and reporting of all findings. For instance, some funders require quarterly reports – these reports should also include sections for null results. When researchers have to organize, analyze, and report all findings on an ongoing basis as a condition of continued funding, subsequent publishing of the same findings will involve much less time and effort.

Labor Shortages and What to do about Them

Politics and Economics

The US is projected to continue facing labor shortages for the foreseeable future. For instance, over the next decade, 3.4 million manufacturing ­ jobs will likely be needed, with only 1.4 million out of these expected to be filled – a shortfall of 2 million workers.

Unemployment and labor shortages do not exclude each other. When the unemployed don’t have the skills or experience to qualify for jobs, labor shortages result. (For more on this, see: “The Paradox of Worker Shortages at a Time of High National Unemployment” and “Labor Shortages Trip Up Big Home Builders”­.)

Shortages are greatest in the skilled trades, both globally and in the US.  Skilled trades includes jobs like Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, Steamfitters, Pipefitters, Machinists,  Industrial Machinery  Mechanics, and various kinds of Technicians. One issue with the skilled trades is that many of these jobs require a considerable period of training (school, apprenticeship, on-the-job) and commitment to a relatively narrow occupational field. More and more young people are opting out of that career path (the average age of those in the skilled trades is considerably older than average: 53 percent of skilled-trade workers in the U.S. are 45 yrs or older).

A modest federal Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) would work well for people early in their careers when their wages are lower and they are still learning the basics. But even with a BIG, issues remain. It often takes years to be really good at a trade and many employers of trade workers are small to mid-size and can’t afford generous pay on what is essentially a trainee. Many of whom will leave before the training is over (per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while job tenure is increasing for those 25 and over – average 5.5 years per worker – it is really low for young men (1.4 years, age 20-24). So, the problem with getting employers to hire people that need a lot of training is partly a matter of retention – making good on your investment.

The highly competitive business climate also appears to play a role in current labor shortages.  Employers increasingly want workers with better skills, because  it’s riskier these days to hire inexperienced workers.   Says one employer: “If one of my techs doesn’t know how to do a particular thing right away, the client doesn’t want to hear that. Instead, they want to hear that I’ll give them a discount on the tech’s time. If the tech makes a mistake, I have to cover the costs for making up for it.”

In this age of Yelp and other online review sites, customer loyalty is more and more a thing of the past. Many employers can’t afford hiring trainees who will inevitably make mistakes, jeopardizing their customer base. Reading a couple Australian academics (the problem is global), they said specifically that pay/benefit increases haven’t solved the problem, but that worker retention is best with employers’ commitment to ongoing training and clear paths to career advancement. That’s probably not doable for the smaller employers. So change at educational institutions will be an important part of the solution. To increase employers’ willingness to hire inexperienced workers, schools will need to provide better and more comprehensive technical training programs.  Training programs should start in high school and schools need to work closely with business to get the skill match right. Adopting something like Germany’s system ­might help­.

For those who drop out of these training programs, they will at least have some skills to participate in the “on-demand” economy (e.g. doing minor repairs for TaskRabbit) while also getting their modest BIG and trying to come up with a Plan B.

What to Do: Unpredictable and Extreme Weather

The Environment

It’s pretty well accepted that the global climate will not only become warmer overall but that in many places, climate will be more extreme and erratic. So: floods one year, drought the next 5 years. Yes – we must do what we can to mitigate global warming – but it’s likely that unpredictable and extreme weather will still be part of the forecast. What can be done?

As conditions worsen, I would expect considerable migration from the South to the North.  Given that the decline of human population is projected to start by 2050 or so and be in full force by 2100, the in-migration to the North will likely be manageable, provided governments don’t get too xenophobic. Also, given that advanced non-agrarian societies have lower birth rates, the move to the North will quicken the population decline (a virtuous cycle). Northern US, Canada, and Russia will probably benefit from the influx.

Water supplies and agriculture would suffer the greatest impact. Given the likelihood of less predictable climate, we’ll have to develop ways to better conserve, store, and transport water during years of favorable weather to soften the impact of the bad years. More reservoirs and canals would help, as would the development of crops that need less water and use water more efficiently.  We would also need to continue the development of increasingly resilient crops able to thrive in variable conditions and continue to improve intensive sustainable farming practices.

Between population decline, intensification of  agriculture, and increased urbanization, wild habitat will spread. However, some species will not be able to adapt to climate change within their traditional habitat, so we will need to insure that habitats are large enough to accommodate the migration of floral and fauna to take advantage of shifting microclimates and resources. We will also have to act as stewards of these habitats to both facilitate migration and maintain resources. This may involve the controlled introduction of more resilient food sources in some areas, or intermittent periods of more direct management, such as feeding stations.

And for some species, we’ll need to expand seed banks and create breeding compounds to maintain sufficient genetic integrity to ride out the storm and be returned to the wild at some later date. Yes, that could be for hundreds of years. But, you know, I keep hearing that artificial intelligence and robots are going to make most work obsolete – so it’s not like humans will be too busy to help out. Time to roll up our sleeves.

Scarcity

Explorations Outside the Box

Perceived scarcity happens when we want a limited resource that other people want too. Scarcity fuels desire; scarcity leads to suffering. By definition, most people cannot enjoy scarce goods.

To me, scarcity is like the first law of existence. Whatever you want, if it’s out there and others want it too, then the law of scarcity applies. Bottom line: if what you want is a resource available to others and it is generally desirable, it becomes scarce, with all that implies. Scarcity implies that suffering is inevitable, that competition is inevitable, that there will always be losers. Time is a scarce resource; affection is a scarce resource; love is a scarce resource; status (being admired, looked up to) is a scarce resource; power is a scarce resource. Receiving attention is a zero-sum game: if it goes to you, that means it does not go somewhere else; the regard of others is a scarce resource.

Without scarcity, what motivates us? I often fantasize about living forever because I’m just so curious about what’s going to happen with the world, but when I think about it, eternal consciousness without connection and touching seems unbearable. And for connection and touching to be meaningful, it has to be voluntary and to be voluntary, there needs to be a choice. And for there to be a choice, there needs to be alternative objects of affection. And here we come around to scarcity as a limited resource that has alternative uses.

Scarcity gives life meaning.

Mindfulness and the Ideological Square: De-emphasize Their Good Things

Observing Mindfulness

Recap: Borrowing from Robert Jay Lifton and Willard S. Mullins, I’m defining ideology as a relatively comprehensive and coherent set of convictions (a “vision”) about how humans and the world works, which is powerful enough to influence one’s thinking, feelings, evaluations, and actions. In this sense, I consider mindfulness as an ideological movement.

Per Teun A. Van Dijk in Politics, Ideology and Discourse, the “ideological square” is pervasive in ideological discourse. Previous posts have dealt with the first three corners of the square:

Emphasize Their bad things–De-emphasize Our bad things–Emphasize Our good things

The spirit of the ideological square is 1) other ways are awful; 2) our way (as correctly understood and practiced) has no real downside; 3) our way will make life incomparably better than other ways; and, finally, 4) other ways have little to offer. “They” is a convenient term for what happens when our way is not followed. Of course, for some ideologies, “they” can also mean our enemies.

Now it’s time for “De-emphasize Their good things”.

In the case of mindfulness, “de-emphasize their good things” means to de-emphasize the good things of a life lived without mindfulness, as commonly conceived by its practitioners. Another way of putting this is that it is mindfulness that makes life good – so that without mindfulness, “their good things” don’t add up to much, which is a pretty common attitude within the mindfulness community.

In Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn is clear about how awful life is and will continue to be without mindfulness. Actually, “awful” is too mild – “grim” and horrific” are more like it (9309). He describes such a life as one lived in a “blanket of unawareness” (7639), that “half-sleep” in which we are “habitually immersed” (8047), full of “loss and grief and suffering” (440).   Kabat-Zinn advises us to practice mindfulness “as wholeheartedly as possible, as if your life depended on it. Because it does – in more ways than you think.” (340) As society goes downhill (as inevitably it must, unless governed by mindful leaders and infused with mindfulness), “meditation will become an absolute necessity” to “protect our sanity” (9256) (All numbers are Kindle pages).

The bottom line here is that no matter what good things life has to offer, those good things aren’t worth a hill of beans without mindfulness. And not only mindfulness in the simple sense of “awareness” but as a disciplined practice of meditation.

What others in the mindfulness community say about life without mindfulness:

“Life without mindfulness is foggy and vague, driven by blind impulse and external pressures.” p59

– C. Alexander Simpkins, Annellen M. Simpkins (2003) Buddhism in Ten: Easy Lessons    for Spiritual Growth; Tuttle Publishing, Boston, MA

“Without mindfulness, we miss so much in life. Without mindfulness we become restless, bored, and dissatisfied, forever seeking some new sensation…we miss so much of the beauty and poetry of life.” p. 92

– David Fontana (2004) Meditation Week by Week: 52 Meditations to Help You Grow in    Peace and Awareness; Sterling Publishing, NY, NY

“Without mindfulness, you react mentally, emotionally and physically to life, and sometimes the consequences of those reactions are even more damaging than the events that brought them up in the first place!”

– http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/mindfulness.html (accessed 9/25/15)

“Without mindfulness, we simply act out all the various patterns and habits of our conditioning.”

– Joseph Goldstein (2013) Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening; Sounds True,    Boulder, CO

“When operating without mindfulness, all your decisions are automatic and based on previous decisions.”

-Shamash Alidina and Juliet Adams (2014) Mindfulness at Work For Dummies; John        Wiley and Sons; Hoboken, NJ

You get the picture. Without mindfulness, we are half-asleep, suffering automatons.

That completes the Ideological Square of Mindfulness:

. Emphasize Their bad things

. De-emphasize Our bad things

. Emphasize Our good things

. De-emphasize Their good things

Reference: Jon Kabat-Zinn Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, Kindle Version, Revised Edition 2013; Bantam Books, New York

[Side note: I often use Kabat-Zinn as a proxy for “common” or “typical” sentiments within the mindfulness community, because he is an influential proponent of mindfulness. Throughout these posts, I use a mix of sources to illustrate points, from powerful figures to academics to the hoi polloi – with the understanding that it’s super-easy to find quotes through internet search and then describe them as representative, which they may or may not be. Ideally I would also use survey data, but quality surveys on mindfulness practitioners are hard to come by.]