With Age Comes Experience

 

All I Know So Far

You throw your head back
And you spit in the wind
Let the walls crack
'Cause it lets the light in
Let 'em drag you through hell
They can't tell you to change who you are
(That's all I know so far)

So what have I learned so far?

Since I have spent most of my career as a travel demand modeler, what I have learned is biased by that career. 

·       Understand the difference between research and applications.  Research work on models should not get in the way of application/certification work. Have two model sets; one for research and one for application. Then you don't have to let snags in research hold up applications, or make bad decisions on research because the application schedule has to be met.  I.e. don't live in a house while it is being remodeled.  That doesn't make it easy on you ...or the remodelers. 

·       You don't need vast amount of data to do research.  Einstein did his best research just by thinking.

·       Understand the difference between traffic simulation modeling (operations, tactics) and travel demand modeling (planning, strategy).  Just because something is good for one, don't assume that it is suited for the other.... or that one has to include all of the features of the other.

·       Always question assumptions,... yours and any model that you are using.  Trust everyone... but always cut the cards.

·       Make sure that you KNOW what assumptions are being made, so that they if those assumptions  are wrong you aren't surprised.

·       Don't make things complicated, or if they are complicated try and make them accessible to your audience.   Not all of the audience, e.g. travelers, will have a PhD.

·       Don't fall in love with a System Optimal solution.  An optimal solution is GREAT.  But our individual decisions are User Optimal.  A solution won't probably be implemented unless it is User Optimal  for the decision makers.  ( I'll never forget a study were we came up with a solution that got trucks off city streets, and was the best solution for ALL, but did not change the performance on the state DOT  freeways.  The state DOT did not think that was a good solution.  Where you stand depends on where you sit.

Balance

 A Whiter Shade of Pale

And so it was that later

As the miller told his tale

That her face, at first just ghostly,

Turned a whiter shade of pale

Saying that things are not all black or all white, is acknowledging that there are shades.

As we get more experienced, we realize that there are gradations between the extreme, binary, cases.  Things are not either 100% or 0%. Percentages between 100% and 0% need to  be considered.  

In Microsoft Office, colors are represented as combinations of  values of Red, Green and Blue. The values are a number between 0 and 255, a computer byte.  The binary equivalent of 0% of a  byte is 00000000.  Black is 0 Red, 0 Green,
0 Blue.  The binary equivalent of 100% of a byte, 255, is 11111111.  White is  255 Red, 255 Green, 255 Blue. Halfway between these points, 50%, would be either binary 10000000 for 128, or binary 01111111 for 127, e.g. there are  binary equivalents only for integers,  not for 127.5. The color for 128 Red, 128 Green, 128 Blue is, not surprisingly, gray, a balance between black and white.

If pale, 99% white, is 252 Red, 252 Green. 252 Blue, then a whiter shade of pale is 253 Red, 253 Green, 253 Blue. Doesn’t sound as poetic, does it?  I kinda like Procul Harum’s way of saying it better, too!

Credentials

 My Back Pages

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats

Too noble to neglect

Deceived me into thinking

I had something to protect

Good and bad, I define these terms

Quite clear, no doubt, somehow

Ah, but I was so much older then

I'm younger than that now.

With age comes wisdom, not certainty.

If I could turn back time, I would tell my younger self that building a reputation was not vanity, was not self serving.  Your reputation provides you a platform.  Credentials provide you with credibility.  Getting a reputation and credentials may provide you with the means of promoting a good idea.  If you have a good idea and no one listens to that idea, that idea may be the best thing for society, but if no one listens to that idea, society can never act on or benefit from it.. 

Having credentials does not mean that you are always correct, but it does mean that you have a platform.  An idea needs to be heard before it can be put into action.

Alfred Wallace had the idea of evolution  at roughly the same time as Charles Darwin.  Darwin promoted his idea to an audience and that idea was eventually listened to and tested. How many Wallaces are out there out there who have good ideas that are not being acted upon.  Getting credentials and building your reputation does have a value to society, even if when you are young you don’t see that value.

Debates

 

Mrs. Robinson

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates' debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Ev'ry way you look at it, you lose 

When there is a debate over risks, will we always lose? 

In previous blog posts, I have suggested that human behavior can be explained by three attributes:

·       Rights vs. Duty;

·       Nature vs. Nurture; and

·       Reality vs. Fantasy.  

I have also suggested that risk, or its inverse reward, can be explained as the cross product of likelihood and consequences.  How risk is viewed depends on the behaviors listed above. 

If you place an extreme value on Rights (a User Optimal solution) vs Duty (a System Optimal solution), then the consequences of any action only exist if you, the user, exist.  Thus if your remaining life is only 25 years and the consequences will not be bad until after 50 years, then there is by your definition no bad consequences for you, and your perception of risk is low. 

If you place an extreme value on Nature, which means that persons can be excluded from your system based on their nature, regardless of how they are nurtured, then if the consequences are bad only for those not in your system, then you place no value on those consequences, and your perception of risk is low.

If you place an extreme value on Fantasy, then you are not likely to accept any likelihood that is different from your fantasy.  If your likelihood is low, then regardless of the consequences, your perception of risk is low.

Arguing risks with a person who won’t accept reality, will not change their mind.  Arguing risks for a future that is longer than that person’s lifetime, will not change the mind of anyone with an extreme Rights (User Optimal) perspective.  Arguing risks with a person with a person who excludes people based on their nature, if the risks are only to those who they exclude anyway, will not change their mind. Debating things that will not change a mind, is how you lose.

For the Good of All

United We Stand

For united we stand
Divided we fall
And if our backs should ever be against the wall
We'll be together, together, you and I

Working together is not just the moral strategy, it is the richer strategy.

John Nash: If we all go for the blonde and block each other, not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends, but they will all give us the cold shoulder because no on likes to be second choice. But what if none of us goes for the blonde? We won't get in each other's way and we won't insult the other girls. It's the only way to win. It's the only way we all get laid.

This quote from the 2002 Oscar Best Picture, "A Beautiful Mind”, is perhaps not the most elegant example of a Nash Equilibrium in Game Theory, but it does get the point across.  The scene takes place in a bar where John Nash and his friends are trying to pick up women.  If each friend acts without regard to what is best for everyone, then nobody will win. A User Optimal solution, getting the blonde, is not the System Optimal solution, making a pickup.  If each friend agrees not to pursue their own User Optimal solution, then the System Optimal solution is more likely to be achieved.

A key aspect in Game Theory is that games will be repeated, i.e. there will be a future.  If you want to find someone with whom to play a game, they have to feel that the game is fair, that you will not cheat, and that you are not misrepresenting yourself as being a worse player than you are.  It is why there are rules for the game and rankings, handicaps for players.  The price of cheating or misrepresenting yourself, hustling, is that you may not ever play another game.  If you believe in a future then you want to play another game, allow for growth.  If you believe in a future, then not pursuing the User Optimal solution may be the best strategy, for both yourself and others in the long run.

A classic example is the Ultimatum Game, where  Player 1 receives $100 to share with player 2.  The amount that Player 1 can offer to Player 2 can vary from $99 to $1.  If Player 2 accepts the offer, both players get to keep the money.  If Player 2 does not accept the offer, neither player gets to keep any of the money. The User Optimal solution is to give only $1 to the other player and keep $99 for yourself.  It was expected that this offer would always be accepted, because then each player would be richer. Player 1 by $99 and Player 2 by $1. But in practice Player 2 would not accept an offer of less than $30.  It seems that the other player expected the game to be played again and expected to offer at least $30 if the roles were reversed. When the Player 1 offered only $1, he indicated to Player 2  that he did not expect to play again, in other words the User Optimal  strategy places no value on future winnings. 

The User Optimal strategy is to offer only $1.  The System Optimal strategy appears to be an offer of $30.  If there is a second game, with roles reverse, and in that game Player 2 also follows a User Optimal strategy and that offer was rejected, then the result is that neither player has any money.   In the second game, with roles reversed, if Player 2 offered Player 1 $30 and the offer was accepted, then after two games Player 1 would have $30 and Player 2 would have $70, for a system total of $100. If the offer in both games was $30, the System Optimal Strategy, and was accepted each time, after two games each player would have $100, for a system total of $200..  

If both Players always pursue a User Optimal strategy, no one wins, ,e.g. no one gets the blonde. If both players follow a System Optimal strategy, in every game, both players and society would be richer.

Truth, Justice and the American Way

 

Look Up in the Sky!

Yes, it's Superman – strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.
 Superman – defender of law and order, champion of equal rights, valiant, courageous fighter against the forces of hate and prejudice
who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for
truth, justice and the American way.

What so funny about Truth, Justice, and the American Way?

In previous blogs, I had suggested that there are four attributes that can be used as a framework for human behavior.  The fourth  attribute, perception of public property, is really just a subset of another attribute.  Those who believe in  an extreme User Optimization also will have a perception that public property is only their property owned jointly with other users of the public. Those with an extreme System Optimization will have a perception that public property is owned by the public as a user, as opposed to any individual user.  Thus there really are only three attributes that can be used to define human behavior, and those attributes in the extreme are the same as those supported by Superman: Truth, Justice, and the American way.

Truth is an aspect of the  attribute of Reality vs. Fantasy.  While it sound silly to say that a fictional character supports truth, it is that truth does not care what you wish it to be.  Wishing doesn’t make it so.  Those who want the truth,  and I am not a fan of Col. Jessup’s “You can’t  handle the truth”, have to deal with the fact that eyewitness testimony and memory are poor tools for uncovering the truth. Rashomon anyone? The ubiquitous nature of cell phone videos has made the truth much easier to discover.

Justice is not the spirit of the Law, not the letter of the Law. The Law is about your rights.  Justice is about your duty.  Laws are what an economist would refer to as shadow prices, which are imposed to make a User Optimal solution, closer to a System Optimal solution. Killing your competitors is an extreme User Optimal solution.  Not killing anyone is an extreme System Optimal solution.  Following the letter of the Law rather than the spirit of the Law makes one a Pharisee.

The American way, as it aspires to be, is inclusive where everyone is judged by their merits, rather than exclusive. The reality is that it is too often an exclusive caste system where people are judged by qualities over which they have no control.  Remember Superman fought again the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis.  Superman was created by Jewish children of immigrants.    Based on the fact that Superman was an undocumented immigrant brought to this planet and country when he was a minor, if undocumented immigrants are excluded from the society, then Superman, the ultimate DACA Dreamer, also has to be excluded from society.

If human behavior can be judged by three attributes: Reality vs Fantasy; Rights vs Duty; and Inclusion versus Exclusion; then we know where Superman stands….and I don’t mean with his hands on his hips!

Capitalism

The Name Game

Lincoln! Lincoln, Lincoln. bo-bin-coln
Bo-na-na fanna, fo-fin-coln
Fee fi mo-min-coln, Lincoln!
Come on ev'rybody, I say now let's play a game
I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody's name

What we call something unfortunately can affect how we approach something.

When my then two-year-old said that there was a bear in our backyard, I assumed that he meant a Teddy Bear.  My brother-in-law, who lives in the woods, had an entirely different reaction, and thought that it meant black bears were at his bird feeder again. Just saying bear is incomplete because it only focuses on one component. 

Capitalism focuses on only one component of free market economics, i.e. capital.  The name does not mean that capital is the only component of production in markets.   A production equation includes both capital AND labor. You can’t have production without both.  Labor can not be owned by another.  That is considered to be slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution abolished slavery.  Corporations are chartered by society to protect the assets of a producer from liability.  That includes both the assets of those supplying the labor and those supplying the capital.  Corporations, since they have been chartered by society, are considered to have free speech ( e.g. Citizens United).  But corporate boards almost exclusively represent the interests of capital, not labor or society.  Speaking, and acting, with unity is considered to be acceptable for capital, ( e.g. Manufacturer’s Associations, Chambers of Commerce, etc.), but is seems to be considered to be wrong when labor speaks and acts with unity, i.e. labor unions.

Free markets are a User Optimal solution, e.g. rights of the individual, but properly both capital and labor are users.  The ownership of labor and capital is what distinguishes free markets from socialism, communism, etc.  The ownership of capital by society, whether only in certain industries as in Scandinavian Socialism, or all industries as in Communist countries, must be considered, but so must the ownership of labor. In Scandinavian socialism, all labor is owned by individuals.  In total communism, all labor is owned not by individuals, but by the government.

If the ownership of capital and labor is how economic systems is considered, many “Communist” countries can not be considered to be Communist.  Considerable amounts of capital are owned by individuals and corporations in those countries. E.g. Jack Ma in “Communist “China is among the world's wealthiest individual. Controlling society does not mean owning capital.

Democracy is one manner of how society is controlled.  Capitalism is not democracy.  That is only one part of the name game.