Results for “age of em” 17238 found
Nettlesomeness, and the first half of the Carlsen-Anand match
After six games, Carlsen leads by two points, with four draws added to the tally. Anand seems hell bent on founding a campaign to abolish the advantages of playing with the white pieces.
I find two aspects of the match notable so far. First, in the last two endgames Carlsen has been outplaying the computer programs (and Anand), sometimes for dozens of moves in a row. That isn’t easy, to say the least. And kudos to Alan Turing for realizing early on, in his 1953 paper, that chess-playing computer programs would face special difficulties in understanding some endgames. The sequences required to establish the importance (or not) of a measurable material advantage can stretch beyond the time horizon of the program, for instance, and the endgame tablebases take us only so far.
Second, Carlsen is demonstrating one of his most feared qualities, namely his “nettlesomeness,” to use a term coined for this purpose by Ken Regan. Using computer analysis, you can measure which players do the most to cause their opponents to make mistakes. Carlsen has the highest nettlesomeness score by this metric, because his creative moves pressure the other player and open up a lot of room for mistakes. In contrast, a player such as Kramnik plays a high percentage of very accurate moves, and of course he is very strong, but those moves are in some way calmer and they are less likely to induce mistakes in response.
Nettlesomeness is an underrated concept in our world, and kudos to Ken for bringing it to our attention. It should play a larger role in formal game theory than it does currently. It’s already playing a decisive role in the world of chess.
Addendum: Here are some of Ken’s metrics for “nettlesomeness.”
Best fiction books of 2013
Every year I offer my picks for best books of that year, today we are doing fiction. I nominate:
1. Karl Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book Two: Man in Love.
2. Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs. Great fun.
3. Amy Sackville, Orkney. Not every honeymoon works out the way you planned.
4. Mohsin Hamid, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.
5. Kathryn Davis, Duplex: A Novel. Non-linear, not for all.
Since I think the Knausgaard is one of the greatest novels ever written, I suppose it also has to be my fiction book of the year. (Except, um…it’s not fiction.) But otherwise I found many books disappointing, perhaps because my own expectations were out of synch with contemporary writing.
Elizabeth Gilbert and Donna Tartt produced decent plane reads, but I wouldn’t call them favorites. The new Thomas Pynchon I could not stand more than a short sample of. I sampled many other novels but didn’t like or finish them. I read or reread a lot of Somerset Maugham, which was uniformly rewarding. The Painted Veil may not be the best one, but it is a good place to get hooked. I reread quite a bit of Edith Wharton and it rose further in my eyes. Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence are my favorites, more intensely focused than the longer fiction. I loved discovering the Philip Pullman trilogy and vowed to give George Martin another try this coming year.
How to fix (some of) the Obamacare mess
Ross Douthat writes:
…it does seem like there is a semi-plausible policy response to the rate shock issue, which wouldn’t roll back the ongoing plan cancellations but might make cheaper plans available to buyers going forward: Obamacare’s regulations could be rewritten to allow insurers to sell less comprehensive plans on the exchanges. This wouldn’t require doing away with every new regulation, or rolling back the pre-existing condition guarantee, which is what liberals argue the Upton bill currently being considered in the House would do. But it could involve heeding the recent hint from the University of Chicago’s Harold Pollack, a card-carrying Obamacare advocate, that perhaps in the wake of the last month’s developments the government should ”revisit just how minimal the most minimal insurance packages should be,” which in turn could open the door to allowing many more people to buy the kind of high-deductible catastrophic plans that the law currently allows insurers to only sell to twentysomethings.
These moves would not let everyone keep their existing plans, as the Upton and Landrieu bills aspire to do — but there is really nothing that the White House can responsibly do, given the law’s underlying design, that would resolve that problem. What partial deregulation would accomplish, though, is to allow some of the lower-cost plans the law abolishes to be actually revived and made available on the exchanges as “bronze” options in 2014 and 2015, rather than just temporarily grandfathered for a year or so outside them.
The post has other points of interest as well.
Should the U.S. destroy its stockpile of ivory?
Here is one of the latest developments in economic policy:
The US government hopes to send a crushing message to anyone involved in the illegal ivory trade — by decimating a 6-ton stockpile of seized elephant ivory.
In an announcement posted online, the US Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) describes plans to “pulverize” a cache of ivory on November 14th. All of the ivory was obtained, the agency notes, from law enforcement efforts to crack down on trafficking over the last two decades. “Destroying this ivory tells criminals who engage in poaching and trafficking that the United States will take all available measures to disrupt and prosecute those who prey on, and profit from, the deaths of these magnificent animals,” reads a statement on the FWS website.
There is more here, via Viktor Brech and Bruce Ryan and Kaushal Desai.
Bruce suggests the government announce it has created an artificial form of ivory, to lower expected prices and discourage future poaching. If they can get away with that lie, great. Otherwise, we all know the 2000 Kremer and Morcom piece entitled simply “Elephants”:
Many open-access resources, such as elephants, are used to produce storable goods. Anticipated future scarcity of these resources will increase current prices and poaching. This implies that, for given initial conditions, there may be rational expectations equilibria leading to both extinction and survival. The cheapest way for governments to eliminate extinction equilibria may be to commit to tough antipoaching measures if the population falls below a threshold. For governments without credibility, the cheapest way to eliminate extinction equilibria may be to accumulate a sufficient stockpile of the storable good and threaten to sell it should the population fall.
That emphasis is added. Sell it, not destroy.
The (gated) AER version of the paper is here. The Montclair State version is here. A few comments and responses are here.
In other words, our government is pursuing symbolic value but at the same time implementing the wrong incentives.
Here is a piece on elephant music-making.
Inefficient forms of aid
A group of Occupy Wall Street activists has bought almost $15m of Americans’ personal debt over the last year as part of the Rolling Jubilee project to help people pay off their outstanding credit.
Rolling Jubilee, set up by Occupy’s Strike Debt group following the street protests that swept the world in 2011, launched on 15 November 2012. The group purchases personal debt cheaply from banks before “abolishing” it, freeing individuals from their bills.
By purchasing the debt at knockdown prices the group has managed to free $14,734,569.87 of personal debt, mainly medical debt, spending only $400,000.
There is more here, and here. One question is how many of these people will go into bankruptcy anyway. Another is why not just send the money to even poorer individuals? The low market value of the debt, of course, means these individuals (mostly) would not have paid anyway, so the leveraged return on this investment is not as high as is being claimed.
For pointers I thank Mitch Berkson and Samir Varma.
Firearms and Suicides in US States
Suicides outnumber homicides in the United States by 3:1. (In 2010 there were 38,364 suicides and 12, 996 homicides.) Lots of studies have investigated the relationship between firearms and homicide but the potential for reverse causality makes this a difficult problem. More homicides in a region, for example, might cause an increase in gun ownership so a positive correlation between guns and homicide doesn’t tell you which is cause and which is effect. Reverse causality is less of a problem for understanding the guns to suicide link because it’s less likely that a rash of suicides would encourage gun ownership.
In my latest paper, Firearms and Suicides in US States, (written with the excellent Justin Briggs) we examine the easier question, what is the relationship between firearms and suicide? Using a variety of techniques and data we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in the household gun ownership rate leads to a .5 to .9% increase in suicides.* (n.b. slight change in language from earlier version for clarity.)
Even if one thinks that suicides don’t cause gun ownership one might imagine that they are correlated due say to a third factor such as social anomie. We have an interesting test of this in the paper. If suicides and gun ownership were being driven by a third factor we would expect gun ownership to be correlated with all suicides not just gun-suicide. What we find, however, is that an increase in gun ownership decrease non-gun suicide. From an economics perspective this makes perfect sense. As gun ownership increases, the cost of gun-suicide falls because guns are easier to access and as the cost of gun-suicide falls there is substitution away from non-gun suicide.
Put differently, when gun ownership decreases other methods of suicide increase. Substitution among methods is not perfect, however, so when gun ownership decreases we see a big decrease in gun-suicide and a substantial but less than fully compensating increase in non-gun suicide so a net decrease in the number of suicides.
Our econometric results are consistent with the literature on suicide which finds that suicide is often a rash and impulsive decision–most people who try but fail to commit suicide do not recommit at a later date–as a result, small increases in the cost of suicide can dissuade people long enough so that they never do commit suicide.
The results in the paper appear to be robust but the data on gun ownership is frustratingly sparse due to political considerations.
*Deliberating American Monetary Policy: A Textual Analysis*
The author is Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey and that is a new book published by MIT Press. The Amazon link is here. Here is a bit from the book’s home page:
In this book, Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey provides a systematic examination of deliberation on monetary policy from 1976 to 2008 by the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) and House and Senate banking committees. Her innovative account employs automated textual analysis software to study the verbatim transcripts of FOMC meetings and congressional hearings; these empirical data are supplemented and supported by in-depth interviews with participants in these deliberations. The automated textual analysis measures the characteristic words, phrases, and arguments of committee members; the interviews offer a way to gauge the extent to which the empirical findings accord with the participants’ personal experiences.
Who is Juan Galt?
USA Today: Thousands of Venezuelans lined up outside the country’s equivalent of Best Buy, a chain of electronics stores known as Daka, hoping for a bargain after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers “fair” prices.
…Members of Venezuela’s National Guard, some of whom carried assault rifles, kept order at the stores as bargain hunters rushed to get inside.
“I want a Sony plasma television for the house,” said Amanda Lisboa, 34, a business administrator, who had waited seven hours already outside one Caracas store. “It’s going to be so cheap!”
…The president, who took over from Hugo Chávez in April 2013, appeared on state television Friday calling for the “occupation” of the chain, which employs some 500 staff.
“This is for the good of the nation,” Maduro said. “Leave nothing on the shelves, nothing in the warehouses … Let nothing remain in stock!”
…Daka’s store managers, according to Maduro, have been arrested and are being held by the country’s security services. Neither Daka nor the government responded to requests for comment.
In Atlas Shrugged‘s money speech Rand, drawing on Hayek, provides an implicit warning to Maduro and Venezuela:
…when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law–men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims–then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.
What do we know about the easing of malaria burdens?
There are some new and interesting results from Lena Huldén, Ross McKitrick and Larry Huldén. Here is the abstract:
Malaria has disappeared in some countries but not others, and an explanation for the eradication pattern has been elusive. We show that the probability of malaria eradication jumps sharply when average household size in a country drops below four persons. Part of the effect commonly attributed to income growth is likely due to declining household size. The effect of DDT usage is difficult to isolate but we only identify a weak role for it. Warmer temperatures are not associated with increased malaria prevalence. We propose that household size matters because malaria is transmitted indoors at night, so the fewer people are sleeping in the same room, the lower the probability of transmission of the parasite to a new victim. We test this hypothesis by contrasting malaria incidence with dengue fever, another mosquito-borne illness spread mainly by daytime outdoor contact.
The gated published version is here. A six-page author summary is here.
For pointers I thank Aaron C. Chmielewski and Gregory Rehmke.
Does reading books change your mind?
All you authors out there, read this carefully and recall the words of Samuel Johnson:
Reading a book can change your mind, but only some changes last for a year: food attitude changes in readers of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Source
Department of Psychology, University at Albany, State University of New York Albany, NY, USA.
Abstract
Attitude change is a critical component of health behavior change, but has rarely been studied longitudinally following extensive exposures to persuasive materials such as full-length movies, books, or plays. We examined changes in attitudes related to food production and consumption in college students who had read Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma as part of a University-wide reading project. Composite attitudes toward organic foods, local produce, meat, and the quality of the American food supply, as well as opposition to government subsidies, distrust in corporations, and commitment to the environmental movement were significantly and substantially impacted, in comparison to students who had not read the book. Much of the attitude change disappeared after 1 year; however, over the course of 12 months self-reported opposition to government subsidies and belief that the quality of the food supply is declining remained elevated in readers of the book, compared to non-readers. Findings have implications for our understanding of the nature of changes in attitudes to food and eating in response to extensive exposure to coherent and engaging messages targeting health behaviors.
Hat tip goes to Neuroskeptic.
The future of work, and those new service sector jobs
Via Angus, here is a new report on those new service sector jobs:
As AI and globalization chew up good jobs for the non-elites, there is a bright spot on the career horizon. The market for household staff is booming.
According to the WSJ, “A good housekeeper earns $60,000 to $90,000 a year. A lady’s maid can make $75,000 a year. A butler may start at $80,000 a year and can earn as much as $200,000.”
And, there are openings, “Demand for the well-staffed home is on the rise, according to agencies and house managers alike. Clients are calling for live-in couples, live-out housekeepers, flight attendants for private jets, stewards for the yachts and chefs for the summer house. In San Francisco, Town and Country Resources, a staffing agency for domestic help, has seen demand for estate managers and trained housekeepers grow so fast the agency is going to offer its own training programs in subjects like laundry, ironing and spring cleaning starting in 2014. Claudia Kahn, founder of The Help Company, a staffing agency based in Los Angeles, says she used to get one call a month for a butler but has gotten three in the past week alone.”
If your skill set is more exotic, don’t despair:
“She will also be bringing with her the two animal trainers who come seven days a week to care for Prince Mikey, a white-faced capuchin monkey. Prince Mikey’s trainers work with him five to six hours a day during the week and three hours a day on weekends. The annual cost is in the six figures”
Here is a related blog post from Annie Lowrey. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to deduce the implications for the finances of higher education in this country.
Assorted links
1. The culture that is Pankration? Exaggerated or not? Also from the world of tabloids, here is where the French seat ugly people.
2. What are some top cities for low rent? That is taken from a more general index of which are the best cities for Millenials. The cheapest marijuana seems to be out West.
3. The average length of dissertation across fields. Biostatistics has the shortest average dissertation, economics is third shortest.
4. …”a ship-shipping ship, shipping shipping ships.”
5. The rise and fall of InTrade. And RePec Fantasy League for economists.
6. Starship Troopers: one of the most misunderstood movies ever.
Is a Ph.D. important for succeeding in finance?
There is a new paper by Ranadeb Chaudhuri, Zoran Ivkovich, Joshua Matthew Pollet, and Charles Trzcinka, the abstact is this:
Several hundred individuals who hold a Ph.D. in economics, finance, or others fields work for institutional money management companies. The gross performance of domestic equity investment products managed by individuals with a Ph.D. (Ph.D. products) is superior to the performance of non-Ph.D. products matched by objective, size, and past performance for one-year returns, Sharpe Ratios, alphas, information ratios, and the manipulation-proof measure MPPM. Fees for Ph.D. products are lower than those for non-Ph.D. products. Investment flows to Ph.D. products substantially exceed the flows to the matched non-Ph.D. products. Ph.D.s’ publications in leading economics and finance journals further enhance the performance gap.
For the pointer I thank Samir Varma, whose teenage daughter has a new book on iTunes here.
More on peak driving and its implications
Reihan reports:
University of Minnesota economist David Levinson envisions a future in which per capita vehicle travels falls significantly, bringing traffic congestion down with it. The chief driver of this death of traffic is not the emergence of a new transportation technology, though technology certainly plays a role in Levinson’s scenario. Rather, it is the shrinking of the American workweek coupled with new business models which draw primarily on existing technologies. Though written in an understated style, it is quite entertaining. I recommend reading it in its entirety. A few aspects of his vision struck me as particularly notable:
1. Just as it was once standard for U.S. workers to work a six-day week, Levinson imagines that the workweek will continue to shrink. Every-other Friday off (the 5/4 schedule) becomes standard by 2015; by 2020, the standard schedule becomes a 9 hour day with four days a week in the office and 4 additional hours of checking in from home; by 2025, workers are taking every-other Monday off (the 4/3 schedule); and by 2030, the “flipped” office, like the “flipped” classroom, becomes the norm — i.e., workers do the bulk of their work at home, and they come to the office for “interactive collaboration days.”
2. But it’s not just the workweek that will change. The pattern of how we work over the life course will also change. Levinson envisions a world in which almost half the population doesn’t enter the paid workforce until age 30, as firms lose interest in financing training. Instead, most people go through an extended apprenticeship period that can last as long as a decade, combining unpaid internships and attending school online. And most people exit the workforce by age 60, as technological advances reduce the value of older workers.
3. The changing workweek causes the value of office buildings to plummet. As office buildings are converted to apartments, the least desirable of which become home to the 20-somethings toiling away at their unpaid internships (subsidized, presumably, by parents, or sustained by part-time work), residential constructions in the suburbs grinds to a halt, and suburban property values drift down, thus making suburban neighborhoods more attractive to low-income households. Large garages are transformed into stores, workshops, and accessory dwellings as families choose to maintain fewer automobiles. Car-sharing, meanwhile, grows more entrenched as a larger share of the population comes to reside in urban cores. (This has the effect of reducing per capita vehicle trips because while car-sharing eliminates many of the fixed costs associated with vehicle ownership, it increases the marginal cost per trip.)
4. Shopping, once a big contributor to vehicle trips, is transformed as people (and their autonomous agents) order online and have goods delivered; decentralized manufacturing and 3-D printing on-demand, in turn, shrink supply chains
There is more at the link…
Assorted links
1. Japan markets in everything. And the culture that is Japan, involves plastic wrap.
2. When it comes to immigration, the refugee gap seems to be closing.
3. Bulletproof three-piece suits.
4. Some observations on Germany’s current account surplus. I would stress the point that “countries which don’t use their borrowing or investment well” are better pinpointed as the problem. And is austerity endogenous?
5. Colorado voted decisively against investing more tax dollars in primary education.