Tag Archives: review

I was a teenage existentialist

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I just finished a book I so badly wanted to read that I almost bought two copies by mistake. It’s Sarah Bakewell’s  [amazon_link id=”0701186585″ target=”_blank” ]At The Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails[/amazon_link].

[amazon_image id=”B017IGPTDQ” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails[/amazon_image]

It fully lived up to my hopes. Not only had I really enjoyed her book on Montaigne, [amazon_link id=”009948515X” target=”_blank” ]How to Live[/amazon_link], but I – like Bakewell, it turns out – was a teenage existentialist. Living in a small Lancashire mill town, my plan was to be a philosopher in Paris when I grew up, hence applying to do PPE at university (and getting distracted by the E). Knowing nothing about philosophy, I turned to the library, which had a little book on existentialism, the novels of [amazon_link id=”0141198060″ target=”_blank” ]Albert Camus[/amazon_link] and Simone de Beauvour’s [amazon_link id=”009974421X” target=”_blank” ]The Second Sex[/amazon_link]. We also read [amazon_link id=”2070384411″ target=”_blank” ]Les Mains Sales[/amazon_link] in my French class at school. [amazon_link id=”009974421X” target=”_blank” ]The Second Sex in particular changed my life. [/amazon_link]

[amazon_image id=”0141198060″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Outsider (Penguin Modern Classics)[/amazon_image]  [amazon_image id=”009974421X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Second Sex (Vintage Classics)[/amazon_image]

But enough about me. [amazon_link id=”0701186585″ target=”_blank” ]At The Existentialist Cafe[/amazon_link] is as clear a book about philosophy as you could ever hope to read, despite including chunky sections on Husserl and Heidegger. It is a jolly read about the lives of the existentialists too. (Did *you* know that Sartre had written the lyrics to one of Juliet Greco’s most successful songs? Or a film script – not used because of its length – for John Huston.) And Bakewell is a marvellous writer. For example, discussing why intentionality is hard, “The mind races round like a foraging squirrel in a park.” Her command over fresh similes and metaphors makes this book a joyous read.

I still ended up liking Beauvoir and Camus best, despite Bakewell’s appreciation for Sartre. The former for her feminism, the latter because he made the calls I agree with on political matters and – I learned here – was influenced by David Hume.

Maybe existentialism is newly relevant these days. The whole ‘behavioural’ agenda is making it important to understand the rolw perception plays in knowledge. And as for the need for a guide to how to act in a world that’s forcing difficult choices on us – well, just look at the news.

The future is multiple, not singular.

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I’ve long enjoyed the blog posts by Richard Jones on economic productivity and growth – his perspective from physics is always interesting. As I met him in real life for the first time this past week, I also downloaded his free e-book Against Transhumanism (download here) – a brief, compelling demolition of the idea that digital technology is hurtling us towards a ‘singularity’. The most famous transhumanist is Ray Kurzweil, I suppose, of [amazon_link id=”0715635611″ target=”_blank” ]The Singularity is Near[/amazon_link]. Prof Jones points out that:

a) exponential growth (as per Moore’s Law) cannot deliver a singularity, as the value of expnential functions is finite – unless the rate of technological improvement is constantly increasing without limit. Seems a stretch, looking at either current productivity figures or any history at all.

b) transhumanism is an apocalyptic religion, not a scientific theory.

c) To quote the e-book: “The idea that history is destiny has proved to be an extremely
bad one, and I don’t think the idea that technology is destiny will necessarily work out that well either. I do believe in progress, in the sense that I think it’s clear that the material conditions are much better now for a majority of people than they were two hundred years ago. But I don’t think the continuation of this trend is inevitable. I don’t think the progress we’ve achieved is irreversible, either, given the problems, like climate change and resource shortages, that we have been storing up for ourselves in the future. I think people who believe that further technological progress is inevitable actually make it less likely – why do
the hard work to make the world a better place, if you think that these bigger impersonal forces make your efforts futile?”

It’s well worth a read, along with the Soft Machines blog.There is a super-clear explanation of the implications of nano-technology,as you might expect from the author of the [amazon_link id=”0199226628″ target=”_blank” ]Soft Machines [/amazon_link]book.

[amazon_image id=”0198528558″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life[/amazon_image]

There’s also a chapter on why it’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to upload your brain to the cloud. Above all, though, the book explains why transhumanism is a Dangerous Idea. The idea of a Singularity has been described as the ‘Rapture of the Nerds’ (attributed to [amazon_link id=”1857238338″ target=”_blank” ]Ken McLeod[/amazon_link]), which makes it sound like the lunatic fringe. But as Prof Jones points out, the Silicon Valley crowd are seriously influential; and their view that technology has its own irresistible dynamic – the techno-determinism – elbows aside the truth that the results of technological discovery are socially determined: “Why would you want to think of technology, not as something that is shaped by human choices, but as an autonomous force with a logic and direction of its own? Although people who think this way may like to think of themselves as progressive and futuristic, it’s actually a rather conservative position, which finds it easy to assume that the way things will be in the future is inevitable and always for the best.”

Written by a physicist but like a true social scientist. The future is multiple, not singular.

Paradise lost and remade

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I’ve enjoyed reading Louise Fresco’s [amazon_link id=”0691163871″ target=”_blank” ]Hamburgers in Paradise: the stories behind the food we eat[/amazon_link], but find it hard to sum up – almost certainly because I’ve read it in short chunks at night. Indeed it lends itself to that manner of reading because there are ‘stories’ and the chapters have lots of short sections. My take-away (hah!) is that the book tries to find a path between the naivety of the anti-globalisers, and anti-GMO campaigners, the romanticism of the slow food types in a world where 7 billion people need feeding on a necessarily industrial scale, and the complacency of those who dismiss the campaigners. She does believe a lot needs to change about the way food is produced, distributed, sold and consumed. Maybe this is why I like it so much – the message ‘it’s really complicated and there are uncomfortable trade-offs’ rings true.

[amazon_image id=”0691163871″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Hamburgers in Paradise: The Stories behind the Food We Eat[/amazon_image]

The chapter on GMOs is a good example. Fresco starts with the continuities. Genetic modification is a continuation of practices dating back to the agricultural revolution – domestication was the first step – and has accelerated in the past century with systematic hybridization. Modern plant breeding is a continuation of the past 10,000 years. The fears aroused by genetic modification – and that’s only in Europe – are to that extent misplaced. But Fresco does not dismiss the fear, for as she notes there has been a discontinuity, both in the use of transgenic techniques, and in the situation in which this kind of modification takes place – not by famers but by a large multinational, playing down side effects, hiding information, and clearly aiming to garner for its shareholders all the new benefits of the techniques. As she notes also, many farmers could improve yields with existing techniques – if they knew how – without going for GM versions. Cassava, a staple food without which millions of people in Sub Saharan Africa, is a prime target for genetic improvements to reduce its toxicity, and enhance growth of its mineral-rich leaves, but the yield in central Africa is only 15% of the yield in Brazil. It will never match that but there is plenty of headroom.

The book begins and ends with Paradise and the Fall, due to Eve’s hunger for (forbidden) knowledge. The underlying thread is the danger of playing with nature – when this has to be done to feed the world’s growing population and when for so much of human history in so many places food has been scarce. She ends with the hope for a new kind of paradise: “We can hope to find there our true human nature, not as spoiled mortals for whom food falls out of the trees, not as greedy leeches who appropriate everything that comes within our grasp, nor as naive worshippers of an idyll, but in full consciousness of what a scientific understanding of the ecology of the earth can bring us in the light of our real needs.”

She continues: “Without food there is no evolution and no civilisation. We are what we eat, literally, through the molecules we absorb from nature. What it means to be human is concentrated in food and our understanding of it.” A very humane book, ranging widely over subjects from obesity to the organic and slow food movements, from fish farming to the landscape, full of new-to-me information, and beautifully written.

Wanting what works to work

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A book with the title [amazon_link id=”0674089030″ target=”_blank” ]What Works: Gender Equality by Design [/amazon_link]is very enticing. Could the author, behavioural economist Iris Bohnet, really have the effective, evidence-based techniques for improving the earnings and job market outcomes of women relative to men? Does she have the answer to the dilemma that a woman can get on by acting like a man, only to be criticised and disliked for being unfeminine.

[amazon_image id=”0674089030″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]What Works: Gender Equality by Design[/amazon_image]

Well, Bohnet’s list of interventions is very persuasive and she cites plenty of supporting evidence. The first part of the book sets out the evidence of bias, conscious and unconscious. Part 2 is about people management, and focuses on businesses’ hiring, promotion and management. Part 3 is about education. The final part is a set of broader insights about ‘designing’ diversity and covers topics such as the importance of role models, the effectiveness of diverse groups in decision-making contexts (boards and elsewhere), and the role of social norms, of transparency, and indeed of ‘design’, a mnemonic for ‘data, experiment and signpost’. Bohnet argues that use of data uncovers bias, experimenting with changes, and using signposts – largely behavioural nudges – to change people’s behaviour. Do this, she promises, and gender inequality could be overcome within years, not decades.

i’m inclined to agree. The book’s evidence seems solid. There are many examples, such as Google’s discovery that its female employees were twice as likely to quit as the average. It mined its data to discover that the issue was really that parents were more likelt to leave, and it therefore extended both maternity and paternity leave. Now there is no difference between male and female quit rates. The Kennedy School’s own points system (Bohnet is a professor there) looks reasonably effective.

However, the question [amazon_link id=”0674089030″ target=”_blank” ]the book [/amazon_link]doesn’t address is what will get institutions and businesses to bother. Even those paying lip service to gender equality don’t have a strong incentive to change their ways, run (largely) by men (largely) for men. Why would they care if profits could be a bit higher in the long run if they acted differently? Things suit them very well as they are. It is hard to see organisations implementing the ‘what works’ measures described here unless they happen to be run by men (or women) who are already converts to the cause. It’s like the old joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a lightbulb (only one, but the lightbulb has to really want to change).

So I am ever more certain that tougher legislation will be required to get things moving. Targets for women on the boards of listed companies. Mandated minimum quotas for women and members of minorities in the senior ranks of bodies funded by taxpayers. When that day comes, all those institutions will be able to turn to this book to find out how to do it.

Taxing you healthy

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A guest review by Koen Smets.

Policymaking is increasingly turning to behavioural insights: the Nudge Unit, set up nearly six years ago in the UK, is going from strength to strength, and numerous other countries have followed suit. So it is remarkable to find a new book advocating a boring, conventional economic instrument to influence consumer behaviour: the tax incentive. In [amazon_link id=”1907994505″ target=”_blank” ]Bad Habits, Hard Choices[/amazon_link], ‘recovering economist’ David Fell argues for what he calls a ‘SmartVAT’ to make people choose healthier food and drink.

[amazon_image id=”1907994505″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Bad Habits, Hard Choices: Using the Tax System to Make Us Healthier (Perspectives)[/amazon_image]

It is a short book, the length and readable style of which belie both the complexity of the subject matter and the radical nature of the core idea: “a bold proposition that goes well beyond a sugar tax or a fat tax.”

To build his argument, Fell introduces a large number of concepts involved in what he sees as problematic consumption: VAT and excise duties, information asymmetry, market theory and consumer choice theory, externalities, commitment strategies and many more. It is impossible to cover them all in depth in a mere 120 pages, but Fell does a remarkable job in the book in describing and illustrating the various – often conflicting – forces at play.

He discusses the fine balance government needs to strike with its surreptitious taxes, managing the disquiet of businesses, media and consumer while still trying to maximize revenue; as Colbert said, “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” Fell also highlights the limitations of the conventional wisdom that says taxation will depress the demand for taxed goods, for example when the demand is inelastic – as it is for petrol.

However, while Fell may be a self-confessed recovering economist, he is clearly not the kind of two-handed economist who drove Harry Truman to distraction. He paints a decidedly one-handed picture, populated with economists as dogmatic market fundamentalists, food manufacturers as manipulative seducers, and hapless consumers whose choice is restricted to products that deliver the returns demanded by ‘capital’. Even for someone agreeing that the suppliers play a significant role in influencing our consumption habits, this becomes increasingly irritating.

The informed consumer, according to Fell, is as much a myth as the hyper-rational homo economicus. The messages we get are biased, partly due to our own cognitive limitations (few people consult the nutrition labels), and partially because what benefits the suppliers is emphasized. Marketeers extol the virtues of luxury goods (another recurring bugbear), but don’t promote the free and healthy activity of walking – leading to the author’s somewhat bizarre claim that, “Capital doesn’t like it when you walk because it gets no reward.” Would we conclude that, say, the Women’s Institute doesn’t like us windsurfing because it does not promote this activity?

Fell uses his own research in [amazon_link id=”1907994505″ target=”_blank” ]the book[/amazon_link], showing for example that 31% of his sample agrees that they “buy more than they need most times they visit the supermarket”. The vagueness of such surveys (for example, how do we define ‘what we need’?) doesn’t stop him drawing strong conclusions.

In short, the author blames information asymmetry, orchestrated by ‘capital’, as the main cause of obesity, and argues that what we need is a collective commitment device. If, as a society, we agree to subsidize ‘good’ food and slap a hefty tax on ‘bad’ food, then that will help us stick to our commitment to eat more healthily – much like setting our alarm clock tonight commits us to getting up on time tomorrow morning.

Fell sets out a 4-step approach to execute his radical proposal. The first two steps rest on a deliberative process: citizens and experts come to a consensus, not only on what constitutes healthy and unhealthy foods, but also on what the subsidy and tax rates should be. Will this work? Fell refers to a few cases where a similar process was used, but these differ both in scope and scale from what he himself calls a “dauntingly difficult” task.

Once it is clear which goods needs to carry which tax, the third step is quite straightforward: implement the new rates, and make the taxes and subsidies salient at the point of sale. The final step is to correct the mistakes the author believes will inevitably be made.

The author confesses to little confidence in the practical adoption of his plan: too much resistance from vested interests: the dreaded economists, the Treasury, the government, the media… and the consumer. That may be so, but there are two even bigger problems.

Fell’s SmartVAT assumes that consumers are rational, responding to the tax incentives. But citizens are resourceful, as the consumption of tobacco illustrates. It is mostly the less well-off who smoke, which suggests that they drop other purchases in order to be able to buy cigarettes. And if people can find ways of importing cheap smokes (legitimately or otherwise), they will do the same for ‘bad’ foods. Ironically, Fell personally illustrates the futility of raising the cost of unhealthy products: the price of cigarettes has risen twice as fast as inflation in the last 25 years, but he is still buying them.

But the most serious criticism that should be levelled at Fell’s idea is that he attaches no value at all to the pleasure people might derive from consuming foods he considers as unhealthy. There is, in his view, no trade-off to be made, and he explicitly rejects the notion that there are no unhealthy foods, only unhealthy diets. So the majority of people who consume ‘bad’ foods in moderation will be penalized, having to pay more for a harmless form of enjoyment.

It is this disregard for the core of all economic thinking, the trade-off, which makes the book ultimately a disappointment for this reviewer.

Koen Smets is an accidental behavioural economist, who works as an organization development specialist. He uses elements from both orthodox microeconomics and behavioural economics to bring about behavioural change. He is on Twitter as @koenfucius