ON INTERNET, ECONOMY AND MARRIAGE.

The economist in me wonders if marriage will someday be seen as a pre-Internet thing.

If you look at marriage the way an economist might, it is an exchange of services. Every marriage is different, but at its core you have two people who are choosing to provide one basket of services in return for a different basket. Traditionally (and historically), this means the man provided protection and financial stability while the woman provided children, care, and household management. In modern times, the picture is more smeared, but in all cases the parties are getting something while providing something, including the emotional benefits.

Marriage made sense when the world was inefficient. You married a person nearby who could provide most of your important needs while hoping your lesser needs could also somehow be met. It made perfect sense in the pre-Internet age.

But today you can arrange for any of your individual needs via Internet (Not very much in Rwanda). You can find lovers who don't want a commitment. You can find people willing to trade sex for travel experiences. You can find surrogates to have your baby, or you can adopt from another country. Then you can find a nanny who is willing to work primarily for room in your house. You can find an intellectual partner, a business partner, a sports partner, you name it. The Internet provides all.

For the first time in history it is feasible to create a virtual spouse comprised of a dozen separate relationships. And each would be optimized. Instead of dragging your spouse to a family gathering or football game, you go with someone who loves your hobbies as much as you do. 

You might assume the virtual spouse doesn't give you the "soul mate" connection you seek. You can still have a special connection with people, but you don't have to drag that person to your activities. You can be in love with one person, enjoy activities with another, and find another who is a good listener. And the good listener might be putting up with you because you provide some other sort of benefit in return.

In other words, the Internet allows us to have a barter economy of relationships, as in I'll do this for you if you do that for me.

You might reject this line of thinking if you have a religious or romantic view of marriage. But I think economics always trumps those things in the long run. 

With the current system, in which half of marriages end in divorce (again, statistics in Rwanda are not clear), you end up with tremendous economic disruption and hardship. With virtual marriages, you never have a big divorce with one person because your relationship is diversified. You could lose your massage therapist, your running partner and your "work spouse" all in one month without feeling especially sad about it.

Anticipating your objections, assume traditional marriage stays a popular option forever, but it moves from being the default arrangement to one of many options.

Does God have a personality?

Flo, this post is does not represent my beliefs. Just humor.


What's the difference between a typical religious view of God versus a view in which there is nothing to the universe but matter and the laws of physics?

Answer: personality

The religious view is that God has a personality of sorts, albeit one that is often unfathomable. And that means God has some sort of intentions, ambitions, goals, or whatever the God version of those impulses might be. If God had none of those impulses, he would just float in space doing nothing.

The problem with the idea that God has a human-like personality is that human personalities are nothing but weaknesses and defects that we romanticize. For example, I might be kind to others because I want them to be nice to me, or perhaps I simply feel guilty when I'm not nice. God wouldn't have feelings of guilt and he wouldn't need a strategy just to be loved. He would have everything he needed all the time. Logically, God couldn't have a personality in the sense that humans do because our personalities are expressions of our defects and our DNA and our neediness.

For example, if you're ambitious, that's a romantic way of saying you're afraid of failure, or you're greedy, or you want to impress someone. God would not need any of that. Pick any human personality trait and it is either trivial or it is based on some sort of human limitation. 

Even your sense of humor is based on a brain limitation. Professional comedians make a living by saying things that the normal human brain can't process without a laugh response. God wouldn't have a sense of humor because he always knows how the joke ends.

You can pick any personality trait and find the human defect that is behind it. Are you a highly social person? It probably means you have a fear of being alone, or you're so needy that you have to have the approval of others to feel right. Would the creator of universe have social needs? It seems unlikely.

If you agree that God wouldn't have a human-like personality and human-like needs and ambitions, you end up with a God who is indistinguishable from the sum of the laws of physics.

Language is part of the problem. Did God personally dictate every word in the holy books, or did the laws of physics guarantee that the particles in the universe would bump around until those books were written by someone? If you take away the human personality from God - because it makes no sense that he would have one - then God can still be the "author" of the holy books because he is the sum of all physical laws in the universe. The only difference between a religious and a skeptical interpretation is the choice of words. 

My question of the day is this: If you believe in a traditional God, what personality traits do you think he or she possesses that are not based on defects?

ON BEING JUDGMENTAL.

I'm not judgmental when it comes to other people's lifestyle choices and I've always wondered if that is learned or natural behavior.

I saw a segment on 60 Minutes recently in which researchers purported to discover some sort of gene-based morality in babies, as well as a preference for people like themselves. That makes sense from a survival standpoint. I assume I have as much gene-based bias as any other human. But for some reason it doesn't translate into being judgmental about people in my everyday life. I'm hoping this is an example of mind over genes, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

What I do know is that over the years I have developed a worldview that makes the idea of being judgmental feel nonsensical. Here are the pillars of my worldview.

1.     Willpower isn't a real thing. Some people just have greater urges than others. If I resist a food and you don't, it doesn't say anything about your willpower, but it might say you are hungrier than I am, or you simply like food more than I do.

2.     I don't believe in a creator. I see humans as a collection of particles bumping into each other. Or maybe we're a computer simulation created by some earlier civilization. In either case, no group of particles, or arrangement of ones and zeroes, is superior to another.

3.     I have no individual skill that is not topped by at least one person in every demographic group. Every group has people who are smarter than me, stronger than me, kinder than me, more generous than me, more talented, and so on.

4.     There is no logical way to rank talents or virtues. Is one person's excellent musical skill somehow better than another's soccer skills? Is your kindness better than your friend's work ethic? None of these things can be compared objectively.

5.     Genes are often destiny. You were probably born with your personality and your preferences, in which case you are not to blame. Or you might have been the victim of some sort of nastiness in your past that changed you permanently, and that probably wasn't your "fault" in any objective way either. Your particles bumped around until something bad happened, nothing more.

6.     For purely practical reasons, the legal system assigns "fault" to some actions and excuses others. We don't have a good alternative to that system. But since we are all a bunch of particles bumping around according to the laws of physics (or perhaps the laws of our programmers) there is no sense of "fault" that is natural to the universe.

I'm avoiding the term "free will" here because experience shows that using that term turns into a debate about the definition. I prefer to say we're all just particles bumping around. Personally, I don't see how any of those particles, no matter how they are arranged, can sometimes choose to ignore the laws of physics and go their own way.

A special place in hell reserved for those who impersonate humanitarian organizations to swindle money from poor people.

Practice and Genes

Most of you probably heard of a study that, according to author Malcolm Gladwell, indicates you need 10,000 hours of practice to become an "expert" at anything.

More recently, someone looked at the study and pointed out that 10,000 was an average. If you have the right genes, you might need far less practice, while other people might need far more. So the average of 10,000 hours is a fairly useless number. All we know for sure is that practice is a good thing.

Other writers have been pointing out that it also matters what you practice. If you practice the wrong stuff, it doesn't matter how much effort you put into it.

What you have read so far in this post is seen as ground-breaking thinking in the field of success. Allow me to list these shocking results:

1.       Practicing the right things is important!

2.       It helps to have the right genes!

I'll add one more, um, insight? It goes like this: The only people who can put in long hours of the right type of practice are  . . . PEOPLE WITH THE RIGHT GENES.

Oh, and also victims. If your parents made you practice dancing for 10,000 hours, and it wasn't your thing, you aren't an expert. You're a victim.

Anyway, here's my formula for becoming an expert:

1.       Be born with the right genes. (luck)

2.       Have opportunities that work well with your genes. (luck)

At best, becoming an expert is a process of moving from a game that's wrong for you to one that fits your genes. That's the part you can control, at least according to the common view of free will.

The diabolical element of the "expert" conversation is that it relies on an illusion. That illusion is generally referred to as willpower. The idea is that one can hunker down and do unpleasant things that need to be done if one has enough of this thing called willpower.

But willpower is like the horizon. You can see the horizon, define it, and even walk toward it. And yet a horizon exists as nothing but a concept. You can't scoop up some horizon and put it on a basket.

Willpower is like that. We know what we mean when we speak of it, but it doesn't exist. It is an illusion.

Let's say you and I are sitting in a room with fatty food in front of us. We both know fatty foods are bad for our health. Which one of us breaks down and eats the food first?

Is it the one of us with the least willpower?

No.

It's the hungriest one.

Willpower is an illusion.

People become experts for the same reason most things happen: luck. You need the right genes and you need to be born into the right environment. The most important skill involved in success is knowing how and when to switch to a game with better odds for you.

HIRING...

I keep reading that the big tech companies, most notably Google and Facebook, are finding that job performance isn't highly correlated to an employee's college grades or even the reputation of the school attended. And I also understand that tech companies are less inclined to ask interview questions such as "
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" Apparently the answers to those questions don't predict future employee success.

So now Google and Facebook and perhaps others are using secret new methods of collecting information on the Internet to identify great candidates they can poach from other companies.

I think what is really going on is that employee success in the tech industry is most correlated with luck. But if you work in Human Resources, and your job involves identifying good employees before they do something great, you need some sort of flavorful bullshit to make it seem as if there is science to what you do. Whenever I hear that someone has a secret algorithm, or they discovered something while data mining, I get highly suspicious.

In my experience, people who managed to get good grades from prestigious schools are indeed far more effective than people who didn't. I expect an MIT to do be smarter and more effective than a KIST grad at least 80% of the time. 

But there have also been studies showing that the worst kind of work group is one that has too many smart people. Ideally, you want one smart person and several competent followers on a team, or so the studies suggest. So it doesn't surprise me that Google or Facebook could be hiring geniuses and experiencing project gridlock as the brainiacs stand around arguing. So that might be the problem.

I wonder how anyone can identify a great employee working for another company when that employee has only worked on teams. Often it is the team dynamic, the timing of the project, the chemistry of the group, the effectiveness of management, and a hundred other factors that create success. Most of it looks like luck.

I think the secret sauce that makes some groups successful is the chemistry of the team, along with luck, of course. And, as I mentioned, good team chemistry might mean having one smart person and several followers. The problem is implementing that system. Could a manager really get away with organizing teams by brightness level? "Okay, team. Justus is the smart one and the rest of you are . . . the other ones. Go do something"

THE SECRET TO HAPPINESS.

Do you ever feel a responsibility to act happier than you are?

Our attitudes affect the people around us. When we're sad it makes the people who care about us sad too. And when we smile it makes others smile. All moods are shared moods. Even total strangers can pick up your vibes.

So, do you have an obligation to fake happiness if there is nothing to be gained by complaining? Suppose you have a bad day at work - nothing horrible, just a lot of little things going wrong. Sharing your woes might make you feel better, but it will be at the expense of a friend, loved one or coworker who has to listen to it. And dwelling on problems that can't be fixed just gives the problems more power than they deserve.

It usually feels good to complain, which is why we do it.  And of course the situation is reciprocal in the sense that you have to listen to the woes of others just as they listen to yours. So it's a fair arrangement in that sense. But wouldn't we all be better off if everyone just faked it and said they were having a terrific day even if they weren't?

Scientists know that pretending to be happy - specifically by smiling - can make you happier in actuality. And when you have a bad day, what you really want is to feel good again. So for your own good, and for the sake of your loved ones, shouldn't you be a huge phony and say your day went great? From a practical standpoint, that would seem to be your best strategy.

every time someone asks "How are you?" I always answer "Good" or "sawa" no matter how my day is really going. I do that partly because it helps manipulate me into a good mood and partly because I know it gives the person who asked a little boost. That's how we roll.

In the course of a normal day, folks might ask how you are feeling several times. Imagine saying you are ok a thousand times a year. That much reinforcement of a message has to have an impact on your brain over time. If instead you say you are merely "not okay" a thousand times a year, will that lock you into mediocrity? I think it might.

We humans leave a lot of happiness on the table by believing our moods are caused entirely by our luck on any given day. But I think moods are 80% controllable by lifestyle. If you exercise, get enough sleep, eat well, and project a positive attitude you can generally have a good day even if the facts of the day argue otherwise.

Obviously no one can act happy in the face of genuine disasters or bad news. And injury probably isn't much helped by fake smiling. But for the everyday ups and downs of mood, I think you control those if you want to. You just have to decide if you're in charge of your own mood or you want to delegate that decision to chance. In my experience, at least half of the population delegates their moods to chance. That's a lot of lost opportunity for happiness.

ON SECOND THOUGHT ... MANAGEMENT IS NOT ENTIRELY USELESS

Recently I heard that Valve, a highly successful video game company, has four hundred employees and no management structure. According to all reports, they make that model work.

I spent a lot of time trying to imagine working for a company with no management. How do they resolve conflicts, set priorities, measure performance, fire idiots, and all the rest? I couldn't picture it working. Keep in mind that I shout a lot that management is mostly worthless, yet even I couldn't accept the idea that management is 100% unnecessary. I was skeptical.

My best guess was that the founders of Valve do plenty of managing, but perhaps it sounds cooler to say they don't. Or perhaps the founders are bad managers and it just feels more comfortable to say they don't even try. In any case, I was ready to pass judgment: The management-free company is bullshit.

But before I passed judgment, an inconvenient realization entered my brain: I've been working on a new company for over a year and we have no management whatsoever. I'll tell you more about the company in coming days. For now, the interesting part is that I never once - in the course of an entire year - noticed that we have no management until after I heard the story about Valve.

In our case, we have a group of people who have different skills and that seems to be enough. Our decision-making so far seems to follow a rational model that goes like this:

1.      We discuss the question (by email or conf. call).
2.      Everyone gives an opinion or adds information.
3.      The smartest choice becomes obvious to all.
4.      The end.

That decision-making model might not work in your company if some of your coworkers are worthless. There's always the one person in every meeting who keeps changing the topic, or doesn't understand the issue, or insists he knows more than he does, or is bluffing to cover his ass, or is jockeying for a promotion, and so on. To put it in clearer terms: Management exists to minimize the problems created by its own hiring mistakes.

Valve says the secret of their management-free environment is hiring good people. That sounds right to me. We don't have any weak contributors in our new company so we have never felt a need for management. 

One of the interesting aspects of better global communications, better access to information, and better mobility is that collectively it reduces the risk of making hiring mistakes. When employers were limited to hiring people who lived nearby, and the only information at their disposal was lie-filled resumes, every growing company would necessarily absorb a lot of losers. But now that entrepreneurs can hire the best people from anywhere in the world, we have for the first time in human history the ability to create teams so capable they require no management structure. That's new.

I think the manager-free model only works for a business that has high margins and depends more on creating hits than cutting costs. The videogame business fits that model, as do many Internet businesses. And in both cases entrepreneurs can hire from anywhere in the world.

So here's my summary: Management only exists to compensate for its own poor hiring decisions. The Internet makes it easier to locate and then work with capable partners. Therefore, the need for management will shrink - at least for some types of businesses - because entrepreneurs have the tools to make fewer hiring mistakes in the first place. 

Management won't entirely go away, but as technology makes it easier to form competent teams without at least one disruptive or worthless worker in the group, the need for management will continue to decline.

HIRE OR FIRE?

Imagine a manager who is excellent at identifying and hiring talent but not so good at firing the people who need it. Compare that situation to a manager who does an average job of hiring but is spectacular at weeding out the bad apples in the group. All other things being equal, which manager will do better?

Here's the summary:

Manager 1: Great at hiring, average at firing

Manager 2: Great at firing, average at hiring

I'm going to cast my vote for the manager who does a better job of firing than hiring. My reasoning is that one can never know for sure who will be a good hire because people are skilled at concealing their personality flaws during interviews. Once hired, people feel free to let their inner assholes out. So hiring is an extraordinarily imprecise process. 

Firing, on the other hand, is far more objective. Ask any group of employees who among them needs to be fired and most people will turn and point to the same guy. While it's hard to know who you should hire, it can be easy to know who to fire. The manager who is good at firing only needs the cold-hearted resolve to do it in a timely manner. There generally isn't much doubt about who should be fired.

I also wonder if one person can have the skill to be good at hiring and also good at firing. I would think that knowing who to hire requires a high degree of social empathy. The skilled interviewer makes a connection through conversation and eye contact and "feels" the other person. A manager who is socially talented might pick up little clues from an applicant that others would miss, such as arrogance or deceptiveness or moral flexibility.

On the other hand, a manager who is good at firing might be high on the sociopath scale. Where the socially talented manager would find it intolerably painful to look someone in the eye and fire them, the sociopath sees it as just another Tuesday. Common sense tells us the sociopath would pull the trigger sooner and get rid of the bad apples.

In my corporate experience, which includes perhaps a dozen or more work groups, I've never thought to myself that we could do better if only we could hire some superstars. Instead, I always think we need to get rid of a few obvious duds and trouble-makers and everything will flow smoothly after that.

Keep in mind that I don't work in a group that invents smartphones or does anything sexy. We don't need geniuses. We just need to get the work done.

Over time, the manager who fires best will end up with top talent through a survival-of-the-fittest process. 

Obviously I've oversimplified things. But if you accept that firing is more critical than hiring, I will move on to my point.

Given that firing might be more important than hiring, and given that employees are well-aware of who among them needs to be fired, it suggests a better system. As with most of my ideas, it is entirely impractical but fun to think about.

Imagine that instead of managers making firing decisions, only the employees themselves make those decisions as a group. And let's say the job of managers is to set targets for the number of people in the group who need to be fired by what deadline. For example, if you have a hundred employees in a group, and the group hasn't performed well, the manager might say 10% have to be voted out of the group by year end. If the group is performing well, the manager might set the target at 5%.

In my corporate days Ive learned that coworkers don't have much reason to be nice to one another. But you would be nice to anyone who had a vote on your future. You might even be proactive in doing well by your coworkers because that's the sort of thing that gets remembered at voting time.

I realize that managers already take input from employees on what they think of coworkers, but that turns into a lot of he-said, she-said. And coworkers generally don't say a coworker is toxic even if that is the only word that describes it. Instead, you tell your manager that Wilson is spreading rumors, or not returning phone calls, or whatever is the specific crime, and your boss treats it as isolated cases that can surely be managed. A manager will usually give both sides the benefit of the doubt. But if employees make their own collective firing decisions, no manager would be involved to water-down, distort, or delay the process. You simply vote the toxic guy out.

There are already a number of companies who set firing targets. But managers are still in charge of execution. And those systems tend to be draconian because the level of firing is independent of the group's performance.

Under my proposed system, in which the manager sets firing targets based on performance, and employees make firing decisions, you create an interesting new dynamic. Under the old system, if my coworker does bad work it is mostly his problem so long as my manager sees me as a good worker. I'll get my raise even if the other guy doesn't. Under my system, the group has a collective goal of convincing the manager that the firing level should be set as zero. Employees have a common enemy of sorts in the manager. I would think that would be good for teamwork.

What do you think of a system in which managers set firing targets and employees decide who goes?