Tag: paradox

The itty-bitty-shitty-committee

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The itty-bitty-shitty-committee is that voice in your head. It’s the chatter.

“The chatter is the zooming in really narrowly on a problem and getting stuck and spinning over and over in ways that are dysfunctional and destructive. We want to get rid of the chatter that gets in the way of your job, your relationships. and your physical health.” – @Ethan_Kross on Armchair Expert

I’ve been in that loop, in that cartoon whirlpool. I’m the bumbling sea captain. I see it. I try to avoid it. I can’t get out of my own way. Which is kind of wild, being the captain of this ship of one. Kross suggests reframing during rough seas.

It’s not a free bag, it’s a bag that’s been paid for. It’s not a free coffee, it’s a free coffee that’s been paid for. I used to advise college students that anytime they saw the word FREE on campus they could interpret that as “Your tuition pre-paid this for you.”

Time is also a good way to reframe a situation. Do I remember a situation like this from three years ago? No. Then I probably won’t remember this one three years from now. This kind of framing was especially good when my daughters were young. My wife used this too only her mantra was: this too shall pass.

Kross’s specific suggestions echoes Jenna Fischer‘s career advice. Fischer said she looks at herself as the CEO and the product. The boss Fischer said that headshots had to be done by a professional. The talent Fischer had to tell her photographer friend.

“Distance self-talking involves coaching yourself through a problem using your own name like you’re talking to someone else. We are much better at advising other people than ourselves…when we use a name to talk to ourself it changes the perspective, it’s a psychological jujitsu move.” – Kross

That’s incredible reframing. And it works!

If we remember. Usually when someone cuts us off on the road they’re an idiot. When we do it it’s because we’re late. Maybe that’s part of it. We see things differently when the information changes and a simple switch in internal dialogue can create big switches outside in our actions.

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Dax Shepard and Kross talk about the IBSC around 31:20. The distant self-talk reframing is known as Solomon’s paradox.

Ohio’s Vaccine Lotto

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On May 12, 2021 Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio announced a one million dollar vaccination lottery. Teens were eligible for a college scholarship. Two days after the announcement Ohio doubled its vaccinations-per-day figure to thirty-three thousand people. Success!

Maybe. “States with lottery programs,” noted the Boston Globe “are not doing any better compared to states without such initiatives.”

And.

But, there are at least two reasons Ohio’s strategy was a good one. The first is the testing of new approaches. One of the beautiful things about the United States of America is the differences in states. When states do different things academics call this “heterogeneity” and “natural experiments”. While not perfect, these opportunities and observations lead to novel lessons. Part-of-the-reason there won’t be another 2020 are these learnings.

The second reason Ohio’s vaccine lottery was a good idea is an idea from Maxims for Analytical Thinking, a Michael Mauboussin recommendation:

MfAT is a book of thinking tools by Dan Levy who focuses on the ideas, information, and influence of Richard Zeckhauser. Maxim 1 is When you are having trouble getting your thinking straight, go to an extreme case. Using this lens, was the Ohio Lotto a good idea?

Imagine it this way. What if there were a Hypo-Ohio, where thanks to the industriousness, intelligence, and ingenuity of the individuals, a vaccine holiday was declared on February first. Employers gave employees the day off. Starbucks and Subway donated their stores for stick sites. Netflix was free for Ohio ISPs. Everyone that was willing and able to get a vaccine got vaccinated.

Ohio Vax

If that happened, like poker chips slid across a table, the May blip and March wave would be compressed into an early February explosion. This would have been awesome. We know from the vaccine friendship paradox that all social networks have a super-spreader. At the extreme, pulling the demand forward would be a good thing.

But what was the effect size? Here I’m over my skis. But that’s actually okay. The techniques I learned in my Ohio high school still work: remove the bad answers first. Like the 15y or 30y mortgage question, I’m looking for choosing from only the good options. At the extreme, pulling demand forward is a fantastic idea. How much effect, I don’t know, but I’m glad they tried.

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Bias Warning: I thought the Ohio Lotto was a good idea from the start.

The Abilene, Fire, and Simpson’s Paradox

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Names make thoughts legible. Here are a few recent paradoxes to consider.

The Abiline Paradox. Don’t rock the boat (YouTube). Or, when one person goes along with another because they think that I think that they think I want to go along. More from Rory Sutherland.

The Fire Paradox. The more successful humans are suppressing fire in one season, the more likely a larger fire in the next. May also apply to influenza.

Simpson’s Paradox. On Wharton Moneyball , the hosts asked why women die more than men from Covid? It’s because there are more old women. How can someone have a higher overall shooting percentage but a lower percentage from near and far? A nice YouTube explainer is here. Via Wikipedia:

The Vaccine Friendship Paradox

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One non-intuitive concept, at least in scale, is the network. Like average numbers, it takes some work to construct the correct conclusions. Graph, chart, and count the way that people interact, decide, and connect and there will be patterns. It’s network effects which fuel companies like Instagram and create the increasing returns economy.

Networks, as Nicholas Christakis notes, are agnostic. They spread whatever they are seeded with, whether real viruses like Ebola or WOW viruses like corrupted blood. The question then is; How and what to seed a network with?

Eric Bradlow wondered about Covid vaccines on Wharton Moneyball:

“We study diffusion of products all the time. In theory, you want to observe the social graph. In marketing the question is: Who do you give the free product to? This is standard network analysis and with that data you could do a smarter initial seeding (of a vaccine).”

Is there more bang for the buck if one person gets the vaccine rather than another?

Yes, though it’s not intuitive.

As the Friendship Paradox video shows, we aren’t all connected to the same number of friends. Some people have more, some have fewer friends and to wisely allocate a scare resource (like with marathon slots) it takes some small adjustments.

Christakis has spent a lot of time mapping networks and noted that across cultures, space, and time most human networks look the same. Some people are more connected than others. A few have hundred of connections and hundreds have a few.

It’s important for Christakis because like Bradlow, he works with a diffusion problem. Rather than marketing products though, it’s about sharing vaccines and vitamins. The thinking for both goes like this, if you can share something that works with the right person then they will share the benefits of that with the rest of their network.

But how do you pick the right person? Christakis shared this tip: “Go into a village and pick people at random. Have them suggest their friends and vaccinate their friends rather than the originals.”

Most networks are like the Curb Your Enthusiasm network (via Funkhauser).

curb_your_enthusiasm_-_season_9_-_network_graph

Randomly enter that network and you could get anyone but then ask for that person’s friend and more often than not you’ll get Larry. He’s the hub. He’s the super spreader. He’s who to vaccinate or market to.

It’s a neat bit of math. Rather than random choice, ask one question to improve the odds of an idea, movement, or effect catching on.

While there’s nothing on networks, my latests pay-what-you-want is on Tyler Cowen’s ideas about decision making. One idea is ‘meta-rationality’ or knowing when you don’t know AND knowing where or who to go to to find out.