Harvard Dining service Strike, Google, Terrorism and American Revolution

The Harvard dining service has been on strike, and the dining service has been unable to accommodate all the students.  At least for me, the lines are longer and the food is worse. What does this have anything to do with Google and American Revolution?

Collateral Damage

It is purely a conflict between the Harvard administration and the dining service workers. Then they decide to go on strike during the school year, not in summer. And it is extended. This decision is tactical: it brings about collateral damage. If they strike during summer, most of the students are gone, and Harvard has enough backup people to keep things going--the managers (who do not belong to the union) can work as regular employees, not to mention Harvard does employ some workers not from this union. So the disruption will be minimal. Without disruption, it will be a power match between the administration and the union. The union probably understands that the mighty administration might prevail, or at least, they possess limited bargaining power. 

So the tactics is to impose some collateral damage. Make the students miserable. As the Harvard students are as vocal as they are pampered, they will sure be a powerful force. They might protest and exert pressure on the administration, if it works out. That is, if they do not direct their anger at the strike itself. This is not trivial, as I definitely heard highly critical complaints among students. The game is to bet on where the anger will ultimately go. With the current atmosphere if political correctness (which the Harvard Administration has itself inflicted) and the left-leaning culture (which the administration has a role promoting), the dining service is betting on the anger, at least ostensibly, will go against the administration.

I should note, that I do not want to make a value judgement on who is right. It is beyond me  (actually anyone) to calculate a just wage. My interest is purely to focus on tactics.

It doesn't have to be

The key point here is that there does not have to be a collateral damage. It is all part of a plan. In fact, this key element is present in many events.

Google

Google ostensibly left China because it says it won't offer censored content. There are two types of content, sensitive content and unsensitive content. My bet is the unsensitive content makes up more than 99.9% of the content. By bundling these two contents, Google is imposing a collateral damage on ordinary users (who does not bother to look up sensitive content) and hope this majority will complain loud enough as to make Chinese government budge. To say Google's move is principle driven is naive beyond comprehension, as one only needs to look at how Google tampered with search results to unfairly compete with Yelp and etc.

Terrorism

There are conflicts between two political power A and B. A is too powerful, and B is on the losing side. So B attack A's civilian, so as to inflict collateral damage on them. The hope is to make them complain so that A will pursue a more isolationist policy and leave B alone. 

Some might protest that by drawing the analogy between terrorism and dining service, I am painting a negative picture of the strike. No. The tactic is neutral. It can be employed by the good and bad. What is more, let me add more cynically, one has many terms for terrorism. When the victim is US, it is called terrorism. When the attack is directed towards victim in China, it is no longer terrorism (see example 1, example 2, etc.)

American Revolution

To balance out the negative painting (if you insist), let me add something to cheer the readers up. American revolution. Remember what Americans did after the Stamp Act and other acts that replaced Stamp Act? Yes, Boycott. The tactic is to inflict collateral damage on the business people, who like harvard's students, are highly vocal and exerts lots of political power. 

Framing

All the events mentioned involve the same tactic: inflicting collateral damage where it does not have to exist. The hope is to make a third party angry, and they direct anger at my opponent. But anger can fly either way: when framed as terrorism, anger is directed at the terrorist; when framed as a principled movement, the anger is directed at the other party. The key is to frame it nicely and conceal the intention of inflicting collateral damage. Tactics is always useful in a world where people are stupid, but that stupidity (receptiveness to manipulation) makes the outcome of tactics unpredictable. It might very well back-fire. That is probably why pundits and people with an agenda likes to make analogy: if you make an analogy with terrorism, it looks pretty bad; if you make an analogy with American Revolution, it looks damn glorious. 

Random thoughts on US Election

It is quite funny to watch the US election. quite enlightening to ponder how a robust republic, that is capable of emerging from the ashes and debts of the Independence war and the War of 1812, has now turned into a dysfunctional “democracy” and end up with two awful candidates.

What is telling is the the enthusiasm and blindness on both sides. The Clinton supporters, for example, are so against Trump that they are willing to overlook the dark sides of Clinton, which are many. They come up with stories like Putin is manipulating the US election so that Trump can be elected and destroy America. This is the most stupid argument I have ever heard.

First, one should look at the validity of the information leaked by wikileaks, regardless of its sources. If it exposes true problems, address the problem, not just blame and speculate about the sources. The problems are real, and people choose to ignore them. This mentality is awful. With such a partisan mentality of looking at problems exposed, the self-correcting mechanism that is claimed to be so exclusive to democracy, is missing.

Second, it is quite hypocritical. US is not behind anyone in influencing the politics in other countries. Sometimes through money (Marshall Plan being the most famous), sometimes through military support, or sometimes through revealing information (not all of them are true). The truth is, every country does influence the politics in other country, via diplomacy, trade, or military. This is not special, and it is quite insincere to give this any special significance.

Many people on the left view the other side as uneducated, credulous, or downright evil. The truth is far from that. Many of the people I know who is on the right, are well-educated (sometimes with a Harvard PhD in sciences). Many people on the right similarly dismiss people on the other side as thoughtless and arrogant pseudo-intellectual. Not true either. I know some incredibly smart and thoughtful person who support the left while cognizant of the problems with the Clinton. Arrogance is the exclusive asset for either side. 

No wonder the politics can sink this low. I guess it will sink lower. The fact that someone with Trump's temperament can be a candidate is a symptom, not the problem. It signals the dysfunction of US politics. The real problem is the dishonesty of the system. Leftists think he is the problem and they never realize their own camp is filled with cancerous cells as well.

The Elusive Quest for Best Practice

(foreword: I am actually thinking of moving to medium.com. Their comment in line function is quite appealing. I really hope to get more critisisms or comments. so I also published this on medium)

People love to find a best practice. Who can blame them? After all, we are confronted with so many problems, and they give us a headache. Wouldn't it be great if we can follow some best practice and solve all these problems, or at least mostly solve the problems?

Problems

In public policy, we see the problem of corruption and bad policy. Wouldn't it be nice if there is a system that could guarantee the public policy serves the people?

In banking, we see reckless moral hazard. Wouldn't it be nice if we bind all fund managers to some best practice and manage money soundly?

In research, we see the problem of careless or even fraudulent statistical analysis, and the ensuing non-credible results. Wouldn't it be great if we can whip researchers all into some best methodology, and take the 'con' out of everything?

Fake Solutions

In public policy, we were sold ideologies like democracy and Washington Censuns. We point to successful cases and ignore failed attempts, and say democracy can cure every country except those who cannot be cured. (borrowing from doctors before the start of Randomized control trials) Or we say, ahh, those are not real democracies, these and that. But face it, democracy is not a pancea. The Dupont story and Flint Water Scandal should give us pause: in a well-run society, discovering and exposing such deeds should not be so difficult. Or consider this, Ohio regulators rubberstamped the merger between Aetna and Humana (two of the biggest US health insurance company) and kept the decision secret for more than a month.

In banking, we are sold all kinds of ideas: capital requirements, Bessel II, Bessel II, triple A....The 2007 financial crisis speaks to their limits (or absurdity)

In research, we were sold ideas like instrumental variable, natural experiment, propensity score matching. These made us feel like we are in the land of Asymptopia (see Leamer's paper), where we churn out more non-sense, just in more complicated forms.

Problems with Best Practice

I used to think that looking for best practice is a fool's errand.  Now, it feel it results more from laziness than stupidity. Intellectual laziness. It is the kind of wishful thinking that one can rest sound and tight, and never need to do anything, if one can find the best practice. But you never will.

Sometimes the best practice does not exist. Though people or countries may have similar symptoms, the underlying disease differ. What jump-started western economies (free market) could leave late-comers in a resource curse, while the opposite (industrial policy) actually enable Japan, South Korea, and others to leap ahead. Just as Dani Rodrik pointed out: Diagnostics before prescription.

More fundamentally, the problem with best practice is that it is a static concept: there is something set in stone. It might work well for handling physical objects, like atoms, or chemicals, but it won't work for people. People find work-arounds and adapt to new circumstances (this idea is at least as old as Lucas critique, but deplorably, economists (including Lucas himself) address this critique with a best practice: rational expectation framework).

Starting with some best practice is great. The problem is most people stop there. It is only a starting point, and is no substitute for real work, like constantly monitoring and continuous problem solving. It is not enough to let people vote, it is paramount to stay vigilant against any forces that stealthily swap the democratic spirit for democratic form. 

"Yes, there are all sorts of problems with best practice, but, what is the alternative?" people ask, "Doesn't is prevent the worse from happening?" Maybe, but at a cost. It gives us a false sense of security, complacency or even over-confidence; it encourages us to join a wild party celebrating "the Great Moderation" without realizing the boat is sinking. We might improve a little bit, but also swept the remaining mess under the rug of best practice. 

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. 

The lesser evil paves the way for the greater evil.

Running for Life

When I see all those researchers thoughtlessly implementing Inverse Probability Weighting (IPW) or carrying out a structural estimate, and present their results as credible. I cannot help thinking to myself it is another triple-A rated Credit Default Swap being sold. I should scramble for life.