Club Troppo

It’s never been easier to check quotations. With tools like Google Books and the Yale Book of Quotations there’s no need to publish spurious or out of context quotes.

But even today, books, newspapers and academic papers are full of quotes that are just wrong. Here’s an example from Catherine Lumby‘s and Duncan Fine’s book Why TV Is Good for Kids:

Take a guess who said the following about children. They ‘love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and and love chatter in place of exercise’. Worse, they ‘no longer rise when elders enter the room’, ‘they contradict their parents’, ‘tyrannise their teachers’ and spend their time scoffing down treats. It sounds like something you could rely on almost any shock jock to say any day of the week. But actually it’s the Greek philosopher Socrates talking about young people sometime around 399 BC.

A quick check of Respectfully Quoted at Bartleby.com shows that the quote is probably bogus. According to the The Yale Book of Quotations: "Researchers have never found anything like it in the words of Socrates or Plato."

(Continued)

For some time now I’ve been arguing that we should do for information what we did for competition in the 1990s – adopt a national information policy in the image of national competition policy. National competition policy was a trawl through our economic institutions presuming that more competition was better than less and then requiring arrangements that restricted competition to be reviewed and then either justified or removed.  We also built institutions to entrench such an approach into policy making at all levels of government through COAG.

We could do the same with information.  We should presume that more is better than less, that open is better than closed and further that independence in the creation and dissemination of information is better than its creation and disemination by vested interests. Of course such an agenda would be large – as competition policy was.  And it would also be more complex than competition policy.  So while it sounds like the NCP it would be a larger, more diverse undertaking and would probably unfold over a longer period.

Perhaps one might think of Government 2.0 as the first cab off the rank as we move to developing the economic value of information assets in the possession of the government. But there are any number of other fronts. Improving information flows in financial markets.  We should move beyond regulation of mandatory disclosure – as important as that is – and start asking ourselves how we can assist the development of standards against which information is reported, the independence with which it is audited and the accuracy with which reputations are acquired.

The same goes for reputations in markets for important professional services, like medicine.  We’re starting to do it for schools.  And we already have the information to do much more in tertiary education.

Then there are the conflict of interest issues and issues of bias, deliberate or inadvertent. The way we gain information on the performance of drugs is incredibly inefficient because guess who we get to generate the information – the drug companies themselves. But similar problems arise in all softs of places. I was put in mind of these things by these articles on the ways in which forensic science is done in the legal system and ways information flows could be restructured to introduce checks for bias and conflicts of interest.

There’s one other similarity with competition policy.  The NCP was a formalisation of ideas that had been with us forever and which we were becoming more active on long before they became a conscious ‘national policy’.  Ditto National Information Policy.

Lots of readers of this blog will be regular readers of Tyler Cowen. I’m not, but that’s just my taste. He often has interesting things to say and there are just too many such people in the blogosphere so he’s not on my feedreader. Anyway, Tyler Cowen is often a good read and a thoughtful guy. When I was killing some time in an international airport last year I came across a hardback copy of the newly released Create your own economy: the path to prosperity in a disordered world by the said T Cowen.

Well if there were a book to illustrate that old proverb that you can’t judge a book by its cover it’s this one. In fact the cover is not just a cover, it’s a cover up! The book, as you may know if you’ve read it or about it elsewhere is Cowen’s paean to autism.  If that surprises you it certainly surprised me. As I read on I figured it would broaden from his own ‘outing’ of himself as high functioning autistic or perhaps others would call it Aspergers Syndrome – into broader themes.  But it never really does. In fact there is one mention of autism on the cover on the second of the four ‘shouts’ on the back cover (and nothing whatever on the front). That’s all the warning you get. I presume this isn’t Cowen’s fault.  I presume the publisher cooked up the cover-up (making Cowen’s point about the stigmatisation of autism).

In one of the back cover ‘shouts’ the book promises to “weave Facebook, Zen Buddism, Sherlock Holmes and so much more into a compelling argument”. Well it certainly seemed intriguing so I bought the book.  The ‘compelling argument’ that Cowen weaves is that all these things can be related in some way to autism or Aspergers. The internet generally is encouraging classification of all and sundry – classification being an autistic trait, Sherlock Holmes is autistic – a case which Cowen argues compellingly. Zen Buddhism gets a guernsey in there somehow, though it’s a while since I read that bit.

Anyway, Cowen makes a good case that autism is stigmatised and that that is 1) cruel and unfair to autistics and 2) stupid because high functioning autistics have contributed an unusual amount to human civilisation. I think he makes his point well.  I have a few criticisms for what they’re worth.

• I don’t know if this book had its origins in an article, but this is one of those books that should have just been an article to elaborate and argue the thesis and perhaps some blog posts to expand examples. Unfortunately the panoply of examples didn’t really build a richer picture of his argument and so it palled as a book.
• Cowen’s call is ultimately one for balance between cognitive skills, which is unarguable. And good on him for having the courage of his convictions – and his cognitive style. But, perhaps as one might expect, in arguing the case for greater emphasis on what autistic approaches can bring to the world, he does not report to his readers that some people think that his own discipline is already too autistic. In fact there’s a whole movement started in France at the turn of the century calling for a “post autistic economics“. As Wikipedia observes the movement has “has been criticized for using the medical diagnosis, autism, as a derogatory expression.”  Fair enough too, but the point being made is a serious one. In a book about the appropriate balance between different cognitive orientations, or ‘neurodiversity’ as Cowen pithily calls it, it’s a pity that Cowen couldn’t have discussed this possible weakness in contemporary economics.

I participated in an enjoyable discussion on open government on Late Night Live last night. If one has been thinking about things for a long time and wants to get certain ideas across, it can be pretty challenging doing this effectively – which is to say without misunderstanding – on a panel program, though I can’t complain. Phillip Adams was moving the discussion along, as is his job, and I wasn’t usually the victim of being cut-off.

Even so, the one thing that concerned me when I’d concluded was that I wasn’t able to directly discuss the idea that one of the panelists – Andrew Podger – seemed to suggest. I’d preface what I’m saying by saying that I’ve met Andrew on a number of occasions, and, like many people in Canberra, I have a very high regard for him. Andrew seemed to think that the idea of public servants blogging was really a bit alarming, perhaps flip. He was concerned that there was no room for public servants to be blogging about what they were briefing ministers about. I would generally agree. But then this really illustrates my argument – articulated briefly on the show – that when we debate this issue we don’t really deliberate on where and how social media like blogging could add value. Rather we focus on the extremes, and on what can go wrong and the default rapidly becomes a silence that is in no way compelled by the public service values we’re trying to defend.

There is much more that public agencies do, and much more that public servants do other than offer confidential and potentially politically contested advice to ministers. What I was at pains to try to point out was that the default right now is silence and that that foregos a lot of exciting opportunities.

I generally agree that there needs to be some government ‘privacy’ if you like around what public servants are advising governments. In a world of confrontation between Opposition and Government, all played out in the context of a media hungry for the only story they really want to write about – conflict – not doing so would compromise the advice. On the one hand it would tie the hands of politicians and make it harder for them to come to their own decision on what to do if it did not accord with their official advice. On the other, and in response, a lot of pressure would be put on public servants to provide the ‘right’ advice – the advice the ministers want to hear.

But there are so many other ways in which blogging and other uses of Web 2.0 could be useful. Especially in a small country, there’s a limited pool of people with real expertise about any number of things – say a technical matter like the management of tropical rainforest. Say provisions of the Tax Act.  Now it is quite possible to imagine discussion about such things that is politically partisan.  And so it should be avoided as contrary to the aspirations of the public service.

But it also possible to imagine professional discussion of such things that is focused on information sharing and professional discussion and that is not politically partisan. (Continued)

A great column by the great Paul Krugman – who should have got the Nobel Prize for Journalism.

So the Bunning blockade is over. For days, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky exploited Senate rules to block a one-month extension of unemployment benefits. In the end, he gave in, although not soon enough to prevent an interruption of payments to around 100,000 workers.

But while the blockade is over, its lessons remain. Some of those lessons involve the spectacular dysfunctionality of the Senate. What I want to focus on right now, however, is the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties. Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.

Take the question of helping the unemployed in the middle of a deep slump. What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says: that when the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. That’s because the economy’s problem right now is lack of sufficient demand, and cash-strapped unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that aid to the unemployed is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, as measured by jobs created per dollar of outlay.

But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”

In Mr. Kyl’s view, then, what we really need to worry about right now — with more than five unemployed workers for every job opening, and long-term unemployment at its highest level since the Great Depression — is whether we’re reducing the incentive of the unemployed to find jobs. To me, that’s a bizarre point of view — but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe. (Continued)

OK – I posted the code, but the video didn’t embed. In any event, you can watch and read all about it at much greater length Slate:

Remember my famous catchcry, “Victory!”

The one in the post just below Nicholas on G2.0.

Yep. I trusted Wordpress to do the right thing. Silly me.

It thoughtfully dropped everyone’s email when migrating you to the new server. This means that the approach I’ve used previously — “here’s the link to reset your password, it will email you a new one” — doesn’t work.

So, friends and Troppo authors, if you’re having trouble logging in, please email me first so I can restore your email details to the system.

Herewith a column of mine for Government News arguing that with Government 2.0 ‘open government’ is making the transition from being essentially an agenda of constitutional hygiene and civil rights (perhaps regarded as an economic luxury) to being a micro-economic reform issue – though at the same time the arguments from constitutional hygiene and civil rights remain as valid as they ever were.

We’re all in favour of openness – at least as Sir Humphrey might say “in principle”, but of course it means different things to different people. The original US Freedom of Information Act was passed in 1966 in the US though it took until 1982 for something similar to find its way into Australian Law.

But placing the act in its historical context illustrates how FOI was seen as a matter of essential civil rights. The Freedom of Information Bill introduced to Parliament last year bore the marks of a new sensibility. Freedom of information it tells us is there not just to defend people’s civil right to information – particularly information about them.

The Act extends the objectives of the old FOI Act. FOI now seeks “to promote Australia’s representative democracy”. And this is offered not simply as an ethical or constitutional value. The additional focus is the utility of people being well informed. The new FIO bill proposes to increase “public participation in Government processes, with a view to promoting better-informed decision-making”

This focus on utility resurfaces when the bill emphasises the Parliament’s intention “to increase recognition that information held by the Government is to be managed for public purposes, and is a national resource.” FOI has become micro-economic reform – it’s as much about making the best possible use of our resources as it is about addressing people’s undoubted civil rights to information about them or which bears on their interests. (Continued)