Tag: Motives

July 24, 2018

Controlling Outcomes by Controlling Table Stakes

Nielsen estimates that 84 million people watched the first presidential debate of the 2016 election. That was 36.4% of eligible voters and 60.5% of actual voters. Given how many US voters watch the presidential debates, participating in the televised debates is considered a table stake for having a shot at being elected president.

The official sounding ”Commission on Presidential Debates” decides who gets to be on the debate stage. It’s formation and stated purpose is interesting:

After studying the election process in 1985, the bipartisan National Commission on Elections recommended “turning over the sponsorship of Presidential debates to the two major parties”. The CPD was established in 1987 by the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican Parties to “take control of the Presidential debates”. The commission was staffed by members from the two parties and chaired by the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties… (wikipedia)

The League of Women Voters had been the previous host of the debates.

In 1988, the League of Women Voters withdrew its sponsorship of the presidential debates after the George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis campaigns secretly agreed to a “memorandum of understanding” that would decide which candidates could participate in the debates, which individuals would be panelists (and therefore able to ask questions), and the height of the lecterns. The League… released a statement saying that it was withdrawing support for the debates because “the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter.” (wikipedia)

Ross Perot’s 1992 bid for president as an independent was disruptive. Perot took 19% of the vote and many believe that had he not run, Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush would have been re-elected instead of Democrat candidate Bill Clinton.

The CPD excluded Perot from the televised debates in 1996.

Changing the Table Stakes

Four years later, the commission changed the rules of the game entirely, requiring that candidates have at least 15% in 5 national polls in order to get on the debate stage. Which polls count are consider to be “national polls”? The CPD decides.

The creation of the Commission on Presidential Debates (a cartel) and the 15% rule clearly benefit the candidates of the two major parties in the United States at the expense of all third-party (or independent) candidates and the voting populace. This legal collusion has been extremely effective at controlling who has a serious shot at running for president and who ultimately becomes president.

So not only is being on the debate stage a table stake, but having 15% in “5 national polls” approved by the CPD is considered a table stake as well.

When structured in this way, table stakes can be a form of moat or barrier to entry. So whoever controls the table stakes can have tremendous control over the outcome. Check out Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t for a few great examples of establishing and controlling tables stakes in corporate environments – even if you’re at the bottom of the power hierarchy.

April 16, 2018

Metrics Fixation

Let’s talk about metrics fixation and unintended consequences.

Consider 3 ideas:

Emphasize standardized measurements.
Incentivize actors with rewards and punishments.
Publish measurements in order to hold groups accountable.

They sound great. And they are great – sometimes.

However, when we let these three concepts mindlessly replace our judgement, we often end up with unintended consequences and dysfunction. Jerry Muller calls this fetishizing of metrics “Metrics Fixation” in his recent interview with Russ Roberts on EconTalk.

Where do things go wrong?

Oversimplification of organizations, their values, and their complex facets can lead to measuring and incentivizing the wrong things or an incomplete list of things.
Actors play games in order to attain the desired metrics, often at the expense of the organization’s vision. Creative energy is now being diverted into gaming the metrics instead of creating real value.
Measurements, incentives, and transparency all have costs too.
Unintended consequences are sometimes intended.

That’s all great, but let’s make this tangible. Muller gives a crazy example in his book.

The original situation: Emergency rooms in the UK (called A&E Departments for accident & emergency) had long wait times.

The solution: Incentives for reducing wait times to below 4 hours were introduced.

The unintended consequence: Patients were required “to wait in queues of ambulances outside A&E Departments until the hospital in question was confident that that patient could be seen within four hours.” To make matters worse, these ambulances were now unavailable for other patients who needed emergency services.

Take away: metrics, incentives, and transparency are all great when properly coordinated. But watch carefully for unintended consequences.

March 15, 2018

Hidden Motives with Robin Hanson

The following quote from Robin Hanson is from Hidden Motives, an episode of the Waking Up podcast with Sam Harris. The topic is primarily Hanson’s new book, The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life, co-written with Kevin Simler.

Our usual institutions let us pretend to be trying to get the thing we pretend to want while actually – under the surface – giving us the things we actually want.

Policy analysts typically try to analyze how to give policy reforms that would give us more of the things we pretend to want. And we’re usually uninterested in that because we know we don’t actually want more of the things we pretend we want.

If you could design a policy reform that let us continue to pretend to get the things we pretend to want while actually getting more of the things we actually want, we’d like that. But we can’t admit it. If we stumble into it, we’ll stay there.

But if the policy analysts were just to out loud say “Well this is a system that will give you more of this thing that’s what you actually want. But admit it.” We don’t want to admit it. And then we won’t want to embrace that.

So yes, what we want to do is pay for the appearance of the thing we’re pretending to want and we’re often paying a lot for that appearance.

– Robin Hanson

The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives

Great quote from Robin Hanson about how we’re often not honest with ourselves about our hidden motives and what that means for our policies regarding education, guns, healthcare, immigration, inequality, capitalism, and corporatism.

Hanson’s accessible book focuses on motives and norms but also covers selfishness, hypocrisy, norm violation, cheating, deception, self-deception, signaling, counter-signaling, social status (separated into dominance and prestige), power, money, and loyalty.

My 3 biggest takeaways from Hanson’s conversation with Harris were:

How frequently we are dishonest with ourselves about our motives
When it comes to what people want, you’re better off watching their actions than taking their word
It’s okay to be agnostic on things you haven’t looked into deeply – you’ll probably be happier too.

Finally, Hanson is also known for his work in predictive markets and forecasting. If that’s also of interest to you, check out: Why are we so so so bad at finishing projects on time?