Roddy White pushed the Raven's defensive back on his touchdown grab at the end of the game. It might have been an acting job but it looks pretty clear cut.
The refs need to grow a pair and throw the flag when a superstar breaks a rule. Anyone remember the hold at the end of the 2003 Colts-Patriots AFC Championship game?
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Rick Reilly Quote
Rick Reilly is the best sports writer on the planet--yes, even better than Bill Simmons.
Here's an instant classic:
Here's an instant classic:
In fact, now people are trying to take away BCS-conference wins this season [Boise State has] already earned. Robert Smith, one of ESPN's college football analysts, said recently, "I'm trying to keep an open mind about all this. But I'm not so sure if Boise State plays Virginia Tech today, they beat them."I lost the link.
I'd hate to see Smith on The History Channel. "I'm trying to keep an open mind about all this, but I'm not so sure the Allies win World War II if they fight today."
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The Legacy of Randy Moss
There used to be a debate about whether Randy Moss was--or would one day be--the greatest receiver of all time. I think this year closed the book this that debate.
Randy Moss will never be Jerry Rice.
It's actually a good story. Moss was a freak, a naturally talented wide receiver with huge hands, blazing speed, 6'5'' stature AND the ability to leap. Rice had below-average just about everything, but a legendary work ethic. What does that say about the value of directed practice?
I'm not so sure the conclusion is fair though. Rice played in the West Coast offense before defense knew how to cover it. He played for two of the best quarterbacks of all time. His numbers are that much better than Moss's. I think they are better--even when you adjust using your priors for the time period, coaching and teammates. But even if Moss had better numbers most people would point to Rice's rings and maintain that he was the best. Moss made his teammates worse--look at the debacle with the Vikings this year--while Rice made his teammates better. I don't know how true that is. It's a good story. But if the Patriots won Super Bowl XXII and Brad Childress didn't let the Vikings go down in flames, and Moss remained Moss, wouldn't that argument fall to pieces?
Randy Moss will never be Jerry Rice.
It's actually a good story. Moss was a freak, a naturally talented wide receiver with huge hands, blazing speed, 6'5'' stature AND the ability to leap. Rice had below-average just about everything, but a legendary work ethic. What does that say about the value of directed practice?
I'm not so sure the conclusion is fair though. Rice played in the West Coast offense before defense knew how to cover it. He played for two of the best quarterbacks of all time. His numbers are that much better than Moss's. I think they are better--even when you adjust using your priors for the time period, coaching and teammates. But even if Moss had better numbers most people would point to Rice's rings and maintain that he was the best. Moss made his teammates worse--look at the debacle with the Vikings this year--while Rice made his teammates better. I don't know how true that is. It's a good story. But if the Patriots won Super Bowl XXII and Brad Childress didn't let the Vikings go down in flames, and Moss remained Moss, wouldn't that argument fall to pieces?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Double Standards and Finance
A lot of people on Main Street wonder how people on Wall Street can manipulate people the way they do and think nothing of it. The standard explanation is that it's about money: people on Wall Street are greedy so they do immoral things knowingly to get more money. That is certainly part of the story but I think it's a smallest part then people think.
The bigger thing is that institutions shape ethics. What we think is right or wrong depends in large part on the role we are playing. If we are playing the role of businessperson we apply different standards of right and wrong. We treat ourselves by the standard of that role, not by the normal standard of right and wrong. (We do account for other people's roles a little bit, but not much.) On Wall Street the role of a trade, esp. a bond trader, is to manipulate other people for financial gain. For instance, you could manufacture synthetic CDOs so you can sell CDS to hungry hedge funds and then dump the CDOs on some unwitting mutual fund manager, make a tidy profit, and who gives a fuck about all the grandmothers who had their 401ks in the fund. That isn't immoral. Finance is a zero sum game. Someone has to lose. So it's ok to do what needs to be done to win the game.
In that example it's hard to believe the person selling CDOs doesn't understand that what he is doing is wrong. He made that security specifically so that he could sell it to a dope, didn't he? I don't think so, based on anecdotal evidence.
Here is a similar example. Suppose that there is a food stamp program in New York City. It's common knowledge that you can get food stamps if you are living below the poverty line and you can use them to meet basic nutrition requirements. As it turns out, a few restaurants owned by rich businessmen donated to the mayor last campaign and food stamps actually can be used to buy any kind of food--even prepared meals or wine. It also turns out that if you go to the food stamp office, anyone is eligible to get the stamps as long as they wait in line. This is a closely guarded secret though, because if it became widely know that the mayor made these changes he'd take a beating in the polls because everyone agrees they are horrible ideas. Everyone can also probably see what the rules were setup that way: now those restaurant owners tell their best customers to go get food stamps then bring them there for expensive meals that don't cost a time since the city pays the tab.
I talked to someone about something completely isomorphic to that scenario and they couldn't understand what was wrong with a rich person taking the food stamps and using them to buy a nice dinner while the city foots the bill. I think it's a general problem, from talking to rich people, that they tend to be pretty ignorant of all the mechanisms they use to ensure the playing field isn't level in school and at work, and use that ignorant to maintain the illusion that their "success" as they define it is based on talent. A prime exhibit of this is all the rich people at Harvard who think they are actually "Harvard smart." (Maybe they are of above-avearge intelligence. But to get into Harvard on merit, e.g. be "Harvard smart," you need to be 1 in 1,000 or rarer. If you had any comparably smart peers in high school--nearly all of them did--you almost certainly aren't "Harvard smart.")
The bigger thing is that institutions shape ethics. What we think is right or wrong depends in large part on the role we are playing. If we are playing the role of businessperson we apply different standards of right and wrong. We treat ourselves by the standard of that role, not by the normal standard of right and wrong. (We do account for other people's roles a little bit, but not much.) On Wall Street the role of a trade, esp. a bond trader, is to manipulate other people for financial gain. For instance, you could manufacture synthetic CDOs so you can sell CDS to hungry hedge funds and then dump the CDOs on some unwitting mutual fund manager, make a tidy profit, and who gives a fuck about all the grandmothers who had their 401ks in the fund. That isn't immoral. Finance is a zero sum game. Someone has to lose. So it's ok to do what needs to be done to win the game.
In that example it's hard to believe the person selling CDOs doesn't understand that what he is doing is wrong. He made that security specifically so that he could sell it to a dope, didn't he? I don't think so, based on anecdotal evidence.
Here is a similar example. Suppose that there is a food stamp program in New York City. It's common knowledge that you can get food stamps if you are living below the poverty line and you can use them to meet basic nutrition requirements. As it turns out, a few restaurants owned by rich businessmen donated to the mayor last campaign and food stamps actually can be used to buy any kind of food--even prepared meals or wine. It also turns out that if you go to the food stamp office, anyone is eligible to get the stamps as long as they wait in line. This is a closely guarded secret though, because if it became widely know that the mayor made these changes he'd take a beating in the polls because everyone agrees they are horrible ideas. Everyone can also probably see what the rules were setup that way: now those restaurant owners tell their best customers to go get food stamps then bring them there for expensive meals that don't cost a time since the city pays the tab.
I talked to someone about something completely isomorphic to that scenario and they couldn't understand what was wrong with a rich person taking the food stamps and using them to buy a nice dinner while the city foots the bill. I think it's a general problem, from talking to rich people, that they tend to be pretty ignorant of all the mechanisms they use to ensure the playing field isn't level in school and at work, and use that ignorant to maintain the illusion that their "success" as they define it is based on talent. A prime exhibit of this is all the rich people at Harvard who think they are actually "Harvard smart." (Maybe they are of above-avearge intelligence. But to get into Harvard on merit, e.g. be "Harvard smart," you need to be 1 in 1,000 or rarer. If you had any comparably smart peers in high school--nearly all of them did--you almost certainly aren't "Harvard smart.")
Friday, November 5, 2010
Quote of the Day: MIT Edition
The great thing about MIT is that it's driven by ideas.
But the bad thing about MIT is that not matter how awful your idea is, someone will be excited about it as long it involves technology and your elevator pitch includes buzzwords like "leadership," "entrepreneurship," or "sustainability."
(If you have a good idea that can't be summarized in an elevator pitch, doesn't involve technology, and doesn't use buzz words, it might get ignored. I wonder how J-PAL ever got approved?)
But the bad thing about MIT is that not matter how awful your idea is, someone will be excited about it as long it involves technology and your elevator pitch includes buzzwords like "leadership," "entrepreneurship," or "sustainability."
(If you have a good idea that can't be summarized in an elevator pitch, doesn't involve technology, and doesn't use buzz words, it might get ignored. I wonder how J-PAL ever got approved?)
Monday, November 1, 2010
Is stupidity Dangerous? - Part II
Here is an example of a horrible argument made by someone who I think wants to be taken seriously.
There is something that jumps off the page about that argument that is a real sin. But I don't think enough people are trained to see what it is. Thankfully, I've beaten it like a dead horse on this blog so I'm not even going to state it.
But beyond the main problem, the argument also fails to correctly account for benefits.
If your argument about policy is coherent you should be able to turn it into a list of costs and benefits and assign each benefit a distribution of value and a distribution of probability that seems reasonable. That is your argument and you are just using words to dress it up to make it readable. But the two forms should be equivalent and you should always be able to turn one into the other.
Here I don't think the person who made that argument really thought much about the values of the probabilities of the benefits they are talking about (i.e. the benefits from averting a terrorist attack). Why do I think that? They imply that agricultural-based economies will be common in 100 years. But no one thinks that considering the rate of global economic growth. They never mention their assumptions about the discount rate, which is critical over a 100 year horizon. And they suggest that P(supports terrorists| failed state) is non-trivial, which I don't think is reasonable.
Global warming is going to make the earth warmer. Let's take that as a fact. The result is that there will be less arable cropland in 100 years. This will increase the probability that poor countries reliant on farming fall into chaos. The U.S. will be less secure because these failed states harbor terrorists and commit genocide and other actions that draw U.S. involvement.
So the U.S. needs to do something about global warming.
There is something that jumps off the page about that argument that is a real sin. But I don't think enough people are trained to see what it is. Thankfully, I've beaten it like a dead horse on this blog so I'm not even going to state it.
But beyond the main problem, the argument also fails to correctly account for benefits.
If your argument about policy is coherent you should be able to turn it into a list of costs and benefits and assign each benefit a distribution of value and a distribution of probability that seems reasonable. That is your argument and you are just using words to dress it up to make it readable. But the two forms should be equivalent and you should always be able to turn one into the other.
Here I don't think the person who made that argument really thought much about the values of the probabilities of the benefits they are talking about (i.e. the benefits from averting a terrorist attack). Why do I think that? They imply that agricultural-based economies will be common in 100 years. But no one thinks that considering the rate of global economic growth. They never mention their assumptions about the discount rate, which is critical over a 100 year horizon. And they suggest that P(supports terrorists| failed state) is non-trivial, which I don't think is reasonable.
Is stupidity dangerous? - Part I
I was talking to a friend about why I don't like people who study serious topics but don't really care whether they get the right answer to the question they're asking.
When I write it, it sounds so ridiculous that it's hard to believe anyone would do it. So I'm going to write one blog on how it happens and come back to the question of whether it's dangerous in the next blog.
Here is the key fact. It's usually harder to tell if your argument is correct than to make a correct one. It's hard to think up proofs in math, but it's much harder to check whether proofs are right. It's easy to give an opinion on a philosophical topic that is logically coherent. It's harder to check an argument for consistency.
This isn't always the case. It's easier to check if a solution (x,y) to a system of equations is correct than to find a solution, and it's easier to check the dates of important historical events than to remember them.
But in general, where arguments are concerned, it's easier to make a correct argument than to verify the correctness of one.
The result is that there are a lot of people who are capable of making correct arguments (and, also, incorrect ones) but can't verify is there argument makes sense. They understand enough about logic and cost-benefit analysis and regressions to weave some evidence together, but not enough to just the evidence on the whole for themselves.
In Washington these people are tasked with writing briefs and memos and sometimes giving presentations on topics, and they give them. But since they are incapable of assessing their arguments, and often most of their audience is equally incapable (their bosses, the voters in congress are often less informed than they are!), sometimes bad arguments spread.
When I write it, it sounds so ridiculous that it's hard to believe anyone would do it. So I'm going to write one blog on how it happens and come back to the question of whether it's dangerous in the next blog.
Here is the key fact. It's usually harder to tell if your argument is correct than to make a correct one. It's hard to think up proofs in math, but it's much harder to check whether proofs are right. It's easy to give an opinion on a philosophical topic that is logically coherent. It's harder to check an argument for consistency.
This isn't always the case. It's easier to check if a solution (x,y) to a system of equations is correct than to find a solution, and it's easier to check the dates of important historical events than to remember them.
But in general, where arguments are concerned, it's easier to make a correct argument than to verify the correctness of one.
The result is that there are a lot of people who are capable of making correct arguments (and, also, incorrect ones) but can't verify is there argument makes sense. They understand enough about logic and cost-benefit analysis and regressions to weave some evidence together, but not enough to just the evidence on the whole for themselves.
In Washington these people are tasked with writing briefs and memos and sometimes giving presentations on topics, and they give them. But since they are incapable of assessing their arguments, and often most of their audience is equally incapable (their bosses, the voters in congress are often less informed than they are!), sometimes bad arguments spread.
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