Deconstruction

Outcome-oriented thinking is focusing on the result, rather than the process for achieving the result. Over the last few years, outcome-oriented thinking has become increasingly important to my decision process. It interests me because much of the time, outcome-oriented thinking is extremely valuable, while at other times, it’s actually leads you down incorrect paths.

Removing bias

Outcome-oriented thinking is great because it often avoids many of the biases that seem to creep into process-oriented thinking. Process-oriented thinking focuses on building a logical chain from actions to results. It relies on the idea that the world is largely causal, that it’s possible to understand the causes, and that anything outside the easily-understood causal chain isn’t important.

The problem is that process-oriented thinking often fails when there isn’t a direct logical chain from A to B, but rather a probabilistic one.  Or stated another way, it can fail in cases where the multiple factors contribute to an outcome.  Often in such situations, people will focus on building a process-oriented logical chain that fits their biases and completely ignore factors that contradict those biases.

Gratuitous reference to sex

For instance, take abstinence-only sex education. Many people believe that teen sexual activity is a bad thing and most people believe that teenage pregnancies are even worse. So, based on these biases, it’s natural to promote an abstinence agenda. Even discussing birth control might weaken this abstinence message, so clearly abstinence-only sex education is a logical method for reducing teen pregnancy.  This process-oriented thinking seems completely plausible.

But if you actually look at the outcomes, you’ll see that abstinence-only education doesn’t actually work. In fact, it may actually increase teen pregnancy rates. One could speculate that this is because sex education isn’t the only factor that determines whether teenagers have sex. Perhaps, by discouraging communication about sex and not providing safe-sex information, teenagers are more likely to experiment, and do so in unsafe ways.

Or maybe there are other explanations.  But that doesn’t matter to the outcome-oriented analysis. Outcome-oriented reasoning’s role is to tell us that, even if we don’t understand the causes, abstinence-only education as practiced today does not reduce teen pregnancy rates. And that’s incredibly useful, because it strips out all the biases and just examines what works.

When it fails

Unfortunately outcome-oriented analysis also has one great flaw: post-hoc rationalization of decisions in a way that ignores basic tests of statistical significance. It’s easiest to understand this flaw using a simple gambling example.

Suppose I fly to Las Vegas and bet all my money on Red 14 in Roulette. And then suppose my number comes up and I win.  Woo hoo!  Every dollar I bet is now $35, not a bad return for 2 minutes of effort.  So does that mean that betting all my money on Red 14 was a great decision?

Of course not.  The odds of me winning were 1 in 37, and I only got paid 35 times my money.  It’s a terrible bet. On average, the house will take 5.5% of my money every time I do this. The fact that I happened to get lucky on one spin is irrelevant. In this case, the results of one spin are statistically insignificant.

Now, it’s easy to spot this outcome-oriented analysis flaw in Las Vegas, but it is far less obvious in other situations. For instance, suppose you are tipsy, but decide you’re sober enough to drive home safely. You do so, and make it home without hitting anything. Does that mean that you were actually sober enough to drive? No.  Driving drunk simply means that your chance of an accident is elevated, not that you will have an accident. Maybe you were so plastered you actually had a 50% chance of hitting someone, but when you flipped that coin, you were lucky enough to have it land on heads rather than tails.

The bottom line

Outcome-oriented thinking is powerful. It can eliminate bias and show what really works. But, it is only relevant when the outcomes are statistically significant–one can’t justify a decision simply by saying “it worked”.

It’s not just nuclear war any more. Recently, science fiction has been discussing a number of threats that have the potential to wipe out a large chunk of humanity–weaponized genetically-engineered diseases, lack of biodiversity in food sources, the effects of global warming, and out of control nanotechnology. One of the most interesting threats to me is the one that is the most cliched science-fiction trope, but actually seems like a real possibility in the next fifty years, the singularity.

What’s a singularity?
The singularity is the birth of the sentient computer, portrayed in The Terminator, The Matrix, Transcendence, Her, even Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety”–basically any story where a computer becomes sentient and starts killing people.  While most of these stories focus on the moment the computer becomes sentient, that won’t be the key factor that results in the singularity.  Rather the key factor is the ability to the machine to improve itself.  Once these machines can self-improve and dream up ideas that people can’t, the growth in the machine’s abilities could be exponential, allowing it to quickly eclipse humanity.

Why now?
The singularity is interesting now because of the degree to which the world is interconnected and because of cloud computional models.  The interconnected bit is obvious–almost every first world person and corporation is connected to the Internet, and, with the rise of smart homes, soon most consumer electronics will be as well. Of course, they all have security, but hackers are already exploiting flaws to break into systems many systems. It’s reasonable to believe that a computer much smarter than any hacker would have little problems hacking these systems.

The cloud computational models are noteworthy because they provide a simple path to exponential growth in processing power.  One of the common design models for processing data in the cloud is to take a big problem, divide it up in to smaller problems, and run each of the smaller problems on its own computer.  You grab the computer from a pile of identical machines when you need it, and release it when you’re done.  Thus, we’re already putting in place the infrastructure for expanding processor power as needed and the ability for computers to decide when they need more processing power.  This is still a long way away from a singularity, but it’s a step on the path.

What can be done?
Asimov suggest the Three Laws of Robotics in his novels:

1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

While this is a good start, it’s unclear how to make these laws happen in real life.  Asimov implies the Laws of Robotics are inherent in the manufacture of the robot’s positronic brain, but that’s basically a hand-wavy description without any real substance.  Creating such rules for a true singularity seems challenging, particularly since the constraints would have to be robust enough to restrain a being significantly smarter and more capable than the humans who created the constraints.

To me, it feels like the safest option is to not use constraints at all, because it’s normal to look for ways around constraints. Instead, my hand-wavy suggestion is to figure out a way to make the machine not want to be a jerk, so that it focuses its abilities constructively rather than on overcoming restrictions in its programming.

The bottom line
This seems like one of those types of problems like global warming and genetically-engineered diseases that people aren’t good at solving. People tend to not care about a threat until they’ve seen it happen once, and it’s way more sexy creating a sentient computer than trying to restrain a sentient computer.  But unfortunately, the singularity also has the tipping point property–you only have to fail once. After an out of control singularity happens, it’s likely too late to say, “Oh, so the singularity is a threat. We should do something about that….”  There’s no way to put it all back into Pandora’s box.

To make matters worse, even if the vast majority of the world is responsible about the creation and management of singularities, it seems likely that in time, creating a singularity won’t be a huge effort requiring the most brilliant minds in the world. Instead, perhaps a single person or several people working together will be able to create one. So then to avoid a singularity, you’re relying on the intelligence, sanity, and goodwill of everyone on earth.

Good luck with that.

Occasionally in professional sports, an athlete comes along who is miles above everyone else. Tiger Woods, Sidney Crosby, or–right now–Connor McDavid.  That one guy who, when he’s still a young teenager, is predicted to break records in his sport.  Every team wants this guy, because he’s a once-in-a-generation talent, a guy who wins championships and brings in paying fans just by his presence.

And that’s creates a problem, because how do you determine which team gets him?  Almost always, sports leagues have the same answer.  For some reason, professional sports teams are able to ignore anti-competitive laws — they don’t have to compete monetarily to hire young athletes to play on their team. Instead, typically, they run a lottery including only the worst teams in the league.  Whichever team wins the lottery gets their pick of players. If you win, you’ll get the superstar and only have to pay him a fraction of the price he’d get in a free market.

Obviously, this is an amazing thing for whichever team wins the lottery. So much so that you have to wonder, is it worthwhile deliberately losing games in order to ensure your team is in the lottery, just to get a chance at a superstar player?

For the fans

For the fans of great teams who have a reasonable chance to win a championship, tanking doesn’t make sense.  It’s rare to have a top-tier team, so when you have it, you have to take that shot at the championship.

For a mediocre team, tanking is more interesting. People always say that in the playoffs, anything can happen.  But you know what?  It almost never does.

In the NHL, there are two 8th ranked teams who make the playoffs, one in each half of the league.  Since the 1940s, only one of these teams has ever won a Stanley Cup — the 2012 L.A. Kings.  So what are those odds?  About 1 in 150?

As a fan, given a choice, would you prefer a 1 in 150 chance of winning a championship?  Or would you prefer to miss the playoffs entirely, for a chance to get the player of his generation, the one who will entertain you for years and has a real chance of bringing in three or four championships?

It seems very clear to me.  The faint hope of a one year playoff run when you’ve already shown that you aren’t even close to the best in the league? Or the chance at years of entertainment?  Why wouldn’t fans choose the latter?

The owners’ perspective

Tanking seems good for the owners too. If a team is eliminated quickly in the playoffs, the owner will have a few home games, worth several million dollars in revenue each.  On the other hand, if they draft the superstar player, the rewards are huge.

First, they get a great player for a few years at significantly less than their fair market value. Second, they get that player bringing in fans over the course of several seasons — 41 games in hockey.  Either they’re filling more seats, or they’ll be raising ticket prices for all their seats, or both.

What’s more, if that player takes them deep into the playoffs with home advantage, they will have the revenue from all those playoff runs.

So, for the owners, tanking is gambling a few million dollars today for the chance to bring in hundreds of millions over the next 10 years or more.

How about the players?

The players are the only ones who are likely to lose by tanking. Theses athletes have a limited career. During that time, they want to maximize their chance of winning the championship (because most professional sports players get there because they are extremely competitive). And, they want to maximize the money they make over their short careers.

Tanking to bring in a superstar is unlikely to maximize their salary for two reasons.  First, players would tank by playing poorly, but playing poorly isn’t likely to lead to huge contracts, but rather hurt the value of that player.

Second, teams have limited budgets.  Over the short term, the superstar will be cheap. Over the long term, they will likely become the highest paid player on their team, and probably the league.  That will leave less money for the other players.  So economically, if you’re one of those players, it isn’t so good for you (except to the extent that playing with the superstar makes you look good too).

It also doesn’t make sense from the perspective of maximizing the chances to win a championship. First, the player would be throwing away one of their 10-15 potential opportunities to play for the championship. Second, teams turn over quickly. So even if you are on the team today, there is a good chance that, three years down the road when that superstar had developed enough to win you the championship, you will be on some other team. It’s fairly likely you’ll be playing against the superstar, not with them.  So, if you want your championship and want your money, it’s better not to tank.

The bottom line

Of course, I’m completely leaving out whether it’s ethical to tank for a good player. Assuming it isn’t against the rules, I think it is.  After all, everyone is supposed to be trying to maximize their chance to win, and why would maximizing the short term chance to win (i.e. not tanking) be any more ethical than maximizing the long term chance to win.

So, I think it’s in almost everyone’s interest to fail. Let the tanking begin….

Part of the process of publishing a novel traditionally is querying.  This involves sending a three paragraph teaser letter to agents and publishers describing your novel.  Ideally, they will like what they hear and decide to read the full manuscript.   I am in the process of querying for my first novel, The Battlefield Abductions, and, as expected, have received several rejections.

Reminds me of dating

This isn’t surprising. According to J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter was rejected “loads of times”, and its initial print run was only 500 copies. Similar anecdotes exist for many best-selling novels. Most advice I’ve read says to keep trying 70 times before giving up.

I understand the conundrum. As an agent or a publisher, you likely receive piles of query letters every week, and you need to be able to quickly identify the novel that you think you can sell.  It’s impossible to read all those manuscripts. So you have to decide based on a two minute read of the three paragraphs whether it’s worthwhile investing any more time on the book.  Most of the time, the answer must be “No”.  Besides, if you can’t get excited about the work based on those three paragraphs, how can you expect anyone excited enough to purchase it in a bookstore?

A 10-year old attending a school for wizards?  Heck no.

What this means for me       

I understand the math.  So well, in fact, that a decade ago, I wouldn’t have even bothered writing a novel.  The probability of impressing these gatekeepers even with an extraordinarily good book is low. It’s a lot of effort writing a novel, so why bother doing something where you need a huge amount of luck to even get to the point that people can acquire your book?

For me, the thing that changed is Kindle Direct Publishing. It means that, even if I’m unable to break through with traditional publishers, there is a way to get my book out there. Gatekeepers cannot prevent me from publishing my novel. It becomes even more of an entrepreneurial endeavour. But that’s not a big deal. I’ve already founded several businesses. This is just more of the same.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that I’ll try the traditional route for as long as it takes me to write the next novel. If not, I’ll go with KDP. Self-publishing works best with highly productive writers, so that there is always a new book for the audience to buy.  I’m not sure yet if I’m a highly product writer, but I’ve been that way in other jobs, so it’s reasonable to believe that I can do it here as well.

It will be an interesting journey.

7 Wonders is a board game that our family has been playing for a year or so.  It’s a card draft game, each turn, each player “builds” a card from their hand, and passes the remainder of their hand to one of their neighbours.  Each card directly or indirectly provides victory points or resources for purchasing future cards.

The game has several properties that make it compelling.  First, everyone acts simultaneously, so, unlike most board games, little time is spent sitting around waiting for someone else take their turn.  Second, while players can influence the outcomes of other players, particularly their neighbours, often the fact that you’re sabotaging them is hidden.  Thus, the game enables the joy of messing around with people without spawning bitterness and resentment from the victim.

Third, while there is a significant amount of randomness — which helps keep the game fresh — its impact on the outcome is unclear. I suspect that, among experienced players, random factors are the main determinant of the winner. But after playing the game probably thirty times, I’m still not certain that’s true.  There are a few clear-cut decisions–I suspect flexibility is almost always good–but most decisions are unclear, partly because the outcome depends on both random factors and the strategies of the other players.

Finally, the other key property of the game is that it’s fast.  So, if you mess up early, waiting for your doom doesn’t seem interminable, and you’ll be able to try again in a new game after a few minutes.

The only downside of the game is that the rules seem intimidating at first, but I’ve found that after a couple play throughs, everyone understands it.

Overall, I’d highly recommend 7 Wonders. It’s certainly on par with the other great recently-developed games like Settlers of Catan, Dominion, and Ticket To Ride.

I’ve been watching Friday Night Lights again. It’s a tragedy that this TV show never found an audience.  The show revolves around a high-school football team in small-town Texas, but the premise is only a canvas on which to paint the daily struggles of the main characters.

The show works because of the deep characters, exceptional acting, and understated interactions. While most TV hits the audience with a hammer to get its point across, Friday Night Lights uses subtle cues and trusts that the audience will fill in the full picture.

A good example was a conversation in a cafeteria between two characters who dated and broke up, but still found each other attractive.  In most shows, the awkwardness of the interaction would have been played up. Perhaps one of the characters would stutter, spill a drink, and say something embarrassing.

In Friday Night Lights, the awkwardness is conveyed by their banal conversation, the slight hollowness in the voice of one of the characters, and a joke that falls flat though neither character acknowledges it. They don’t stumble, but their eyes dart around and their expressions are slightly wooden.

That subtlety is what makes the show real and makes you identify with the characters. While life occasionally has the mortifying moments that are constantly portrayed by TV, there are far more moments that are only uncomfortable, slightly off. Where you hear your voice echo inside your head, feel disconnected from the experience, and just want to survive the moment. Friday Night Lights gets this. Consequently, the characters in the show come across as more rounded and easier to identify with. It’s more real.

As a result, when a character messes up, you understand how they got there and why there was nothing else they could possibly do. When a player is struggling in an impossible situation, you know why he perseveres, though there is no hope that his life will get any better.

Because of its subtlety, its characters, and its grittiness Friday Night Lights is one of my favorite shows. It was surprising to me that it wasn’t more popular, but I suspect it was done in by its premise. I think the people who would tune in to a show about a high school football team aren’t the ones who would enjoy a show like Friday Night Lights. And, the people who would enjoy a show like Friday Night Lights are the ones that would scoff at watching a show about a high school football team.

Their loss.