Wisdom and Crowds, One More Time

October 25, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

In the early months of this blog, I had some posts about The Wisdom of Crowds. The argument that James Surowiecki makes in his book of that name is that the collective wisdom of the general public, at least those who are interested in some topic, is superior to that of a few experts. (See this post for an example).

In other posts, I framed the issue as The Wisdom of Crowds vs. The Smart Money, and I wanted to see how the contest played out on the gridiron. Well, not the gridiron exactly, but in the betting about what went on there. My thesis was that the bookies (The Smart Money) were better at predicting outcomes than was the general public. (See here and here.)

Today, the NFL offers us two games that will provide more evidence. In the Steelers-Vikings game, the bookies made the Steelers a 4-point favorite. Since the beginning of the week, the public has been backing the Vikes. Three-fourths of the money has been bet on Minnesota. Usually, that would drive the line lower as bookmakers tried to make Steeler action more attractive in order to balance their books. But instead, the line has gone up to 6. Even with their books heavily weighted with Viking bets, the bookies seem to be asking the public to bet still more on the Vikes.

The Jets-Raiders game later this afternoon has a similar discrepancy. Jets opened as 7-point favorites. Public money came in on the Jets (about two-thirds of all action), but the line went down. Most books have it as 6 ½ or even 6, and it may go even lower by 4 p.m.

In both games, the bookies were responding not to the wisdom of the crowd but to the wisdom of a small number of sharp bettors, i.e, smart money.

If you follow the smart money, take the Steelers minus 6 (less, if you can find it) and Oakland plus as many as you can get (one online book still has them at 7). On the other side, the crowd, in its wisdom, 1) loves Bret Favre, and 2) doesn’t see how anyone can ever bet on the Raiders.

Sociologists, of course, will back the team whose head coach was a sociology major. Go Steelers!

(Mike and Ben having a chuckle over a basic flaw in Parsons' Social System.)

UPDATE: The Steelers won and covered, thanks to a couple of turnarounds by the defense. Twice, the Vikings looked certain to score only to have the great Bret Favre fumble or toss an interception that the Steelers returned for a TD. The smart money on the Raiders didn't look so smart. The Jets won easily, 38-0.

Culture, Relativism, and Bank Ads

October 23, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

The word values has become pretty much the property of conservatives, who take an absolutist position. Values tell us what’s right and wrong, and by God some things are just wrong. Abortion, gay marriage, Al Qaeda. And some things are just right. The War on Terrorism, Freedom, Democracy.

This view is neatly summed up in William Bennett’s phrase “moral clarity,” which stands strong against the wishy-washy liberal view called moral relativism. Sheesh, don’t get conservatives started on moral relativism. Here’s a guy on Glenn Beck’s show:

a certain segment of society who has been indoctrinated with a certain moral relativism. . . . And it quite frankly puts our civilization in danger.

Here’s Bill Bennett himself:

Most Republicans believe there are such things as objective values, things we can arrive at through reason, and discussion, and experience, and faith . . . A lot of liberals are still suffering from the relativism of the '60s and '70s. [Nice word choice – “suffering.”]

But for the past year HSBC has been banking on cultural relativism with their Different Values ad campaign.

Some of the ads give a pair of value-laden words (good, bad) with a picture for each. Then the pictures are switched. Papaya - good; chocolate cake - bad. Or is it the reverse? Same words, different pictures.



Other ads show the same picture, but with different value labels. What idea is triggered by this old convertible – Freedom? Status Symbol? Polluter?

(Click on the image for a larger view, and read the relativistic ad copy.)

(I especially like this one. Is having four kids the self-indulgence that comes with privilege, or is it sacrifice?)

The idea, neatly summed up in the tag line of the original ads is, “different values make the world a richer place.” OK, let’s forget about the intentional double meaning of richer. And maybe we should temporarily ignore the hypocrisy of HSBC, having gobbled up local banks, now coming out as the promoter of local values.

What the ad illustrates – and this is how I’ll use them in class next week when we start talking about culture – is the idea of culture as a “meaning system.” What something means depends on the culture of the people interpreting it – as in the shaved head ad.
Those interpretations are based in experience, and the experiences we have depend on where we are in the society – as in the computer/baby ad.


Or the carpet ad.


(Can we still call them “Oriental” rugs? I guess it depends on our culture. But if we can’t call them Oriental rugs, what are they?)

UPDATE. A few hours after I posted this yesterday, I went to Brooklyn for dinner with friends. Getting out of the subway, I glanced back at the skyline of Manhattan, the island much glorified (by some), much vilified (by others), and much gentrified. Then I started up Montague St., and one of the first things I passed was an HSBC bank with this ad inside.

Service Without a Smile

October 20, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

Jenn Lena links to a site where DJ s tell stupid-club-patron stories.

dude: got any Jurassic Five?
dj: it's a Brit pop night tonight, so it wouldn't really fit in
dude: ok, what about Nirvana?
dj: Nirvana are American
dude: oh, I see. then how about The Smashing Pumpkins?

Waiters tell similar stories about diners. The blogger at Waiter Rant managed to get his blog published as a book. Teachers tell stupid-student stories. RateYourStudents, is payback for RateMyProfessors, but the tone is different, more like the DJ s’ and less like advice on who to avoid. Doctors probably tell stupid patient stories; they just don’t do it on the Internet.

People in most service occupations, it seems, have stories about the stupidity of those they serve. The dudes or blondes, students, customers and occasionally the employers are inevitably ignorant, and exasperating. They are also often selfishly inconsiderate. And they don’t even realize it.

Why do we tell these stories? They seem to have a defensive quality, as though the self is threatened , for in most cases the moral of the story is, “I deserve better.” They are literally self-serving. They serve to defend the self. The threat to self is especially acute when the clients have some power and can make demands. Most of the DJ stories, like the one above, involve requests. Ditto for waiter stories. But even when control over one’s work is not an issue, even when the client has almost no power, as with teachers and doctors, people need to distance the self from the implications of the situation.

When we sit around and swap these stories, we are telling ourselves that we are in the business of creating pearls, and we do create them. But the demands of our job require us to cast them before swine (or, as we say now, before H1N1).

Times They Are a-Changin'

October 16, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

There were several empty seats when I got to class yesterday, so I asked the students if it was still early. A couple of them flipped open their cell phones.

Doesn’t anybody have a watch? I remembered all those mornings when my son went off to high school, and I would see his wristwatch lying on the dresser. “Aren’t you taking your watch?”

“No.”

So I took a survey. How many of you don’t wear a wristwatch? They all raised their hands (and bare wrists) except for one student, and even she wasn’t wearing hers that day. It’s all cell phones. “The new pocket watch,” said one student. I suggested he ought get a chain and waistcoat.*

It looks like the wristwatch is another generational marker, soon to go the way of the typewriter.
But a wristwatch isn’t just for telling time. It’s jewelry, it’s conspicuous consumption. A friend who worked at Canyon Ranch (an expensive spa) told he had witnessed a small misunderstanding there. One client (rancher? camper?) had mistaken another as an employee. The one who felt he’d been slighted thrust out his arm at the other man. “That’s a five thousand dollar Rolex,” he announced.

Cell phones are democratizing. Yes, some cost more than others, but the top of the line phone, the best phone, the iPhone, is within reach of most people. The most expensive model I could find online today costs $750. And the cheaper iPhones look just like the expensive ones.

Watches, on the other wrist, have limitless potential as status markers. That Rolex would be put to shame by even a low-end Patek Phillipe, like this $16,000 model (which looks strikingly like a Timex I used to own.)

Or this De Bethune with a MSRP of $95,000.


But why not get something really good like this Blancpain? It’s only 250,000 (the website didn’t say whether that was dollars or euros. If the latter, multiply by about 1.5. But if you have to do the math, you probably can’t afford it anyway.)

*I also told him of the line I heard Woody Allen use on the Johnny Carson show ages ago. Woody took out a pocket watch as if to check the time, and Carson admired it. “My grandfather,” said Woody somberly, “on his deathbed,” he paused, “sold me this watch.”