What's Fair? Perceptions and Realities of Income Inequality

In 2012 the median income for CEO's at S&P 500 companies was $11,952,669 and $8,124,542 for those at Russell 1000 businesses (Governance Metrics International, 2013). These figures are total compensation, including base salary, bonuses, vested stock options, company contributions to retirement accounts, and other perks.  The overall 2012 ratio of CEO income to that of the average worker was 354:1, up rather dramatically from a ratio of 20:1 in 1965 (Kiatpongsan & Norton, 2014).

While CEO compensation has increased over the years, the average income of workers has not, and in fact the average household income has declined 9% from its peak in 1999.  From 2011 to 2012 the income of average workers increased hardly at all, whereas the compensation for S&P 500 CEO's rose by 19.65%  and by 15.74% for Russell 1000 CEO's (Governance Metrics International, 2013).  During the 2009-2012 recession recovery period, incomes for 99% of the workforce rose less than 1%, whereas incomes for the top 1% grew by 31.4% (Saez & Zucman, 2014).  In 2010, nearly half of the income in the U.S. went to just the top 10% (Piketty & Saez, 2014).

Of course, income translates into wealth in terms of savings, possessions, and investments.  In a thorough analysis of wealth trends over the years, Berkley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman show that the income gap parallels the gap in overall wealth owned by different segments of society:

Despite an average growth rate of wealth per family of 1.9% per year, for 90% of U.S. families wealth has not grown at all over the 1986-2012 period. This situation contrasts with the dynamics of the average wealth of the top 1%, which was almost multiplied by 3 from the mid-1980s (about $5 million) to 2012 ($14 million), fell by about 20% from mid-2007 to mid-2009, but quickly recovered thereafter (Saez & Zucman, 2014, p. 24).

With respect to the middle class, their analysis is equally sobering:

Contrary to a widespread view, we find that despite the rise in pensions and home ownership rates, the middle class does not own a significantly greater share of total wealth today than 70 years ago.The share of wealth owned by the middle class has followed an inverted-U shape evolution: it first increased from the early 1930s to the 1980s, peaked in the mid-1980s, and has continuously declined since then...(Saez & Zucman, 2014, p. 24).

A few years ago I presented research that documented widely held misperceptions of how wealth in America is distributed (Misperceiving Wealth in America, 7/2/11 ).  Specifically, people tend to greatly underestimate the difference between the wealthiest and those with less economic means (Norton & Ariely, 2011)  -- the actual gap in wealth distribution is more than three times the size people think it is. The source of the error is that people believe the wealthy control less wealth than they actually do (59% versus 85%) and that the large middle class own more than is really the case (37% versus just 15%).

What about people's perceptions of the income gap?  Do they misperceive the size of it as well, perhaps by  underestimating the size of the gap? Also, a related question that seems relevant to informing economic policy regarding the gap is what difference in income levels do most people perceive as fair and reasonable?  Finally, do Americans differ in their perceptions from those in other countries?

These questions have recently been investigated by Michael Norton of the Harvard Business School and Sorapop Kiatpongsan of the Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Thailand's Chulalongkorn University (Norton & Kiatpongsan, 2014) and their results appear in the November 2014 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science. Norton & Kiatpongsan surveyed 55,000 people in 40 countries and asked them to estimate average incomes for CEO's  and unskilled workers. The respondents also gave estimates of how much they thought those in each group should earn. Norton & Kiatpongsan then calculated the ratio of estimates of CEO to worker income and also the ratio of estimates of ideal incomes.

Estimated pay ratios of CEOs to unskilled workers ranged from 3.7:1 in Denmark to 41.7:1 in South Korea, whereas ideal ratios ranged from 2.0:1 in Denmark to 20.0:1 in Taiwan.  Despite this variation in estimates of pay differences, in all 16 countries for which actual income data were available, the estimated ratio was significantly smaller than the actual ratios.  This was particularly true in the U.S., where the estimated ratio of  29.6:1 was considerably less than the actual ratio of 354:1.  Americans clearly think the income gap is smaller than it really is, underestimating its size by more than a factor of 10.

In terms of ideal income ratios, in all 40 countries these were significantly lower than the estimated ratios, and significantly lower than actual ratios for the 16 countries with income data, including the U.S.  This suggests that the current income gap -- estimated or actual -- is seen as far from ideal.  Norton & Kiatpongsan found that the differences between people's estimates of actual and ideal pay levels held across demographic groups (age, education level, and socioeconomic status), political beliefs (left, center, right), and beliefs about what factors influence income (level of responsibility, competence, effort).  Note that this doesn't mean that everyone agrees on what the size of the income gap should be, but it does indicate that there is a strong international consensus that it should be smaller than it is now. And the fact that ideal ratios are smaller than estimated ratios even for those at higher socioeconomic levels reveals that this phenomenon isn't just a reflection of those who are less well off wanting to take away the wealth of the rich.  As Norton & Kiatpongsan put it: "These results suggest that—in contrast to a belief that only the poor and members of left-wing political parties desire greater income equality—people all over the world and from all walks of life would prefer smaller pay gaps between the rich and poor."

The question of how to reduce the income gap is a difficult one and likely will involve considerable political debate, as it has begun to do so in the U.S. with calls to raise the minimum wage, place caps on executive compensation, restructure income taxes, etc.  It is nevertheless an important issue affecting not only worker morale and productivity, but possibly overall economic growth, as suggested by a recent analysis of historical data on the impact of efforts to reduce income inequality.  The authors of the study, economists at the International Monetary Fund, concluded that :..lower net inequality is robustly correlated with faster and more durable growth..." and "...the combined direct and indirect effects of redistribution -- including the growth effects of the resulting lower inequality are on average pro-growth."  It seems to make sense that a healthy economy needs people with enough money to make capital investments that create jobs, but it also needs those who fill those jobs to have enough income to buy the products and services that are created. 

It is also a matter of fairness. As Deborah Hargreaves of London's High Pay Center has put it, "Top chief executives worldwide often take home far more in one year than most people will earn in their entire lifetime...It is important that we put pressure on businesses and policy makers to develop measures to stop pay gaps opening up even further, and to share the rewards of success more fairly — for everyone’s benefit" (New York Times Opinion Piece, 2014).  This may sound like a conservative's worst nightmare -- some socialistic/communistic forcible redistribution of the income and accumulated wealth of the rich to the (undeserving) poor.  But a fair society isn't necessarily one where there is no income gap.  It is one in which inequality exists without disadvantaging or exploiting any segment of society and in which all citizens have the opportunity to live satisfying and enriching lives.

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Sources and Resources:

Misperceiving Wealth in America,  Snow Crash, 7/2/11

2013 CEO Pay Survey - Governance Metrics International Ratings

"Wealth Inequality in the United States Since 1913:  Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data."Emmanuel Saez &Gabriel Zucman.  National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper.

How Much (More) Should CEOs Make? A Universal Desire for More Equal Pay.  Sorapop Kiatpongsan & Michael I. Norton. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2014.

Income Inequality in The Long Run. Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.  2014 Science article.

Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth.  Discussion Note of International Monetary Fund, 2014. Jonathan D. Ostry, Andrew Berg,  & Charalambos G. Tsangarides

Can We Close the Pay Gap?  New York Times Opinion Piece, 2014, by Deborah Hargreaves.

US CEOs break pay record as top 10 earners take home at least $100m each | Business | The Guardian, 10/22/13.

Some Christmas Cheer: Liters of Light

Finally, another in my "Ray of Sunshine" series!  Suitable topics have been very hard to come by recently, buried deep in all the bad news about wars, political meltdowns, scandals, natural and unnatural disasters, etc., etc.  But here's something to fit the spirit of the season and counter some of that negativity.  It is about efforts to provide disadvantaged people around the world with a low-cost, environmentally friendly, and ecologically sustainable source of  interior lighting for their homes, schools, and businesses.  The impact on their lives is heart-warming -- and literally a "ray of sunshine."

BBC News Photo

"Liter of Light" refers to the main material used to create the lights -- discarded plastic liter bottles.  The bottles are filled with water plus a little chlorine to prevent algae growth, and then sealed into a hole cut in the roof with the majority of the bottle protruding below into the building.  Sunlight hitting the bottle is refracted into the space at about the same brightness as a 50-watt light bulb. The inventor of this device is Brazilian Alfredo Moser, who came up with the idea in 2002.  Although the original version works only during the day, a simple solar storage system has been developed that provides light at night as well, using a small photovoltaic panel and a battery attached to the plastic bottle.

Light is one of those things that we who are fortunate enough to live in countries with highly developed infrastructures take for granted, along with other niceties like clean running water, roads with only a few potholes, and centralized sewage treatment systems.  But the fact is that much of the world lives in conditions where none of these are the norm, including reliable lighting. Not having adequate interior light is perhaps hard for us to imagine, but it poses great difficulties for many people around the world for whom it is a fact of everyday life.

BBC News Photo

In Bangladesh, for example, daytime power outages are common in poor areas like Dhaka, leaving schools, homes, and small businesses in the dark.  As one student described the conditions before the bottle lights were installed in his school, "During power outages, our classrooms became so dark that our teachers often had to take us out into the corridor where we read under a bit of sunlight that managed to creep in."  The school could not afford a costly back-up generator, and kerosene lamps and candles were expensive, ineffective, and unsafe.  After a local organization called CHANGE installed Moser's low-cost bottle lights in the school the situation improved dramatically.  According to the same student, "We can now read and write under the solar-powered lights during the day, despite power outages or bad weather."  Other lights have enabled small business owners to be more productive during outages.  "It's helped hundreds of people - including sari makers and rickshaw repairers - whose livelihoods depend on having sufficient light" (BBC News).  A simple device made from trash, affordable by even the poorest, can make a huge difference in the quality of people's lives.

Even in situations where electricity is reliable, the savings in energy costs to people with meager incomes can provide much needed extra money.  Moser recounts "There was one man who installed the lights and within a month he had saved enough to pay for the essential things for his child, who was about to be born. Can you imagine?" (BBC News)  And there is a savings in terms of the carbon footprint of the bottle of light versus incandescent bulbs.  Being made from discarded material, the bottle lights require no significant energy to create and no CO2 is associated with their operation. In contrast, the carbon footprint of the manufacture of one incandescent bulb is 0.45kg CO2, and a 50-watt light bulb running for 14 hours a day for a year has a carbon footprint of nearly 200kg CO2 (BBC News).

Alfredo Moser

The impact of such a simple idea on the environment and on improving people's lives around the world is remarkable. Moser's invention has been adopted by organizations in at least 15 countries other than Brazil, from India and Bangladesh to Tanzania, Argentina and Fiji, and bottle lights have now been installed in hundreds of thousands of homes.  As Illac Angelo Diaz, executive director of the MyShelter Foundation in the Philippines put it, "Alfredo Moser has changed the lives of a tremendous number of people, I think forever." (BBC News) Thanks for the ray of sunshine, Alfredo......

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For More Information:
A Liter of Light Organization Website
Alfredo Moser: Bottle light inventor proud to be poor.  BBC World Service, Uberaba, Brazil
Liter of Light Wikipedia Entry 
Bottle Lights Brighten Lives in Bangladesh.  Aljazeera News

Dying to Know Why We Die?

First, an important disclaimer.  This is NOT a discussion of deeply religious or philosophical questions, like do we really die when our bodies give out?  I'll just note that physical aging and death is something most of us are quite ambivalent about. We acknowledge it will happen eventually, but we view it as something terrifyingly unnatural and maybe, just maybe, it can be escaped somehow -- if not physically then through some philosophical or religious mechanism. But notions like the immortality of the soul, kharmic continuation, and unembodied consciousness assimilation will be left for another time, maybe to be discussed over several pints of good beer.

My focus is more down to earth (so to speak) -- why do our bodies get old and die? Why is death inevitable?  Why, exactly do we die?  As difficult as these questions may seem, there has been some rather impressive progress in the last few decades in answering them from a scientific perspective. However, before examining the most current thinking on aging and dying that has come from the scientific study of aging processes let's consider some more informal notions that I've heard friends express, and my own pet theory of death which I acknowledge in advance as being quite preposterous.

Crackpot Theories of Aging: Fine Wine, Black Holes, Leaky Buckets and Heartbeat Banks

Unencumbered by the scientific requirements of reliable evidence, logical consistency, and demonstrated generalizability, people naturally come up with their own explanations of any phenomenon, judging them as acceptable mainly if they meet the "sounds-good-to-me" test.  Generally these explanations rely heavily on reasoning by analogy ("it's like....").  Some are more sophisticated, resting the analysis on some kernel of scientific truth and then distorting and overextending the principles to make unwarranted assertions.  Naturally, I favor the second, pseudo-scientific type.

An example of the "It's like...." category is the Fine Wine Theory.  Aging is like producing fine wine -- at first the wine is young, strong, and rather too sharp and unruly on the tongue, but then as it ages through natural chemical processes it becomes better and better, developing complexity, sophistication and substance.  However, after a certain point all wine goes bad, and the chemical processes finally lead to its destruction, leaving only foul-tasting vinegar. I suspect geezers from California favor this explanation because it can justify a "drink-the-wine-while-there's-still-time" lifestyle.

A sub-category of the analogy type of theory are those that are based on the idea that life is determined by some sort of finite resource that is slowly depleted until it's gone.  The Leaky Bucket Theory is an example, and the name says it all -- we're born with full buckets of vital essence but they have holes that slowly drain the life force until...well, you know. The Heartbeat Bank is a variation on this that years ago a friend suggested to me.  His idea was that we're each born with a certain number of heartbeats to our "account"  and when they're used up our accounts are closed, along with the lid to our casket.  This idea has great appeal to couch potatoes who can argue that they are simply being frugal with their heartbeats. To them athletes are squandering their allotment and will probably die an early death.  Notice how unencumbered this one is with the mountain of evidence that has now accumulated indicating just the opposite is true -- exercise lengthens life and shortens morbidity (see my earlier blog, "How To Compress Your Morbidity").

My own pet theory is an example of the pseudo-scientific category of lay theories.  These generally sound authoritative but if examined closely they are empirically unsupported and in my case, logically absurd.  My theory is that we are each born with an accompanying teensy black hole that follows us throughout our lifetimes, getting bigger and more powerful with each passing day.  Being tuned to our personal electromagnetic auras it begins to entrap our belongings, our bodies, our energy, and finally our entire life force, though things can temporarily escape back into our realm until the final total crossing of the event horizon. Note that this theory satisfactorily explains the common geezer experience of objects blinking in and out of existence. You know, those car keys, cell phone, t.v. remote, hat, tool, false teeth, etc. that suddenly disappear -- only to reappear some time later in the exact same spot you had looked ten times.  What else could it be??

Serious and Scientific Theories of Aging and Death

Needless to say, my Black Hole theory didn't entirely satisfy my desire for an authoritative explanation of aging and death.  In my search for something more intellectually and scientifically substantive, the best source of up-to-date, readable, and thorough information that I found is presented by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and in particular their InfoAging Guide on Theories of Aging, published in 2011.  I highly recommend it.  Another excellent source is a 2010 special issue of the journal Aging and Disease, in particular the introduction by Kulin Jin.

The AFAR guide makes the distinction between theories of why we age, which are generally broad and overarching explanations, and more specific hypotheses about how we age, which are proposals about the particular mechanisms and processes of aging.  Theories about why we age tend to be mutually exclusive and contradictory, suggesting that not all of them can be true, whereas particular hypotheses about mechanisms of aging do not necessarily conflict and a number of these might be simultaneously correct.

Research regarding hypotheses of aging mechanisms has yielded a great deal of substantive knowledge on ways to slow aging and even prevent certain destructive processes altogether.  The following hypotheses have received at least some empirical support and consequently enough media coverage that they may be familiar:

• Free Radicals Bad, Anti-Oxidants Good.  Free radicals are destructive by-products of normal cellular activity and when we are young our bodies produce substances called anti-oxidants which repair most of the damage caused by free-radicals.  With age more damage accumulates, however, eventually destroying cells altogether.  Diet fads for increasing our intake of anti-oxidants were based on early research that suggested food high in these substances increased the longevity of laboratory animals.  Unfortunately more recent experiments "...have not yeilded conclusive results..." and experiments "...attempting to reverse the effects of oxidative damage by feeding experimental animals dietary antioxidants...have not yielded conclusive results" (AFAR -- see also Guide to Oxidative Damage and Aging).  Still, high-anti-oxidant foods include chocolate and red wine, so why not cover your bases, right?
• Your DNA dipstick is getting shorter and shorter. Called by scientists the Replicative Senescence Hypothesis, the idea here is that with each cell division, the protective caps on chromosomes, called telomeres, get shorter and shorter until the cell can no longer divide.  It isn't dead, but can no longer contribute to renewing the organ of which it is a part.  Although an important factor in aging, the telomere hypothesis has shortcomings as an overall theory because not all cells divide (e.g, neurons and heart muscle), and not all organisms have cells that replicate enough to produce senescence. 
• Starve yourself into immortality. Called the Caloric Restriction Hypothesis, the idea is that by reducing excess calories burned, less oxidation damage occurs. The operative word here is "excess" because experimental findings indicate that caloric restriction in which laboratory animals are maintained on balanced diets with 30-40% fewer calories doesn't change metabolic rate, but reliably increases their life span and "...retards almost all of the age-related changes mice normally undergo, including the onset of age-related diseases" (AFAR).  There's just one teensy little problem: "Rodents maintained on calorically restricted diets are thin, cold, stunted, and sometimes sterile. It is likely that such animals, although they survive to a ripe old age in the laboratory, would never stand a chance in the wild."  This makes immortality a lot less attractive to me, thank you.
• It's all in your genes: There has been encouraging research showing that altering certain genes of organisms can increase longevity.  For example, genetic alterations that reduce the amount of the growth hormone IGF-1 can extend the lives of mice, and alteration of one specific gene in the roundworm species, C. elegans, can significantly extend its lifespan. It is tempting to interpret this as evidence that aging is a programmed process that differs in timing from individual to individual because of variations in genetic expression and that genetic alteration holds the key to successfully extending our lives.  However, it's not so simple or rosy a picture as it seems.  Those genetically altered mice live a long time but are sterile and inactive, and the long-lived roundworms exhibit defects such as "...reduced ability to enter a protective dauer stage (a developmental state in which worm larvae can better survive harsh conditions), delayed development, and impaired reproduction" (AFAR). Finally, a recent Stanford University study in which the genomes of very long-lived humans were mapped failed to find any "longevity gene" that set them apart. According to one of the scientists who conducted the study, Stuart Kim, this means the genetic effect on aging "must be complex."

Note that many of these findings have a common element -- interventions that seem to prolong life do so at a cost to the organism's overall health and in particular to its reproductive ability. This means that its genes have less likelihood of being passed on compared to those of healthier yet shorter-lived individuals -- natural selection seems to have favored cellular processes that lead to declining health in older individuals and thereby to finite lifetimes.  According to AFAR, "...it is likely that tinkering with genes to improve late-life fitness could have a detrimental effect on health at younger ages." And as long as the detrimental effects do not prevent reproductive success, they could be passed on to future generations -- definitely a bad thing.

The most widely accepted overall theory of why we age and die is based on these principles of adaptation and selection.  Called the Evolutionary Senescence Theory of aging, the central premise is that "...Natural selection, because it operates via reproduction, can have little effect on later life. In the wild, predation and accidents guarantee that there are always more younger individuals reproducing than older ones. Genes and mutations that have harmful effects but appear only after reproduction is over do not affect reproductive success and therefore can be passed on to future generations"  (AFAR).  Not only that, evidence now indicates that certain genetic traits may have positive effects when we are young but are actually harmful in later years.  An example is gene p53, a gene that directs damaged cells to stop reproducing or die. This helps prevent cancerous growths in younger people, but may contribute to aging and death by impairing the body’s ability to renew deteriorating tissues as we get old..

The Evolutionary Senescence Theory is supported by considerable research and although it continues to be tested and refined, it remains the best explanation for why all organisms age and die. It also makes clear the care with which we should approach genetic modifications intended to make us live longer. 

Geezerhood, Ho!

Assessing Ebola Risk: Unbounded Irrationality?

In the mid-1950's cognitive psychologist and economist Herbert Simon coined the term "Bounded Rationality" to refer to the suboptimal way people sometimes reach decisions and assess risk.  Simon's analysis and complementary work by Paul Slovic, Amos Tversky, Noble Prize-winner Daniel Kahnemann and others has led to decades of careful research that clearly establishes the limits of our rational evaluation of information in making judgments about a wide variety of topics, including investment decisions, environmental threats, and health risks.

For example, our limited cognitive resources often lead us to rely on mental shortcuts and intuitive processes rather than careful, rational analysis, and this can lead to errors in judgements and decisions. One such shortcut that often comes into play is judging risk based upon the ease with which relevant instances comes to mind, the Availability Heuristic -- a potential event seems more likely if we can easily bring to mind examples of its attributes. Availability of information in memory can be influenced by many things: its recency of having been accessed, its vividness when initially encountered, its emotional intensity, or the frequency with which a person has been exposed to it.

Another instance of bounded rationality that seems relevant here is the context in which we think about a given potential event.  Research by Kahnemann and Tversky showed the dramatic effect that context can have on our judgments, which they called "Framing Effects" (this work is nicely summarized in Kahnemann's 2002 Nobel Prize acceptance speech).  In several studies they presented participants with simple thought exercises in which they were asked to choose which of two alternative courses of action they would prefer in hypothetical cases concerning, for example, an outbreak of an unusual Asian disease (substitute "African" for Asian and the parallel to our current situation with Ebola is particularly poignant)  One group of participants were given the following scenario:

Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs are as follows:

If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved

If Program B is adopted, there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved
 
Which of the two programs would you favor? 

A substantial majority of respondents favor program A, choosing the certainty of saving 200 of the 600 people over the more uncertain possibility that all of them might be saved if Program B is adopted.

Another group of participants received the same background scenario (i.e., 600 are likely to die) but two different choices:

If Program A is adopted, 400 people will die
If Program B is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die

Note that in both cases the outcomes associated with the two choices are the same. If Choice A is adopted 200 people will be saved and 400 will die, but the outcomes are framed differently -- in the first case the certainty of 200 being saved is emphasized whereas in the second it is the certainty of 400 dying.  When presented with the second pair of choices, a clear majority of respondents favor program B, even though its adoption has a less certain outcome. As Kahnemann notes, "the certainty of saving people is disproportionately attractive, and the certainty of deaths is disproportionately aversive."

Paul Slovic's work also seems highly relevant to understanding the American public's reaction to Ebola.  His approach has focused on the factors that lead to people's emotional reactions to potential threats and that alter their tolerance for risk. Sara Gorman succinctly summarizes the results of Slovic's research as follows: "People tend to be intolerant of risks that they perceive as being uncontrollable, having catastrophic potential, having fatal consequences, or bearing an inequitable distribution of risks and benefits...The higher a hazard scores on these factors, the higher its perceived risk and the more people want to see the risk reduced, leading to calls for stricter regulation."  Note that it is the "dread factor" that leads to assessments of risk, and this may not be closely related to the objective probability of a hazard.

Is the current furor in the U.S. concerning the Ebola outbreak in west Africa a textbook example of bounded rationality?  

Health worker donning protective gear

From media coverage of the outbreak, you might expect that this would be the case, with Americans overestimating the risk and endorsing objectively ineffective extreme measures of protection to reduce the perceived threat. Media reporting of the outbreak has been vivid, frequent, and sensational, emphasizing the
highly infectious nature of Ebola, its deadliness, the horrible nature of the symptoms, and the fact that there is no known cure. This is this a news topic that is sure to grab people's attention and news organizations have been quick to exploit this, as they typically do with negative events. Far less coverage has emphasized the low probability of contagion in the U.S. because direct contact is required to pass the disease, and that the virus is short-lived outside of the host -- Ebola is highly infectious (a small amount of the live virus leads to illness) but not very contagious (easily passed from person to person).

CDC image of the virus

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post put this very bluntly with respect to television news: "...Ebola is a natural for cable news, where fear means viewers and it’s easy to tap into narratives we’ve seen play out in a dozen movies and television shows....There is sensationalist coverage everywhere, in which networks with time to fill spend hours on baseless speculation and nightmare scenarios...if you find yourself with symptoms including anxiety, sweating, and a clutching in your chest, you’ve probably been watching too much television." Print media is also vivid and dire in its coverage, with headlines like:  "Why Ebola is so dangerous"; "How Ebola sped out of control;" "Ebola outbreak: Why Obama is allowing Ebolaphobia to spread;" "New Ebola Cases May Soon Reach 10,000 a Week, Officials Predict;" "An epidemic of fear and anxiety hits Americans amid Ebola outbreak."

Surprisingly, despite the nature of this coverage, until recently Americans were relatively calm and rational about Ebola.  In a poll conducted by the venerable Pew Research Center in early October (2-5) only 32% were "very" or "somewhat" worried that they or a member of their family would be exposed to the Ebola virus, and most were confident (58%) in the government to prevent a major U.S. outbreak. However, this was before two cases were reported in the U.S. itself, and public opinion dramatically shifted just a short time later, as people began to focus on the certainty of death that these cases emphasized.  In an October 14th Washington Post-ABC News poll 43% were worried about "the possibility that you or someone in your immediate family might catch the Ebola virus" and 65% were concerned about "a widespread Ebola outbreak occurring in the United States."  Interestingly, most (62%) remained confident in the government's ability to respond to a potential outbreak.

Predictably, there seems to be stronger support for defensive policies that are perceived to mitigate the threat. These include some programs that objectively have a low probability of being effective and may even make matters worse, such as banning travelers to and from African nations hardest hit by the disease (see three excellent analyses of travel bans by Mukherjee, Garrett, and Wolfson).  Despite this, according to the Washington Post-ABC New poll, 67% of Americans now favor travel bans, which seems to demonstrate the power of the "dread" factor over rational analysis.

Perhaps the irony of the Information Age is that having more information hasn't necessarily led to wiser decisions -- in fact, rationality may be more difficult because it requires greater effort to evaluate and to integrate the vast amount of information that is available on virtually any topic. As the title of this blog suggests, we may be slipping into the age of "Unbounded Irrationality" -- unless we pay closer attention to the ways in which we reach conclusions and assess alternatives of action.

An Ode To Cosmos, Comets, and Rosetta Spacecraft

Let's face it.  These days it is rather easy to be pessimistic about the human race and so-called "advanced" societies.  The news is full of reports of wars, terrorism, genocide, religious extremism and sectarian violence, willful ignorance (aka pseudoscience and anti-science), cruelty, environmental degradation, political paralysis, ideological stalemates, economic meltdowns, social incivility, the failure of institutions to provide for the common good, the exploitation and subjugation of women and minorities, etc., etc., etc.  The message is clear:  "Humans are no damn good. Film at 11."

Then, every once in a while something comes along that suggests there may be a glimmer of hope after all.  For me these rare moments are usually associated with (a) acts of extreme unselfishness and compassion that dramatically alleviate suffering or improve life opportunities for people who are desperately disadvantaged, (b) manifestations of artistic or literary talent that produce astonishingly powerful emotional experiences or intellectual insights, and (c) technical or scientific accomplishments that involve supremely focused applications of accumulated human knowledge and logic driven by the irrepressible spirit to know more simply for the sake of knowing.  The last category is the subject of this blog.

The event that has suggested a glimmer of hope to me is the recent success of the European Space Agency's mission to rendezvous with a comet, land a small craft on its surface, and accompany the comet as it approaches the sun. This of course isn't as news-worthy as any of the negative things listed above, but if you examine what it implies about human nature it offers a refreshing and inspiring glimpse of a more positive side of our human potential.

After a journey of 10 years and almost 4 billion miles, on August 6th the spacecraft Rosetta arrived at

Rosetta Probe

its target, a comet named 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (the name is reason enough not to make it big in the media news).  Although previous spacecraft have flown by comets and have even deliberately crashed into one, this is the first to achieve an orbit around around a comet, the first to study it as it approaches the sun and, if all goes well, the first to soft-land a smaller craft on the comet's surface.  And it's off to a great start, judging by the stunning postcard it sent back to show us it had arrived at the comet.

This is a remarkable accomplishment.  It also adds to a growing list of achievements using unmanned space probes, including the Mars landers, Voyagers 1 and 2,  the Pioneer series, and one of my favorites, Galileo (see my blog, Confessions of a Selective Technophile for more on Galileo).

The Comet 67P/C-G

To put the Rosetta mission in perspective, try to imagine a tiny speck of dust and ice 250 million miles from earth.  From there the sun is a tiny dot, and the light level from the sun is only about 4% what is on earth. The earth looks like most of the rest of the stars, maybe a little brighter. The target speck is only a couple of miles in diameter and traveling at 34,000 miles per hour.  Now imagine trying to send a spacecraft no bigger than a large refrigerator to that icy speck. How would you do it?  How would you find and rendezvous with the speck, given that it is moving 20 times faster than a bullet?  How would you accelerate a spacecraft to 34,000 miles per hour without expending an impractically huge amount of fuel?  How would you communicate with the craft and control it when it is so far away -- so far that radio signals take up to 50 minutes to travel the distance?

The answers to these questions illustrate the extraordinary power of the human intellect  -- they entail a difficult and complex integration of cutting-edge mechanical and electrical engineering, materials science, computer science, applied and theoretical mathematics, astrophysics, astronomy, geology, and many other fields.  Oh, and a huge dose of insatiable curiosity and a relentless drive to explore questions of cosmic significance like "what is the origin of life?"  Humans may not be totally bad...more on this improbable story at 11!

I'll leave a lot of the details to the science reporters (see my embedded links or some of the links below if you want to know more).  I've read a number of them and have marveled at the level of scientific achievement some of my fellow human beings have displayed in this project.  For example, the acceleration problem was solved by looping the Rosetta several times around the earth, using the earth's gravity as a sling-shot to gather speed each time, a technique that took no fuel but added billions of miles and many years to the journey. This acceleration trick has been used previously with other space probes, but never with this much precision.  In this case it was necessary to calculate the exact positions of the spacecraft and the comet as they would be in 10 years, as well as their relative speeds, in order to determine precisely when to fire rockets to slow the Rosetta to match the comet's speed.  Being a bit math-challenged, to me this is a jaw-droppingly awesome feat.

I was a huge fan of the t.v. series Cosmos hosted by the late astronomer Carl Sagan over 30 years ago, in 1980.  Sagan would have loved witnessing the accomplishment of orbiting a space craft around a comet, and would no doubt be making eloquent commentary on the mission. He was not only an accomplished scientist, he was one of the first champions of making science accessible to the general public in an entertaining yet educational way.  The Cosmos series was the first of its kind and highly critically acclaimed -- and it reinforced my lifelong fascination with astronomy and cosmology.  A recent updated version hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is a fittingly high-quality successor.  It has the same up-beat, inspiring and humbling effectiveness as the original.

Look very closely.

Sagan wrote a number of popular books on space and astronomy, one of which was titled The Pale Blue Dot, a reference to the earth as it appeared in a photograph taken by the spacecraft Voyager 1 in 1990 as it left our solar system.  Voyager 1 was about 6 billion miles from earth at the time, and the photo is a sobering "selfie" that clearly depicts the smallness of our place in the universe. One often quoted passage in the book is particularly moving to me because it puts our species -- both the positive features and the flaws -- in a very insightful context, and Sage does it in his usual Cosmic style:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. [My emphasis]
-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

 Right on, Carl. And I hereby dedicate the Rosetta Mission to your vision.

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Some Relevant Reference Sources About Rosetta:

Cometary science: Rosetta's stone | The Economist economist.com

Europe’s Rosetta becomes the first spacecraft to orbit a real, live comet (updated) | ExtremeTech extremetech.com

Europe's Rosetta Spacecraft Makes Historic Arrival at Comet space.com

DLR Portal - Mission - Rosetta at a glance - technical data and timeline archive.org

Long-distance communication / Rosetta / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA esa.int

First Comet Close-Ups from Rosetta Spacecraft Reveal a 'Scientific Disneyland' (Photos) space.com

Overview | Rosetta nasa.gov

Technical Specifications | Rosetta nasa.gov

A Pale Blue Dot | The Planetary Society planetary.org

An Early Draft of Carl Sagan's Famous 'Pale Blue Dot' Quote - The Atlantic theatlantic.com

Cleaning Up Poop In Paradise

[Caution:   Squeamish?  Have good taste?  Read the title again and then don't say I didn't warn you.]

I've lived in Hawai'i for over 13 years and I love it.  There are many reasons why I enjoy it so much -- the weather, the culture, the geology, the natural beauty, the fact that our one measly Electoral College vote means we don't have to listen to very many obnoxious Presidential Election campaign ads.

However there are costs to residing in (near) Paradise.  We locals call these "Paradise Taxes," and although we gripe about them we are also glad they exist, otherwise everybody would want to live here. The most obvious one is implied in the term "cost" -- Hawai'i is an expensive place to live in terms of housing, food, energy, all of which are about 30-35% higher than on the mainland, sometimes more depending on the category.  For example, we pay about four times more for electricity per kilowatt hour here than we did on the mainland.

But there are also less obvious costs, one of which is the subject of this blog -- the trials and tribulations of cleaning up poop. 

That's right, there's a lot of poop in paradise and if you're a conscientious home owner you have to learn to deal with it way more than if you live on the mainland US.  I'm not talking about your usual pet poop, which of course is the same here as anywhere.  I'm talking about "critter crap" that is perhaps unique to our constant and benign climate.

There are at least a couple of ways to discuss the scope and characteristics of the maintenance challenge of poop. One is to examine the different categories of poop based on variations in the qualities of the target substance.  Another is to talk about the major sources of poop and how they differ in the maintenance efforts required.  I've chosen the second approach for this blog because it will more clearly contrast living here versus on the mainland since the major sources aren't likely to be encountered by mainland residents.

Source 1:  Geckos 

Culprit 1

I've written extensively about these little lizards in my blog, "More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Geckos."  The most common type, the Gold Dust Gecko was introduced to Hawai'i from Madagascar in the 1970's and has become a common feature both outside and inside of most households.  In my earlier blog I mentioned the poop problem just briefly so now I'll explain more about it.

We tolerate geckos because they are very good natural controllers of flying insects, and because we find their intelligence and social nature very endearing. However, "bugs-in-poop-out." Given the open nature of most houses in Hawai'i, including ours, geckos are almost bound to find their way indoors and no screen door or window can prevent this.  We try to keep their numbers low by catching and re-locating as many as we can, but invariably there are a few who manage to take up residence inside -- which means we must deal with their poop until we can catch them.

Geckos are like cats in that they tend to go in the same place every time.  They prefer to do it dangling, usually choosing a high beam or a piece of corner molding to do their business, which is in the form of a small missile about the size of a grain of rice.  If these hit carpeting or a hard flat surface cleaning them up is pretty easy with a vacuum or a broom (best to let them dry first, otherwise they smear).  However, if the poop strikes the wall or the floor molding on its way down things are more difficult. Some ingredient in Gecko poop seems to allow it to bond very strongly to housepaint.  This produces dark streaks on walls or dark spots on molding that are very difficult to remove, and the longer you wait the worse it is in terms of both quantity and the tenaciousness of the bonds.  Besides the daily cleanup of the missiles, we try to go on regular "poop patrols" around the house to wash the walls and molding.  If you wait too long the only remedy is another coat of paint. We've learned that it helps to repaint with a glossier finish, but this doesn't totally eliminate the problem.

Source 2:  Myna Birds

Culprit 2

This poop source was introduced to Hawai'i from Asia in 1866 to control insects in sugar cane fields (see the Bishop Museum's authoritative account ).  Although this worked, the myna adapted very well and is now considered a nuisance by many residents due to a number of rather obnoxious traits (a nice succinct description is in the Hawai'i Nature Journal).  To the list I will now add Myna Bird Poop.

Mynas are omnivores, meaning they will eat ANYthing, including the aforementioned geckos that live outside (I suspect this is one reason geckos find living indoor environments attractive, despite less food and having to deal with irate humans).  During fledgling season mynas have discovered that geckos are a good source of protein for their chicks, and they hunt them relentlessly around our decks (lanai's).  And while they're doing that they poop.  Lots.  And sometimes while flying.

The result?  Many splatto's on the tops of the wood railings that go along our lanai's (their favorite hunting grounds), on the wooden deck surfaces below the railings, and on the flagstone around our swimming pool.  The poop-while-flying resembles something from a military plane on a strafing run -- a splat of poop that can be several inches long.  Like gecko poop, this also can bond to paint if you don't clean it quickly, and it penetrates the surface of porous sandstone making it very difficult to clean up unless you periodically seal the stone with a special (expensive) product.

Unlike our catch-and-release program with geckos, we have no control options with mynas other that shouting and clapping our hands to scare them off.  Unfortunately this doesn't work very well, and we probably look like crazy people.

Source 3: Turkeys

Culprit Maximus

A number of different types of turkeys have been introduced to Hawai'i over the last 200 years, but the ones that are most common now were brought from the mainland U.S. in the early 1960's.  Like the gecko and the myna bird, turkeys have increased in numbers very quickly and now are found in almost every neighborhood walking down the streets, roosting in monkey pod trees, and marauding through people's gardens (see my blog, "The Curious Case of the Kona Coyote," for more).  

Turkeys travel in flocks, leaving a swath of poop as they go that can be astonishingly nasty. Turkey poop is hands-down the worst excrement we have to deal with in terms of quantity, variety, and gag-reflex-producing olfactory and visual obnoxiousness.

Our first encounter with Turkey poop was on a rainy day not long after we moved here.  Turkeys were still a novelty to us and we found them interesting and sort of endearing.  A female turkey and one of her young offspring took refuge from the rain by roosting on one of our lanai railings.  How cute, we thought, as we took a couple of photos.  On the third shot I could see in the viewfinder a remarkable stream of brown liquid shooting first from Mama Turkey and then from Junior, both streams hitting the deck with a sound that was reminiscent of spilling brownie batter on a kitchen floor. The analogy stops there, however, as I found when gagging during the cleanup operation.

Not long after that incident I was sweeping another lanai one day when I discovered the most amazing pile of poop I have ever seen with maybe the exception of elephant droppings (which don't stink nearly as much, by the way).  Yup, a turkey had found the railing a good place to park for awhile -- long enough to repeatedly poop in the same place, building up the mound so that it resembled one of our island's volcanoes.  The magnitude of this pile was so incredible I took photos of it, but I'll spare you the sight -- let's just say it was 3-4 inches tall and really foul-smelling.  The deck surface here was flagstone and when I washed off the poop I found it had stained the stone badly and it was very difficult to remove.

I quickly rigged up a string system to keep turkeys from roosting there in the future, and I try to re-apply stone sealer regularly.  I also chase the flocks whenever I catch them in our yard, brandishing a broom as I run toward them yelling and shouting (again, crazy person?).  This seems to work, though I find they keep testing me to see if I'm still vigilant -- every once in a while I find a nice dollop in my driveway to remind me they're still around.

So there you have it.  Paradise is not perfect.  We have to struggle with homeowner problems that are perhaps unique but like elsewhere require effort, expense, and time to confront them.  Perhaps this will give you some solace as you huddle around your heat vent this winter.

Could I send you a nice holiday turkey?

"I'll Be Right Back" -- And Other Famous Last Words

I've already confessed to having a warped sense of humor in several earlier blogs (see It's A Guy Thing, Why I Hate Liver,  Geezer Olympics: Competive Complaining, or What, Me Worry?).  It's time for another installment.  Warning:  this qualifies as an addition to my TMI or Oversharing series....

Things can be funny to me even when (or maybe because) the situation ordinarily calls for somber reflection, philosophical erudition, and compassionate consolation. Take death, for example.

There is nothing inherently funny about the final proof of our mortality. In fact, it can be terrifying if it is our own end we are contemplating, and terribly sad if involves someone who died before their time or if it is accompanied by unnecessary suffering. Still, the concept of death is maybe too often treated as simply negative -- anything that is inevitable should perhaps also be seen as having a lighter side.

One source of humor about death comes from the last words someone utters, often referred to as "famous last words" even when the words aren't attributable to famous people.  One of the funniest treatments of last words of some real historical figures is by Ian Cheesman of Cracked.Com, and I make no pretense at even coming close to the humorously warped level of his presentation (see Cheeseman, part 1 and part 2).  By the way, the fact that I'm linking to Cracked.Com should tell you something about my sense of humor.  Cheesman introduces his analysis this way:

"Everyone hopes to leave a legacy. To be remembered after our passing is the closest thing humans have to immortality, at least until cryogenics figures out how to reanimate Walt Disney's head. Some people try to pull off immortality with a lifetime of achievements and noble acts. But why piss away all that energy on altruism when you can simply spout one badass quote before you take the dirt nap and live on through eternity known as a guy who needed a second casket for his ....[censored]?"  (Cheesman, 2008, part 1)

Cheesman's choices include serial killer Carl Panzram just before being executed in Indiana (Hurry up, you Hoosier bastard, I could kill ten men while you're fooling around!"), Chief Sitting Bull confronting the soldiers who killed him ("I'm not going. Do with me what you like. Come on! Come on! Take action!  Let's go!"), Joan Crawford on her death bed when someone started to pray for her ("Damn it, don't you DARE ask God to help me."), and Karl Marx when someone asked him for his last thoughts ("Go away! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"). Ok, I admit some of these aren't so much funny as admirably gutsy, but Cheesman's analysis that accompanies them is very funny and definitely my kind of humor -- I really recommend it.

In addition to the last words that famous people have said, there are quite a few that have been made up by some very warped minds -- kindred spirits to me.  Most of these pertain to situations where the speaker doesn't know these will be his or her last words (a key element in the humor, I suppose, and it helps to picture the situation). Here's a sample from various sources, including yours truly (for more go to Funny.com):

• "Hold my beer and watch this..."
• "Let's just keep on ignoring it and it will probably go away...."
• "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing...."
• "It doesn't look that deep to me...."
• "I know a great shortcut......"
• "They look friendly...."
• "We need something stronger to get this fire going....."
• "Did you hear something?"
• "What does this button do?"
• "I wonder where the mother bear is?"
• "Look ma! no hands!"
• "I'm sure this isn't the poisonous kind...."
• "All you have to do is connect these two wires...."
• "Stupid safety labels....
• "Lightning never hits the same spot twice"
• "Manual?  Who needs to read the dumb manual!" 

A final (pun intended) source of funny last words comes from tombstones.  Cemeteries are rich sources of information about a culture (see "My Favorite Cemeteries"), and the inscriptions on the grave markers can at times be very humorous -- in a warped kind of way.  Some of the cutest are epitaphs found on the 13 family tombstones at the Haunted Mansion attraction in Disney World and Disney Land.  The names on the markers are all actual people who worked on the design or construction of the mansion, but the nature of their passing is made up  Here's a sample: 

• Rest in Peace – Cousin Huet – We All Know – You Didn’t Do It 
• Here rests Wathel R. Bender – He rode to glory – On a Fender
• Here lies good old Fred – A great big rock – Fell on his head R.I.P. 
• In memorium Uncle Myall – You’ll lie here – for a quite a while

If you do an internet search for "funny tombstones" or something similar, you'll find most of the results repeat the same list of epitaphs and it is difficult to know if the authors actually saw the graves or are just re-posting the same list over and over.  Even so the sayings are still humorous.  Here's a few I like, taken from a great blog called My Wintersong, who is at least specific as to the location of the graves:

Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery:
Here lies the body
of Jonathan Blake

Stepped on the gas
Instead of the brake.

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:
Here lays Butch,
We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger,
But slow on the draw.

A lawyer’s epithet in England: 

Sir John Strange
Here lies an honest lawyer,
And that is Strange.

Lester Moore was a Wells, Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona in the cowboy days of the 1880′s. He’s buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona:
Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a .44
No Les No More.

On a grave from the 1880′s in Nantucket, Massachusetts:
Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there’s only the pod:
Pease shelled out and went to God.

And "finally"

In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go

Ok, that's enough.  If you want to add your own suggestions or favorite last words, just post them as comments or email them to me and I'll include them (anonymously, in case you're still in the closet about your warpedness......)
------------------------------------------------
Update:

See the comments for some reader suggested last words.  Also, here's an anecdote and an actual newspaper obituary that a friend who researches sports fan identity collected:

• Accepting that the end was near, the funny grandfather and great-grandfather said earlier in the day there was an upside to death: at least he wouldn't have to watch another Bengals loss 
• He respectfully requests six Cleveland Browns pallbearers so the Browns can let him down one last time.