Too much choice in higher ed?

After the recent exposure of the weakness of our undergraduate education that I lamented publicly, I find this a compelling point:

Recent work in psychology, marketing, and behavioral economics, however, presents compelling evidence that more choice is not always better. Why? Because while “homo economicus can think like Albert Einstein, store as much memory as IBM’s Big Blue, and exercise the willpower of Mahatma Gandhi... the folks that we know are not like that… They are not homo economicus; they are homo sapiens” (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008, pp. 6–7). Homo sapiens can make mistakes, and the way choices are structured can affect how frequent and severe these mistakes may be.

Mistakes can happen, for example, because of pure cognitive overload. When it comes to complex decisions with long-term implications, individuals often struggle to determine which factors are most important, to gather all of the relevant information, and to appropriately weigh the costs and benefits in a final calculation. For students trying to choose the right courses, just acquiring all of the necessary information, let alone absorbing it, can be prohibitively time-consuming. Details about course content are often located in one place, course schedules in another, and program rules and requirements in yet another—often in a several-hundred-page academic catalog. Some pieces of critically important information, such as instructor quality, may not be revealed until after a decision is made.

So it isn't just that students are studying less (which they are). They are also paralyzed in some way by the choices before them and as such never fully commit. College is a time of freedom from choice rather than commitment to a career path.

Georgia on my mind

Jay Bookman updates us on the fate of a de facto state income "flat tax" proposed by Republicans. As all thinking people already know, the "flat tax" is horribly regressive. It always, always means a raise in taxes for the vast majority of us, while lowering them significantly for the wealthy. Here's a chart put together by the Fiscal Research Center at GSU:


Now before you go and feel sorry for the wealthy, thinking they deserve a 20% break on their taxes, here's a chart showing the federal marginal tax rates for the top earners:

So basically rich people are already paying a significantly lower federal income tax rate than any time since the Great Depression. There is a strong inverse relationship between their tax rates and income inequality. The only person who should want a "flat tax" -- aka the Orwellian "fair tax" -- are those people making a hell of a lot more than 95% of us, who want even more by taking it from us.

The Rise of the American Taliban

This is what happens when a confused, misinformed electorate votes for confused, Tea Party idiots to become their government officials:

One blog post on the Eagle Forum Alaska site praised efforts at criminalizing adultery in Michigan, and Paskvan asked Haase if he thought it should be a felony in Alaska.

"I don't see that that would rise to the level of a felony," Haase said.

Paskvan: "Do you believe it should be a crime?"

Haase: "Yeah, I think it's very harmful to have extramarital affairs. It's harmful to children, it's harmful to the spouse who entered a legally binding agreement to marry the person that's cheating on them."

Paskvan: "What about premarital affairs -- should that be a crime?"

Haase: "I think that would be up to the voters certainly. If it came before (the state) as a vote, I probably would vote for it ... I can see where it would be a matter for the state to be involved with because of the spread of disease and the likelihood that it would cause violence. I can see legitimate reasons to push that as a crime."

Congratulations America, you reap what you sow!

Barack Obama is Hammond's disgusting picture

Living in South Carolina, this is particularly poignant for me:

"Are we prepared to see them mingling in our Legislatures? Is any portion of this country prepared to see them enter these halls and take their seats by our sides, in perfect equality with the white representatives of an Anglo Saxon race ... to see them placed at the heads of your Departments; or to see, perhaps, some 'Othello' or 'Toussaint' or 'Boyer' gifted with genius and inspired by ambition grasp the presidential wreath, and wield the destinies of this great Republic? From such a picture I turn with irrepressible disgust."

Well, it took 172 years, but an African-American with a name a lot more exotic than Othello or Toussaint did indeed become president of these United States. And it was particularly tin-eared, historically speaking, for a member of that self-same South Carolina delegation to hector Barack Obama at last year's State of the Union address. In truth, James Henry Hammond's racist diatribe was milder than those by other Southern "statesmen" who stirred hate and fear among their countrymen in the days leading up to the Civil War.

Jefferson Davis, in a speech to the Confederate Congress in April 1861, extolled slavery as a benevolent invention that allowed a "superior race" to transform "brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers." Alexander H. Stephens, Jefferson Davis' vice president, proclaimed that Jefferson and the Founders' high-minded declarations of universal liberty were "in violation of the laws of nature." This was profoundly wrong, Stephens said.

"Our new government is founded on exactly the opposite idea," thundered the vice president of the Confederacy. "Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."

The South will never rise again (thank Jesus). And it has instead continued to decline.

Mere Coincidence?

Google's "Quote of the Day" applet today (3/21/11) provides:

You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.
- Scott Adams

Newsweek's poll today agrees:

NEWSWEEK gave 1,000 Americans the U.S. Citizenship Test--38 percent failed. The country's future is imperiled by our ignorance.

It's a conspiracy!

Why am I someone, rather than someone else?

"I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then...The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me...Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy master? Thou art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours thee; he will soon beat thee. The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for ever. We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone. We should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case should we build fine houses, etc. We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth."

-Blaise Pascal

Pensées Sec. II 205-211, translated by W. F. Trotter, link

Economics and Politics

My initial political leanings, if you can call it that, came from a childhood steeped in conservatism. I remember clearly hearing talk about "welfare queens" bankrupting the country and how union workers were lazy and were a real drag on corporate growth and profits. My parents were big fans of Reagan and thought that taxes were basically always wasted on someone who didn't deserve them. I read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" when I was about 22 and went through a libertarian phase which I now see as hopelessly naive. For the libertarian and hard-core right-wingers, personal property is sacrosanct: taxes are an immoral theft of the government, a "transfer of wealth" from the rightful owner to some undeserving social parasite.