Complexity and Confidence

I've spent the last few days fighting with a pile of government forms in hopes of sponsoring my wife to finally come live with me as a landed immigrant. It's been irritating because the government has changed their forms several times since I first started on this course. It's also annoying because the ministry has decided to build it's system around the Adobe PDF reader, which means that I can't use my home computer to fill out the web-based documents. Unlike almost every other web-based software product, Adobe doesn't offer a Linux-compatible version. Moreover, Microsoft doesn't support Adobe anymore either, which means that this part of the government website only works with an obsolete version of their Internet Explorer web browser. This has made it hard for me to find a computer that I can use to fill out the forms.

I know that people are now saying to themselves "First World Problem"---. And that is certainly true. It doesn't help that I suffer from an anxiety disorder---PTSD---and sponsoring my wife is probably the most emotionally-important thing in my life right now. This led to some panic-based, debilitating, stress-filled hours. I can handle inter-human confrontations at work that would scare many people silly, but filling out a government form scares me stupid. Go figure. But this horrible experience has got me thinking about the big-picture implications of having to live in a world that suffers from a constant avalanche of change.

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The modern world is a complex place and it's getting even more complex all the time. Unfortunately, we human beings are stuck with the same mental apparatus that we had when a day's work involved hoeing a row of potatoes, shoveling manure, picking rocks, or, ploughing a field. (I actually remember those days as that was how I spend huge swathes of my childhood and teenage years.) There were more complex elements to human life, such as having to get along with other people without coming to blows, but mostly they were based on a conversation held between two or more people talking face-to-face. Only highly trained professionals had to assimilate and understand complex data bases, and, figure out abstruse legal language.

This isn't just a question of me trying to figure out how to get a loved one living with me using a pile of paper that is closing in on being an inch thick. It's also an issue of democratic public policy.

Most people have this idea that all a democracy entails is voting, but they are wrong. It's just as important for people to be informed about what they are voting on. If they don't really know anything at all about the subject, they can get bamboozled into voting against their interests or desires by some "slick Willy" demagogue who can talk them into something dumb.

The monorail song from The Simpsons is probably the best way to illustrate the catastrophic foolishness of democratic societies when they get taken over by demagogues. But there are lots of times where the choice in a complex decision isn't as clear cut as deciding whether to fix potholes on the main street versus investing in a shoddily-built, needlessly complex public transit system that serves no real need. Sometimes cities do need to do something different and when they do, the argument for this new improvement comes down to understanding complex technical and financial arguments. 

As a journalist---especially the sort of journalist I've set out to be---I try to cut through the fog of "he said, she said" to find out the real truth behind a story. Sometimes this is pretty easy to do, as in my series on solid waste where it is obvious that certain commercial interests have been moving heaven-and-earth to sabotage any attempt to reduce the amount that is being produced. Sometimes I can get a very strong suspicion, as in my story about the destruction of Guelph's Carnegie Library where I found out that the architect advising Council was a leading proponent of the "brutalist" school. But once in a while I end up without any clear idea about what really happened---as in the current article I'm writing. (I hope it will be out in a week or two.)  That's only to be expected, the world is an increasingly complex place and while I've been amazed at how much I have been able to figure out in other stories, there is a limit to my ability to come to a definite decision about all issues.

And that doesn't necessarily mean that I've done something wrong. Sometimes things are just too darn complex to expect a non-expert to really understand them. Indeed, truth be told, there are lots of things that are too complex for even the experts themselves to really understand. The problem is that voters have to make a decision about who is right or wrong about a public policy issue, and not only aren't they experts, they really don't have the time to even inform themselves beyond reading the odd article. (Hence The Guelph-Back-Grounder.) And what makes things complicated is that politicians are ultimately sales people---like the guy with the straw hat and cane in The Simpsons clip. Their job is to create a "brand" (namely themselves and their policy) and sell it to voters. And in the process of doing so, they have to promote a policy vision. And they simply cannot do so by saying "I don't know" or "Let's take a chance on this even though we don't really have all the facts at our fingertips". That looks far too much like ignorance or incompetence to too many voters---even if it is actually the fact of the matter and couldn't be any other way. 

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I just recently applied at my place of work to retire. This is a very good thing as my body is wearing out and I can't really do the hard physical labour that it sometimes entails. Of course, there is a significant pay cut, but unlike a lot of other people, I do have a pension. So I'm not singing the blues about that. I bring it up because my hope is that once I do leave my "day job" I'll be able to devote more time to "The Guelph-Back-Grounder". I mention this because I'm frankly a little embarrassed about how long it's been since I published a fact-based story instead of an editorial. Surprisingly (at least to me), I've found that a lot of folks do like the editorials so that helps. Anyway, this is written in blue typeface and I'm going to be begging for money---.

Putting out this blog is really time consuming. And as a society we need to be willing to support the people in the community that toil away at keeping people informed. This site is supported exclusively by Patreon Subscriptions and Tips. (Thanks Alan for being so awesome!) This is something of an ideal option for me, as it means that people get to decide if they can afford to help me or not, and, they can set their own rates ($1/month even helps and is appreciated!) And if you simply cannot spare the money, it's all good because you can still read for free. (It would be nice to share on social media, however.) And by using these fundraising means I'm not under-cutting the younger people who are---Dao help them---trying to make a full-time job out of journalism in this insane time when the traditional news media is falling apart. 

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A big part of the problem is the almost innate human tendency to confuse "confidence" or "self-assurance" with "knowledge". This makes us vulnerable to "confidence tricksters", or "con men", who exploit our tendency to believe the person who doesn't seem to have any doubts. Unfortunately, beyond the realm of cynical con men there is another problem with people who are very good at fooling others because they have fooled themselves first. 

The "Dunning-Kruger Effect" occurs when someone has so little understanding of a subject that they lack the ability to objectively evaluate the depth of their understanding---or the lack thereof. (Think of the situation where someone is so stupid that they don't even know that they are stupid.) In effect, this is just a scientific exploration of the pithy statement from Aristotle to the effect of "the more I know, the less I think I know". This can be expressed in the following graph:

Image by Jens Engholm Pederson, c/o Wiki Commons

 A person who knows absolutely nothing at all about a subject will usually freely admit that this is the case. But once you read or hear a little more on the subject it can be easy to think that you really do understand it---especially if the source of your information is trying to get you to do something as opposed to simply sharing information. You might think at that point that you really do know all there is to know on the subject. But if you start digging deeper on the subject, it's very common to realize that there are a lot of "hidden" and "contradictory" evidence that no one bothered telling you about in your first exposure to the subject. There is where Ross Perot's famous saying "the devil is in the details" comes from. It's also what's behind the adage "the more you know, the less you think you know".

Unfortunately the average voter simply doesn't have much time or energy to come to terms with the "details", the average politician doesn't want to let the voter know about the "details", and, the average news source is trying to entertain the reader so they come back and click on advertisements---which also mitigates against long, boring "details". This gives the Devil a lot of room to maneuver.  

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I think that the current kerfluffle about SNC-Lavalin is one of those things where the Dunning-Kruger Effect is tremendously important. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me very straight-forward and obvious that as the law stands it would have been perfectly legal for the Attorney General to step in and over-ride her Chief Prosecutor and get a Deferred Prosecution Agreement . This wouldn't be a bizarre, judicial over-reach, but simply how the system is designed to work. Yes, it is true that SNC-Lavalin lobbied the government to get this legislation passed, but that is how an enormous amount of legislation gets done. Moreover, this new regulation isn't some strange, Frankenstein's monster. Both Great Britain and the United States have similar things.

And they do so for very legitimate reasons. Corporations aren't people. Their leadership changes over time. An executive can get the company to do something illegal. He can get charged with a crime and put in jail, but if the company gets charged and punished that means that every single person who works for that company or does business with it ends up being punished. Someone in the head office OK'd some bribes in Libya---lets make sure that awful pig of a janitor who cleans the office of a branch manager in Rimouski loses his job or pension. (That'll teach him!) A Deferred Prosecution Agreement isn't a "get out of jail free card", it's an agreement---with significant penalties attached if breached---that says the corporation will make real changes that will prevent the illegal behaviour from happening again.

What were the Liberals supposed to do? Simply ignore the practical implications of prosecuting a giant company and it's potential for bankruptcy just because of some weird, idealized vision of judicial independence? If the other parties really believed in this, why did the Conservatives throw a hissy fit because the Cabinet didn't immediately step-in and over-ride the decision by the prison system to send Terri-Lynne McClintic (convicted killer of Victoria Stafford) to a Healing Lodge?

I was discussing this issue with a friend of mine who has as much experience in politics as I do. (For those of you who don't know, I've sat on the board of directors of two significant political parties, and, both of their constitutions have my finger prints on them.) We are both totally amazed at the amount of anger that some people seem to be manifesting over this issue. We both came to the conclusion that it is generally coming from politicians with a partisan axe to grind, journalists who just like to find a story that people get excited about and don't really care much about the facts, and, people who don't understand how political parties actually work. (Both Bismark and Confucius both made statements about how gentlemen shouldn't walk into a kitchen and see how the food is being prepared.)

Personally, I see the popular outrage being expressed over the "SNC-Lavalin Affair" as being just another example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

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Furthermore, I say to you---climate change must be dealt with!