On "we're all in this together"
Whenever I find a ubiquitous mantra, I have to poke at it with my contrarian pokin' stick. Where'd I put that thing? Ah. Right here.
We're all in this together. Um... Really? Trust is a tricky thing. In surveys, like the American National Election Studies, we have historically asked a variety of questions to assess not just governmental trust, but social trust. Consider the following question, asked from 1964 through 2004: "Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful, or that they are mostly just looking out for themselves?" Cumulatively, 41.1% of respondents, over time, said that people look out for themselves, 56.1% said that people are helpful, and 2.8% either didn't know, refused to say, or something like that.
The claim that "we're all in this together," to some extent, is the notion that looking out for each other is looking out for one's self. Being helpful and being selfish currently exist in a Venn diagram overlap.
So, a) is that true, and b) does that mean you should trust people to acknowledge that, think that way, and act that way?
This is about self-interest, rationality, and trust.
Do you trust people? Should you trust people? Now? In the near future?
Have you ever been stabbed in the back? By the very self-righteous, moralizers currently going around telling everyone how important it is to understand that "we're all in this together?" Go count the stab wounds in your back from these sanctimonious, hypocritical tumors on the fabric of human civilization. If you get mugged by a petty criminal, that may not change your opinion of anything because that's someone behaving according to form. But, when the people who go around spouting this kind of performative ethicism are the ones who did it, their pithy-sounding aphorisms might strike your ear a bit differently.
Anyway, with whom are you in this? Metaphorically. Fundamentally, this is about the distinction between zero-sum and positive-sum interaction. In what context are your interactions positive-sum?
Time for your refresher on game theory, Adam Smith, capitalism and all of that. Consider two games. First, matching pennies. Players A and B each have a choice-- place a penny Heads-up or Tails-up. If they match, Player A gets both pennies. If they don't match, Player B gets both pennies. This is a classical example of a zero-sum game. Whatever one player wins, the other player loses. The total amount distributed is fixed.
Alternatively, consider basic economic transactions. Remember when we had an economy? Good times, good times. Anyway, Adam Smith's classical demonstration was that you buy a loaf of bread from a baker because you prefer the bread to the money, and the baker prefers the money to the bread. It is a voluntary exchange that makes you both happier. That's not zero-sum. It is positive sum. That's why capitalism works, and despite the mental deficiencies of certain politicians, that math holds even when the baker lives in another country. In fact, the math gets more compelling when we add the principle of comparative advantages, but let's not get off track. That's really hard for me.
Anyway, so you and the baker are in it together, right? Totally unlike matching pennies, right? Not so fast. What price does the baker charge? If it is a big store, the price is just marked, and there's no haggling, but there is a reasonable possibility that, at some point in your life, you have haggled. eBay has a "make an offer" feature. Have you ever used it? Try it sometime. That's haggling. However much you haggle down the price, that's money you save, and the seller doesn't get. At that point, you're in zero-sum territory.
So, are you and the seller in it together? Perhaps you see why such annoyingly simplistic aphorisms bother me. I need to go on eBay and buy myself a new supply of pokin' sticks. I go through them at an alarming rate.
So what does this have to do with coronavirus, and those with whom you are in... um... I lost track of the grammar trying not to end this with a preposition. You get the point. (This is why blogging is more fun than stodgier forms of writing.)
Let's start with social distancing. For some of you, this is very difficult. You're called, "humans." I mean, "extroverts." As I understand it, "humans" are social critters. I don't know why. Mostly, they're chattering things with little to say, but they keep going on about something called, "sportsball," and why don't I watch it, and I am sick of hearing about it. Distancing from such critters is about as painful for introverted, intellectual bookworms as distancing from pigeons, which do nothing but crap all over everything.
I still hate pigeons.
Anyway, social distancing. This is a positive-sum thing. I'm following the basic medical advice, working from home, and all that. Of course, mail gets delivered, groceries, and so on, so there are still some possibilities for how I might get infected, even though I don't show symptoms. Also, even if you don't show symptoms, you might be infected. Neither of us can know if the other is infected, or even necessarily our own status. So, it is mutually beneficial for us to avoid physical proximity. Six feet is six feet. If I am within six feet of you, then you are within six feet of me. I gain by avoiding that because I don't know your health status, you gain by avoiding that because you don't know mine, and so we each have something to gain. Positive sum.
So, in that sense, "we're all in this together." So far so good. I ain't done yet. I got's me a big, ole' stack o' pokin' sticks.
Let's get really crass and cold-blooded about death, because someone needs to. I have addressed this a bit before in terms of the supposed tradeoff between the economy and lives, but the point is that it isn't exactly a tradeoff.
What if I die of COVID-19? Well, it'll be kind of funny, honestly, and that's the best way to die. Why? Because I keep telling everyone to stay calm. Your individual risk (small) must be distinguished from the expected toll to society (huge), so if I'm among the dead, that's laugh-worthy. As I understand it, I wouldn't be laughing very much, as it appears to be rather painful, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be funny. I have enough clarity of thought to understand the structure of a cosmic joke.
And, yeah, I know exactly which people would laugh. They give me a strong desire to live.
But, I'm a consumer. And so are those people. When consumers die, the economy shrinks because most of the economy is consumer spending.
Do you have investments? Even through a retirement account? You're betting on people not dying prematurely. 'Cuz once they die, they stop spending. Well, I suppose someone could run up a bill on their credit cards after they die, but then you're in fraud territory. Don't do this, even if there is a really funny Doug Stanhope bit about it. Point being, live people are consumers, and the economy needs consumers.
As long as they aren't yakkin' my ear off about "sportsball." (Yay for social distancing.)
This is still sounding like "we're all in this together." I need you to not die so that you spend money so that my investments turn a profit. If you die, the only people who make money are funeral directors. Assuming they don't die too.
So we turn to the economy. Congress has been working on stimulus and economic support. Similar principles, moderated by the redistributive aspect of such policies. Yet...
All of this is predicated on a level of social functionality and market functionality. We are already seeing markets being disrupted. In the dumbest ways, it is difficult to buy certain products like toilet paper. Getting more serious... masks. Guidance has now changed, and the general population is being advised to wear some protective masks in public, when we must be in public. Now, here's the thing. Those masks are primarily to protect the wearer from spreading germs if the wearer is infected. However, the basic point is that there is a shortage, so people are making improvised masks. And this is where we start to leave the world of positive-sum interactions. Market shortages.
Once we enter the world of market shortages, we're no longer "all in this together." A lot of people are out of work now because they work for businesses that have gone out of business or must temporarily shutter, and anyone who can't work from home and isn't considered "essential" is kind of screwed right now. I have my thoughts on teaching via Zoom, which I'll write at some point soon, but I can do it, and I have the fortunate position of being a tenured professor.
And... in tenure veritas! I can even write snarky critiques of our socio-political moment. That's my job, and anyone who doesn't like my humor can kiss my academic freedom.
Getting back on track, though, what happens with shortages? It depends on the shortage. For essential goods, people with the money bid up the price. You better believe I'm going to do that. Masks? If I could buy a mask, I'd probably do it, but they're sold out because of the initial freak-out, so whatever. You know what that means? I have a hard time wearing a mask to protect you from me because you freaked out and bought 'em all long ago! OK! Thanks for saving me the money to protect me from you! Right now, I'm just not worrying about it. If DeWine tells me I need to wear something outside the house even though I can't buy a proper mask, I guess I go Cowboy and dig up an old bandana, or something. I dunno. Whatever.
However, suppose further research shows that masks protect the wearer. I start tracking down expensive protective gear. And because I'm employed and others aren't, I can spend that money. Yeah, that stuff exists, but you just have to pay the scalpers. So to speak. Limited number of units to go around, and we aren't in positive sum territory anymore. Me? I'm biddin' up that price because while I'd prefer a functioning economy with more people living, I'd also like to live, myself. Odds of dying? I already calculated that at around .67%, and as more numbers become available, that's probably higher than reality. Regardless, it is not high enough to freak out, but rather higher than I'd like, and I'll spend money to bring that down. If me spending my money means you can't get what I'm buying... too bad. We ain't in that together no more.
Because once we are in the territory of serious supply shortages, whom can you really trust? At this point, I return to that NES question with which I began the post. The correct answer is that everything really is contextual. Have you ever driven in a large city? People act like jerks. The less densely populated the place, the more friendly your fellow drivers are. They'll let you change lanes, and all that nice stuff. Why? Pressure. People get more selfish when the pressure is on. It's easy to be nice and considerate and helpful when you have everything you want. Does that mean everyone is? Of course not. There is individual variation, cultural variation, and all that. However, crank up the pressure, and people change. They become New York drivers, Boston drivers, LA drivers, San Francisco drivers, Chicago drivers... They change. They'll cut in front of you, block you if you try to change lanes, lean on their damned horns for no reason, and that's on a good day. Add lousy weather, and Dante will ask himself why he was so uncreative.
Under supply shortages, social interaction is no longer positive-sum. It is zero-sum, and in zero-sum interaction, we're not in it together. That doesn't mean everyone necessarily has to act like a sociopath. It would be nice to establish social order in such a way as to prevent the deterioration of rule of law, etc. But if you think people will have your back and protect you, then the question is, how long do you think that goes, in the hypothetical case that things get really bad?
Right now, we don't know how bad things get. This week, over 6 million filed for unemployment. Over 3 million filed the previous week. The population of the country is 330 million. 2% of the total population of the country filed for unemployment this week. Not 2% of the labor force, but 2% of the country. That means the denominator includes children and the retired. That's not actually how we calculate the unemployment rate. Go read about U1 through U6.
The Fed thinks unemployment could go over 30%.
Supply chains are being disrupted, which is why I referenced Scalzi's Interdependency trilogy in one of my sci-fi posts recently. The economics of this are disastrous, especially for something that is just nowhere near as lethal as, say, the "Georgia Flu," from Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. Right now, social order is holding up.
But in a world of supply disrupted, interactions cease to be positive sum between would-be consumers because the normal economics of capitalism have shut down. The pressure gets ramped up and the social dynamics of a New York traffic jam look like a hippie love fest in comparison.
We're all in this together? Not if capitalism shuts down, and right now, the economy is in mandatory shut down.
Watch the supply chains.
We're all in this together. Um... Really? Trust is a tricky thing. In surveys, like the American National Election Studies, we have historically asked a variety of questions to assess not just governmental trust, but social trust. Consider the following question, asked from 1964 through 2004: "Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful, or that they are mostly just looking out for themselves?" Cumulatively, 41.1% of respondents, over time, said that people look out for themselves, 56.1% said that people are helpful, and 2.8% either didn't know, refused to say, or something like that.
The claim that "we're all in this together," to some extent, is the notion that looking out for each other is looking out for one's self. Being helpful and being selfish currently exist in a Venn diagram overlap.
So, a) is that true, and b) does that mean you should trust people to acknowledge that, think that way, and act that way?
This is about self-interest, rationality, and trust.
Do you trust people? Should you trust people? Now? In the near future?
Have you ever been stabbed in the back? By the very self-righteous, moralizers currently going around telling everyone how important it is to understand that "we're all in this together?" Go count the stab wounds in your back from these sanctimonious, hypocritical tumors on the fabric of human civilization. If you get mugged by a petty criminal, that may not change your opinion of anything because that's someone behaving according to form. But, when the people who go around spouting this kind of performative ethicism are the ones who did it, their pithy-sounding aphorisms might strike your ear a bit differently.
Anyway, with whom are you in this? Metaphorically. Fundamentally, this is about the distinction between zero-sum and positive-sum interaction. In what context are your interactions positive-sum?
Time for your refresher on game theory, Adam Smith, capitalism and all of that. Consider two games. First, matching pennies. Players A and B each have a choice-- place a penny Heads-up or Tails-up. If they match, Player A gets both pennies. If they don't match, Player B gets both pennies. This is a classical example of a zero-sum game. Whatever one player wins, the other player loses. The total amount distributed is fixed.
Alternatively, consider basic economic transactions. Remember when we had an economy? Good times, good times. Anyway, Adam Smith's classical demonstration was that you buy a loaf of bread from a baker because you prefer the bread to the money, and the baker prefers the money to the bread. It is a voluntary exchange that makes you both happier. That's not zero-sum. It is positive sum. That's why capitalism works, and despite the mental deficiencies of certain politicians, that math holds even when the baker lives in another country. In fact, the math gets more compelling when we add the principle of comparative advantages, but let's not get off track. That's really hard for me.
Anyway, so you and the baker are in it together, right? Totally unlike matching pennies, right? Not so fast. What price does the baker charge? If it is a big store, the price is just marked, and there's no haggling, but there is a reasonable possibility that, at some point in your life, you have haggled. eBay has a "make an offer" feature. Have you ever used it? Try it sometime. That's haggling. However much you haggle down the price, that's money you save, and the seller doesn't get. At that point, you're in zero-sum territory.
So, are you and the seller in it together? Perhaps you see why such annoyingly simplistic aphorisms bother me. I need to go on eBay and buy myself a new supply of pokin' sticks. I go through them at an alarming rate.
So what does this have to do with coronavirus, and those with whom you are in... um... I lost track of the grammar trying not to end this with a preposition. You get the point. (This is why blogging is more fun than stodgier forms of writing.)
Let's start with social distancing. For some of you, this is very difficult. You're called, "humans." I mean, "extroverts." As I understand it, "humans" are social critters. I don't know why. Mostly, they're chattering things with little to say, but they keep going on about something called, "sportsball," and why don't I watch it, and I am sick of hearing about it. Distancing from such critters is about as painful for introverted, intellectual bookworms as distancing from pigeons, which do nothing but crap all over everything.
I still hate pigeons.
Anyway, social distancing. This is a positive-sum thing. I'm following the basic medical advice, working from home, and all that. Of course, mail gets delivered, groceries, and so on, so there are still some possibilities for how I might get infected, even though I don't show symptoms. Also, even if you don't show symptoms, you might be infected. Neither of us can know if the other is infected, or even necessarily our own status. So, it is mutually beneficial for us to avoid physical proximity. Six feet is six feet. If I am within six feet of you, then you are within six feet of me. I gain by avoiding that because I don't know your health status, you gain by avoiding that because you don't know mine, and so we each have something to gain. Positive sum.
So, in that sense, "we're all in this together." So far so good. I ain't done yet. I got's me a big, ole' stack o' pokin' sticks.
Let's get really crass and cold-blooded about death, because someone needs to. I have addressed this a bit before in terms of the supposed tradeoff between the economy and lives, but the point is that it isn't exactly a tradeoff.
What if I die of COVID-19? Well, it'll be kind of funny, honestly, and that's the best way to die. Why? Because I keep telling everyone to stay calm. Your individual risk (small) must be distinguished from the expected toll to society (huge), so if I'm among the dead, that's laugh-worthy. As I understand it, I wouldn't be laughing very much, as it appears to be rather painful, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be funny. I have enough clarity of thought to understand the structure of a cosmic joke.
And, yeah, I know exactly which people would laugh. They give me a strong desire to live.
But, I'm a consumer. And so are those people. When consumers die, the economy shrinks because most of the economy is consumer spending.
Do you have investments? Even through a retirement account? You're betting on people not dying prematurely. 'Cuz once they die, they stop spending. Well, I suppose someone could run up a bill on their credit cards after they die, but then you're in fraud territory. Don't do this, even if there is a really funny Doug Stanhope bit about it. Point being, live people are consumers, and the economy needs consumers.
As long as they aren't yakkin' my ear off about "sportsball." (Yay for social distancing.)
This is still sounding like "we're all in this together." I need you to not die so that you spend money so that my investments turn a profit. If you die, the only people who make money are funeral directors. Assuming they don't die too.
So we turn to the economy. Congress has been working on stimulus and economic support. Similar principles, moderated by the redistributive aspect of such policies. Yet...
All of this is predicated on a level of social functionality and market functionality. We are already seeing markets being disrupted. In the dumbest ways, it is difficult to buy certain products like toilet paper. Getting more serious... masks. Guidance has now changed, and the general population is being advised to wear some protective masks in public, when we must be in public. Now, here's the thing. Those masks are primarily to protect the wearer from spreading germs if the wearer is infected. However, the basic point is that there is a shortage, so people are making improvised masks. And this is where we start to leave the world of positive-sum interactions. Market shortages.
Once we enter the world of market shortages, we're no longer "all in this together." A lot of people are out of work now because they work for businesses that have gone out of business or must temporarily shutter, and anyone who can't work from home and isn't considered "essential" is kind of screwed right now. I have my thoughts on teaching via Zoom, which I'll write at some point soon, but I can do it, and I have the fortunate position of being a tenured professor.
And... in tenure veritas! I can even write snarky critiques of our socio-political moment. That's my job, and anyone who doesn't like my humor can kiss my academic freedom.
Getting back on track, though, what happens with shortages? It depends on the shortage. For essential goods, people with the money bid up the price. You better believe I'm going to do that. Masks? If I could buy a mask, I'd probably do it, but they're sold out because of the initial freak-out, so whatever. You know what that means? I have a hard time wearing a mask to protect you from me because you freaked out and bought 'em all long ago! OK! Thanks for saving me the money to protect me from you! Right now, I'm just not worrying about it. If DeWine tells me I need to wear something outside the house even though I can't buy a proper mask, I guess I go Cowboy and dig up an old bandana, or something. I dunno. Whatever.
However, suppose further research shows that masks protect the wearer. I start tracking down expensive protective gear. And because I'm employed and others aren't, I can spend that money. Yeah, that stuff exists, but you just have to pay the scalpers. So to speak. Limited number of units to go around, and we aren't in positive sum territory anymore. Me? I'm biddin' up that price because while I'd prefer a functioning economy with more people living, I'd also like to live, myself. Odds of dying? I already calculated that at around .67%, and as more numbers become available, that's probably higher than reality. Regardless, it is not high enough to freak out, but rather higher than I'd like, and I'll spend money to bring that down. If me spending my money means you can't get what I'm buying... too bad. We ain't in that together no more.
Because once we are in the territory of serious supply shortages, whom can you really trust? At this point, I return to that NES question with which I began the post. The correct answer is that everything really is contextual. Have you ever driven in a large city? People act like jerks. The less densely populated the place, the more friendly your fellow drivers are. They'll let you change lanes, and all that nice stuff. Why? Pressure. People get more selfish when the pressure is on. It's easy to be nice and considerate and helpful when you have everything you want. Does that mean everyone is? Of course not. There is individual variation, cultural variation, and all that. However, crank up the pressure, and people change. They become New York drivers, Boston drivers, LA drivers, San Francisco drivers, Chicago drivers... They change. They'll cut in front of you, block you if you try to change lanes, lean on their damned horns for no reason, and that's on a good day. Add lousy weather, and Dante will ask himself why he was so uncreative.
Under supply shortages, social interaction is no longer positive-sum. It is zero-sum, and in zero-sum interaction, we're not in it together. That doesn't mean everyone necessarily has to act like a sociopath. It would be nice to establish social order in such a way as to prevent the deterioration of rule of law, etc. But if you think people will have your back and protect you, then the question is, how long do you think that goes, in the hypothetical case that things get really bad?
Right now, we don't know how bad things get. This week, over 6 million filed for unemployment. Over 3 million filed the previous week. The population of the country is 330 million. 2% of the total population of the country filed for unemployment this week. Not 2% of the labor force, but 2% of the country. That means the denominator includes children and the retired. That's not actually how we calculate the unemployment rate. Go read about U1 through U6.
The Fed thinks unemployment could go over 30%.
Supply chains are being disrupted, which is why I referenced Scalzi's Interdependency trilogy in one of my sci-fi posts recently. The economics of this are disastrous, especially for something that is just nowhere near as lethal as, say, the "Georgia Flu," from Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. Right now, social order is holding up.
But in a world of supply disrupted, interactions cease to be positive sum between would-be consumers because the normal economics of capitalism have shut down. The pressure gets ramped up and the social dynamics of a New York traffic jam look like a hippie love fest in comparison.
We're all in this together? Not if capitalism shuts down, and right now, the economy is in mandatory shut down.
Watch the supply chains.
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