Society

Obesity, Second-Order Consequences & ..Molds?

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I came across this series of posts on the root causes of Obesity by Slime Mold Time Mold, a delightfully weird pseudonym for the team behind the posts. The posts are long, well researched, and, despite the weighty content (haha), quite fun to read.

The blog series is not complete, and I am fascinated to see what comes next.

The writers start with the observation that we have seen a startling increase in obesity rates from 1980 to the present day as seen in the animation below from Our World in Data.

As of 1980, around 11% of the population of the Americas was obese. In 2016, this went up to a staggering 28%. What has caused this?

The team at Slime Mold Time Mold (SMTM) reviews research and data spanning the last 150 years. From studies done on the BMI of Civil War veterans to looking at rates of obesity in Macaques – they cover an incredibly wide range of material. Their thesis is that 1980 was an inflection point – after 1980 we see soaring rates of obesity across the industrialized world.

Strangely, this increase does not seem to be driven by a big change in the total number of calories consumed or in the way that we live our lives. Indeed, the diets in the early 20th century were more calorific and unhealthy than present-day diets.

Just think of all the big dinners on Downton Abbey.

Carbs, glorious carbs..

We eat fewer carbs today than we did a hundred years ago. While the research does show an increase in the total number of calories consumed, the data does not support the increase in obesity rates being driven by an increase in calorific consumption.

SMTM’s thesis is that environmental contamination is an important driver of the increase in obesity rates since 1980.

They look at a number of different culprits – Lithium, a group of chemicals called PFAs as well as the presence of antibiotics in livestock.

If indeed environmental contamination is a primary driver of the obesity crisis, we are looking at a public health scandal that will be bigger than smoking or lead in gasoline. The jury is still out, but SMTM’s work seems to point to a strong correlation.

It also makes me think, again, that we are very poor at thinking through the second-order consequences of our actions. I think we are tinkerers by nature and are biased to action. This has helped us make a lot of progress in a short time – but we are also continuously fixing (or abandoning) things that we have broken along the way.

Environmental contamination and obesity are just another of a variety of different examples of “progress” messing things up. Maybe the research will identify a smoking gun and the problem will be regulated away.

We are strikingly poor at figuring out how complex systems operate and how they may trigger feedback loops. Global warming, disinformation on social media, and many other modern ailments can be tracked to us not being able to think through the consequences of our actions.

So what is the solution? One way is a monastic retreat to the wilderness. But when even remote Alaska is contaminated with PFAS chemicals, retreat does not seem to be a viable option. Maybe we need to push regulatory bodies for stricter enforcement of laws and punitive measures for those who do not comply. But the revolving door between big government and big chem does not fill me with confidence that this is an avenue that holds much hope.

The one, teeny-tiny, ray of hope comes from us being able to deploy massive computational power to model and simulate the world a little better. Perhaps we could get better at figuring out how complex systems interact and that might help towards a more thoughtful and considered approach to change?

One can live in hope. Until then, I wait for my next SMTM fix.

Footnote

The work by SMTM is worth reading (and following) in full. It is a great example of just some “random people on the Internet” using open data to think through and attempt to answer difficult questions.

Reading SMTM reminded me of the early, pre-social media engagement-driven, Internet. I remember stumbling upon blogs such Naked Capitalism (Still going strong), The Epicurean Dealmaker (RIP), and Slate Star Codex (also RIP) and enjoying reading about topics that were outside my areas of work or of study.

The death of Google Reader and the rise of Social Media has made the Internet a much less surprising place.

Computer Says No

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Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

Everyone has dealt with a “Computer Says No” situation. You call up a customer services agent hoping for a quick resolution to a perfectly reasonable query. But “computer says no”. You go through a convoluted questionnaire, answer the questions as best you can, but “computer says no”. The customer service agent shrugs saying that they can’t do anything because the system won’t let them.

It is tempting to call the customer service agent a jobsworth, or someone who doesn’t care about their job. To hang up in frustration and curse the status of the customer service industry.

So why is modern customer service so bad? Why do we dread calling up a help line or deal with an online customer support agent (who may or may not be a bot)?

Atul Gawande’s recent New Yorker article on why medical professionals hate their computers may have an answer. Dr. Gawande is a surgeon. In the article, he talks about how the medical informations systems used in his hospital make it difficult to really look after his patients.

Hospital systems in the US (much like the NHS in the UK) have spent billions of dollars to make medical care more efficient. But when we go visit our local general practitioner, we find them struggling with their PC more than talking to us. Instead of empathy, we get distracted clicks and frowns while the doctor tries to figure out how to massage the conversation into a bunch of drop downs and radio buttons. It is a terrible experience for everyone involved.

I am an engineer, I like efficiency. I like measuring the performance of the code I write and love reading articles about how to optimise software. In this pursuit of perfection, I fear that we have optimised ourself into a corner. Our systems are optimised, everything is measured — except the misery that they inflict on those who actually have to use the system every day. Human conversations and problems cannot be modelled so easily into a workflow. Improved throughput and the need to be more efficient drive design decisions more than the need to solve a problem. So we end up systems that their users hate. These systems and workflows lead to dis-engaged employees and ultimately to terrible customer service.

The next time that someone talks about having poor customer service, don’t blame the agent. Blame the analyst who designed the convoluted workflow in the software they use and the engineer who implemented it.

Review: The Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford

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Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless FutureRise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rise of the Robots (RoR) was voted as the Financial Time’s Business Book of the Year* for 2015.

I found the book to be a disappointment. RoR goes over well trodden territory around automation, the shift of from a labour driven economy to a capital driven economy and the impending collapse of the consumption due to the shrinking middle class. Mr. Ford also provides a brief tour of the issues around the emergence of general purpose Artificial Intelligence** and nano technology. The book concludes with an argument for a universal, work appropriate basic income scheme and a discussion around the system of incentives that would make such a scheme work.

The book provides anecdotal commentary around the decimation of white collar jobs and the emergence of machine learning. It covers well trod territory on the failures of MOOCs and how a degree from a University may no longer guarantee a prosperous middle class life.

RoR comes across as a lament for the golden post-war age of increasing prosperity, high levels of employment and with the middle classes having a secure financial future. Mr. Ford mentions on a number of occasions that we are reverting to a feudal system with a small percentage of the population controlling access to capital and the majority of us becoming sharecroppers in a digital economy. I agree with this bleak prognosis but do not find Mr. Ford’s solution of a increasing consumption via a universal basic income satisfactory.

I found RoR to be a sharp, succinct read with extensive foot notes and references. There are few mentions in the book of the sort of challenges facing countries like India that are not wealthy and where a basic income would be difficult to implement. India, like China before it, has staked it’s economic future on creating millions of jobs through manufacturing and services. If these jobs are not to materialise due to the “Rise of the Robots”, what options remain open? Regrettably, Mr. Ford does not offer much in the way of insight here.

I would recommend RoR as a primer on the type of issues that developed nations will face in the coming decades but find Mr. Ford’s arguments for a solution unconvincing and his exploration on the deeper issues around ethics around general purpose AI unsatisfactory.

Notes:
* FT Business Book of the Year: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/45ea0f60-8d…

** Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence provides a detailed exploration around the issues behind the emergence of General Purpose AI: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2…

View all my reviews

Propaganda in the age of Wikileaks

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Gloria Origgi, in Edge 335 states that we are leaving the information age behind and are entering a reputation age. She posits that one of the reasons for the influence Wikileaks wields in current political and social discourse is due to powerful, and reputed media organisations like the New York Times and The Guardian acting as conduits for it’s revelations.  We trust the contents of the Wikileaks secrets because of our implicit trust of these formidable media organisations.  We believe the revelations because we believe in the integrity of the Guardian or the Times.

When a reputed newspaper breaks a story, we assume that the sources have been vetted, and that the editors have double checked the allegations / revelations before publishing them.  Wikileaks, however, presents an interesting dilemma.  The contents of the leaks were uploaded by someone (presumably PFC Bradley Manning) within the US military establishment.   The behaviour of the US government (and other governments) subsequently offer some reassurance that these diplomatic cables did come from within their organisations.  Not surprisingly, “Cablegate” has become perhaps the media event of the year (or even the decade).  Hordes of commentators have descended on the Guardian website venting their spleen about the evils of the US government, and the hypocrisy of US foreign policy.

I can’t help but be a little cynical about this hoopla.  Yes, clearly some of the contents of leaks may jeopardise national (or indeed international) security.  However, I wonder how easy it would be for a government, or any other organisation to manipulate public opinion via a channel like Wikileaks.  Could Wikileaks itself be used as tool for government (or indeed corporate propaganda)?  Would it be easier for the US government to sell overt support of a South Korean invasion of North Korea given the cables published on the topic?  Would it be easier for the state department to withdraw a diplomat / intelligence agent from a tricky situation abroad now that he has been “outed” and him disappearing would look very bad for the host nation?

Yes, this is tinfoil hat territory.  I just want to convey that we should think twice before taking the contents of the Cablegate memos at face value.  Even if the leak was unintended (as it appears), it could be quite easy for a motivated organisation (government etc.) to move quickly and use it as another avenue for propaganda.

Echo Chamber

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Does anybody even remember the term “Information Superhighway” any more?  Do you remember a pre-global warming, pre-divorce, skinny Al Gore and his dubious claims on inventing the Internet?  We were told about having the world’s knowledge at our finger tips. The Internet would free information and provide the most egalitarian way to get to knowledge previously limited to inhabitants of ivory towers.  But what happened?  The story of the last ten years unfolds almost like a moralistic tale. Like Midas and his golden touch or like the Genie from Arabian nights and their granting of life wishes that destroy lives.

We don’t learn any more.  We bookmark.  We don’t read any more, we skim.  We don’t discuss any more, we forward links to points, and another set of links to counter points, followed by links for the conclusion.  When we do decide to comment, it is a comment made in character, stereotypical.

We all live in an echo chamber of our stereotype.  Our voices bounce off the walls, and are magnified by those of our peers, also of our stereotype.  These voices then pour out of the mouth of the chamber and as an atonal roar that clashes with those coming out of other chambers.  We are here, shouting at one another, but not bothering to understand why or what we are shouting for.  We like shouting because it is what we do, our slogans are what define us.