I’ve heard some people say they don’t understand how people can hold the view that climate change is not anthropogenic yet claim that climate change can be countered cheaply using geo-engineering, e.g., by injecting sulfur ((Why, IUPAC, why?)) into the atmosphere. The reason for their concern is that they think it’s logically inconsistent since the effects of geo-engineering techniques and anthropogenic climate change are predicted by the same computer models. However, (anthropogenic) climate change deniers are being perfectly reasonable as far as thinking about temperature goes. Let me explain.
Ultrabook fad
As someone that placed an order for a MacBook Air within 24 hours of its announcement, I obviously have some bias when I say that Stan Shih, founder of Acer, is misguided in saying tablets and “ultrabooks”, laptops under 0.8 inches thick with longer battery lives, are just “short-term phenomena”. Ceteris paribus, most people would probably choose a thinner, lighter laptop with longer battery life over a bulkier one with a shorter battery life. One of the selling points of laptops is their portability; ultrabooks are a natural evolution towards increasing portability.
Grass ain't green
You may have heard about a Robert and Brenda Vale’s book Time to Eat the Dog?: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living
So the next time you think that green lawns are better than concrete jungles, just remember that each sliver of manicured grass is like a vampire fang extending out of the earth, draining precious resources.
Fault tolerant… public transit
I was going to write a proper blog post today, but I got stuck in a good old fashioned TTC delay for about forty minutes this morning (this also means I haven’t proofread this post nor thought too much about the topic). Some poor folks that left later than I may have been held up by multiple delays. Indeed, a single delay on the TTC seems to invite further delays. I.e., though long delays aren’t (that) frequent, once there is one delay, multiple long delays seem to crop up. If the TTC has statistics on the number of chains of delays that appear within half an hour of each other, I’d love to see if I’m just experiencing a memory bias (also likely). However, I’m not here to rant today, but to put some thoughts down I had during my bonus (cramped) quiet time today.
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No smoking in cars or no consistency
I recently noticed a car with a non-smoking sign inside. It had a trillium on the side, so it was likely owned by the provincial government. My next thought was why we permit smoking in cars. I’m not here to debate whether any government should get to have a say about this, but allowing smoking seems to be politically and logically inconsistent with a certain one of Ontario’s currently-enacted laws.
Tragedy of the Commons: Part IV — In the World
But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy’s? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me. – Vizzini (The Princess Bride)
Contrary to initial expectations, we’ve found that a perfectly rational player ought not to defect in a game described in Part I. So what? How does that apply to the real world? Game theory is useful for modeling decision making processes where abstractions reduce the variables to be considered. Examples in real life of situations modeled by a tragedy of the commons dilemma are readily available.
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Tragedy of the Commons: Part III — The Debeakered Take
In Part III of the Tragedy of the Commons 4-part series, I give my analysis of the game played in class. You should at least read Tragedy of the Commons: Part I — The Setup for a description of the game before reading this section.
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Tragedy of the Commons: Part II — The Professorial Take
In Part II of the Tragedy of the Commons 4-part series, I rehash the professor’s analysis of the game played in class. You should read Tragedy of the Commons: Part I — The Setup for a description of the game before reading this section.
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Tragedy of the Commons: Part I — The Setup
Back in 2006, I took the undergraduate course Individual and Organizational Behaviour offered to students in the commerce programme at the University of Toronto. One of the highest quality lectures I have attended was given in this class by a guest speaker, a professor in the Rotman School of Management. During this lecture, students were put into groups and pitted against each other in a friendly competition. We faced off in what seemed to be a tragedy of the commons scenario and our gameplay was analysed by the speaker. However, I argue that what we were playing was not actually a tragedy of the commons scenario and that the analysis given in class was incorrect. Apparently, what I thought was extremely obvious was not. Or perhaps I’m just wrong; I’m no game theoretician.
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