The SUV phenomenon

A lot of people buy SUVs. They explain that they need it for the size, or the all-wheel drive, or the safety, or ...
Problem is, a lot of the rationalizations don't really bear out. I'll leave this highly anecdotal since the point is not to pick on or do a deep dive into SUVs. The point is that people feel the need to rationalize their choices. Probably they want to be able to justify their purchase to others.

None of this is necessary. Just say you got an SUV because you wanted to feel cool. Or you like how it looks. Whatever. Be honest about your motivations. Be honest with yourself and others.

This concept is highly visible in the world of guns. I saw a great quote the other day, something like:

Birth control? Ban it.
Abortions? Ban it.
Gay marriage? Ban it.
Guns? Well, see, people will still get guns so ...

And to all the escalationists who justify more guns in order to stop the bad guys, here's the epitome of a good guy with a gun. And now he's dead. And he never had a chance.

Gun nuts: please just admit that you like your toys because they make you feel cool. At least that's something we can't argue with.

Does Norway scale?

Many people point to places like Norway as an example society. A society built on socialism that works. Why can't we just follow their model? Bernie Sanders and lots of others want to know!

First things first: does Norway work? While it's hard to say definitively, we can use various metrics to support the claim:

1. Norway is 2nd in the world in nominal GDP per capita behind only Luxembourg.

   a. And maintains the 6th position in purchasing power parity GDP per capita behind only Luxembourg, Singapore and a handful of OPEC countries.

2. Norway is, by a wide margin, tops in Human Development Index (an aggregate of life expectancy, education and income).

   a. and is tops by an even wider margin in inequality-adjusted HDI (same link).

3. Norway has among the lowest rates of poverty, at 4.3% (compared to 14.5% in the USA), in the world.

4. Norway has historically among the lowest murder rates, at 0.6 per 100,000 (compared to 4.7 in the USA)

5. It is one of the few countries in the world with a 100% literacy rate.

6. It ranks 2nd in Press Freedom Index.

7. Top-ranked universal health care. For everyone.

I'm sure there are many other pieces of data I could look at, but I've yet to find one that paints Norway as a bad place to live (unless you're a fan of warm weather ... but then you probably have plenty of money and time to take trips to Greece).

So the question is: can we adopt their model? I think the answer is "not really" or at least "not yet".

To answer the question, I think we have to look at why Norway works. I believe that the socialist model works because the entire population buys into the notion that everyone should have a good quality of life, and that they all win together. First and foremost, they are able to put money behind this belief. Their extremely high GDP per capita means they have a lot of funds, per capita, to spread around (via taxes or whatever mechanism). While much of their wealth comes from oil, they have also been good stewards of their fortunes. They have invested heavily in renewable energy, and they even have the world's largest pension fund to provide for their aging citizens! In short, a pragmatic, level-headed government has made the most of their assets.

On a technical level, Norway has large land area to support renewable energy (primarily hydro, with available space for wind). A higher density population may have a hard time achieving enough energy through just these means, and a poorer population may not be able to afford the infrastructure.

Furthermore, I think the population buys into the socialist approach because they are comfortable with the idea that everyone else in the country should be taken care of. This comes, I think, because of a very homogeneous society. 86% of the population (only 5 million total) is ethnic Norwegian. 80% of the population identifies as Lutheran. In other words, it's easy to love thy neighbor when thy neighbor is just like you.

Contrasting this with America, I think the bases upon which this socialist goodwill is built are not present. The population is too large (both in count and in distance from each other - really, what do I know about someone in Virginia or Florida or somewhere else far away) and too diverse. Many are weary of our immigrants from countries and backgrounds we don't understand. Many question their motives. Many fear their lifestyles. All this has to change before our society can band together and agree that we all can, and should, win. We have the money, sure, but we don't have the will.

 

This gun has cost me everything. Everything but my precious gun.

It certainly feels like a non-trivial segment of the population is so obsessed with their guns that they'll make any apology for the rampant issues we see as a result of them.

Too many gun deaths? People need more guns to protect themselves.
Let's just get rid of them? The "bad guys" will get guns and go on hunting sprees.
And so on it goes.

While the above can be true in some instances, over an entire population they will not bear out. There is clear proof of this from every other developed country where guns are heavily regulated. And, I think it's pretty likely that guns lead to several other problems.

There are some additional costs that no one really talks about (at least that I've heard of):

Police brutality:
Say what you will about bad cops, mean cops, power-hungry cops, I refuse to believe that shooting civilians is on their agenda. Sure, there will be a _few_ sociopaths in there, but I believe the seemingly steady stream of unarmed civilians killed by cops is a reaction tied to the cops' fear that the civilian might harm them. The very real possibility that a civilian has a gun on them can only increase this fear, and I think must increase it by a significant factor.

Financial cost:
This data is a little hard to parse, but using Washington as the example, it takes about $50-70k to try a murder case , and almost $500,000 to try a death-penalty murder case. Add to that the cost of street police, medical examiner, detective, and so on, and we have to be adding a few $10k to it. Most cases don't seek the death penalty, so let's actually ignore that case for the moment. If we use a range of $50k to $100k as the cost of investigating and trying a murder, multiply that by about 3/4 of the roughly 10k yearly murders that would be eliminated by removing guns, we get a range of $375-750M. Rounding to a number in the middle, let's call this $500M. These 7000 people (allowing for some multiple homicides in the 7500 deaths) will then spend 20+ years in prison** at a cost of about $30k per year, adding another roughly $4B to the yearly tab. Some states are less, some are more, but overall I think we're within a factor of 2. So, the real cost of these murders is between $3B and $10B per year. That's real money we can spend on so many other things.

** - it's fair to point out that someone who commits murder may end up in prison for other reasons as well, but we're just estimating here.

Opportunity cost:
In addition to the 7500 people who will no longer be killed each year, we can take the $3-10B savings and deploy it in any of the following ways (and many others):

1. Cover the treatment of breast cancer for ~50,000 women per year.
2. Support ~200,000 homeless people in staying off the street.
3. Weekly personal training and monthly nutritionist support for ~1,000,000 people (or even families, most providers will do group sessions at marginally higher cost)
1. Which may take a significant chunk out of the yearly $200B we spend on obesity-related illness ...
4. Give every teacher in America a $1000-$3000 raise.
5. Build out fiber internet to every home over the next 2 decades.
6. Lift ~500,000 people out of poverty.
7. Go finish that wall between US and Mexico this decade, then pick other options afterwards
8. Add a few hundred miles of electric rail to urban populations each year to displace gas-powered options.
1. In a place like Seattle, 200 miles of well-placed rail could eliminate tremendous amounts of car use. My very rough guess is well in excess of a million driven miles per day.
9. Make a condom available every time someone might want to use one.

The above list is aligned with many of the most common American concerns.




Resources are finite, and we have to choose how we spend our money. Our guns are costing us some of these, and they don't need to.

 

The first decade

I once saw a video (Ted talk, maybe?) about the power of doubling. In the example, the speaker emphasized what it means for something to double repeatedly. He spoke about our oil usage. It doubles roughly every decade, and due to its exponential growth, it means that every decade we use more oil than we'd used in all of history before that.

But, I'm not here to talk about oil. This same concept can be applied to retirement savings. Assume you stash away the same amount of money every year (this is not an entirely valid assumption for a number of reasons and we'll come back to it) and earn a 7% return each year. These assumptions are generally reasonable. The 7% is particularly noteworthy because it's just about the rate needed to double in a decade. This got me thinking: are the assets contributed to a retirement in the first decade going to trump those contributed in the following 3? If so, this is a profound realization.

To double-check, I threw together some Excel tables to test the above and see where the cutoff is (in years). Here's the table, assuming constant contributions of $10,000 per year and constant returns over a 40-year period:

Rate (%)	Final Total	Cutoff
5	1.28M	12
6	1.65M	11
7	2.15M	10
8	2.81M	9
9	3.69M	8
10	4.88M	7

In other words, the first decade is as important as the last 3. If your returns are higher, the effect is exaggerated, but even at a relatively modest 5 percent return the first 12 years net out to the same as the last 18. Of course the effect is reduced if the savings is over less than 40 years, and increased if it's longer.

Now lets revisit the assumptions ...

I used the assumption that the contribution would be the same each year. This is technically and practically unlikely in many cases. Technically, because roughly 2 of every 3 years the contribution limit rises $500. In practice this makes little difference (running the same calculations with this adjustment moves the cutoff from 10 to 11 years at 7%, for example).

The in-practice assumption is the hard one. Most people's earnings increase over time, and with that, so does their ability to save for retirement. Many (due to salary) are forced to choose between "life now" vs "life later" (for example, someone making 30k will not be able to stash $18k in a retirement account). The above illustrates the great power of compounding growth, which should give people more incentive to consider the "life later" bucket.

For anyone who can afford to, it's just as important to save max for the first decade as it is to save max for the next 3. If you can, do it.

Battery-operated flight

A quick followup on solar-powered flight. A comment came up that "battery-operated flight was a possibility because the charge density of battery tech will get there".


I think it's going to take discovering some Star Trek energy crystal flux magic. A current, say, 787 uses about 4 terrajoules of energy on its flight. The rumored next iteration of the Tesla Model S stores 90kW.hr (~= 300 megajoules) in a ~1000lb battery (see: http://my.teslamotors.com/.../forum/forums/model-s-battery-0), which is pretty consistent with this claim that a typical Li-ion battery can store 150W.hr per 1kg.To store the required energy would take around 15000 batteries, weighing 15 million lbs. The corresponding kerosene weighs under 30,000 lbs. That means the same energy requires 500 times more weight in storage. This is the gap that must be closed to a large degree.

 

The Engineer's trap

I'm smart, see? If I just sit down and think really hard, I'll derive the right answer.

This works, sometimes. For some people better than others. But, not always for anyone. In engineering (and many other disciplines), we can't predict the future. Sure, we can have very high confidence that a particular thing will work, functionally. However, we can't inherently predict human reaction. Will people like this interface? Will people enjoy this car design? Will people like having the cup holders in the doors? And so on.

There are an amazing number of smart people being held back by wasting time arguing over the unpredictable. At the core of this must be the desire to be right, to say "I called it!". But, getting things right is more likely through trial and iteration and being able to recognize failed attempts quickly (this is at the heart of the agile fail-fast engineering methodology).

Use your smarts. Apply them in areas where they are more reliable. Instead of foreseeing the future, spend your time thinking about how you know that you're right, or at least on the right track.

2030: A mini ice age climate reprieve

Articles have been going around touting a possible "mini ice age" coming in 2030. The premise is that scientists have predicted a significant drop in "sun activity" (which I think means the number of spots, which are essentially tides of fire), leading to a condition known as the Maunder Minimum, which will therefore lead to significant drops of temperature on Earth, as evidenced by the rare freezing of the Thames river in the late 1600s which coincided with the last Maunder Minimum.

It doesn't help that news outlets are titling their articles with hyperbolae like "the sun will 'go to sleep' in 2030" or "the sun will become inactive" and so on. Climate skeptics have already rallied around this, pointing out things like "the Sun is also part of the climate" and "no wonder they renamed it from warming to change", and so on. Are they right? As usual, they are not.

For one, the freezing of the Thames river was a local condition. While it's true that didn't happen often and didn't happen again after, the flow of the river was altered (sped up) by the replacement of structures in the water about a century later. In other words, we removed the conditions under which the river could freeze. Summers were not any cooler (which we'd expect if the sun is emitting significantly less energy), nor were overall temperatures affected elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, the Maunder Minimum purportedly at fault started 50 years before the Thames froze. So, either it was unrelated, or it took 50 years for the effects to catch up. Either way, we're not gonna see an ice age in 2030 as a result of this.

Suppose for a second that global temperatures will drop significantly as a result of reduced sun activity. What then? if we continue to blanket the Earth in greenhouse gases, we'll roast that much more when the sun becomes "active" again. If we truly believe temperatures will drop, it's even more incentive to get our clean air acts together and use that as a boost towards mitigating climate change damage.