Too young to win a gold medal?

Ok, people really need to stop complaining that the Chinese gymnasts at the Olympics may or may not be younger than 16, and therefore should be reprimanded/disqualified/thrown in jail. Can anyone possibly come up with any sort of reasoning as to why being younger in gymnastics (or in any sport for that matter) is advantageous??? Well, people are trying:

"Age has a lot to do with what's level in gymnastic competitions. There is a mental advantage for youngsters who are clueless about pressure, unaware of what wobbles the burden to win can create."

This is coming from a writer for Sports Illustrated...seriously? I really don't think the Chinese girls are little balance beam-flipping-vaulting robots who are totally oblivious to what is going on. And apparently once a girl hits the age of 16, she is rendered ineffective by the pressures of competition?

I don't buy it. The bottom line is, the gymnasts from another country performed better than the gymnasts from our country. Period. Even if they happened to be "too young," they still beat us. I really just think Americans have a problem with losing.

Not that the rules should just be ignored. There is an age rule for a reason, and I'm sure its purpose is to keep underage girls from exposure to the rigors of competition (although maybe this is unnecessary, as they seem unaffected by the pressure? I'd like to hear SI's take on why the rule is in place). Furthermore, I am far from being in agreement with the way China approaches their gymnastics program, basically pushing young children through a sort of full-time "gymnastic boot camp" (from what I understand). However, it is far too late to take any sort of action in this instance. These girls qualified, competed, and won; it would be ridiculous to take away their accomplishment now. Rather, the IOC should be sure to take appropriate measures in the future to ensure that in the future this sort of issue does not detract from the amazing accomplishments of these athletes.

Pack them in

This...is just ridiculous. Personally I would wait for the next one...

The Ministry of Sunshine?

It seems government controlled weather is no longer a myth. According to this article, China is planning on ensuring that the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing will be rain free by shooting rockets into the sky to make it rain ahead of time. Apparently this is not a procedure limited to high-profile events, as I've heard that they do the same thing prior to big test days (everyone tests better with sunny skies outside, right!?) The Olympic thing seems innocuous enough, but coupled with the test day thing it all seems rather Orwellian (Beijing even has a "Weather Modification Office"!). I suppose there is no harm in nice weather, but a government taking measures to subliminally influence the actions of its citizens seems a mighty slippery slope down which to travel.

Shout out from NYC

So I'm here in New York visiting my sister, and as always I'm struck by how completely different New York (well at least Manhattan) is from most everywhere else. As a "city" it puts even Chicago to shame, not to mention places like little old Whitney Point where I grew up. Living somewhere like NY is a completely different experience from living in a town of about 1,000 people, and its amazing to me that such a range of experiences can be found on the same planet, let alone in the same state (of course if one were to look internationally you could find far greater gaps in size/prosperity that would lead to even more different experiences). And even though we are all biologically the same human species, we are in many ways completely different beings because of our surroundings and experiences. Maybe this gives credence to the cliche that you can take the person out of the city/small town, but you can't take the city/small town out of the person.

lol@TSA

Oh TSA how you make me laugh. So I was perusing their website today to get the latest on what I can and cannot put in my carry-on for an upcoming flight...take a look at the list.
WTF! Note that this falls under the heading of "Makeup, Medication, Personal Items & Special Needs Devices." They really need to add "robots" to that in order to prevent confusion, or perhaps create a separate section of "Sentient Beings." Just to be explicitly clear, they have indicated that the robots must be toys and not actually full fledged transformers (sorry Optimus Prime, looks like you'll need to ship yourself next time you want to take a Hawaiian getaway). My concern is that there may be robots simply posing as toys, only to reveal their deadly nature once on board. The last thing we need are laserbeams and buzzsaws flying through the cabin as full-fledged robot warfare breaks out 35,000 ft over the Atlantic.

(Those wishing to verify whether their My Little Pony doll is airworthy can click here to check out the list for themselves).

China (again!) and air pollution

Continuing with this whole China and Olympics thing (and why not!), a lot is being said on the air quality in China and how this will affect athletic performance. I've seen everything from athletes petitioning the IOC to be allowed to use potentially performance enhancing inhalers (only in this case just so they can actually breathe, if you call that performance enhancing) to discussions on each country's specific (and top-secret) strategies for combating the effects of polluted air (apparently the U.S. team is planning on wearing masks 24/7 when not in competition - not kidding). Well, there is not much to say about this other than yes, the air is likely to be very dirty, and yes, this will likely cause trouble for the participants. The only question is how much of a relations issue will the measures taken become!

This does however raise the issue of the effect China is having on the environment as it rapidly industrializes. Surely, we must do something to make them understand that what they are doing is wrong! But was it any less wrong for the United States and Western Europe during the 1800s? The difference is that during the Industrial Revolution polluting was the "modern" thing to do. Well guess what - China is playing catchup. The new modern thing is to be environmentally aware, but this is a luxury that is only affordable by those who have already done their fare share of eco-trashing. For us to demand that they cease and desist is hypocritical at best.

That doesn't mean there is nothing that can be done. However, any inducement made to alter China's behavior must be positive and not negative, carrots not sticks. We should approach the issue accepting that China has the "right" to pollute, and think about what we can do to entice them into giving up that right. One way is by treating the right to pollute as a commodity, and simply "buying" that right from the Chinese. It all depends on how much we value a world with less pollution, because there must be some price which equals the benefit received by China from actions which pollute, and by compensating accordingly we can alter their "consumption of pollution." And after all, who really wants to eat that stuff anyway.

P.S. on Tibet (and cool Olympic venues!)

Just to follow up on the last, I heard an interesting argument a while ago at a talk on "China" (broad topic right) here at the law school. Someone asked why China seems to "care so much" about territories such as Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, and even Taiwan. In short, one of the speakers suggested that the nature of these and other territories in China are so tenuous that were the government to give the smallest concession to recognizing their independence, the floodgates would open and the hold on all such territories would be lost. He went on to say that "maybe China isn't really a country." It sounds ridiculous, but he compared it to the former Yugoslavia as an umbrella entity that is holding together distinct smaller countries in nothing but name, and were it to be removed the countries would quickly break apart. It really begs the question "what defines a country." I think there are a whole lot of ways to answer that, and I have no idea if the comparison of China to Yugoslavia is valid, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Oh and as I promised...cool Olympic venues! Say what you will about the Beijing Olympics, you have to agree that they have style. I think that many of these buildings are at the top of my list of "coolest buildings I have ever seen in my life, I would never have dreamt up in a million years, and in some cases don't even understand how they can possibly exist," but my two favorites by far are the Bird's Nest and the Cube. I want to go to China to see the Olympics!!!

Tibet, China, and the Olympics

It seems like calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics is the fashionable thing to be doing lately, especially after the recent protests and subsequent crackdown in Tibet. I think this is quite rash at best. You have to first consider, what is the goal of such a boycott? I would imagine the argument is something like, "Boycotting the games in Beijing will send a clear statement to China that we do not agree with their domestic/foreign policies" Ok, but why would they care if the Olympics are not successful? Two reasons - 1. The Olympics will make a lot of money. 2. Hosting the Olympics is prestigious for China and gives them "street cred" on the world stage.

First of all, I'm not even convinced that reason 1 is true. I've read articles (and listened to lectures) by economists who make the argument that the Olympics tend to be a financial net loss. It's just such a tremendous infrastructure investment, much of it temporary, that it cannot hope to be recouped in total. So maybe by boycotting the Olympics we ("we" here [and throughout] referring to anyone considering a boycott; as far as I know this isn't even being seriously considered by the U.S.) will make them relatively more expensive. But like I said, i don't think China is looking to make money here, so we would be working on the wrong incentive. The cost of holding the Olympics may just be the price paid for the resulting prestige.

Well then, incidental to making them lose even more money, we'll humiliate them! That'll show 'em. Maybe. At what cost though? China is a very influential world power, becoming more so all the time, and shows no signs of slowing down. Do we want to alienate them? Is the entire world going to get in on this? Doubtful. My prediction is no one boycotts in full; perhaps there will be small scale gestures (I read the president of France may skip out on the opening ceremony), and there will surely be individual, small scale protests. But the games will go on.

I agree with those who say that the Olympics should be "above" politics, as that is the spirit of the event.* Of course this isn't true (again, there will surely be individual, small scale protests) but sheesh, can't we even pretend that we would like this to be the case?? Involvement in the Olympics is not an implicit endorsement of the host nation's policies. Athletes are not diplomats. Ok, there is some "diplomatic" aspect, as they are technically representatives of our country; but they are cultural representatives, not political. Why can't a successful Olympics in Beijing be seen as an embrace of the Chinese culture instead of the government policies? Many people have said it but I agree, the real losers are the athletes. Face it, as objectionable as some of China's policies are, the Olympics were not conceived as a bargaining chip.

*At first I wondered why the IOC would even award the Olympics to Beijing - could they not foresee this issue arising? It's not like China all of the sudden adopted a questionable stance on human rights (if anything the situation has likely improved since the games were first awarded). The only thing I could think was that the IOC truly does consider the games to be outside of politics, and for this reason this did not bear on their decision. For whatever reason, they made a decision at that time, China has the Olympics this summer, and they're not going to be taken away.

Blog Race! / There Will be Puppies.

My sister has challenged me to a blog race. Kind of like the Amazing Race but better. The winner of the race is the person who has more comments on their blog at the end of a (yet to be determined) period of time. At stake is one (1) puppy. I will not tell you the address of her blog because I am not all about shooting myself in the foot. It hurts, to be honest. I am concerned about my prospects of winning this race because the only person who knows the address of my blog is my enemy, and I know that at least one (1) other individual has read the offending blog (and, horror of horrors, already commented!) So, if you through some miraculous inexplicable happening happen to be happily (or unhappily even) reading this blog, comment away! Don't do it for me; do it for the puppy! (See Figure 1 below)

Fig 1. A puppy. Perhaps if you help me win, we can split it. Not literally you freak.

Idle thoughts of a random mind

My boss wrote an email that was titled "Random thoughts of an idle mind." I thought it was a really silly and pretentious thing to title an email. Note that I'm not using pretentious in a bad way here, as I tend to write rather floridly just because I find it fun. But still, it was silly and pretentious.* I decided to reverse the phrase in my blog title because, well, that's me. I like to be contrary. And while I do have random thoughts, I would rarely describe my mind as idle. I guess random thoughts of a random mind would be more fitting but I think you can appreciate the reasons for my choice.

*I googled this phrase and it seems to be quite common, but I had never heard it and I like it anyway.

The Economic Argument against Drawing Names at Christmas*

Each year as the holiday season approaches, an individual will set aside a specific part of his or her consumption bundle to be used for the purchase of holiday gifts. This bundle will vary from year to year as the individual financial situation fluctuates, and may vary from person to person as each will derive a different and specific level of utility from the giving of gifts. The value of this Holiday Bundle is determined in advance, and as such a mandated change in the manner of gift giving will not have an effect on its size. Rather, such a change will serve only to alter the allocation of gifts given.

Suppose Santa has decided to allocate S dollars of his consumption bundle to giving gifts this Christmas. Let Y be equal to the number of individuals in the gift-giving circle, or economy. In a normal year, Santa will buy one gift for each of the Y – 1 individuals on his list; call this “State 1.” Under State 1, Santa will spend a total of S dollars buying gifts and each individual on his list will receive a gift of value S/Y-1. However, this year, The Grinch has decided that he would like to change the rules of the game by setting up a lottery type system whereby each participant draws the name of one person to be the recipient of a holiday gift from them; call this “State 2.” Under State 2, Santa will still spend S dollars on giving gifts, but instead of each recipient receiving a gift of value S/Y-1, one individual will receive a gift of value S.

Bob Cratchit, finding himself in a somewhat more difficult financial situation than Santa this year, has decided to allocate C dollars of his consumption bundle to giving gifts this Christmas, with C < S. As was the case with Santa, this Holiday Bundle is determined ahead of time and not influenced by the change from State 1 to State 2 brought about by The Grinch. Thus, the individual whose name Bob Cratchit draws will receive a gift of value C, instead of each individual receiving a gift of C/Y-1. Recall that C < S; the individual whose name is drawn by Cratchit will receive a gift of some value less than that of the individual drawn by Santa.

Suppose that the economy consists solely of Santa, Bob Cratchit, and The Grinch. Under State 1, Santa will receive a total haul of C/Y-1 + G/Y-1 = H_S1, Bob Cratchit will receive S/Y-1 + G/Y-1 = H_C1, and The Grinch will receive S/Y-1 + C/Y-1 = H_G1. Suppose we move to a world under State 2, and that Santa has drawn The Grinch, The Grinch has drawn Bob Cratchit, and Bob Cratchit has drawn Santa. Under this scenario, the total hauls will be:

H_S2 = C

H_C2 = G

H_G2 = S

In the case of The Grinch, simple arithmetic will yield (Y – 1)H_G1 – C = H_G2. Thus, The Grinch’s haul is twice as great in State 1, less the relatively small Holiday Bundle of Bob Cratchit. Because Cratchit’s bundle is small, The Grinch is relatively better off. If we look at Cratchit’s situation, note that we get (Y – 1)H_C1 – S = H_C2. Thus, Cratchit’s haul is twice as great as in State 1, less the relatively large haul of Santa. The Grinch and Cratchit have received very different levels of utility.

To push the example to the extreme, suppose that our economy includes a fourth individual, Jesus. Being the Almighty Himself and as such not saddled by mundane and worldly constraints such as budgets, Jesus has a Holiday Bundle of J = ∞. Thus, whoever has his name drawn by Jesus will be the recipient of a haul of H_X2 = ∞, and those whose names are not drawn will have their utility reduced infinitely from the State 1 level. Although certainly hyperbolic, this example helps to illustrate what occurs to a lesser extent at the margin.

Similarly, suppose we were to include a fifth individual; let us call him Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge has allocated a Holiday Bundle of E = 0 because he does not approve of this whole Christmas thing and does not care if the person whose name he draws does not receive a gift. Under a State 1 system, Scrooge’s miserliness is equally spread among the Y – 1 individuals, and as such its effect is minimized. However, moving to a State 2 system, one unlucky individual will receive a total haul of 0, and an infinite decrease in utility.

One might argue that this finding may not be valid, as it requires us to assume that the utility levels under the State 1 scenario are equivalent, and that this would not be the case unless each individual gave himself a gift. However, we can relax that assumption if we instead assume the utility derived per dollar to be the same whether the gift is given or received, as is likely. By doing so we see that the situation is identical to that of a world where individuals give themselves gifts. Thus, the result is valid.

As we have shown, the State 2 system, although Pareto Optimal will result in gifts of different value being received by each individual. This will lead to Hard Feelings, which will invariably decrease the amount of Christmas Cheer. As shown below, Christmas Cheer is a product of a utility derived from giving gifts, X, and utility derived from receiving gifts, R, each raised to some constant, α and β, respectively.

Christmas Cheer = (X^α R^β)/Hard Feelings

As clearly shown, Christmas Cheer and Hard Feelings share an inverse relationship, and, ceteris paribus, an increase in one leads to a decrease in the other.

One might argue that such a market can clear through external controls; namely, that by fixing the amount of money that each individual may spend on gifts to be equal or less than the group’s smallest Holiday Bundle, a steady-state will be achieved in which all hauls are equal. However, this does not take into account the fact that forcing individuals to change their Holiday Bundle cannot result in maximized utility because this decreases the utility they derive from giving gifts. Thus we see that, in the great Chicago School tradition, external controls lead to an inefficient market.

The most unsettling result is the potential for such a system to “ruin Christmas.” As tradition goes, should Hard Feelings ever rise to a level so as to be greater than or equal to the derived utility of giving and receiving gifts, X^α R^β, Christmas Cheer will be less than 1 and Christmas will have been ruined for all. As we can see from Figure 1, there is a positive correlation between the magnitude of change introduced to the Christmas routine and Hard Feelings.[1] Because the drawing of names represents a substantial change from State 1 operations, the amount of Hard Feelings thus imposed is likely to be significant. As such, this change is dangerously likely to ruin Christmas. Support for this claim can be found in Figure 2, which gives results from a survey detailing the predominant cause of Christmases that have been ruined in the past.

To sum up, the introduction of a system in which names are drawn for Christmas gift giving will invariably ruin Christmas by resulting in discrepancies in gift value, as this leads to Hard Feelings and results in fractional Christmas Cheer. Therefore, the clear choice for utility maximaztion is to remain under a State 1 system.

---

[1] This assumes that parties are “change-averse” and not change-neutral or change-loving.

*This is something I wrote in response to my family, you guessed it, deciding to draw names for gifts last Christmas. Its just a joke but I had fun writing it and I wanted to save it somewhere, what better place than the internet! (Plus since the button says "publish post," and this is an "academic" paper, I am now going to tell everyone that I am published.

College Sports

Being that I always get way too into college sports this time of year (until my team lets me down--I'm looking at you, Georgetown), I've been thinking about the phenomenon in our country that is college athletics. If you think about it it's quite strange. Originally (I'm sure) the point of going to college was to, you know, go to college, and sports were, as they still are by definition, extracurricular. It is of course still this way at many schools (I'm looking at you, Chicago), but for a large number of universities I feel like sports are almost as big as academics, to the point where I feel like they are almost a separate entity. Of course college athletes are still required to be enrolled as students in the schools they attend, but please who are we kidding? Athletes are recruited rigorously not for their minds but for their physical abilities, and this likely gets many in where they otherwise would not have a chance. Now I'm not going to get into that, and it's not even necessarily a bad thing, but it seems that many of the athletes don't really care about the education aspect at all...which leads to the "separate entity" of sports and academics.

Which leads me to ponder, why the pretense? Why don't universities just abolish the student requirement altogether and just have athletic teams associated by name only? They could still recruit in the same manner, and this would not preclude the bright students who happen to also have athletic talent from competing. Heck, maybe just make academics optional for the athletes, and those who recognize the opportunity of piggybacking a college degree onto their sporting endeavors could do so.

I wonder if this would fundamentally affect the way in which college sports are viewed. My guess is that it would, but I'm not really sure why. I think people like the notion of the "student athlete," and would react negatively if that were taken away. I think there is definitely value in providing education to athletes, and if a gifted athlete is able to pay for a great education because of his/her sporting ability, all the better. It just seems to me that college sports has become in a lot of ways a "junior" professional league, and as a result many of its more traditional (dare I say old-fashioned?) conventions are at odds with these seeming aspirations.

Somewhat unrelated and regardless of what I said above, I think college sports are very central to the overall "success" of any school. I have always felt that the University of Chicago was infinitely boneheaded in its decision to give up its spot in the Big 10 and do away with sports back in the day. This is something we could not bring back to the level we forfeited now even if we wanted to. The benefits of a big-name athletic program are as varied as they are numerous, probably the biggest of which are advertising and brand recognition (although not to be forgotten are that intangible "school spirit," and oh what's that other one, hmm, oh yeah, $$$$$$$$$$$). The fact is that this is the kind of thing which will factor into any prospective students decision, and I would be willing to bet that for the most part students desire this kind of amenity at their school. Its often suggested that Chicago caters to a different crowd, and maybe so. But it seems to me that they are trending more mainstream, and I bet you anything they wish they didn't have to live with the decisions of their predecessors.

我学中文！

我学中文每天在工作和每天晚上在家。 我会说普通话，和我也写中文一点点！

Ok, hopefully no actual Chinese speakers will read this because I guarantee that likely makes very little sense and certainly is nowhere near grammatical (even how I think it translates to English makes limited sense so I'm not going to even bother). But you wouldn't have known if I hadn't told you, would you?! Impressed, aren't you?! Anyway, if it isn't obvious already I am learning Chinese. It is fun. It is interesting. It may be useful, even lucrative someday. Most importantly, it gives me something to do to pass the time at work everyday (although I'm starting to discover that this blog can do that too!).

Besides the above reasons, I have wanted to learn a language for a while. I took French for something like 35 years in middle/high school and college, mais je peux parler jusque un peu en francais :( (hey look at that, I actually wrote half a sentence!) When I came to Chicago I signed up for German 101, but got cold feet after a week and dropped out, switched into a French 103 class at the last possible moment, and coasted through to satisfy my language requirement. I then spent the next 3.66 years here without touching a language class - to my regret. What an opportunity..wasted! I could have learned any of a large number of languages, but instead I chose to just be...lazy. It's especially annoying because I think that, without exception, every single person I have met since coming here speaks at least 4.2 languages, and can understand another 10. In all seriousness, I really cannot think of a single person I have met that isn't bilingual - that's a lot of people. I'll admit, I sometimes do feel inferior being my smalltown, monolingual self.

So yeah, since I have so much free time at work I decided to make use of it. I decided a while ago that Chinese and Arabic are by far the two best languages to learn if you are just going to randomly pick a language to study, and for a variety of reasons I would rather learn the former. I might even run with this, as Cornell has a program in East Asian Law that may be worth checking out, and maybe I could study abroad/do work involving Chinese law etc. I'm surprised by how much I've learned (at least I feel like I've learned a lot, until I run into a friend on the bus who speaks Mandarin...) If I can find the time as a busy law student, I hope at the very least to take a REAL Chinese language class at Cornell. 再见，我的朋友！

Why we blog...?

I wish I knew the answer so I could drop that question mark - "Why we blog." sounds much more impressive. But seriously, what has led to this culture of blogging? I have started this thing basically on a whim, and I doubt I will really keep up with it at all, but I have to admit it's kind of fun. The funny thing is, no one even knows I have it so no one is going to read any of this! And yet, I'm still writing as if I have an audience, and stranger still - like I said, I'm enjoying it.

It's actually not all that strange; after all, we've been writing in diaries and journals for a very long time. However, there is a slight difference here. Diaries and journals tend to be private in nature, not for others to read. My blog may resemble this, but thats just because no one knows/cares to read it. The purpose of a blog is for it to be read - who would publish their diary on the internet!? But oddly enough, it seems like that is what people are doing!

I think that maybe it is a reflection of our times. People feel more isolated than we used to as traditional forms of socialization have fallen by the wayside. Humans are social creatures of course, but we are much busier and detached than we used to be. There is a book called Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam* which makes the claim that America is becoming an isolated society (he uses the metaphor that although membership in bowling leagues has decreased, the numbers of people bowling have increased - people are "bowling alone.") I know about this book because I took a class in college where the prof didn't agree with this book, because she said that it was simply a case of different social groups replacing more traditional ones (her research consists of the culture of the "bleacher seat" Cubs fans at Wrigley Field).

I think this is probably what is happening here. We are not connected in the same ways we were before for whatever reasons (lack of time, changing ideas of "fun," whatever). We are using the internet and blogs to feel connected to our species (and back to the concept of diaries - you could say that blogs are more like memoirs in that they are meant to be read. What was once essentially reserved for the famous and "interesting" is now available to everyone, with thanks to the web.) You see the same thing in internet gaming, social networking sites, etc. Its not that we have developed different needs, its just that we are satisfying them in entirely new ways.


*Disclaimer: I have not actually read it!

KBlog, rollout!

It seems that you are no one if you don't have a blog these days. Back in the fall I met with a professor from college who asked me what I write about in my blog. He didn't ask me if I had a blog, he just assumed I did. This coming from a guy who, while a very cool person, is easily twice my age. I must no longer be, as I accused a friend the other day, an "anomaly of my generation." :)

I make no commitment to updating this with anything that even resembles consistency or frequency. In fact, maybe I will never make another post. However, I can now hold my head high in the company of my peers (and indeed my much more hip elders) and proudly proclaim that I too have my own blog. The future is now. Look out world, KBlog is launched!