China vs. Google

Google's exit is not surprising but I was again outraged by the sheer amount of censorship on the internet in China. As political as this issue appears, I'm not here to comment on the fight between Google and the Chinese government. Instead, I'm intrigued by the responses from the Netizens in China (reported here by BBC). In fact I was disheartened to see the following:

"The vast majority of the comments and blogs on Chinese mainland websites appear to express hate and anger towards Google.

But tweets and comments that appear to come from users in mainland China on websites based outside the country express sympathy and support towards Google, and anger towards the Chinese government."

Apparently many Netizens in China are not happy, not because of the loss of Google but because Google's action angered their nationalist sentiment and patriotism. This anger is precisely something that I don't understand. What did Google do wrong? Nothing. Google left because it lifted its filter on censored websites. Why did it stop filtering? Because it was a defensive reaction against the hack into Gmail accounts in order to monitor the emails of human rights activists. So if there's anyone to blame, it should be the hackers or people behind the hack. Google has done nothing offensive to the Chinese government. It has obeyed the laws and regulations until the hack occurred. So why are the Netizens angry at Google? This seems nothing but irrational to me. Further, their anger suggests something disturbing to me. This implies that those Netizens have agreed or implicitly believed that internet censorship is permissible or even should be endorsed. How ludicrous!

Frankly, I bet Google does not give a damn about leaving or staying. Why? Google only has 33% market share in China and its revenue only accounts for a trivial 0.8% of global revenue in 2009. In fact I believe that Google has already unwillingly made a lot of compromises when it entered China four years ago. This time the highly organized hack into Gmail accounts has tipped Google over the edge.

So who is it hurting? The Chinese Netizens. No correction, the elite group of Netizens who actually use Google, which comprises of students, white-collars, and a large proportion of middle and upper class Internet users. I bet it is those Netizens that express sympathy and support for Google. This is good news. At least there are some intelligent minds out there. The sad news is that they can't be too resilient. There is nothing they can do to keep Google. I feel tremendously sorry for them for their loss of freedom and of access to information. Besides the elite Netizens, the absence of Google can severely hurt the development of the internet in China. Google has helped and prompted the development of several prominent Chinese web companies (e.g. Baidu.com, tom.com). As the chief executive of Chinalabs.com said, the vast majority of Chinese internet companies couldn't care more about research and innovation, and all they do is copying technology. Without Google, internet in China is likely to become sterile and stifling, and eventually a dead end.

The loss is China's. The funny thing is that many people in China do not realize it and they are even angry at Google. As bewildering as it seems, I suddenly realized that I cannot blame them, for, I might very likely have been angry at Google if I were in China. Why? The power of the situation. Every time I was in China for longer than a month, I began to think in a Chinese mindset after the initial period of frustration and resilience. I was astounded by how malleable my beliefs and values are. I began to feel patriotic and feel annoyed when someone criticized China. How? Because I was immersed in the surrounding environment, via the influence of the media, the censored internet, friends, relatives, and all the propaganda around me. It's a process that I never fully understand but it works. I think that the power of the situation is the ultimate tool that the government is using. So, probably I shouldn't be so upset at these helpless, innocent Netizens. I believe that every human being yearns for freedom and information, but this desire is just concealed. What can they do...

Gelman's advice on writing a research paper

1. Start with the conclusions. Write a couple pages on what you've found and what you recommend. In writing these conclusions, you should also be writing some of the introduction, in that you'll need to give enough background so that general readers can understand what you're talking about and why they should care. But you want to start with the conclusions, because that will determine what sort of background information you'll need to give.

2. Now step back. What is the principal evidence for your conclusions? Make some graphs and pull out some key numbers that represent your research findings which back up your claims.

3. Back one more step, now. What are the methods and data you used to obtain your research findings.

4. Now go back and write the literature review and the introduction.

5. Moving forward one last time: go to your results and conclusions and give alternative explanations. Why might you be wrong? What are the limits of applicability of your findings? What future research would be appropriate to follow up on these loose ends?

6. Write the abstract. An easy way to start is to take the first sentence from each of the first five paragraphs of the article. This probably won't be quite right, but I bet it will be close to what you need.

7. Give the article to a friend, ask him or her to spend 15 minutes looking at it, then ask what they think your message was, and what evidence you have for it. Your friend should read the article as a potential consumer, not as a critic. You can find typos on your own time, but you need somebody else's eyes to get a sense of the message you're sending.

Unlimted vs. limited

We are a creature in love with the notion of unlimitedness. I've always wondered what 'unlimited' or 'infinite' really means and what implications it has for our behavior. Recently, I learned that we can only enjoy 40 hours of Pandora for free per month and after that we'll be paying for it. Suddenly I felt restricted and limited and I stopped listening to Pandora in an effort to save my hours. Later when I collected my rationality, I realize that I never reach 40 hours' quota in a month, so what am I worried about?

Even though we can never consume so much we just don't like the idea of being limited. Another example is the wireless plan I have with my iphone which says I can make unlimited phone calls to anyone during the 9PM to 6AM period. Awesome! But when I checked my balance I found that the so-called unlimited is limited, with 5000 minutes per month. Um.... Even though I know I'll never be able to use up the 5000 minutes in a month but still I feel not so happy.

This applies to other things that may not be quantifiable, such as options. We just love the idea of having infinite options and we get upset if we lose an option. If something is unlimited we love it and yet we probably don't consume that much. But if something is limited then we get nervous, we become more aware of our consumption, or perhaps we will want it more. That's probably why some products marked with limited edition sell better than the same ones that don't. Why are we obsessed with unlimitedness? When something irrelevant becomes limited, why does it affect our behavior? Are we greedy by nature or is it an innate sense of insecurity?

GFW

So blocking Google prevents the poisoning of children's minds? I never understand the logic behind the Great Firewall of China which is just like a decepticon which is becoming increasingly powerful by the minute. Apparently the government is ordering all new computers to install the ridiculous "Green Dam Youth Escort" software to cleanse the internet and to harmonize the society. WTF? What's more, not to mention the constant blockage of several important media such as Youtube, the government shuts down virtually all the foreign websites around sensitive dates such as 6.4.

This makes me sad for at least two reasons. First, it shows that the government is willing to spend millions on such nuisance rather than doing something useful like building infrastructure or offering healthcare benefits to the poor. Secondly, it means that the government is actually afraid, afraid of losing power, afraid of its people saying something different. It means that the government is not confident of its people, thus exerting such great control over people's freedom, like a bad, autocratic parent controlling everything the child does. Suppression is very stupid because once you forbid something, people actually start wanting it and searching for it, reverse psychology.

What's the harm of knowing more information and allowing speech freedom? What's the government afraid of? Will people start to protest and challenge the government when they know more? Actually, this won't happen in China. Why? Because of the education. Throughout the course of history people have been taught to follow, to obey, and to do whatever teachers and parents say. They simply do not challenge authority, probably have not learned to do so, or do not know they can do so. Another potential reason is that with the soaring economy people have become more satisfied with their lives. What else can they complain? So it looks like the government is being very irrational.

By the way, I found these two great websites about China that are somewhat more objective, truthful, and genuine:

http://sun-zoo.com/chinageeks/
http://jennyzhu.com/

Hope they don't get blocked.

The ____ flu

First of all, I don't understand why it's called the swine flu or if it has anything to do with pigs. I guess people just want a label, like the chicken pox. Moreover, it just boggles my mind that some countries are killing pigs, I mean what kind of ludicrous morons would do that?! Nonetheless, people are eating less pork now and washing hands more, which is a good thing.

Second of all, I think that people really needn't overreact or worry about the flu to such a great extent. Not that it's not a problem, I'm just thinking that the media and government officials are being paranoid and (very) irrational. It seems that the flu came at the right time to distract the world from stressing over the crippling economy. I was going to give more reasons but Dan Ariely actually spit it out perfectly earlier than I did. In his blog, Dan listed three reasons why this is irrational:

1. Because of our limited capacity, we pay attention to current events even if it's not really important.

2. We overweigh new risks relative to comparable risks we are accustomed to.

3. We are suckers when it comes to statistics and we are instead attracted to stories and anecdotes which bias our judgment. We only focus on the few ones who have died from the flu but what about those who were exposed but didn't get sick, or those who got sick and didn't die?

At any rate, I'm just a bit annoyed as I will be traveling in a month. Hope this will be handled in a rational manner soon.

Cognitive skills affect economic preferences, strategic behavior, and job attachment

A very interesting paper here:

Economic analysis has so far said little about how an individual's cognitive skills (CS) are related to the individual's economic preferences in different choice domains, such as risk taking or saving, and how preferences in different domains are related to each other. Using a sample of 1,000 trainee truckers we report three findings. First, there is a strong and significant relationship between an individual's CS and preferences. Individuals with better CS are more patient, in both short- and long-run. Better CS are also associated with a greater willingness to take calculated risks. Second, CS predict social awareness and choices in a sequential Prisoner's Dilemma game. Subjects with better CS more accurately forecast others' behavior and differentiate their behavior as a second mover more strongly depending on the first-mover's choice. Third, CS, and in particular, the ability to plan, strongly predict perseverance on the job in a setting with a substantial financial penalty for early exit. Consistent with CS being a common factor in all of these preferences and behaviors, we find a strong pattern of correlation among them. These results, taken together with the theoretical explanation we offer for the relationships we find, suggest that higher CS systematically affect preferences and choices in ways that favor economic success.

Can neural evidence refute behavioral findings?

I've been thinking about this question lately: can neural evidence (e.g. from fMRI, EEG, TMS...) refute behavioral findings? It seems that the primary function of imaging studies is to explain the neural processes of certain well-established behavioral phenomena, but it's rarely the other way around. Is it even possible to debunk the behavioral data?

The essense of science

Every thinking being should watch this video:

A fantastic link!

I almost jumped at the discovery of this link:

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/

This is an archive of public lectures by a wide spectrum of speakers (e.g. John Conway, James Flynn, Elizabeth Gould, Antonio Damasio, Steven Levitt, Steven Chu, Hillary Clinton, even Ian McEwan? wow...), dating all the way back t0 1998. I love Princeton...

Brain-based lie detection

Sujeeta Bhatt and colleagues recently scanned 18 participants using fMRI and compared their brain activity across 3 conditions:

1). when the participants pointed out truthfully which face they'd seen earlier in a line of 3 faces
2). when they lied and pointed to a new face rather than the one they'd seen earlier
3). when all the faces were new but the participants lied and pretended to have seen one of them before

Bhatt et al. found that when people were lying their dorso- and ventro- lateral prefrontal cortices, the superior frontal gyri, the anterior cingulate gyrus, as well as the precuneu in the parietal lobe showed increased activity.

Awesome!

When do we cheat?

Another truly interesting study by Dan Ariely: The Effect of One Bad Apple on the Barrel

He also gave a talk about it on TED recently.

Deep brain stimulation and financial reward

This is an impressive paper by Kareem Zaghloul et al. at UPenn, in that they showed midbrain dopaminergic neurons (specifically in substantia nigra) encode unexpected financial rewards. The most remarkable part is that they used deep brain stimulation (not fMRI!) in Parkinson's patients during a probabilistic learning task. It's indeed an important contribution to reinforcement learning.

A randomness game

Sean Gerrish sent me this game in which I have to generate a sequence of 1s and 0s as random as possible and try not to be predicted by the computer:

http://seed.ucsd.edu/~mindreader/

I haven't succeeded so far and I'm not aware of any human being who has succeeded in the game. Let me know if you do.

Genetic Determinants of Financial Risk Taking

This is a cool find:

For the first time, Kuhnen and Chiao (2009) examined the influence of genes that regulate dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission on risk-taking in financial investment decisions. The exciting result is that people with the short serotonin transporter gene, 5-HTTLPR (two copies of the short allele), relative to those with the long version of that polymorphism (at least one copy of the long allele), invested 28% less in a risky investment. And people who carry the 7-repeat allele of the DRD4 gene in the dopamine family, relative to those carrying other versions of that gene, invested about 25% more in a risky investment.

How much do you like ice cream?

When answering this simple question "How much do you like ice cream?", what is exactly going on in people's mind? Here are my speculations:

1. They search in their memories of eating ice cream and compute an average of all experiences.
2. They only focus on the most recent 5 experiences of having ice cream and average.
3. They focus on the most pleasant experience.
4. They combine the most pleasant experience with the most recent experience.
5. They think of a prototypical ice cream and estimate how much they will like it.
6. They think about the future and ask themselves how likely they will have ice cream and how much they will enjoy it.

There might be more possibilities. Now, the real difficult question is: are people doing one of the above or a combination of the calculations?