Tangential thoughts

As I'm in such a weird mood at the moment, I hope you will forgive me a little tangent into the political world. Jane Galt's piece on same-sex marriage that supposedly doesn't support either side was mentioned on Commentary as a must-read. I agree with what Laurence seems to suggest: that the must-read portion is not about same-sex marriage.

Let me first say that Galt (nom de plume) has definitely covered the problem area she's examining well on the surface. It's a good primer on why we should be humble, should to opposing arguments, and should apply our full minds to all decisions we make. But I think the principles of the argument and their generality need examining, and a few missing things are uncovered in this examination.

So, what can we do about (or how can we deal with) unintended consequences of decisions? Why decision and not institutions? Well, the first example given by Galt is that opposition to a proposed cap in the tax rate in the initial income tax discussions had unintended consequences. The reasoning for the opposition was that a cap of 10% would lead to an increase towards the maximum, and that the public could be relied upon to keep the tax at a few percentage points. The cap wasn't an established institution - income taxation was brand new, so why focus on the opposition to the cap?

What would the consequences of the cap have been anyway? How would it have affected the amount of money available to the government? Could it have prevented the government from taking part in the World Wars? Could it have prevented the government from taking the "War on Terror" to the terrorists? Heck, could it have prevented the government from funding some of the terrorists that they are now fighting? Even without foreign policy, it could have had massive effects on society that led to lawlessness within the country.

Oh wait, that's ridiculous, right? But as Galt says, ``the limits of your imagination are not the limits of reality''. Any argument made on the mere ridiculouslness of that proposition suffers similarly, since you can not imagine what the reality of the situation with the cap would have been.

So, that's the argument Galt is now using as a reason against pursuing same-sex marriage (at the moment). She's saying that we cannot even foresee and imagine the consequences, and thus we should not act now. But even if we do analysis for five years, what will change? We will still be unable to foresee and imagine most of the consequences - this stuff is hard, after all, and this is one of the pillars of society. How can we ever know we've come to the perfect understanding of why things are the way they are, and what will happen if we tweak any of it?

Many of the comments to the post mistakenly ask proponents of same-sex marriage to think up the possible bad consequences of legalising same-sex marriage. But the simple form of the argument those posters are using is that we cannot even imagine the consequences, so that any arguments we can conceive are not going to change the argument being used at all.

The natural consequence of that simplified argument is that we should not make changes or decisions. We should maintain the status quo because we cannot even imagine the consequences of the decision we're about to make. In other words, the ultimate conservative position.

However, by maintaining the status quo, are we not making a decision? And can we similarly not even imagine the consequences of that decision? What if the consequences of not allowing same-sex marriage is that homosexuals start a campaign that will increase the incidence of homosexuality affecting the number of children born which breaks the ability of investments and financial organisations to deliver on the pension of people in future? Or that sympathetic opposite-sex couples refuse to marriage, bringing about a devaluation of marriage in general, leading to the very problems we are supposedly unable to imagine with same-sex marriage?

Want to say "ridiculous"?

In other words, by worrying about unimaginable consequences in all options available at a point where a decision needs to be made, we can only hold up our hands in the air.

We have a word for that in my field: Analysis Paralysis. I like the description: ``a term given to the situation where a team of otherwise intelligent and well-meaning analysts enter into a phase of analysis that only ends when the project is cancelled''. From the list of common causes, I think ``the lure of infinite composability and decomposability'', ``insistence on completing all analysis before beginning design'', and ``risk avoidance, fear of making a mistake'' apply here.

How do you avoid Analysis Paralysis? Simple - after a period of time, you simply have to go with the thing that has the most convincing argument.

Now, at this point, let me take a tangent and explain how we do things in my field: You create a weighted scorecard.

First, you write down any benefit or drawback that any option involved in the decision mentions at all. You then consider just how bad the drawback mentioned would be, if it were to occur as suspected and assign a "badness" rating from 1 to 5 (or 1 to 10 or whatever). You do the same for the benefits. You then consider the likelihood of each of the benefits and drawbacks for each of the options.

You multiply the likelihood in the option being considered by the "badness" or "goodness" for each of the "benefits" and "drawbacks". You then sum up for each option ("badness" being negative numbers, obviously, and come up with a value for each option. The option with the highest value wins.

Well, in reality, what happens is that the person using the scorecard checks to see if it matches a gut feel (or back-of-the-envelope calculation). If it does, the option wins. Otherwise, you take a look at which drawbacks and benefits are being too highly or lowly valued (weighted), you tweak a bit, and try again. At most, you do this one more time. At this point, if you've been honest, you have an accurate model, and you have to live with your decision.

Or you take it under advisement, and forge on ahead knowing you're not being rational. This may sound bad, but since you're dealing with a project and not society, you are making a lot more of these decisions. You build up experience of the results of your decisions, and your gut feel is more likely to be accurate, and has more place in the decision-making process. If you're not your own boss, you tell your boss that you're taking responsibility for the decision, and run with it.

Ok, tangent over.

In the case of same-sex marriage, there are only really these options:

1. Fully support moves towards same-sex marriage
2. Support moves towards recognising same-sex couples and giving them all the benefits of marriage, but not the name
3. Support moves towards recognising same-sex couples and giving them some of the benefits of marriage.
4. Not move forward or backwards at this point in time and rather do more analysis.
5. Never move forward on this issue as we'll never be able to do enough analysis to make this sort of decision (or you just don't care)
6. Same-sex marriage is a bad idea for some specific reasons

Whatever your decision-making method, you can probably see downsides and upsides in those options. In addition, choosing each option will have unintended consequences most of us can't know. At the same time, not choosing each of those options will have the unintended consequences of the option that is chosen.

I'm certainly not saying they have the same likelihood of unintended consequences. I'm also not saying that the effects of the unintended consequences will be equal either. (I can't say anything about them - they're unimaginable, after all.)

Anyway, to avoid analysis paralysis, we have to assign likelihoods and weights. It then takes part in the scorecard of issues on an equal footing.

For some reason, only acknowledging the downside of the "change" option reminds me of Pascal's Wager. Pascal's primary problem is that the wager's form is not a two-by-two grid, with "God" and "not God" at the top, and "consequences if right" and "consequences if wrong" down the side. It's a naively obvious false dichotomy, but it seems to resonate with many nonetheless. (Not that I'm saying Galt is naive - I just think that, as written, many people would use the argument without thinking, despite the argument being about thinking!)

Besides not acknowledging that keeping the status quo has unintended consequences, the other thing missing from Galt's piece is that it doesn't acknowledge unintended consequences which will improve society. Are we to believe that all the good that the creation or amendment of laws have caused were entirely on purpose, entirely conceived by their proponents?

Are we in any better a position in terms of our ability imagine the reality of the good? What if acknowledging the value of same-sex relationships by allowing same-sex marriage leads to an increased stigmatisation of sleeping around and of unmarried parents and of various other social ills, leading to higher marriage rates, better raised children, and so forth?

If we can put a value on the possible bad consequences, isn't it prudent to put a value on the possible good consequences? (Another similarity to Pascal's Wager...)

In terms of a scorecard, this potential for an unexpected positive result would have the same effect as a potential for an unexpected negative effect in the other options, as we're only looking for the highest number. In other systems, however, it may just never be represented - only the fear of making a mistake is represented in terms of unintended consequences.

The comments from the opponents of same-sex marriage on Galt's piece are troublesome. How can the conservative opponents of same-sex marriage argue that no proponent of same-sex marriage have answered the "problem" that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy? How can they claim that nobody has provided an argument against the claim that same-sex marriage will affect the standing against proscriptions against incest and under-age marriage? It just shows how little they are even listening to what is being said by the proponents of same-sex marriage.

In any issue, of course, the actions of many of those who support the same goal as you will give you pause. They don't use the arguments you do, they focus on different points more or less than you do. They bring in points that don't appeal to the given person (ie, talking about welfare to a libertarian) and you cringe waiting for the fall-out. They call people names, arbitrarily claim to know their thoughts, otherwise aim to demean their opponent to earn "points", and generally aren't as sporting as you believe you are.

Oh well, it's not like anyone's decisions are actually changed by one argument on a comments section of a web log. But it would be nice if the tiny impressions that are formed are positive in terms of argument and in terms of behaviour.