The Al Gore Rhythm Method

I don't know about anyone else, but as I read through the reports about Al Gore's unfortunate misadventure with that Portland masseuse, I started thinking about the concept of algorithm-- as in, Al Gore rhythm. As for the rest of this post's title, I am sure you know about that venerable contraceptive technique called the rhythm method.

Sorry for the bad pun, but its a holiday weekend and this is a blog. If you can't indulge an occasional bad pun in the blogosphere, well then, surely the terrorists have won.

Actually, it is not the world's worst pun either. Algorithms are now all the rage in the world of search engines, among other things. It does not seem to be too much of a stretch to apply the concept to a man who invented the internet and who, to many people, acts like he is, dare I say, somewhat mechanical.

An algorithm, Wikipedia tells is, is a sequence of "well-defined instructions for completing a task." The instructions guide a machine through a "series of successive stages, eventually terminating in a final ending state." So far, so good.

Of course, the successive states are not always the same. When obstacles arise, some algorithms can adapt to the changes and vary their instructions.

Sound familiar...

Of course, this might only mean that I read far too much James Joyce in my youth... but still...

The Feminist View of Al Gore

Yesterday I prophesied that feminism, that is, Gloria Steinem, would not defend the Oregon massage therapist who accused Al Gore of sexual assault.

Given the wholehearted feminist support for Bill Clinton, who had, in fact, been accused of even worse, I surmised that feminists would rally to Gore's defense.

As of today, it looks like I was wrong. A brief read of the DoubleX blog show three feminists, Hanna Rosin, Emily Bazelon, and Emily Yoffe who find the woman's account plausible. Links here and here and here.

Clearly, it is good to remain some degree of doubt about these accusations. As commenter By the Sword wrote yesterday, it is all too easy for a woman to accuse a powerful or important man of every manner of abuse and to profit from it.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that all such accusations are false. I tend to agree with Glenn Reynolds here: "it could all turn out to be some sort of sham-- though it's looking less that way...." Link here. And Rachel Larrimore explains here how and why she overcame her initial skepticism about the matter.

From Prophet to Predator: The Al Gore Story

The more we learn about it, the uglier it gets. Now that we have more complete information about what Al Gore was doing to massage therapist Molly Hagerty in that Portland, Oregon hotel room, the great prophet of environmental doom is looking more and more like a sexual predator.

For a report on the incident, see Byron York's column here. For the Portland Police report, follow this link. For the latest from the National Enquirer, see here.

We recall that Gloria Steinem once gave new meaning to misogyny by defending Bill Clinton's sexual assaults on the grounds that he took No for an answer. Conveniently, Steinem overlooked the testimony of Juanita Broaddrick, because when you have to choose between the cause and a woman's word... then clearly you cannot trust the woman. One can only wonder what she would say about Al Gore, a man who clearly did not take No for an answer. My guess: she will have nothing so say.

Admittedly, I am not qualified to judge the truth or falsity of all of the so-called "settled science" about global warning. Surely, a movement that wants to shut down most industry in order to save Nature became far more credible when it made Al Gore its most prominent spokesman.

To me global warmism has always seemed a little too close to being a cult. It offers apocalyptic pronouncements that would better be found on placards; its proponents sound more like prophets than scientists; it has worked too hard to discredit and silence global warming skeptics.

Such is not the stuff that science is made on.

But you do not need to know anything about science to evaluate the most obvious point. Tomorrow's weather and the next century's climate are not the stuff of scientific fact. Tomorrow's weather is at best a hypothesis; the world climate a century from now is not scientific fact... it is prophecy.

Surely, it might happen that the earth gets warmer. But it also might happen that the earth gets cooler. What might happen is not the same as what must happen.

Anyway, once he lost the presidential election Al Gore apparently did not know what to do with himself, so he rebranded himself into a prophet of environmental gloom and doom. He made a fortune doing this, won an Oscar, and was awarded a Nobel Prize. Truth be told, Al Gore morphed from respectable and responsible public official into a media celebrity.

In the process, of course, his 40 year marriage to Tipper fell by the wayside. As I've suggested, you cannot be married to a cause and to a person at the same time... unless the person is as fervent a believer in the cause as you are.

Let's grant that the old Al Gore was not a sexual predator; he did not assault massage therapists for refusing to service his chakras. If that is true, then it would seem that sexual predation is an occupational hazard that accompanies iconic celebrity. It seems to tag along when you become a "mighty prophet, seer blessed."

Do cult leaders feel entitled to do what they please, no matter whom they hurt? Do women find such men irresistible, to the point where they consider it an honor to be used for such a man's pleasure? Or do women feel that they are showing a greater commitment to global warming if they sacrifice their intimacy to please the prophet who is going to save the world?

One thing is reasonably certain. As Andrea Tantaros said yesterday, Al Gore's Oregon misadventures were certainly not the first and only time that something like that had happened. Perhaps on other occasions the women were more willing participants. Perhaps some of them had thought that coming forth would subject them to the kinds of abuse that were heaped on all of the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual indiscretions and worse. Or perhaps they had simply decided to sacrifice themselves for the cause.

Why did massage therapist Molly Hagerty not see to it that Al Gore was prosecuted? Well, as one of her fellow liberals told her: "... just suck it up; otherwise the world's going to be destroyed by global warming."

Someone remind me here about why liberals always tax conservatives with stupidity?

Whatever you believe about global warming, it seems that we are dealing here with overheated brains. How does an intelligent and sentient being come to imagine that the only person standing between us and environmental Armageddon is Al Gore?

It is truly amazing that people can feel the need to shut down their rational faculties in order to feel like they belong to the latest cause.

Clearly, the science of global warming is neither affirmed or refuted by what happened in that Portland hotel room. Just as clearly, thinking people would do better to give the matter some serious reflection. If the people who are promoting it are not acting like men and women of science, that should tell you something about their ability to deceive and defraud.

Any time anyone tells you to sacrifice your dignity for a cause, you should immediately recognize that something is seriously wrong.

What Makes Al Gore Run?

Speaking of bad timing, or, at least, bad karma.... On the day that Al Gore acquired the epithet, "crazed sex poodle," he co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed about motivations and incentives. Link to op-ed here.

You want the world to see you as a serious thinker, or as the purveyor of serious thought, and the world is trying to digest the fact that you were far more Clintonian than you ever let on. And with a nasty, sadistic streak, to boot. Link here.

Al Gore's co-author and business partner is named David Blood. Naturally, this has thrilled bloggers far and wide... perhaps even more than the incoherent phrase, "crazed sex poodle." By now I have seen more than a few witticisms about Blood and Gore.

One such post is cleverly entitled, "Perverse Incentives." In it Emily Yoffe writes that Blood and Gore are trying to argue that people work best when they are not just in it for the money. She explains that Gore seems to have had some extra experience with "nonfinancial incentives." Link here.

The substance of Blood and Gore's article addresses a serious new theory in behavioral economics. It takes off from a recent book by Nobel laureate George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton and follows them in proposing what they consider a new theory of human motivation. Link here. The Akerlof and Kranton book is called: Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well Being. A New York Times article on the topic is here.

Akerlof and Kranton challenge the theory that people are motivated by monetary incentives. According to that theory we all work harder when we are paid better. This produces the Wall Street bonus culture. In the articles I've read none of the authors offer a similar critique of the outsized earnings of movie stars, rock stars, and athletes.

Akerlof and Kranton, along with Blood and Gore, want to debunk thus theory, which bases itself on what they call Homo Incentivus.

The new theory declares that financial incentives are not the be-all and end-all of human motivation. It says that we are more importantly motivated by a sense of belonging to a community, contributing to a company, feeling like part of a team, and thus, identifying with a group, its values, and its traditions. This theory worships at the altar of Homo Emoticus.

In Akerlof and Kranton's words: "In organizations that function well, employees identify with their work and their organizations. If employees feel more like insiders-- a key purpose of military rituals-- there is little need for incentive pay or pay-for-performance schemes. The military changes the identity of its recruits, inculcating them in values such as duty and service. In the civilian world, too, the most important determinant of whether an organization functions well is not the monetary incentive system, as standard economic models would imply, but whether its workers identify with the organization and with their job within it. If they do not, they will seek to game the incentive system, rather than to meet the organization's goals."

I have not read their book, so I cannot claim to be offering a critique. It feels to me, however, that the authors have caricatured theories about monetary incentives. If monetary incentives are less important than identifying with an organization, how does it happen that private companies are largely more efficient and effective than government bureaucracies?

Nor am I clear about why people who work for monetary incentives cannot also take satisfaction in a job well done. If your satisfaction at a job well done does not receive a commensurate monetary recognition, then how long are you going to keep doing the job as well as you can. And how long will you continue to feel loyalty to the company.

I mean to say that monetary compensation can be an important way that an organization expresses its appreciation for your work. I doubt seriously that the dichotomy between homo incentivus and homo emoticus is quite as stark as these authors suggest.

And why would we not expand the concept of incentive to include the accumulation of psychological capital... status, prestige,pride, and respect. While soldiers do not work on the Wall Street bonus system, they most often do not live in a social world made up of Wall Street bankers, corporate lawyers, and real estate developers. The currency that confers status in their worlds does not primarily involve money.

Lest we forget, soldiers do receive salary increases with each promotion. If they make a career out of the military they can retire at a relatively young age and receive a pension that is calculated as a function of their highest pay grade. Since many receive their pensions for decades, this does represent a significant monetary incentive.

We must add that military medals are one of the oldest forms of pay-for-performance, not so much for the value of the metal therein, but for the status and prestige associated therewith. Winning medals also contributes to your chances at promotion.

Of course, Akerlof and Kranton are correct to state that military organizations offer training and rituals that inculcate their values in recruits. These values include patriotism, teamwork, uniformity, and competition.

One has to wonder whether thinkers like Blood and Gore really want the culture to include more patriotism, more honest and open competition, more emphasis on uniforms. Does Al Gore remind you of a military commander or of a prophet?

If you want to replicate the military model, you would do best avoid the apocalytpic environmentalism that Al Gore has made his current cause. One cannot fail to notice that Al Gore has made hundreds of millions of dollars from his environmental crusade. Ought we to say that he is less committed to the cause because he has gotten rich off of it?

However much Blood and Gore pay lip service to capitalism, they do not seem to recognize that spirited free market competition does not contradict the values of patriotism and teamwork. Famed Prof. Martha Nussbaum does not seem to recognize it either.

When we read Prof. Martha Nussbaum bemoan the fact that the profit motive has led university students to want to spend more time studying business and less time with the humanities, we certainly take notice.

Does anyone really believe that the humanities, as taught today on college campuses, even by teachers as brilliant as Martha Nussbaum, inculcate values that would be congenial in a military culture? In fact, I would claim that academic humanities courses have worked long and hard to destroy the values of patriotism and fair competition.

Doesn't Martha Nussbaum famously support the notion of a cosmopolitan identity? Doesn't she align herself with those who want us all to overcome our parochial American identity in order to become citizens of the world?

If you undermine the value of patriotism by teaching people that they should identify with national community, then you would, according to these theories, be forcing people to feel that they are merely in it for themselves, thus that they have to game the system.

Keep in mind that when you belong to the military, there are clearly right and wrong ways to do things; your membership in the military, to say nothing of your place in the chain of command, depends on how you conduct yourself, how you lead, how you follow, how well you do in comparison to your peers, and so on.

Being a member of the military requires ethical behavior. Being a citizen of the world does not. Being a member of the human species does not. Academic philosophers often do not even believe in right and wrong. They believe that it's all a matter of taste.

You cannot develop group loyalty, group identity, and group solidarity if you think that it's all a matter of taste.

If we are looking into why business has become so amoral, then perhaps we should look into the value system that Blood and Gore, to say nothing of Nussbaum, have been fostering.

[Addendum: This article from Forbes tells a series of horror stories about interns: link here. The first anecdote, told by filmmaker Murray Nossel offers his observation: "... he has found that they perform better if they're paid. A meager sum can make a difference." I would not claim that this piece of anecdotal evidence disproves a theory offered by a Nobel prize winning economist, but it certainly merits our attention.]