Auto-Brewery Syndrome

This has to be a hoax.  Such a great story.

You may have a beer belly, and not even drink.  Wow.

Maybe it's legit...  If a Duke microbiologist confirms it, it MUST be true, right?

UPDATE:  Tim Worstall confirms the tale.  Strange but true.  (The tale, not Tim Worstall).

Thinking Causes Selfishness?

Perhaps.  If people stop to think, they are more likely to behave selfishly.

... humans are predisposed to cooperation and generosity, and only become selfish when they take time to think about the situation. The effect was robust, occurring both in subjects recruited from AMT and in college students.  Furthermore, a meta-analysis of previously published work showed that this effect was observed not only in the donation scenario described above, but also in other social “games” (such as the prisoners’ dilemma) that are either played just once or repeated multiple times.

The researchers were even able to manipulate participants into being either selfless or greedy, based on whether they were primed to think about intuition or careful reasoning.  Some participants were primed to believe in their intuition by asking them to either write an essay about a time in their life when their intuition was right, or when careful reasoning was wrong. A second group, which had to write about when their intuition led them astray or when careful reasoning proved helpful, was primed to promote rationality. When asked to contribute money, donations were much higher in the first, intuitively-primed group than in the second group, which had been primed for rationality and reflection.

Nod to MAG

When Self-interest can hide behind the violence of the state...

Self-Interest Without Selfishness: The Hedonic Benefit of Imposed Self-Interest

Jonathan Berman & Deborah Small
Psychological Science, forthcoming

Abstract: Despite commonsense appeal, the link between self-interest and happiness remains elusive. One reason why individuals may not feel satisfied with self-interest is that they feel uneasy about sacrificing the needs of others for their own gain. We propose that externally imposing self-interest allows individuals to enjoy self-benefiting outcomes that are untainted by self-reproach for failing to help others. Study 1 demonstrated that an imposed self-interested option (a reward) leads to greater happiness than does choosing between a self-interested option and a prosocial option (a charity donation). Study 2 demonstrated that this effect is not driven by choice in general; rather, it is the specific trade-off between benefiting the self and benefiting others that inhibits happiness gained from self-interest. We theorize that the agency inherent in choice reduces the hedonic value of self-interest. Results of Study 3 find support for this mechanism.

This makes a lot of sense.  People would feel terrible if they robbed a liquor store and took the money.  But if the STATE takes the money at gunpoint, and "gives" it you....cool!  Now I'm happy!  Because I didn't do the stealing, I just get the benefit of the stealing!

Nod to Kevin Lewis

scenes from a marriage

How is the IMF managing director chosen?

DSK is down and everyone has a thought on who the next managing director should be or how the process should work.

"Europe" is demanding that the new appointment be a European.

Since the founding of the IMF and World Bank, a "gentleman's agreement" has been in place that the head of the Bank will be an American and the head of the Fund a European.

The managing director is chosen by the executive board, i.e. the 24 executive directors of the Fund. Here is a link to who they are and who they represent along with the weight that is attached to each of their votes.

Here are the official rules for choosing the managing director:

"The IMF’s Managing Director is both Chairperson of the IMF’s Executive Board and Head of IMF staff. The Managing Director is assisted by a First Deputy Managing Director and two Deputy Managing Directors. He or she is appointed by the Executive Board for a renewable term of five years. Although the Executive Board may select a Managing Director by a majority of votes cast, the Board has in the past made such appointments by consensus."

It doesn't say whether the vote, if one would ever be taken, would be simple majority or weighted majority.

In sum, there is no formal nomination process, no hearings, no debates, just the consensus of the managing directors.

No wonder there is such a rabid free for all going on over the succession.

Fat Kids, Unite

Angry Alex notes that, as a former fat kid, he has some sympathy for the wrong side. As a CURRENT fat kid, I may also.

Patrick blogs about a video. It's rather violent. Don't watch it, if you are going to get upset.

As a fat kid in a very poor school growing up, I was spat on, kicked, had my books thrown up in trees, etc. Pretty much every day.

Then one day I had my own "snapped" experience. Kid was spitting on his hand and wiping it on my shirt. I was quite strong and large, but wouldn't fight. But then I did. Drove a straight right into his stomach; since he wasn't looking and I caught him square, this was pretty tough for him. He dropped, started throwing up, and since he couldn't breathe choked on his own vomit a bit.

It happened one more time, but I didn't wait nearly as long before I punched him. He tried to duck, and I caught him on ear. Bright red, a little cut. He started crying.

And then nothing. Fat kids of the world, unite.

Mother Superior jumped the gun

Wow. Huge article in today's WSJ by Yale Law professor Amy Chua (of World on Fire "fame") called, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior". Should have been titled "I am a raging, abusive, racist, a-hole".

It's terrific to read the whole thing. You think it can't get any worse and then it does.

Here's a lovely vignette involving her masochistic husband, Jed and daughter Lulu, that followed Lulu's inability to play a certain piece of music on the piano:

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

"You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."

"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom.

Holy Crap!

The Cradle of Democracy?

Fantastic article in Vanity Fair by Michael Lewis on the mess that is Greece. It is very long but very well worth reading. Funny, informative and downright scary.

Here are a couple quick quotes, but do read it all if you can:

In Greece the banks didn’t sink the country. The country sank the banks.
__________________________

As he finishes his story the finance minister stresses that this isn’t a simple matter of the government lying about its expenditures. “This wasn’t all due to misreporting,” he says. “In 2009, tax collection disintegrated, because it was an election year.”

“What?”

He smiles.

“The first thing a government does in an election year is to pull the tax collectors off the streets.”

“You’re kidding.”

Now he’s laughing at me. I’m clearly naïve.

______________________________

Astonishingly, it’s widely believed that all 300 members of the Greek Parliament declare the real value of their houses to be the computer-generated objective value. Or, as both the tax collector and a local real-estate agent put it to me, “every single member of the Greek Parliament is lying to evade taxes.”