Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Are we Smarter than Our Parents?

I have just finished reading the book Everything Bad is Good for You, a book that argues that modern pop culture has become so complex that it requires a good deal of intelligence to comprehend it. The basic idea is that today's tv shows, games, and culture are significantly more complex than their counterparts of a generation ago were, and therefore people need to put more brain power into understanding them than our parents did. The book makes a convincing case that this is so. Steven Johnson shows how, on average, popular culture is more complex than it used to be, and that that is driving intelligence to higher levels.

This got me thinking. Much of pop culture is a wasteland. There are some aspects of it that are challenging, complex, and require considerable smarts to decipher, but on the whole pop culture is a waste of time. On the other hand, there are two aspects of modern society that are rapidly becoming more complex, and that all of us have to deal with on a daily basis. Perhaps these, more than pop culture, are contributing to a general increase in some forms of intelligence.

The first is our jobs. Over the past two generations western society has moved from being based on manual labour to being based on highly-skilled labour. Sixty years ago anyone in good physical shape could find work as a labourer, and be reasonably well paid for it. Today one typically needs a skill to get even low-paying jobs, and those skills can take years to learn. Today white collar employees outnumber blue collar ones. A high school diploma is barely enough to get a job at a fast food joint. If we want a career we need to train, and often train hard. Then when we find work it often involves using a considerable amount of intelligence to do the job. This is not just true for white collar jobs. Working on a road crew, for example, requires learning how to use sophisticated machinery. Being a plumber involves learning byzantine regulations. Today's workplace tends to require far smarter employees than did yesterday's.

The second aspect is how we get to work. Two generations ago most people either walked or took public transportation. Today, almost everyone drives. Driving takes skill. Anyone can learn to operate a car in a few weeks. But it takes about twenty years for a person to become a really good driver, as evidenced by the fact that crash rates tend to plateau for drivers in their mid-thirties. A driver has to keep track of many things at once, and do a good job of predicting what other drivers will do. Failure to do this can result in death. Most people in the US and Canada spend at least an hour a day driving. And whether they realize it or not their brains are working in high gear while they do. Roads are far more crowded than they were two generations ago, and cars are faster. The complexity of driving has increased over the past sixty years, and so has the intelligence needed to drive.

So, the average person today faces far more mental challenges on a daily basis than the average person did thirty or sixty years ago. Does this mean that we are more intelligent than our parents or grandparents? In some sense yes, it does. It takes far more skill to earn a living today than it did in 1947. It takes far more skill to drive a car today than it did in 1947. Our problem solving and analytical skills probably are stronger than our parents' were. However, today we tend to live in smaller social units than our parents and grandparents did. Extended families today are people that we see for a few days a year. Sixty years ago they were people that we saw several times a week. When we drive to work we do not talk to the person next to us on the bus. In fact, it is easy today to go an entire day without talking to anyone outside of our homes or offices. Our social circles are smaller than they were a generation or two ago, and that can adversely affect our social intelligence. So, we gain one form of smarts at the cost of another form.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Giant Squid Music

This is just a brief post about a band with a great name: Giant Squid. I am not a big fan of their music, but I think that we should all support any band that names itself after a cephalopod; so, please buy this album.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

The Caps 2007 Preseason Schedule

The Washington Capitals released their 2007 preseason schedule a couple of weeks ago. It is not a great line-up for the fans. The Caps will play seven preseason games. Four of them will be on the road, and only three of them will be at home. Those three home games are against Carolina, Ottawa, and Philadelphia. With the exception of Ottawa none of those teams are very good right now, and they certainly are not interesting to watch play. This will make it hard to generate any sort of preseason buzz in DC.

DC is not a good place to be an NHL hockey team. The local fan base is small, and consists mostly of expatriate Canadians, like me. The last time that I went to a Caps game I was cheering for their Canadian opponents, and sitting right behind me were several people who had just moved here from Vancouver, and were cheering for the Canadian team. Hockey just isn't on most people's radar in this town. Hockey isn't on the media's radar either. The two local daily papers (one of which is owned by the Moonies) give minimum coverage of hockey, and the local tv and radio virtually ignore it. There is one local channel that shows Caps games, but hardly anyone watches.

What the Capitals have done by having such a lame preseason schedule is ensure that there will be little or no media interest, or fan interest in the preseason games. Granted, preseason games are usually dull since teams use them to try out new players and experiment with lines that no sane coach would play in a game that mattered, but for fans these games are the first hockey that we see in months. They are the mouthful of water after crawling through the Summer desert. They are the eagerly awaited harbingers of the new season. We the fans want to see good hockey in September, not games against teams that simply don't matter.

The full preseason schedule for the Caps is

Date Victim
Sun, 16 Sep, 1500 at Carolina
Thu, 20 Sep, 1900 at Ottawa
Sat, 22 Sep, 1930 at Tampa Bay
Tue, 25 Sep, 1900 Carolina
Wed, 26 Sep, 1900 at Philadelphia
Fri, 28 Sep, 1900 Philadelphia
Sun, 30 Sep, 1700 Ottawa

Saturday, July 28, 2007

The Tour de France and Drugs

So the Tour de France is having some serious drug problems. I imagine that there are perhaps ten other people in North America who care. Which is too bad because the Tour de France is perhaps the most gruelling sporting event on the planet. Anyone who thinks that that competitive cycling is easy simply has no credibility in my book. Competitive cycling, like most sports, has rampant abuse of steroids and other drugs. And this year the Tour organizers decided that they are going to take a hard line against anyone who is caught doping. They have already disqualified several riders, including Michael Rasmussen. If you don't know who he is you really have no right calling yourself a sports fan. Even if you are not a big cycling fan Rasmussen is one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. For him to be caught doping is a very big deal.

So, the Tour de France is having some serious drug problems. What is to be done about it. To start with the doping charges have cast a pretty long shadow over this year's race. How much does the race mean if some of the best cyclists in the world are disqualified? Perhaps it is time to stop worrying about athletes doping. It is, at some level, an admission of defeat, but it is also an acceptance of reality. Drugs are already a Neddy-No-No amongst sports regulators, and many athletes simply don't care. If anything, the use of performance enhancing substances is increasing. Allowing their use would simply be accepting the world as it really is. Athletes have always gone to extremes to gain a competitive edge. Runners are known to breathe pure oxygen before races. Some have gone as far as having blood transfusions when running at high altitude to increase the oxygen content in their blood. Special diets (of every imaginable type) are common amongst athletes. Vitamins and dietary supplements are widely used. Where does one draw the line between a legal and illegal substance?

Sooner or later the sporting community is going to have to have to deal with this issue. The current policy of zero tolerance, inspired largely by America's idiotic (and disastrous) war on drugs,  is not working. Let's replace it with a use at your own risk policy.  This is not an ideal solution, but would it be any worse than the mess that we are in now?