Being Optimally Crazy

During negotiations what you signal to your counterpart is incredibly important.  What you are capable of has an incredible impact on how your counterpart will act and react and thus how you should act and react.  Think of Mutual Assured Destruction in the Cold War (or just think of Dr. Strangelove).  Total Annihilation from a nuclear winter? Bad for everyone.  Credibly signaling that in the event of attack the worst possible scenario would happen to everyone? In light of the fact that no nuclear war took place between the US and Soviet Union, good for everyone.

Now apply that thought process to the following hypothetical: 

You are engaged in negotiations around a 100 million dollar business deal.  Your counterpart is an aggressive negotiator with a history of walking out on big deals because of, if the rumors are true, minor disagreements over contract language.  After six months of working on the deal it appears signatures on the contract are imminent.  But your counterpart declares something in the contract that is not especially favorable to his company is a problem, enough of a problem that he will nix the deal.  Walking out on the deal would be bad for both of your businesses.  But you know he might actually walk out, leaving both of you with nothing and six months of work wasted.  What is the right choice? 

The right choice is to compromise, give in, whatever it takes to seal the deal.  The risk of him actually walking out, which his reputation indicates is a real possibility, is too much in the face of a minor loss at the negotiating table for your company.  In other words, because your counterpart would be willing to do something crazy and detrimental to you both, he was able to negotiate from a position of power.  Whether this is an optimal strategy in the long run is open to debate but in this case, probably a good move by him.

Now, look at recent political negotiations between the Democrats and the Republicans.  It feels like the Republicans are smacking around the Democrats with frequency, especially on budget matters, and definitely on raising the debt ceiling.  It feels like the Republicans win the PR battle easily every time, mobilizing their base, staying mostly unified and sticking to extreme positions.  This picture is an oversimplification of what is actually occurring but it does play into the larger narrative of Republican means strong and Democrat means weak.  Or from the Democrat viewpoint Democrat means reasonable and Republican means crazy.

I think it is because the Republicans will credibly signal that they will do something crazy if they do not get a lot of concessions.  Much of their rhetoric is devoted to not backing down.  Many of the platforms conservatives ran on in the midterm elections were platforms of non-governance.  This lends credibility to any negotiating position they take.  Based on the political philosophy that got them elected stalemate, or simply not acting at all, is a viable goal to have. 

The current example of note is their refusal to raise the debt ceiling.  Everything I have read on the topic indicates that not raising the debt ceiling would be a total disaster for the US economy and for the US Government’s ability to meet its financial responsibilities including such basics as paying our soldiers on time.  Yet there is debate over whether to raise the debt ceiling.  And the Democrats will concede something to raise the debt ceiling.  Because they absolutely believe the Republicans will allow potential disaster to occur.  With the stakes so high the Democrats cannot in good conscience call their bluff.  The right choice is to concede just as it was in our hypothetical above.  Regardless of whether the Republicans would actually not raise the debt ceiling without serious concessions, the fact that they can credibly signal that they wouldn’t is part of their optimal strategy.  This imbalance in credibility shifts any negotiation equilibrium towards the right on the political spectrum. 

As with any game involving multiple actors, a predictable strategy can eventually be exploited.  So why does this imbalance exist?  Why don’t the Democrats change their strategy, take more extreme positions, let the Republicans take the lead on stalemate and move the negotiation equilibrium further to the left?  Because, while that is an optimal strategy for Republicans it isn’t for Democrats.  Recent research done by Pew shows that the Republican base overwhelmingly prefers political candidates who stand by their beliefs over candidates who compromise with opponents.  Meanwhile, the Democrat base overwhelmingly prefers candidates who compromise with opponents over candidates who stand by their beliefs. 

This is a core difference in values, thought process and approach to problem solving among the supporters of the two parties.  And it creates a strange equilibrium where representatives of both parties practice optimal strategy based on the constituents they represent but the optimal strategy means one group of constituents will consistently give up more of what they believe in than the other group.  Of course, from the perspective of the right it likely feels that the equilibrium remains too far to the left because even as Republicans win negotiation battles they still, in the end, compromise, albeit with much stronger results than would otherwise be expected in the absence of credibly extreme positions.

This is a topic I would like to explore further.  The negotiation game and the optimal strategy for achieving the desired results can be applied in an interesting way to some education issues.  Also the differences between the supporters of the parties explains a lot about why supporters of both parties often have a hard time understanding each other and why they have the attitudes they do about government.  While the question of supporting strict adherence to values or compromise isn’t the focus of the Pew research it does have huge implications that deserve to be explored further.

Someone Else's Shoes

Before today 99% of my experience with political hearings came from DC Council and DC Public Schools. Today I went to Attorney General Eric Holder’s oversight hearing with the House Judiciary Committee. I was there to show some solidarity with my fellow online poker players who now don’t have a game to play. And yes, the Poker Player Alliance gave me a t-shirt for showing up.

I mention the t-shirt because once upon a time I attended Michelle Rhee’s oversight hearing with DC Council and there were people wearing t-shirts, protesting some of her decisions. Back then I honestly didn’t pay too much attention to the t-shirt wearers. I already knew their stance, had already heard their voices and already knew they weren’t going to get what they wanted. But they showed up in their t-shirts to make a statement, to be seen, to show that they were united, just as I did today. Of course, the House Judiciary made us take our t-shirts off, no protests, even silent ones, during committee hearings apparently.

Truth be told even before I went I knew the hearing would not change anything in my life, not poker or anything else. But it was something to do, an action to take. And it was very interesting seeing something I’d only experienced in support of the person giving testimony and never as an audience member who wasn’t well versed in all the issues. I thought about the prep work Eric Holder had put in, recognized the dodges, the bristles at personal barbs made by grandstanding politicians (honest grandstanding and not), and the desire to explain and make clear the nuances of some issues and decisions that are far more complicated and difficult than they may appear at first glance.

The big takeaway was a takeaway I already knew. Hearings don’t solve problems or answer questions. Just like the t-shirt wearers from my past, I was powerless at this hearing. My issue was one of twenty that were discussed. The venue was wrong for creating change. The tactics used by myself and my t-shirt wearing new friends were wrong if our intention was to actually do something. The politicians who did bring up our issues weren’t briefed well enough to ask the questions in the right way. Eric Holder was not especially knowledgeable about the poker issue because his priorities rightfully lie elsewhere.

In terms of advocacy we had failed, a blip on the radar of everyone in the room except the youngest of interns excited to see politics up close. In terms of our own psychology I suppose we had probably won because we had done something, we had shown up, fought the good fight albeit quietly and without our t-shirts on.

The thing is I felt very similarly to how I felt about many advocates during my days in public education. I truly appreciated the information, the reality check, the feedback and even sometimes the thank you’s. I always felt good when I got to help someone. But what I grew tired of, what wore me down even as I worked really hard to keep my faith, was empty gestures and empty criticism. I wanted to scream at people that if they spent as much time thinking about solutions and helping me, and my colleagues, do things the right way as they did yelling at me and complaining about how everything I did was wrong, we might actually get somewhere. Especially because so many times I was screwing up and I did need to change something or improve something and I needed someone to help me do it. But legitimate voices were easily drowned out and it became hard for me to tell the difference between a problem I needed to jump in and solve and a problem that wasn’t a problem at all.

The really hard part is just about everyone’s heart is in the right place. Everyone is pushing their agenda because they think it is important. But with so much noise it is easy to forget that showing up at a hearing in coordinated t-shirts is not a victory, it is not an end, it is not anything except showing up. If you are pushing real solutions and pushing those solutions in a meaningful and thoughtful way, in a way where even your worst adversaries are able to listen, then you are a true activist, making the world a better place. Anything else and you are just as much a part of the recurring mess that you are trying to clean up as anyone else is. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means the world isn’t getting fixed.

Online Poker Issues...With a Little Education

For those of you who are interested in what I've been up to the last couple weeks, a lot of it has been working on this [PDF]. Beware, it is twenty dense pages about the ins and outs of online poker issues, with a heavy emphasis on legal interpretation.

I have questioned why I have jumped onto the online poker issue so intensely. The obvious answer is I'm incredibly biased because I was playing a lot and winning enough. But even beyond that it began to serve as an interesting gateway into a better understanding of the way our legal system actually works, the ways in which political arguments are made and the powers and limits of activism.

Essentially it has served as a microcosm of a lot of things I was seeing in other arenas, especially politics and education. My stance here, to sum up my research and opinions, are:

• the Department of Justice violated both legal precedent and legislative intent through their interpretation and enforcement of US gambling law.
• the DoJ's actions are essentially without checks.
• the political climate surrounding online poker tends to be one based on dishonest assessments of issues and shameless pandering to people's fears.
• the intentions of the DoJ remain unclear but they failed to solve any of the problems mentioned as reasons to ban online poker
• the online poker mess has cost the US government billions of dollars over the past five years in lost tax revenue, licensing fees and trade concessions

The part of this that really speaks to me beyond the legal questions is the way political debates are conducted. The online poker debate is similar to conversations in education, and really most debates. It is easy to be sidetracked by worries that sound real and solutions that sound obvious. But if people take their time and think about the underlying reasons for taking a particular course of action the logic frequently breaks down.

An example from my paper is that outlawing online poker to protect gambling addicts, which sounds logical, doesn't stop addicts from gambling, it only stops non addicts from playing. Addicts will stop gambling when they learn to manage their addiction. Until then they will find new venues and new games. Therefore, using gambling addiction as a reason to outlaw online poker is faulty logic.

Anyone who can think of similar examples from education please pass them along. I think one possibility is teacher tenure rules are intended to protect good teachers from unfair or discriminatory termination and ensure intellectual freedom. But in many ways good teachers, who are the least likely to be terminated, are the ones punished because teacher tenure rules tend to prevent differentiation among teachers based on anything except seniority. Resulting in a situation where the least deserving of protection gain the most from the protection that is offered while the most deserving lose the most value from investing so much in protection and not enough in merit based raises and bonuses.

Comeback Time

Apologies for stopping the blogging and thinking for a little while. I was sidetracked by recent events in the online poker world, which had been providing my income recently. But have no fear I'm still thinking a great deal about issues in education, how they play out politically and in the media and, when I'm lucky, small scale solutions.

Topics to look forward to include a belated look at the DC test cheating scandal (probably in multiple parts), a little dive into political game theory, and some discussion of understanding variance.

One thing I will try to incorporate also is taking some of the lessons and thought processes I learned from poker and applying them to education, politics or nothing in particular. Thus I hope to marry a few of my passions.

Off Topic On Current Events - The Libya Edition

I don’t know enough about what’s going on in Libya to know whether or not Obama made the right move in starting a war we won’t call a war there. If indeed we saved tens of thousands of civilians from massacre then I think we probably did what we had to do. Extra props for finally intervening in an African country before it was too late. But let’s be honest, does anyone trust anything after the Iraq/WMD fiasco?

What I do feel qualified to weigh in on is some of the criticism Obama has received in the wake of the intervention. Much of the criticism coming from the right centers around Obama entering into a war reluctantly (I guess as opposed to enthusiastically) and Obama letting other nations take some of the lead. The criticism related to the constitutionality of what we are doing in Libya I think is a conversation worth having. Reluctance and leadership though? I think not.

First, reluctance. It is true, Obama didn’t seem too enthusiastic about bombing the shit out of another country that is not attacking us. He did allow the Libyan uprising to play out for a little while before making a decision. His goal is not full invasion with regime change. He has not declared that Libyan democracy will introduce a new era of peace and prosperity for the Arab world, that our intervention will bring our superior culture to a backward region of the world. Good for him. I’m glad killing a bunch of people took some thought. I’m glad he expressed some reluctance to intervene in another country’s internal struggle. I’m glad he didn’t gleefully throw the muslim world under the boss announcing that he would save them from themselves. Reluctance is a positive both on moral grounds and pragmatically. By showing reluctance, by showing patience and deliberation, by not wanting to be there Obama is signaling not only that he is reasonable and probably not an imperialist but that his intentions are somewhere in the area of face-value. In the Arab world that is priceless. After so many decades of the West not showing reluctance before violating the sovereignty of the region’s nations we were in need of at least a smidge of credibility before diving in to yet another incursion.

Closely related to reluctance is the focus on letting other countries take the lead even if that lead is more in letter than spirit. After all, we are still providing the vast majority of the muscle in this war. But this time we actually have a real coalition, where the rhetoric and passion of other countries are further out in front than our own. And even more importantly, there is some Arab backing for this particular intervention into the Arab world. I’m having a hard time seeing how this could be a bad thing. War isn’t about glory. War is about fulfilling the mission, improving the world, preventing evil from vanquishing good and protecting our interests to the best of our abilities. Let the French and the Brits have their day. Let the rest of the region be our partners rather than our adversaries. If that means we have to show a little humility then so be it. We also get to share some of the responsibility and some of the cost both human and financial. This doesn’t make us weak. It makes us strong. After all, we are still accomplishing what we want to accomplish.

There are valuable lessons here for the education reform movement. To date much has been made of the ed reformers refusing to compromise, refusing to collaborate, using rhetoric that casts any opposition as evil. In many cases there are good reasons that the ed reformers act the way they do. In many cases there are good reasons everyone else is pissed off at them. I’m unapologetic about supporting the current wave of reformers but I’m also sympathetic to the feelings of those who are being run over. If the ed reformers could take half a step back, not to compromise their values but to share the glory. If they could show a little humility, not because they are wrong but because they need to give people room to be persuaded. If they could show a little reluctance, not to stop pushing ahead in an effort to improve the lives of students who aren’t getting a fair shot but to signal that the difficult decisions they make are in fact difficult. By showing flexibility, understanding and humanity while still standing by your values it show strength, not weakness. Taking no prisoners, coloring all dissent as damaging, evil opposition is a hallmark of insecurity. Because education reform is not about glory. It is about saving lives, creating a future where all kids have a chance at success even if they aren’t the type of heroes who get books written about them.