Tag: mahabharat

Economists As Storytellers

Not just economists, of course. We’re all storytellers.

What else have we got?

“We are basically storytellers,” wrote Lucas, “creators of make-believe economic systems.”

https://timharford.com/2023/07/what-an-amusement-park-can-teach-us-about-central-banks/

I read Tim Harford’s excellent blog post on what amusement parks can teach us about central banks last night, and loved it for more than one reason. But before we get to amusement parks, let’s talk about photography first:

I often say in classes that economic models are like photographs taken by smartphone cameras. They are abstractions of reality. They can’t possibly capture all the nuances, hues, details and features of whatever it is that you are photographing. And looking at the photograph gives you an idea of what it might have been like to actually be there – but you cannot possibly ever experience it yourself.
Similarly, a model is an abstraction of reality. It cannot possibly capture all that you need to know about the real world. And using a model as a crutch to get to grips with reality is like seeing a photograph and imagining yourself there. As a thought experiment, it’s fun. As a way to reach policy decisions, it is fraught with risk.

https://atomic-temporary-112243906.wpcomstaging.com/2021/03/17/the-solow-model-in-action/

A photograph is an abstraction of reality in much the same way that a story is. You could argue, in fact, that a photograph is, in some sense, a story. And whether it is Robert Lucas or I, we’re trying to get across the same point – that we try to grapple with reality by telling ourselves a story. We could do this with words, with visuals, or with equations. It doesn’t matter.

Some economists might tell you that equations is the best way to do it in all circumstances, but I’m not sure I agree. But that’s a story for another day.

But a model built using words, or visuals, or equations, or something else, is just that – a toy model of reality. Toy models are good, because they help us focus on that which we seek to understand, analyze and perhaps change for the better. They help us by removing that which doesn’t aid the analysis, and by focussing on those elements of reality which do aid the analysis.

A toy model of a race-track, for example, is an abstraction of reality. It doesn’t include the dirt and the grime on an actual race-track, it doesn’t replicate the wind, the sun and the rain, and the toy cars themselves are also simplifications of the real thing. But kids playing with a toy-model of a racetrack will agree that it is a good enough representation of reality for their purposes. We can understand that it is a racecourse, we can analyze ways by which victory can be achieved on this toy racecourse, and perhaps we can understand a little bit about how to deal with the key sections on an actual race-track by using the toy model as a reference.

Batting in the nets is a model of batting in an actual match. But as any commentator will tell you, batting in the nets is not at all like the real thing. You can conquer and master the model, sure – but never be under the impression that all your learnings from the model will guarantee a triumph out there in the real world.

In much the same way that even the most excellent of photographs can never substitute for actually being there, no amount of detail in a story can replicate actually seeing events unfold in real life. And that’s why the predictions of almost any economic model will never give you a perfect representation of what actually happens in real life. Any policy-maker will tell you this because they work in the real world, not in the ivory tower world of theory.

There’s nothing wrong with the ivory tower world of theory. It is a most interesting place, full of weird ideas, somewhat plausible hypotheses, and fascinating representations of reality.You can build a version of reality in which people have perfect foresight, for example. Or a world in which their biases trump their rationality. Or a world in which half the people have perfect foresight and the other half don’t. Or something else altogether. One is restricted by only one’s imagination, and allow me to assure you – there are some very impressive imaginations in the social sciences.

But a story, alas, can only take you so far. A story about amusement parks and central banks, for example, cannot at the end of the day be an acceptable substitute for reality:

The disadvantage with such stories, admitted Lucas, “is that we are not really interested in understanding and preventing depressions in hypothetical amusement parks . . . the analogy that one person finds persuasive, his neighbour may well find ridiculous.”
So then what to do? “Keep trying to tell better and better stories . . . it is fun and interesting and, really, there is no practical alternative.”

https://timharford.com/2023/07/what-an-amusement-park-can-teach-us-about-central-banks/

I have known two people to blog without a break, every single day, for about two decades now. A magnificent achievement, and one that is not celebrated enough, if you ask me. I try to emulate them every year, and I fail every year. But the point (I think) is to keep at it regardless, and so onwards we go.

Seth Godin is one of them. He tells a story about parsley in one of his blog posts:

Who eats the garnish? No one does. What a waste, right? But once it’s gone, you notice. You notice that there wasn’t a sprig of parsley or even a strawberry on the plate. It’s a vivid reminder that you were just ripped off.
All of us sell parsley. Sometimes, in the race to cut costs and increase speed and figure out how to fight off Wal-Mart, it’s easy to decide to leave off the parsley. No focus group ever asked for parsley!

https://seths.blog/2005/03/think_about_par/

It’s a very good story, if you ask me. A very good lesson in marketing, and one that I wish more people would adopt.

But it is, at the end of the day, a story. There might have been a dozen great things about the cafe that served Seth this meal, and there might have been ten dozen not so great things about it. Seth abstracted from his entire experience one specific point, and told us a story about it. But putting a sprig of parsley on an omelette by itself will not revolutionize your business. That’d be the wrong lesson to take away from this post. Or rather, it would be wrong on our part to assume that this is the only lesson we need.

It’s a great story, in other words, but it is, after all, only a story. And we should beware of simple stories, says the other person to have blogged everyday for twenty years:

My takeaway from my favorite bloggers is that stories help us build a version of reality, but beware of taking this, well, story too far!

I can’t tell you how excited I was to learn that Tyler was going to have a conversation with Seth. Do listen to the whole thing, or if you like, read the transcript. But once you’re done listening to the whole thing, run a search for the words “story” and “stories”. To use Seth’s phrasing, they danced with the word throughout the conversation, and that made (for me) a great conversation even better.

Tell more stories is an excellent piece of advice. Tell stories using equations, or words, or pictures, or music, or all of these and more. Revel in these stories, for they help you get a better grasp of reality. But never forget one last step: ask in what ways the story falls short of fully describing reality, and in what ways is reality more complex than the stories.

Three final points that didn’t fit anywhere else in this essay:

  1. Here is one of my all time favorite stories from economics.
  2. Is the Mahabharat the best story ever told? It is simple and complex, and it is messy and linear. It has complex characters, and the story reads well even when these characters are grossly oversimplified. It reads even better when they’re not, and is that not a point in its favor?
  3. My favorite line from Tim’s blogpost has nothing to do with economics or telling stories, but is entirely appropriate for the times we live in: “When the people are amusing themselves, they do not think about politics.“

Just one Object

When I teach courses in introductory statistics, my focus isn’t so much on helping students memorize definitions and formulas as it is on helping them understand the point of the core statistical concepts.

I often ask a student in class to tell us about their favorite movie, for example. Let’s assume that the student in question says “Dulhe Raja”.* Ok, I might say, rate the movie for us. And let’s assume that the student says 9.

I then ask the student if every single aspect of the movie is 9/10. All the songs, all of the fight sequences, all of the dialogues, every single directorial decision – is everything a 9/10? And the usual answer, of course, is no. Parts of the movie do much worse, and there might be some that are a perfect 10. But all in all, if the entire movie had to be summarized in just one number, that number would be nine (in that student’s opinion). Which, of course, is one way to think about averages. It’s a great way to summarize, distill or boil down a dataset into just one data point.

Of course, you would want to worry about whether each dimension of the movie has been given equal importance or otherwise. Dilli-6, for example, gets a score of 6/10 from me, but that’s because the music is just so utterly fantastic. But I’m giving much more importance to the music, and not that much importance to anything else (which, for me, was almost uniformly meh). And then, of course, we start to talk about weighted averages. And this also is a great way to segue into what standard deviation is all about. Then come the formulas and the problem solving, but that’s a whole other story.

So why am I speaking about this right now? Because I read an article in The Print the other day, which asked an interesting question that reminded me of all of what I’ve written about above:

If there was a cultural artefact that truly represents everything that is India today, what would it be?

https://theprint.in/opinion/pov/rasgulla-taj-mahal-sanskrit-what-if-i-told-you-to-pick-one-object-that-represents-india/1175979/

What a question to think about, no? Read the rest of the article to find out the author’s own answer, but in what follows, I want to try and think through my own answer to this question.

First, the recognition that we’re talking about a truly multi-dimensional problem. India is diverse in terms of her geography, her languages, her dance forms, her religions, her architecture, her food, her music – I can go on and on. As, I’m sure, can you!

So should we try and come up with an artefact that covers all (or as many dimensions as possible) at once? Maybe a movie, maybe a song, maybe an epic? But can (and should) a movie or a song encompass all of what India is across space and time?

The Mahabharata, maybe? A saga told in multiple languages, in various forms, from the viewpoint of many different protagonists, interpreted in a variety of ways over the centuries, and contains innumerable references to music, dance, food, sport, architecture besides so much else.

The only other artefact that might qualify must have something to do with food. We might have different ingredients, different techniques and different methods of preparing our food, but we all love a good meal, no? So might there be a dish, or a drink, that truly represents everything that India is today?

Tea? Nimbu paani? Khichdi?

Or does this dataset have so much variance that the average isn’t really a good representation?

I haven’t yet found an answer that satisfies me – which is a good thing! – but I do think I have found a good question to teach statistics better. No?

*This is a fantastic movie, and I will not be taking any questions.

The Difference Between a Sociological and Psychological Story

I grew up in an age where the television series “Friends” was revered.

People considerably younger than me tell me that Friends is still revered, and there is probably some truth to that hypothesis. Every time I open up Netflix on my TV, Friends is regularly in the Top 10 shows in India.

Don’t worry, this is not about to turn into a snooty ol’ discussion about how Friends could be different/better. But I will say this much: I much preferred the first two to three seasons to the rest of the show. And the reason I preferred the first two or three seasons is because in my opinion, the first two or three seasons were about life happening to those six people in New York. It was observing New York through the eyes of these six people.

It helped that these six people were attractive and young. That helped in generating the kind of appeal that Friends has had for years now. But the reason why the first two or three seasons were, in my opinion, better than the latter ones is because they were sociological observations, using these lives of these six characters as a canvas. The latter seasons? Oftentimes, it seemed as if they were an extended riff on the “We were on a break” theme. In other words, it became a psychological story about what happened to these six people, and what about their psychological make-up made them take the decisions they do.

Not my phrasing (I wish it was). It simply is me applying Zeynep Tufekci’s model to the television series Friends. Here is Zeynep talking about Game of Thrones:

COWEN: TV show Game of Thrones — why does it interest you as a sociologist?

TUFEKCI: It interested me until the last season and a half —

TUFEKCI: — because before that, it was a very, very sociological thing. Here’s the thing. Here’s the difference between a sociological story and a psychological story.

In a sociological story, you can imagine yourself being almost anyone. Instead of terrible, evil characters and good people, where you just identify with the good ones — which is the classic Hollywood narrative, which is also most of human narrative, you have the good one, the bad one — it’s more like a complicated mythology where you can imagine yourself being any one of those characters, even the ones that do the terrible things, you can see yourself doing it.

The second sign of a sociological story, for me, is when nobody has plot armor because it’s the setting that’s carrying the story, with lots of people, but it doesn’t rely on one person dying or not dying. For six seasons, you have a very institutional sociology, very interesting. It’s like The Wire. People can die, but the story is still gripping because it’s sociological.

Here comes season — whichever the last season is — and all of a sudden, Arya can walk through fiery dragons and nothing happens. It just misses her by an inch. I’m like, “All right, you lost the plot here.” Plot armor essentially means you no longer have a solid sociological story.

I watched it with great interest until the end, and in the end, I’m like, “What just happened?” I wasn’t really very clear with the novel world. I learned that the novelist had run out of material, and the Hollywood showrunners were now writing the script. I’m like, “Ah, that’s what happened. They switched to the good-versus-evil story.”

They took a great story that was going to be how power corrupts, which clearly was the story, and in the end, they made the dragon lady snap just because she heard the church bells or something. [laughs] That’s not a good sociological story.

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/zeynep-tufekci/

It’s a really good way (to me, at any rate) to think about why people say Seinfeld is better than Friends. Of course, you may not agree, and that’s obviously fine. But one reason why people say this might be is because Seinfeld is, to go back to my first example, about life happening to these people.

Roger Ebert, my favorite movie critic, often used to say that one shouldn’t ask what a movie is about. One should, instead ask how a movie is about whatever it is about. I can’t find the exact quote right now, but I think he was getting at the same point.

So ok, if you’re a student reading this, you’ve got one way to frame what everybody has felt about Game of Thrones. And you’ve got a way to think differently about Friends. But the large point is this: when you watch a movie, get lost in the plot and its intricacies, sure. But please, also ask yourself what you are learning about the society in which the plot, and the characters are based.

And here’s homework, if you are so inclined. How much of Michael Corleone’s decision making is a function of he being Michael Corleone, and how much of it is a function of he being who he is, in the family that he is from, the society in which he grew up, and his army background?

Or put another way: the really interesting question isn’t whether Michael and Sonny were different. In what ways were they similar, and why?

A fun thing to think about, if you ask me.

Final point: are you, like me, reminded of the Mahabharat when you read this paragraph?

In a sociological story, you can imagine yourself being almost anyone. Instead of terrible, evil characters and good people, where you just identify with the good ones — which is the classic Hollywood narrative, which is also most of human narrative, you have the good one, the bad one — it’s more like a complicated mythology where you can imagine yourself being any one of those characters, even the ones that do the terrible things, you can see yourself doing it.

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/zeynep-tufekci/

Past EFE posts on Zeynep Tufekci here. Past EFE posts on sociology here.