#severelyadverse

There are all sorts of urban myths about Typhoons. A popular one in Hong Kong is the “Li’s force field”; named after Li Ka Shing, the wealthiest tycoon in Hong Kong. Li supposedly has the power to swat Typhoons away when the strong ones get too close, hence robbing everyone of a free day off and preserving the city’s productivity.

The other myth is also about productivity, but just much darker. The rumor is that the Hong Kong Observatory deliberately refrains from busting out stronger signals during working hours so that everyone would go to work. This is quite a serious allegation, since it accuses the Observatory (hence government) of putting productivity ahead of the safety of citizens. Before looking at the data, I thought that this is probably bullshit. I wholeheartedly believe that the Observatory is a professional organization, and that the officials there do their best to be conservative, especially given how easily one could get hurt in a typhoon.

Using the Observatory’s own data, however, a fairly shocking picture emerged. (Note that the Hong Kong Typhoon warning system comprises of signals 1, 3, 8, 9 and 10. School and work are usually cancelled for anything at or above signal 8. Signals 4, 5, 6, 7 are not used). First off, the incidence of signals 8 or above is dramatically lower during working hours in the last 7 years – see chart 1a. Effectively, we were 1.7x more likely to have signals 8 or above during non-working hours vs. working hours (normalized for number of hours).

Warning: for all you consultants, I did this on a Mac MS Office, which is rubbish, so please don’t complain about my graph formatting

Perhaps we have been getting weaker typhoons compared to average? Figures 2 tells us that this is likely not the case. As a percentage of total time under typhoon, we are spending about the same amount of time under signals 8 or above, ~5-10%. If anything we are spending a bit more time in the stronger signals compared to the previous decade. Figure 3 also shows us that the distribution of typhoon strength is about average in the 2010s, with about 26% of typhoons eventually converting into signals 8 or above.

Perhaps the distribution of typhoon signals over the course of a day has always been this way? That also is not true. While there is some evidence that there was a similar trend in 2000s (less pronounced), this was clearly not the case in the 4 decades before this – see chart 4a. The ratio of incidence – chart 4b (same as chart 1b, just plotted over time) shows that the last 7 years were indeed quite unusual in how unlikely it was to get signals 8 or above during the work day.

I am no expert in typhoons, but I find the idea that Typhoons are more likely to come at night a bit bizarre. In fact, if you just look at the data for signals 1 and 3 (see figures 5a and 5b), you see that the same analysis above produces a fairly uniform distribution.

Very suspicious huh? I still don’t believe that there is conclusive evidence that the Observatory has been manipulating typhoon signals for economic gains. However, there is certainly reason to look deeper into this.

The definitive proof would be to get historical weather data, apply rules for each signal (which are public), and backtest that against the actual signals hoisted by the observatory. That weather data seems pretty hard to get, so I didn’t do this here. Once the data is in place, this analysis is actually probably really straightforward. Hong Kong Observatory – if you are somehow reading this, this would be a quick way to clear your name.

There are also other alternative explanations. For example, weather systems are notoriously hard to predict – so depending on how much the signaling process is based upon “expectations”, models might introduce some noise into the ultimate signaling decision. However, I find it extremely hard to believe that the models somehow have a time bias and that we systematically expect less severe typhoons from 9-5pm. It’s just too strange to believe.

The other explanation could be that the Observatory is not aware of its bias. Given that signaling is ultimately a bit of a judgment call, worries about false positives (hoisting signal 8, but then nothing happens -> Observatory looking like a fool) might have creeped into the decision makers’ subconscious and lead them to be more conservative. This is definitely plausible, depending on how the decision making is actually done.

The other explanation is that we are just getting loads of weird Typhoons that approach HK at night. But again, I would think that charts 5a and 5b disproves this.

The data only covers 6 years out of the possible 10 for the 2010s, let’s see how this plays out in the next few years.

Finally, random canto song about the wind – not really related at all but it’s awesome: 

First story: I had a strong interest in international development in college. For me, the field seemed to offer me the best chance of marrying the desire to make a difference, and using my academic training. I applied to a few internships with international development NGOs / consultants, but none of the places took me. So I volunteered instead – spending time in Nicaragua and Cambodia. In Nicaragua, I mostly did random accounting work, which involved adding numbers together for a fair trade coffee cooperative. In Cambodia, my work mainly involved writing proposals for a struggling microfinance institution which was thinking about expanding into the eco-friendly latrine manufacturing business. It was very fun, and from a cultural exchange point of view extremely rewarding. However, I always struggled to articulate what difference I actually made. More than anything, I realised that making a difference takes a long time, takes more than good intention, and requires dedicated focus / resources / networks that are almost impossible for foreigners to provide over a short period of time. I felt that I was helping out more for my benefit, than for the locals’. An article (“The reductive seduction of other people’s problems”) I read sums it up nicely

“If you asked a 22-year-old American about gun control in this country, she would probably tell you that it’s a lot more complicated than taking some workshops on social entrepreneurship and starting a non-profit. …But if you ask that same 22-year-old American about some of the most pressing problems in a place like Uganda — rural hunger or girl’s secondary education or homophobia — she might see them as solvable”

I realised that solving social problems is extremely difficult, and that I am probably better off focusing on problems that I have the understanding, resources and networks to solve, rather than sticking my head into grandiose, international problems.

Second story: Growing up in Hong Kong, I had a fairly standard local upbringing. I went to a local secondary school with a student body that was almost 100% Chinese. Since my school was started by missionaries, everyone around me was mildly Christian, or sometimes Buddhist / Atheist. When I thought about Muslims, I thought of two things – the planes flying into the two world trade centres, which I thought was a movie; and the big Mosque in Tsim Sha Tsui, which played loud, strangely convoluted melodies at weird times. The first day I moved to the US, I was sitting underneath a tree outside of my dormitory, reading a book. The orientation programme for international students started earlier than the regular one, so the campus was basically empty. Late in the afternoon, I saw these two guys dragging a broken suitcase along the pathway leading up to the dormitory. They couldn’t get in and looked confused. I remembered the advice I read on CollegeConfidential about being proactive and making new friends, so I offered them some help and beeped them into the dorm. It turns out that one of them was my next door neighbour. He’s Turkish (and of course, Muslim), and has shoulder length brown hair and coloured eyes that made him look like the short version of Jesus. Some friendly voices from home kept telling me, jokingly, that I was going to get attacked by terrorists. But I liked this Turkish friend of mine, who likes Japanese anime, plays football with me, was subject to many of my lame jokes and showed me a face-recognition drone he built (sadly the drone didn’t recognise Asian faces too well). We continued hanging out intermittently throughout College, and he was the last person I said goodbye to before I left the campus. He is a devout Muslim and opened my eyes to a different culture and belief system. I am glad to have met him.

Brexit, Donald Trump, a disintegrating Europe, rocky politics in Hong Kong. It seems like the liberal world that I was born into is slowly descending into chaos. A dark part of me thinks that we are perhaps just getting into a part of history that is full of conflict and insecurity, that if you zoom out enough this is nothing but a blip. Somehow, though, this blip looks like a tsunami up close.

Why is this happening? What will happen? More importantly, what can we do about it? Many more intelligent people will weigh in on this over the coming days, but bear with me while I intellectualize. This is the only way I know of to ease the hollow feeling in my stomach.

So what is the problem? Of course, Brexit and Trump came about in different contexts, but I believe they are the manifestation of the same underlying current. In a nutshell, the core problem is inequality / economic polarization, which drives a backlash for “outsiders”. This problematic combo is then made worse by the fact that the liberals, or the elites are blindsided by our media landscape.

Let me explain.

There are two dimensions to inequality. There is the intracountry aspect of inequality, which is quite well documented and increasingly becoming a center-stage issue. One can see the growing importance of this by the huge popularity of “Capital in the 21st century”, the divide between London and non-London UK, and the urban / rural divide in the US. However, there is also the intercountry aspect of inequality. I don’t think people fully appreciate the impact of this in the US. The reason why the UK has so many immigrants is because its economy is much stronger than the rest of the EU, and have more jobs. Just ask all the Italian architects in London. The bigger the difference between economic payoffs within an area that allows migration, the quicker migration is likely to be. In the US, this “economic payoff potential” is the primary reason why it’s the land of immigrants. The effect of both types of inequality is that we have a group of people that feels left behind together and lots of people that want to get in.

As a particular segment of locals start to believe that their livelihoods are under threat, they start to think “OK - ’we’ better protect ‘ourselves’”. The critical idea here to pay attention to is what “we” means1. In the UK, the Brexit folks seem to have come to the conclusion that “we” means the British. In the US, however, a sizeable amount of working class families that feel disenfranchised seem to define “we” as Americans, and IN PARTICULAR, white Americans. We then get this spectacularly ugly yet explosive mix of racial / economics / religious2 driven resentment in America. I’d argue that the British definition of “we” is wider than that of the US, and therefore we seem to see less racial backlash here. In both countries, however, the common thread is that the “outsiders” are immigrants and are best kept out. This impulse to protect oneself clashes bitterly with the diversity, internationalist view of the world that many Liberals hold.4

In today’s media and social media landscape, we have also become much better at isolating ourselves from one another. If you only want to read Liberal news, you can entirely avoid “the crazies” by avoiding Fox news (and vice versa). Social media like facebook have also become so good at tailoring to our preferences that they essentially turn into echo chambers. To hold our eyeballs, we are only shown what we will like. To be fair, I think knowing more about this ugly nexus of problems would probably not have helped us avoid this spectacular rupture. Like I said in my previous post, people suck at solving important but not urgent problems. Problems of this kind that takes many people to solve are even harder. However, the fact that the urban elites are blindsided by this does contribute to the shock factor that we are all feeling now. In a way, it probably leads us to overestimate how shocked the whole world is.

So what do I think will happen?

Since it all starts with inequality, let’s start from there too. How can we solve inequality? That’s so broad a question that I already feel stupid trying to answer this. But the real question is – how are we likely to attempt to solve inequality? We know that people don’t have the patience for long term fixes like re-skilling and reforming the education system. Therefore, the most likely scenario is that trade barriers will go up, and we will see the government call it a day. Of course this just kicks the can down the road – but having worked in a number of big public exercises myself, my (not the most optimistic) view is that 9 times out of 10 that’s what governments do (think EU financial crisis, US government debt). To tackle intercountry inequality is even more impossible for a single government. However, given the real effects of this “economic payoff potential”, the temporary solution will probably be to put up higher immigration barriers. Is it going to solve the intercountry inequality problem? No. Is it going to stem the flow of immigrants? Probably yes – and it’s a visible thing to do to placate the angry crowds with pitchforks, guns and votes.3

For the media, I think there is enough of a shock from this time that people might seek to burrow a hole through the walls of the echo chamber that we live in. However, I have no clue how and whether those will be successful. The core, and most interesting question is – what do you do once you have burrowed through that wall? To me, this issue of persuasion seems to be the question of our generation. For example, if you (assumed to be a NYC, college educated Liberal) were put in a room with a Trump supporter, what do you think you could tell him that you think will change his mind? Similarly, if a democrat in Hong Kong were put across the table from a conservative pro-China LegCo member, how would you attempt to convince them? At this very moment, I don’t have a good answer to these questions. My initial thoughts are that we need to get a clear sense of why we make different choices. Is it policy? Which policy? Is it some non-policy issue like loyalty to the party, or perceived career mobility? This strikes me as the most interesting intellectual work that one could do as we approach the end of 2016. Once you know what moves the needle for the other side, you can either try to change their “value” function, or you can try to trade on some of the issues.

Spectacularly useless suggestion – I know5.

In a way, this makes me despair. In another way, seeing what I think is the challenge of our generation is strangely exciting.

We keep walking.

 1.    This has been a trendy theory with me lately. I think it also explains why some people (myself included) feel that Chinese people are less likely to help one of their own compared to other Asians. But let’s not get bogged down here today

2.    I’ll say it – it’s basically anti Muslim. But other minorities should definitely definitely be very alarmed. It could be any other group outside of what “we” is

3.    The second order effects of all this will be extremely interesting to ponder upon on another night. I feel that this may also be a more scary thought experiment

4.    I feel like we are dealing with the same problem over and over and over again all over the world. One could argue that Hong Kong has a similar problem with economic stagnation and local kids defining “we” as people from Hong Kong, rather than ethnic Chinese. It’s xenophobia exacerbated by economic frustration. This also explains why people use language such as 自決

5.    In case you haven’t guessed it from the number of footnotes, I am a consultant

At the core of Nudge is the idea that humans are predictably and consistently inept at choosing the right solution for some types of problems. In particular, problems that are long term, that are really complex, that offers little immediate feedback or that do not happen often are particularly tricky. In other words, problems that are important, complex but not urgent. Nudge argues that by presenting choices in specific ways that address our weaknesses, the government can steer us into more optimal behavior.

This got me thinking. On a personal level, what are things that are important, complex but not urgent? Having read Nudge, I am fairly certain that I am not paying attention to something.

Money: This is exhibit A of problems that are important, not urgent and also complex for obvious reasons. I have a rough sense of how much I make, and how much I spend. But am I saving / investing enough? Assuming that I want to buy a house / retire at some point, what is the right savings / investing strategy? I am almost sure that I am underinvesting

Health: Exercise and diet are probably key, but I don’t really pay attention to any of this. Perhaps lying in bed vs. running for an hour could have a real impact on my wellbeing 40 years down the road. But who’s there to tell me that?

Relationships: The Harvard Grant study pointed out that the strength of your relationships is THE most important determinant of happiness. Yet, how much effort do we put into maintaining these relationships? Have we lost touch with people that are important? Have we really thought about this enough? Relationship maintenance is tricky because it is so long term, and on a day-to-day level, we could largely get by without thinking about it. Read this blogpost here from WaitButWhy if you think you’ve been thinking about it enough

Spiritual: At the risk of sounding like a millenial, how much time do we spend thinking about what gives us meaning in life? How are we steering our lives towards what we think is meaningful? For some, this is about religion, for others, self-discovery

Work: finding mentors at work, paying attention to the bigger picture, etc. instead of focusing on finishing the next deck. Though given how much time we spend working, we are largely aware of the pitfalls i think, rather optimistically. In fact, one could argue that most of us pay too much attention to this

We have probably all met people who are obsessed about one of the things above - people who are health nuts / will only eat raw vegetables, people who pinch pennies, etc.. However, I personally haven’t met anyone who I think has a good grasp of all the things above. Admittedly, hanging out with a compassionate raw vegan penny pincher sounds like another level of hell. Yet, I suspect that this is because, absent of an easy way to monitor your blindspots, paying attention to these long term problems requires lots of obnoxious, deliberate effort. So much so that a lot of the health nuts have to keep talking about kale, going to yoga, drinking soylent etc. to remind themselves of where they stand and where they need to be.

What if there is an easy to use personal blindspot map of key things that you should pay attention to? What if we can do choice architecture for individuals? Imagine something that every week sends you a report card on how you are doing on the important problems that are proven to have a significant long term impact on your wellbeing, and shows you little things that you can do to keep them in check. It would almost be like figuring out the common life pitfalls all in one go. Each individual would be able to avoid reinventing the wheel, or worse still, discovering at the end of one’s life that one should have done X. Remember, being smart doesn’t help you solve these problems. We are hardwired to fail to solve these problems.

Go read Nudge.

社會希望的根基有兩個：第一，港人需要相信未來會更好；第二，港人需要相信自己的行為對未來有一定的影響力。不幸的是，種種跡象顯示港人（尤其是年輕人）心中的希望正隨著這兩個根基的動搖而變得越來越黯淡。

今天的香港真的相信未來會更好嗎？無論是從數據、或者是社會上的語氣看來，香港對未來的觀感都難言樂觀。港大民意調查顯示，香港人對前途的信心已經下滑至10年來的低位。有人可能會說，經濟好起來的話，民心自然會回歸。但比起2007年金融海嘯的時候，香港經濟的確好了（人均出口總值從07年到13年增長百分之二十四），但訪問中有信心的港人反從07年高位的百分之七十九大跌至最近的百分之四十八。在網上社交媒體上，不難發現年輕人的留言都非常負面。受歡迎的新媒體，例如毛記電視等，都是走挖苦公眾人物、挖苦政府的路線。

在第二點上，香港有一部分的年輕人今天對自己努力的看法可以用一句話總括：「成功需父幹」。因為樓價繼續高企，社會流動性又有減弱的跡象，香港有一些年輕人卻越來越不相信自己努力能改善自己的未來，也不相信港府有誠意、有能力扭轉乾坤。在這方面，政府實在是責無旁貸。在政治事件上，（如最近書店店東失蹤事件上等大是大非的事情上）政府擺出的曖昧姿態，比起推行具爭議性的政策時用的力度在觀感上差別很大；直接令年輕人懷疑政府最關心的到底是自己在中央眼裡的形象，還是港人的未來。在政策層面上，政府民生政策上推行又進度不足；加上部分建制派議員連連出醜，更令政府顯得左支右絀，好像僅靠幾個滿口胡言、發言刻薄的小丑盲目支撐。面對經濟上的困境，又覺得政府幫不了忙，香港年輕人感到灰心並不令人意外。

香港人對未來失去信心，社會上的聲音自然趨向負面。政府在大小政策上不是沒有努力，但在負面的社會氣氛下，每一個討論的機會都被標籤成對政府認受性的終極投票。「政府建議」變成每一個議題最大的毒藥，事倍功半。年輕一代討論的不是一個政策本身的優缺點，而是行政長官如何不民主，建制派的幾位小丑出的洋相。這樣下去，香港被自己的恐懼、不滿所困住，前景更加堪憂。

香港政府推行的政策通過、成功推行與否當然對香港的未來有重要的影響。但這任政府成功與否的關鍵不在於能否把下一個方案成功通過立法會，而在於能否重建港人對港府、對未來的希望。到了這個地步，這不是政策，而是形象、觀感上的問題。

但願香港不會在中國追逐中國夢的大前提下，一步一步的踏進自己的惡夢當中。

What makes a New Yorker profile so enthralling? Having reread a few of the profiles that I particularly enjoyed, there seems to be a few pieces to the puzzle. The first is the human character - some characters are larger than life and therefore automatically intriguing. Others are interesting because they come from more esoteric corners of the world. The second protagonist is the context. Often, there is an ongoing societal trend or issue that sweeps through an organization or a cross section of society. Often, there is a third protagonist lurking in the shadows. This is usually an idea or a theme that the writer keeps coming back to. Usually, the character and context stories have enough substance to stand on its own. However, when you add the two together, the end product is more engaging than the sum of its parts.

A piece that really captured my attention recently is Peter Hessler’s Village Voice, which follows the framework outlined above closely. In the piece, the character story is that of Rajeev Goyal, a second generation Indian American who was a Peace Corp member in Nepal and subsequently a lobbyist for the Peace Corps. His story is about grit and the unorthodox, aggressive approach that he applies to lobbying, including ambushing senators during bathroom breaks. The context / non-human story of Village Voice is that of the Peace Corps movement itself - how it all started, the peak of its popularity and its slow decline. Sandwiched between the character and the context is the idea that politics require one to be ruthless and Machiavellian. What I particularly enjoy about this style is that you are simultaneously learning about a personal story and the development of a societal trend.

In Peter Hessler’s work, as is the case in many classic New Yorker profiles, the story seamlessly moves among that of the background, the character, and the idea. Stripped down to its core, a New Yorker profile is a collection of mini stories with three interlinked foci. Given that the work is a blend of the three, the stories that the authors choose are often interrelated. For instance, in Village Voice, the stories chosen to illustrate Rajeev’s character come from his time as a Peace Corp building a water pipeline for a Nepalese community, which produces a nice segway into the Peace Corp “background” story.

This is not to say that all New Yorker profile are cookie cutter and formulaic. The magic that the contributors bring lies in how they play with a basic template and bring out different flavors. One parameter that varies greatly from article to article is the weighting of the three narratives. For instance, the Bridgewater story is heavily skewed towards that of Dalio, probably because he is a remarkable enough character on his own; in others, such as Village Voice, equal weight is given to the background and the character. Another layer of complexity is the staging of individual stories. Selecting stories, deciding upon the point of a story and balancing between providing context and getting to the point require exceptional skill. Like a blues solo, when done well, these articles are hair-raisingly moving and informative.

Since college, I have always been drawn to (or if I am being honest, jealous of) people who have great stories to tell. Those people always seem to have an endless supply of strange encounters and close calls at hand for the next conversation over a beer. I used to think that these people are just cooler than I am and are destined to run into story-worthy situations. While that is probably still somewhat true, I am starting to notice the difference that the story telling technique makes.

Further reading:

1. Alice, off the page: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/03/27/alice-off-the-page

2. Village Voice: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/village-voice

3. Mastering the Machine: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/07/25/mastering-the-machine

4. Dr. Don: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/26/dr-don

1Q84 promised to be different, at least based on its cover. In this thinly veiled tribute to or word play on George Orwell’s original, Murakami concocted a story that brought together elements of the literary world, cults, a parallel universe and murder. It all began with Aomame, a masseuse and part time hit-woman, stumbling through a hit job realising that the world around her is familiar, but strange in particular ways. In parallel, Tengo, a budding novelist, ghostwrote Air Chrysalis for the runaway daughter of a secretive cult to great popular success. Yet, he too, slowly realises that something in the dark is pulling him into a strange world.

Sounds reasonably family friendly, right?

As I innocently flipped through the book, I was ambushed in the middle of Chapter 2. Aomame just finished her hit job and is having a drink at the bar to unwind. Out of nowhere, she ends up on a one-night stand with a stranger. Similarly, in a subsequent chapter, Tengo works hard rewriting Air Chrysalis, painstakingly illustrating the imaginary world with two moons in the sky. Just as the reader is beginning to come to terms with the Little People and the dead goat, the book turns into an elaborate description of Tengo’s sex life with a married woman. These abrupt sex scenes littered the book. It is as if Murakami has a little sex alarm clock on his desk as he writes reminding him to sprinkle a healthy dose of sex  into the plot every 30 to 40 pages. While certainly eye catching, these little episodes are distractions to the main story. The plot would still have made sense without any of the sex scenes. I understand that fiction is a completely different genre from magazine feature stories, which are more selective about what they leave on the page. However, in this case, Murakami probably pushed a bit too far in the other direction. It also raises disturbing questions about why he is so obsessed with these often outlandish sex scenes.

That said, Murakami displayed real craftsmanship throughout the book. The chapters alternating between Aomame and Tengo’s perspectives worked wonders in terms of framing the story. While by no means an original approach, 1Q84 aptly outlined the character, physical appearance and mannerisms of the main characters. The reader takes away from the book vivid images of each of these characters even though they only lived on paper. The first half of the book is particularly skillful in terms of managing the tempo of the plot. As the two seemingly unrelated stories run ever closer to each other, the reader can’t help but feel that something important is about to happen on the next page. This certainly kept me reading well into the night for a while. For a whopping 500 pager, 1Q84 is a surprisingly easy read.

Japanese fiction and drama have always been fascinating for me, not so much because of the often strange plots, but because of the Japanese psychology and mindset that they indirectly reveal. For instance, at first I found Murakami to be a bit of a show off when he starts referencing seemingly obscure pieces of classical music or exotic foreign brands of alcohol. However, I slowly came to realise that there is something uniquely Japanese about this. The fixation of this country on all things western, while at the same time being one of the most inward facing Asian countries, is distinctly Japanese. Perhaps Murakami’s taste for sexual encounters and extra-marital affairs also bear some Japanese DNA. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what I learned about the Japanese psyche through the book, but every time I read a Japanese novel or watch a Japanese TV show, I sense that I am digging a little deeper into this opaque world.

What is 1Q84? Who are the Little people? Murakami creates as many new questions as he answers in this fantastical tale. While the plot does not always make sense, it was certainly an enjoyable read.

“Ho ho,” says the keeper of the beat.