Day 265, Thinking, Fast and Slow - practical, The Budget and others

I've recently started reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.  This is probably one or two years later than everyone else, but that's how it is.

I've noticed that this book is particularly pertinent right now, if you're anything like me and it's more than a month since you read it then it may be completely forgotten and things here may not be as apparent to you.  

I'm still on Part 1, The Two Systems, and maybe my view is subject to review by the later parts of the book.  Even so, the fairly low level that I'm looking at suggests that what I'm about to suggest isn't far from the reality.

Put simply there are two systems that describe how our mind works when it interprets situations.  They are described as System 1, which operates quickly, automatically and with no sense of effort or voluntary control, and System 2, which allocates energy to mental activities and complex situations that demand it and, according to Kahneman, "are more often associated with agency, choice and concentration." - Kahneman borrowed the terms from the psychologists Keith Stanovich and Richard West.

So why is this pertinent?

Well, it was the budget yesterday and there were a few things that struck me about it.  There was the change of name of the Minimum Wage to something that George Gideon Oliver Osborne referred to as the National Living Wage.  The Living Wage Foundation defines that the living wage should be calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK.  The Living Wage Foundation have rightly pointed out that regardless of name this move by the Chancellor is just a slightly higher National Minimum Wage and not a Living Wage.

Yet, even though it is clearly not the already defined Living Wage the media are calling it the Living Wage.  It appears that they have, without thinking, just taken the words at face value that it is what the Chancellor says it is.  They've jumped in with System 1 thinking, not used any effort, and are propagating the disingenuous terminology used by Osborne.  It is possible that some elements of the media will step back and review the budget and change the language they use, but this has already started to be cemented in people's consciousness.

It could be said that there was deliberate thinking here to change the terms of the argument and simultaneously undermine a successful campaign.  It is almost certain that these are deliberate ploys.

Another example is the redefinition of child poverty.  The detail of Ian Duncan Smith's changes will have passed most people by, the change in the calculation and the vague plans to include moral judgements about people are unlikely to be read by everyone.  However people will hear the headline figures presented on the news, these will be the easy to interpret and digest figures that will drive their understanding.  These figures will be presented in such a way that people think they immediately understand them and they then won't have to go away and put more effort in to find out the facts.  How the message is conveyed is key, if there is complexity and confusion people are more likely to switch to System 2 thinking.

Lastly, there's been a tube strike.

Apparently being a tube driver is the best job in the world.  The pay is phenomenal and the holidays are terrific.  And it is almost certainly a piece of piss.  And what are these unruly buggers striking for.  That's how it is presented in sound bites in the media and social media.  Without knowing any more about the background, and having the information presented in such a digestible manner, such as -

"50k/year and 43 days holiday/year seems pretty good deal"

There's envy in these sorts of comments as well as a value judgement about the nature of the job.  When I first saw this I thought "that does seem pretty decent doesn't it".  But, the nature of the dispute is about much more than that and those headline figures are just the sort of thing the Tory press are going to use to trigger a System 1 response from the reader.

The Tory press is also very adept at using System 1 triggers to provoke anger, envy, greed, and to turn worker against worker.  Turning worker against worker is a much better course of action for them as it serves to drive wages down, rather than focus attention on the government and the austerity policies that are really biting people hard in the country.

Obviously we'd all love to not get paid for some hours each week that we then get back as additional leave.  We'd all love to have our working conditions changed that we had to work a shift pattern that now includes nights.  We'd all love to be responsible for the safety of thousands upon thousands of people on the trains we were driving each day.  And we'd all love to imagine that we were rocketed right to the top of the pay grade on day one, which of course nobody is.  But it's easy to accept the soundbite rather than expend the System 2 effort and understand the reality.  And of course all this type of reporting is deliberate and presented in soundbites of under 140 characters to help those that are unguarded to spread as they've accepted the System 1 answer as it appears so easy.

So the book.  It's very interesting so far, but of course I might completely change my view if it says something untoward that tickles my System 1 thinking in the wrong way.

The Orwellian manipulation of us by advertisers, the media, and the government shouldn't be a surprise, it's been done in different ways for probably as long as there have been modes of communication.  Though now it's so well entrenched that even just thinking about how we're being manipulated might even itself be a manipulation.

Here's a picture of some people on strike.  They are real, normal, ordinary people, just like you, me, and the tube drivers - not aliens from another planet set to destroy our economy as the Tory media would have you believe.

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