The Montreal Protests.

Protesters in Montreal wearing masks.  The practise has since been made illegal.  Source.

So,

It would appear that there is a bit of a kerfuffle just east from where I write this post.  Across la belle province, students are organizing and protesting the provincial government's proposed increases to the cost of post secondary tuition, currently the lowest in the country for Quebecois students.  As a disclaimer, I will admit that I went to school in Ontario (where tuition fees are higher, but not the highest in the country), and that each province has a different paradigm.  However, I would still like to offer my thoughts on the matter.

I have seen my share of outrage over student fees in the past six years.  As with the changing of the leaves, and the tang of wood smoke in the air, the appearance of the "Drop Fees" movement/protest is a sure sign that autumn has arrived in your university town.  I originally agreed with the original premise of this, but after gaining some experience and perspective, I came to learn that the dropping of student fees effects an equivalent drop in student services.  Nothing else changes, but the student experience suffers.  The problem with this group is that they have given no thought as to how the fees should be lowered, or how the loss of funding can be realistically be recouped.

It is my feeling that this is the same spirit from which the anger in Quebec stems.  It appears shocking at the surface; the Quebec government will see tuition raised by 75% over five to seven years (depending on how the "negotiations" go).  However, this is a 75% increase in an artificially low tuition.  According to the fine fellow running This Geographical Life, the tuition in Quebec was originally made low to combat the trend where only the wealthy and/or English were receiving a post-secondary education.  I would agree that this was a noble and necessary effort.  The problem now is that the former issue is largely solved.  The Quebecois are as educated as the average Canadian (or so I assume, due to economic accessibility), and the University of Quebec has enough branches to make learning geographically accessible.

Now, this alone is not a reason to raise the price of an education.  The debt situation in Quebec is.  The province is roughly $180 billion in debt.  The tuition hike is but a small part of a strategy to balance (or at least, "make less scary") the budget.  It may be a tough pill to swallow, but Quebec is spending in an unsustainable manner, and the consequences of maintaining such low tuition rates could have far worse consequences than having fewer degree holders around.

However, the protesters do not want to hear that.  Though it does not appear that the protesters are just students any longer.  Other groups have joined the protests with their own agendas (separatists, anarchists, hippies), and many appear to be short sighted and lacking in impulse control.  Further, we also see those who appear to be everywhere in Canada these days, people that wait for a large enough crowd to gather so that they can break things.

I will leave you with two excellent points made to me recently.  One, from my cousin.  He posits that if you genuinely feel that a university/post-secondary education is going to benefit your career, get a student loan.  Most loans can be paid off within a year of making a salary that one can earn after obtaining a degree.  If you are going to school for the sake of going to school, perhaps you should reconsider that philosophy degree.  The second point I will leave you with refers to the picture at the top of this post.  It was given by someone I heard on the radio, but I do not remember the name.  The recent banning of masks in a protest is perfectly acceptable.  If you truly believe in a cause, and you truly believe the cause is just, you should be willing to associate your face with your protest.

NM

P.S.  I also listened to a radio interview where the caller (Quebecois) waited tables to pay for tuition.  And rent.  And expenses.  Without loans.  The only other time I've heard of that being possible was when my parent's generation attended university.  I was dumbfounded.

Edit: My cousin has expressed an interest in clarifying his statements.  The un-edited message I received follows:

So, I wrote this long reply to your blog post to have it turn out to be too long. If you'd like to post it, go ahead. Here:

Good cousin, I'd like to clarify my quote and perhaps my feelings on the drop fees people and working through school as well.

Firstly, I like OSAP. I know a lot of people are booing and making faces at me right now, but that's unfair. You'll never get such a reasonable loan in your life. Especially when you're 18 years old with zero money and zero collateral. First, OSAP only charges you up to a fixed amount. If you require more than that, they give it to you in a grant and you don't need to repay it. Secondly, they run your name and specifics through a massive database of grants and scholarships. It requires no effort on your behalf, they simply give you free money. I myself as well as many others have found this out first hand. Thirdly, OSAP doesn't charge interest until you finish classes. That's at least three years (probably more) of compound interest you don't have to pay. Fourth, if you don't have a job when it comes time to repay your loans they fall all over themselves to give you more interest relief. I took a year off of school and OSAP sought me out several times to offer interest relief. It was great. Fifth, when they do charge you interest, it is quite close to prime. Prime plus one if memory serves. Again, very reasonable. Lastly, say your parent's make too much money but give you none for school, you merely have to wait a couple of years or live a year on your own to prove you're not dependant. After that they throw even more money at you. OSAP is not out to make money off of you, they are there to make education accessible to you.

Having established that OSAP is actually quite reasonable, it's a bad idea to work your way through university (I can't speak for college). In fact, attempting to do so will lower the quality of your education. My main point is this: your earning potential prior to university is AT LEAST half of what it is afterwards. This means that you'll pay for university at least twice as fast if you pay for it after you graduate than before. In addition to this, university is a 40-60 hr per week job. If you're working a second job then it's eating into either your study time or your social time: both incredibly important to your education. You need time with your friends so you don't go crazy and learn social skills. You need to actually do your readings. You need to actually think about your topics rather than just telling your prof what the prof wants to think. You need to discuss the subject matter with your colleagues (this is where most of the learning happens). You need to sleep, otherwise you won't remember what you've learned and you won't learn it well. If you're working then you're learning less, enjoying your education less, and spending at least twice as much time paying for it. I know you can factor in interest and you end up paying more overall, however assuming double your earning potential is the bare minimum. Even with a "worthless" philosophy degree you should be able to make $20 an hour FULL TIME vs. 10-15 part time. Do yourself a favour and get a loan.

In terms of those drop fees people, I think they're looking at the wrong factors. School is expensive, but in my experience as an arts student, rent and food are the highest costs. Tuition, books, student fees, have been fairly reasonable for what I've received. Universities aren't there to make profit, they're there to do research. Buildings cost money. Staff cost money. Professors need to be paid, though I've found out they don't make especially high amounts of money from the university, their money comes from grants and publications. If you can, do publish a undergrad science text book. What the drop fees people need to do is what the profs do. Target grants, loans, and provide opportunities for students to earn money (not through waiting tables but through something related to their field). They could also search out ways to provide affordable housing and food. IE: they need to stop whining and be proactive.

My last point is somewhat unrelated but I think important: too many people in Canada have university educations. I've heard this from plenty of sources, including the president of Dalhousie University on Cross-Country Checkup with Max Pointy...er Rex Murphy this past summer. It seems like the general consensus among Canadians is that a university education is a life necessity these days. I think university is great, but if that's our only option then there's something wrong. I've seen the signs of this throughout the past six years in university. My profs and the older generation talk about when university was for the love of a subject. My experience is that most of my classmates, myself included, were in school because they thought it was a necessity for getting a job. No one seems to care what they study, just that they'll get a good job in the end. Hence the glut of business and engineering degrees. It only follows that if too many people are going to school then it's going to be too expensive to keep education affordable. If we're paying for only a few keen people to go to school we could send them free of charge.

Of course, one can't say an educated population is a bad thing, so what happens now? If we make school more expensive it becomes elite rather than accessible. If we make school harder to get into then it will be full of the most competitive people, not necessarily smart people. What this says to me, is there needs to be an alternative. Does this mean college is broken? Does it mean we need something else? I dunno.

I'll leave that up for discussion. What I posit is this: we need to go to university for love of the subject. Not for money. Not for career opportunities. Stop worrying about money and learn something you love. If you aren't interested, go to college. What the drop fees people need to be fighting for are things like better college opportunities, housing co-ops, or community gardens. Heck, they could even fight for better bursaries and grants (though I think they're already pretty adequate in Ontario at least). They shouldn't be whining to drop fees, they're just drawing bad press and fighting a loosing battle (and poorly at that).

Bev Oda, and Canada's Government.

Bev Oda, looking particularly shady.  Source.

So,

I am irritated, and I'd like to share the reasons with you, my dearest monocled and top-hatted readers (well, that's how I imagine you anyway).  Recently, Bev Oda, member of the Parliament of Canada had news break regarding questionable spending of taxpayer funds during a stay in London.

It seems that the five star hotel in which she was slated to stay (she was attending a conference being hosted in said hotel) did not suit her.  Instead, she decided to stay in the Savoy hotel, a favourite of the rich and famous staying in London.  To give an idea of the expense, a stay at the Savoy is $665 a night, and I hear one's morning orange juice costs $16.  Further, rather than using a cab, she decided to use a thousand-dollar-a-day limousine service for three days.

This is not the problem, however.  Frankly, I would be fine with that.  The problem is that used taxpayer's money to do so.  I am certainly glad that the expenses were discovered and subsequently repaid by Oda.  My primary concern is the thought processes that must have been involved in deciding that a) a five-star hotel with car service isn't to your liking, and b) that the taxpayers should pay for you to do so.

Actually, this would not normally bother me as much as it does.  My face has been thoroughly palmed because this is not the first wrong thing that Bev Oda has done.  Note that I do not mean she did something incorrectly, but something morally wrong.  In February of 2011, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) released a report to Oda dictating that a charitable organisation by the name of Kairos should receive a government grant.  It would seem that the report sat on her desk for quite some time before a decision was reached.  However, when the report was released, it was reported in the House of Commons that CIDA had declined to fund Kairos based on its views of Israel.  But that wasn't the truth.  CIDA wanted Kairos to receive the grant, the Minister and/or Party didn't.  In fact, the document had been altered:

It's one thing to decline to fund Kairos, but to lie in such a manner is unethical and a breach of public trust.  In fact, the investigation pursuant to this triggered a motion of no-confidence in Parliament, and an election.  The Conservative Party then won a majority, and continue to govern the country.  I would argue it was due to the surge in support for the NDP and a split left-wing vote, but that is neither here nor there.

What leads me to borderline hysteria in all this is that the Conservative Party, or "Tories", campaigned on the basis of being an accountable government.  After the sponsorship scandal of the Liberal government of the 90s had been unearthed, voters were rightly displeased and wanted what the Tories offered.  So now, after being elected on the premise of offering accountable, ethical government, the Tories are acting in a very unethical manner.

I know, I heard the scoff.  I was talking about Bev Oda, and now I am complaining about the Tories as a whole.  Why might that be?  Well, news is also trickling out about the purchase of F35 fighter jets.  The Tories publicly reported that the purchase would cost $15 billion.  Honestly, I support this purchase, and I feel it would be good for the Canadian Forces to have such tools at their disposal.  However, the bill for the fighters will come to $25 billion.  It is also being gradually revealed that the Tories knew this, and yet downplayed the cost to the House of Commons and thus the public.

Scandalicious.

What else is in the news?  The so called "robocalls" scandal.  It would seem that a Tory was responsible for automated calling which attempted to mislead electors, sending them to the wrong polling station.  The calling list matched the Tories' list of non-supporters.  And this comes after the scandal from the election before that in which the Tories used creative accounting via loopholes to funnel money and result in a de facto increase in advertising spending (which, of course, is carefully regulated).  Of course, the money was repaid to taxpayers, but only after the votes were tallied.

I can only hope that voters have the attention span to remember this when the next election comes around in three years.  It will certainly be interesting.  NDP support is rising, and they have the benefit of being the only party who have yet to disappoint Canadians.

NM

Google's Privacy Policy, and "Listen"

The Google logo.

So,

This will come a little late, but I have recently discovered a lovely application that really illustrates my feelings on the updated privacy policy by Google.  Please bear with me, this promises to be disjointed and lacking proper flow.

I've heard a lot of concern lately over Google's new privacy policy (we'll call it the policy henceforth).  I'm honestly not sure why, other than the fact that it's a change and change is inherently ominous and terrifying to most people.  My understanding is that each Google product/service had a separate privacy policy with unique rules.  Google saw this as a problem, and created a universal policy to govern all of its products and services.  This is particularly useful/important for Google, because it often shares data between services.  A new, unified policy would make this easier (practically and legally) to share data and ultimately make for a better end-user experience.  It also enhances transparency, since data-sharing has long been standard practice for Google.

So why the data sharing, you ask after adjusting your top hat and monocle?  Google wants to ensure the best end-user experience possible, and to do that it must get to know you a little bit.  Their go-to example is a search for "Jaguar".  Do you want to know about the car, or the cat?  Google can better guess what you want to know based on your past searches, or perhaps what news feeds you've subscribed to using News or Reader (other Google services).  Frankly, I feel secure with my data in the hands of Google.  They have a long history of refusing to hand over user data to law enforcement agencies, so I highly doubt they make a habit of handing it out to anyone.

My recent experience that put this in perspective was my acquisition of the Listen application for my phone.  I have been doing a lot of commuting lately, and have been listening to podcasts to stave off boredom.  Google Listen keeps a list of my podcast subscriptions and will download new episodes directly to my phone, and keep only as many as I wish.  In order to easily facilitate this, it may be managed via Google Reader.  Reader, for those who do not know, is an RSS feed manager.  Put simply, it allows you to read the headlines/new developments from your favourite websites.  If you want to read the article, you click the headline.  If you do not, you scroll past it, and all is forgotten.  Since I already use Reader on my browser (Chrome, of course), and my phone, I was able to seamlessly integrate Listen into my web-based experience.  It was fantastic, it was easy and all because Google shares data between its services.

To close, I will say that you really shouldn't worry about Google sharing data between services.  However, if you do, Google is notoriously transparent and allows you to manage your information via your dashboard.  Also keep in mind that you probably use Facebook, and they definitely do not allow you any control over your personal information.  So go ahead and Google.  Also use Google+.

NM

The Joker Effect, Batman, and Game Theory.

The Joker, as envisioned by Doug Mahnke.  Source.

So,

I am not entirely certain how many times I will ever say this, but I stumbled across a truly fascinating paper in the Journal of Theoretical Biology (thanks, Reddit!) recently, and would like to share the results as best I can.  Not being a theoretical biologist or an avid practitioner of game theory, my understanding may be somewhat limited, but it is exciting nonetheless.

To begin, I will explain game theory as best I can (having background in neither biology nor economics, and having been awake for 23 hours at this point).  Game theory was originally envisioned as a tool for economics.  This predictive mechanism assumes that complicated, real-world situations may be reduced to a "game", a situation with clear rules and rewards.  I have heard through my travels, conversation and the Colbert Report that game theory has been used to predict elections, the collapse of the Soviet Union and various other seemingly unpredictable events.  In an interesting twist, it became clear to scientists that not only could the theory be used for economics, but [bizarrely] seemed to fit biological systems perhaps better than those for which it was designed.

In order to effectively model biological systems and how populations could grow and change over time, evolutionary game theory was developed.  In this system:

1.  A population is considered.
2.  The individuals' strategies are evaluated according to the "rules" of the game.  These individuals are then assigned a fitness (this fitness function is not unlike that present in genetic algorithms).
3.  The fitness of the individuals are considered, and the population increases by one, the new individual likely being a member of the fittest group.  An individual could also change strategies, rather than adding another.
4.  This new population goes back to step 1.

Thus, successful "players" will become increasingly significant in terms of the population, and less successful players will be overtaken.  The paper by Arenas et al. [J. Theor. Bio., 279 (2011) 113-119] utilises this in order to evaluate the performance of individuals in the game.

The game considered is known as a public good game.  There exists a value for the public good, and there are at least two player types in these games.  Cooperators contribute to the public good at some cost to themselves, while defectors are free-riders.  They consume public good while contributing nothing.  You could think of them as taxpayers and non-taxpayers.  With only these two players, defectors often overtake cooperators, a straightforward result since the defectors are not at all burdened. However, the real world, and most real systems are not this simple.  It is assumed that this is due to the presence of other players.

Batman, the ultimate cooperator. Source.

Here, we introduce the Joker.  Where we may consider the Batman to be the ultimate cooperator (great contributions to the public good at tremendous self-cost), and corrupt officials/organized criminals to be defectors, we may introduce a character which introduces new and interesting dynamics.  The Joker, as in his universe, does not personally consume public good, nor does he contribute to it.  However, he destroys large chunks of public good because some men want to watch the world burn.  The introduction of a Joker character over the course of a full simulation can lead to one of two ultimate scenarios.  In the event that Jokers are wildly successful and/or effective, they will overtake the simulation leaving only chaos and anarchy in their wake.  Since this does not appear to happen (either in the Batman universe, or ours), it would appear the scenarios leading to this eventuality are based upon poor assumptions.
The alternative result is that which would more closely mirror reality.  Here, it is assumed that Jokers will never fully overtake cooperators.  This is due to the fact that cooperators thrive off the public good they produce, ensuring at least a small population of them at any given time.  Let me attempt to describe what would happen to a cooperator-defector game with the introduction of a Joker.

1.  As stated above, defectors outnumber cooperators.  This drain on the public good is ultimately detrimental to all parties.
2.  The Joker is introduced.  The threat to the public good makes defectors ultimately unsustainable, and their population share crashes.
3.  A small group of cooperators survives, doing very well on an individual basis (i.e. high fitness), this leads to expansion of their population share.
4. The increase in cooperators leads to an increase in public good, which allows for defectors to emerge from the woodwork, and begin to claim population share at the expense of cooperators.
5.  Repeat.

This scenario ultimately avoids the cooperators being crushed/exploited by the defectors.  In the end, cooperators do much better than they would without a Joker.  As an interesting note, this scenario has been documented in nature.  In the presence of predators, cooperation is actively encouraged where it would not exist otherwise.  Picture a flock of smaller birds chasing away a raptor, even where they would not cooperate otherwise.  Even in humans, it seems that only through the presence of destructive agents (common enemies, perhaps) that we can disregard our differences and get along.

I shall now leave the question that was ultimately posed by the paper.  Who is the true saviour of Gotham City?  Is it Batman, or the Joker?

NM

P.S.  Please point out any grammar/spelling/logic errors.  Proof reading takes time and effort, and I'm going to bed.
P.P.S Edited 2012/07/28, finally gave it a once over.  Also, if I ever become a supervillian, I'll model myself after the Joker.  You know, for the greater good.

Mincome.

A Canadian $1 coin, for those of you unfamiliar. Source.

So,

I recently learned about a study performed by the Canadian government in the 1970s which is incredibly interesting and yet comparatively unknown.  Information appears to be sparse, but I wish to tell you what I've found.  It's rather interesting, and could have dramatic positive consequences.  The best I think I can do for now is to link you to the Wikipedia article, which I assume will grow and change as more information is published.

Mincome is the name of a project set in motion by the governments of Canada and Manitoba.  The objective to see what consequences a guaranteed annual income (GAI) would have on a given workforce.  The payment of the GAI would be reduced by some fraction for every dollar earned by a family.  It was assumed, I would say fairly, that without a pressing economic incentive to work, many people would simply choose not to do so.  However, this is why we experiment, for hypotheses are still just guesses.

While some families were offered the GAI payments in larger urban centers like Winnipeg, one site was chosen as an "isolated" experiment.  This was the town of Dauphin, Manitoba.  All ten thousand people, including seniors and those unable to work, were offered a GAI.  This strict universality was key to the experiment, as nationwide GAI policies had been suggested beginning in 1971.  It would seem that theoretical examinations had suggested GAI would be beneficial to a nation struggling with poverty.  The project began around 1974 and continued to 1979, when funding was cut due to a pressing economic crisis.

The results were interesting, to say the least.  First however, think about this for a moment.  If you were guaranteed not a good, but a living wage to do nothing, what would you do?  If the results from Dauphin are to be believed, around 98% of you would choose to work.  The male workforce shrank by a mere 1%, along with reductions of 3% for wives, and 5% for unmarried women.  However, these numbers are not just uniform reductions.  This was a time when secondary school diplomas were not as widespread as they are today.  In rural communities where labour was required on the farm, teenage boys would often choose the farm over grade 12 due to financial concerns.  Married women which left the workforce often did so when a child was born.  This departure from the workforce was not permanent as far as I know, but women did choose to stay at home longer with their child or children.

It is also important to note that a host of benefits resulted from the GAI experiment.  Health care costs were reduced by 8.5%.  One article on the subject (to which I have lost the link), mentioned that a large fraction of hospital visits could be considered medical consequences of poverty.  This was in part due to a reduction in work related accidents, fewer car accidents and fewer instances of domestic abuse.  It has also been speculated that without the economic disincentives, people who were sick would choose to recover more completely before returning to work.  I would also hazard a guess that a host of stress-related illnesses decreased, but I can only guess.

After the project's cancellation in 1979, the information was gathered together, boxed up, and not considered again until relatively recently.  It would seem that the GAI experiment resulted in a happier and healthier workforce.  My [limited] knowledge of psychology would suggest that this results in higher quality work and lower crime rates.  I certainly look forward to learning the results of the detailed reviews of the data.  And frankly, I think the social and economic benefits could potentially outweigh the costs, particularly when Canada pays for the health care of its citizens.

NM

P.S.  I've been working 12 hour night shifts, and haven't the time for proof-reading.  Please be kind.