Thoughts On Cognitive Biases, Gender Carrier Income Gap, and Why I Will Not Become a Politican
Just a warning, I feel totally unqualified to talk about the things I thought about below, and I probably am completely unqualified too.
People really like jumping to conclusions, and I love proving people wrong. I've gotten inspiration from two podcasts that I listen to. First was Freakonomics by the lovely Stephen Dubner which whom I'd love to meet and maybe do an internship one day. The second is called Useful Science which I don't know about to talk about the hosts. Frankly, I know more about Dubner through his excellent books along with Stephen Leavitt, whom I'd also like to meet one day.
Anyways, the first podcast talked about the gender pay gap which was published on January 6th, 2015. The second talked about the placebo effect, and also the nocebo effect. I've also learned that sugar doesn't cause kids to be more hyper. What these two both shared in common is the fact that people tend to react on false information and false thinking, and I'm willing to bet that it leads to lots of poor conclusions. To where the gender-equality gap is many times thought to be believed by discrimination, it has many other factors instead. The fact that men earn more money... is a fact. Women only get about 77-78% of the salary that men do in all of the same professions.
So take a guess. What do you think accounts for that gap...
The answer is mainly flexibility. Women who have to take care of children and care more about maintaining their family simply get less pay. And that's ok. Employers really like the fact that (apparently) more men are willing to work wherever and whenever they're employers need them to. If they need to fly to Japan, more men are willing to do so than women. Also, please note that this is my interpretation on the facts. I think they're accurate and reflected from the podcast, but don't quote me on that.
The point is that I feel like many people thought the whole thing was sexist. That's an overstatement, but you get the point. Take that statement to a much lesser degree. It turns out that women who aren't raising children make about 95 cents on the dollar compared to men, which is a lot, lot, lot less. Women want more flexibility. They want to take a day off if they need it. Maybe work from home a couple of days rather than go into work. Maybe they have to work shorter hours sometimes but longer hours later. The expert explained how discrimination played a little role in this, and it sounded like she had evidence to back it up.
Here's the other side of it. In the podcast about the Placebo effect, the same thing happens. In fact, when doctors give someone placebo for things like pains, the patients get better. Actually, sometimes they will give a patient something like antibiotics even though it won't actually help the patient, but only make them less angry and seem like they've been given medication to make it better. For some reason, they can't just give the patients sugar pills. It's illegal or something. Even when the doctors explain that it's placebo and give it to them (which they are allowed to do after informing the patient), sometimes the patients feel better. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I feel like they're in the podcast. It sounded accurate, but again, I can't guarantee anything, and I haven't put any time into making this post accurate. I'm only blogging to what seems to be no one.
If the placebo effect works and yields surprising results, does this mean that they just come up with the idea that they're better. Do people's minds do most of the work? Do their minds make them think that they are better. Do people's minds work with limited evidence (like the idea of discrimination) as a bias to work with? Do you get the point?
I'm usually highly skeptical about everything, including the ideas of my own that I am expressing here, but that's just something I've been noticing. If it were easy being a politician, though, I'd love to do it. However, I feel like it's too much paperwork and also a very hard job to come by. Too much risk of failure.
The most important entrepreneurial idea I've learned is to fail fast, cheaply, and smartly (meaning that you gain lots of data and knowledge through the experience to avoid repeating the mistakes). Being a politician probably gets you the last part, but definitely not the first two, which is why even though I would really like to become a politician, I will probably never try. It might be sad for me, but it's the smart thing to do... and frankly, I will always trade me dreams for my success, as long as I am happy with whatever I do whether or not they are my dreams.
That came from Mr. Strubbe, my 10th-grade Geometry teacher. Do what makes you happy, even if you don't make a nice salary. I just have to find the right balance. Although I have many ideas on how we can improve our government, it's not worth all of the stress and unhappiness I will face doing it.
People really like jumping to conclusions, and I love proving people wrong. I've gotten inspiration from two podcasts that I listen to. First was Freakonomics by the lovely Stephen Dubner which whom I'd love to meet and maybe do an internship one day. The second is called Useful Science which I don't know about to talk about the hosts. Frankly, I know more about Dubner through his excellent books along with Stephen Leavitt, whom I'd also like to meet one day.
Anyways, the first podcast talked about the gender pay gap which was published on January 6th, 2015. The second talked about the placebo effect, and also the nocebo effect. I've also learned that sugar doesn't cause kids to be more hyper. What these two both shared in common is the fact that people tend to react on false information and false thinking, and I'm willing to bet that it leads to lots of poor conclusions. To where the gender-equality gap is many times thought to be believed by discrimination, it has many other factors instead. The fact that men earn more money... is a fact. Women only get about 77-78% of the salary that men do in all of the same professions.
So take a guess. What do you think accounts for that gap...
The answer is mainly flexibility. Women who have to take care of children and care more about maintaining their family simply get less pay. And that's ok. Employers really like the fact that (apparently) more men are willing to work wherever and whenever they're employers need them to. If they need to fly to Japan, more men are willing to do so than women. Also, please note that this is my interpretation on the facts. I think they're accurate and reflected from the podcast, but don't quote me on that.
The point is that I feel like many people thought the whole thing was sexist. That's an overstatement, but you get the point. Take that statement to a much lesser degree. It turns out that women who aren't raising children make about 95 cents on the dollar compared to men, which is a lot, lot, lot less. Women want more flexibility. They want to take a day off if they need it. Maybe work from home a couple of days rather than go into work. Maybe they have to work shorter hours sometimes but longer hours later. The expert explained how discrimination played a little role in this, and it sounded like she had evidence to back it up.
Here's the other side of it. In the podcast about the Placebo effect, the same thing happens. In fact, when doctors give someone placebo for things like pains, the patients get better. Actually, sometimes they will give a patient something like antibiotics even though it won't actually help the patient, but only make them less angry and seem like they've been given medication to make it better. For some reason, they can't just give the patients sugar pills. It's illegal or something. Even when the doctors explain that it's placebo and give it to them (which they are allowed to do after informing the patient), sometimes the patients feel better. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I feel like they're in the podcast. It sounded accurate, but again, I can't guarantee anything, and I haven't put any time into making this post accurate. I'm only blogging to what seems to be no one.
If the placebo effect works and yields surprising results, does this mean that they just come up with the idea that they're better. Do people's minds do most of the work? Do their minds make them think that they are better. Do people's minds work with limited evidence (like the idea of discrimination) as a bias to work with? Do you get the point?
I'm usually highly skeptical about everything, including the ideas of my own that I am expressing here, but that's just something I've been noticing. If it were easy being a politician, though, I'd love to do it. However, I feel like it's too much paperwork and also a very hard job to come by. Too much risk of failure.
The most important entrepreneurial idea I've learned is to fail fast, cheaply, and smartly (meaning that you gain lots of data and knowledge through the experience to avoid repeating the mistakes). Being a politician probably gets you the last part, but definitely not the first two, which is why even though I would really like to become a politician, I will probably never try. It might be sad for me, but it's the smart thing to do... and frankly, I will always trade me dreams for my success, as long as I am happy with whatever I do whether or not they are my dreams.
That came from Mr. Strubbe, my 10th-grade Geometry teacher. Do what makes you happy, even if you don't make a nice salary. I just have to find the right balance. Although I have many ideas on how we can improve our government, it's not worth all of the stress and unhappiness I will face doing it.
