Outliers and Development

This is a collection of anecdotes centered around a theme.

In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell discusses how early success causes eventual success. He uses an example of Canadian hockey players. Most professional Canadian hockey players are born in the months January, February, March. Why? Junior leagues count age starting at January 1st so players born in early months are older/larger/faster than other players in the same year. These players are preferentially selected for better leagues, get more training, and move higher. A small advantage early in life sets the tone for eventual success.

I am a professional computer scientist/mathematician. Slightly less glamorous but comparatively competitive to professional Hockey. I blame my success on my parents. I have two anecdotes - both involve my father - despite not being mentioned here my mother likely deserves most of the credit.

1) My father gave me little math puzzles before they appeared in school. What is the next number in this sequence? 1, 3, 5, 7, __? How about this one? 2, 4, 8, 14, 22, __? I was bored and challenged. Kids have lots of free time and curiosity.

2) My father would put small dollar-store toys in inconvenient but obvious locations. He would then leave for work saying that "If I could get the toy then it was mine." I would think for a while, get a chair and a broom handle and retrieve the toy being rewarded both with parental praise and with exploding pop rocks. The next day a new toy would be in the same place but the chairs and broom handles would be missing.

A friend of mine is going to work for the Ounce of Prevention fund, an organization that focuses on child development before the age of 5. If a child is raised in a home with parent(s) less awesome than mine they will go to school and will likely be told that they are dumb; they will believe it; it will become true. There is wasted economic value in this child.

Wisdom Teeth

Fact: This Wednesday morning an oral surgeon extracted two of my wisdom teeth
Fact: That afternoon I went into work

Other than some local anesthetic during the extraction I didn't take any pain medication. They didn't put me out for the procedure, didn't apply nitrous oxide, and I haven't taken Vicodin afterwards. I haven't even taken an Advil (I'm on a 27 year streak of not taking Advil). As a result I've been completely cognitively active this whole time.

Going into the procedure I was anxious. I had heard horror stories. I'm now issuing the reverse of a horror story, perhaps a (true) fantasy story or a "it's really not so bad" story. I had my wisdom teeth removed and it was about the same as having a tooth filled.

Perhaps I just had a rock-star oral surgeon or my teeth were an easy case. In any event if you can avoid pain medication I suggest doing so. I suspect that the side effects are far worse than the pain itself in many cases.

Bartering

Today I invented bartering. It's a cool concept and I'm going to tell you about it.

I make some stuff really well, in the case of today, that stuff is Sauerkraut. 

My friends like sauerkraut but don't make it very well. Fortunately they do other things well (like grow Arugula (my friends are hippies)). 

So I said to my friend,

"Hey Friend, give me some of that Arugula you have in abundance and I'll make you some Sauerkraut"

to which my friend said

"Really? I can give you some of this overly abundant Arugula for some scarce Sauerkraut? Sure!"

This is bartering. It works very well. Both I and Friend are happier because of this transaction.

When we have something in abundance or something that is easy to produce then we exchange it for something that we lack or is hard for us to produce. There is one caveat, neither of those things (the abundant thing or the scarce thing) can be money.

I think that this "bartering" idea could become very popular among today's food hippies. I think this for the following reasons:

1. Trend - It sounds both traditional and alternative (funny how those go together). If you're the kind of person who thinks farmers markets are cool then I think you will also like this bartering idea
2. Diversity - We like to eat a diverse set of high quality foods but making a diverse set of high quality foods is hard
3. Specialization - We can produce a few types of high-quality food very easily
4. Scale - It is easier to make a few large quantities of something than many small quantities of that thing.
5. Mutuality - Our friends are in the same situation
6. Community - We like the act of trading with our friends and neighbors. It is a social and fun activity well fit for a Saturday afternoon
7. Money - We specifically don't like the act of trading money with our friends; this becomes awkward. Bartering very specifically does not allow money. 

Let me know if you want a half gallon of sauerkraut or some dried bananas. I also have a friend who has some arugula and cucumbers. If we get a few more people together I'll bet this idea could really take off, we'll have to find some place to make all of these exchanges, some sort of "marketplace."

This post was partially encouraged by this reddit post explaining money.

http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/utf5u/where_has_all_the_money_in_the_world_gone/

Short and technical version. There are a set of mutually beneficial transactions that do not occur due to legal and social barriers. Reintroducing the concept of bartering may enable some of these transactions through a current social trend (farmers markets). Many social and legal barriers vanish when money is removed from the transaction.