A view of human nature as intrinsically self-centred is profoundly depressing, writes BREDA O'BRIEN
BRUCE BUENO de Mesquita apparently has some useful advice on how to secure a good deal when buying a new car. His strategy was tried with some success in last week’s Motors supplement. Aside from car-buying advice, why is he in the news? Oh, just for his claim that he can not only predict but engineer outcomes to events, ranging from elections to wars.
The title of his new book, which he has been heavily marketing, says it all: The Predictioneer’s Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future. He is not a fortune-teller, or an astrologer. He uses a mixture of game theory and computer modelling to predict the most likely outcome to events. He does not stop there. He and his partner run a lucrative consulting firm that helps not just businesses but governments in their efforts to manipulate events.
It is one of the most depressing books I have read in a long time, for a number of reasons. The first is his view of human nature as intrinsically selfish. The second is his deification of science and technology. His approach discounts intuition, gut feelings and emotions in favour of computer models.
Rose McDermott, a political science professor at Brown, is quoted in the New York Times as saying it is his emotional intelligence, and his ability to listen, that is his true gift, not his computer model. In other words, the quality of the information he can input into his programmes comes from his ability to assess likely outcomes of human interactions. He insists such touchy-feely skills are irrelevant.
Finally, his book depresses me because of a feeling that in this country, we are acting in a way that reinforces his beliefs about the innate self-centredness of human beings. His view of Mother Teresa neatly illustrates his approach. Given that she experienced doubts about the existence of God, he decides that she was motivated by desire for publicity and acclaim.
“Doubting God and ill-prepared for a life outside the church, perhaps she found the perfect strategy for gaining the acclaim in life that she feared might not exist in death.” After all, he explains, she marketed herself like any brand, such as Coke, by always wearing the same blue-trimmed sari, thus ensuring brand recognition. The possibility that someone who continues to serve in the absence of the comforts of faith might be an example of heroic self-sacrifice rather than publicity-seeking does not enter the equation.
The predictioneer, as he calls himself, claims that he is accurate 90 per cent of the time. Stephen Walt, a Harvard professor of international affairs, is quoted in the New York Times as saying the 90 per cent figure comes from a mid-level CIA bureaucrat in the early 1990s, and that there are no independent verifications of the claim since then.
Even given that Bueno de Mesquita cheerfully admits to some spectacular clunkers, like predicting the Clinton healthcare package would pass, he is right enough of the time to make you worry. He is also cheerfully open about some of the ways in which he manipulates events.
For example, he used his knowledge to help a major corporation to escape with relatively minor criminal charges for what he breezily explains “appeared to be” destroying a local community for profit. He rigged an election of a chief executive by using a method of election that he knew would ensure that the candidate that no one really wanted would win, and the favoured candidate (whom the outgoing chief executive hated) would lose in the first round. He does have his limits. He turned down an offer from Mobutu in Zaire to help to keep him in power.
So what does he think about climate change? He thinks it is important, but that international agreements to regulate C02 emissions will not work, and even retard progress. In the next centuries he calmly predicts wars between the rich and poor (which the poor will win) as the economic pecking order changes. He concludes that technology will solve the issue of climate change.
According to the predictioneer, climate change will provide us with enough rain and storms in some places, and aridity and sunshine in others, to give us both the incentive and means to create alternatives to fossil fuels, such as solar energy. This will happen soon enough to prevent us wiping ourselves out entirely.
Never mind what will be lost in terms of biodiversity, and not to mention the needless suffering of the poorest during that time, or the carnage of resource wars.
Sadly, when we look at our society, it is possible that Bueno de Mesquita’s amiable cynicism has a basis in reality. Our country is faced with huge difficulties, yet thus far all we hear on the airwaves are various vested interests defending their turf. We could march for better implementation of, say, home care packages for the elderly, but no, we won’t. We will march in a vain attempt to prevent ourselves having to take any further pain.
Whatever is happening behind closed doors, there seems to be very few acknowledging that desperate times call for desperate measures, and that the pain will have to be shared by all.
And as always, the long-term picture is lost. For Ibec to call for the carbon tax to be delayed is myopic. It may present some short-term savings for business, but ultimately, all businesses are going to have to adjust to a world where fossil fuels are running out. What few people seem willing to face is that there is no going back to the way things were. We either innovate, or face even worse consequences than the meltdown.
Lots of people believe game theory has serious limitations, not least because it discounts altruistic behaviour, a factor that many evolutionary biologists believe was crucial to the survival of social groupings. Let’s hope for the sake of the future of this little island, not to mention the planet, that cynics like Bueno de Mesquita are wrong on the human condition.
