Monday, October 15, 2007
Conference Tickets and Incentives
The Church has a small issue with conference tickets that I believe they are trying to work out. The organizers of conference do not want just anyone getting tickets to conference because those tickets could wind up in the hands of antagonistic individuals who will try to disrupt the meeting. The perfect system, as it has been laid out, is that tickets are sent to Bishops, Stake, District, and Branch presidents around the world. Those tickets are then given to individuals in the church units who come to conference. Of course, not every ticket will be used, so there is a stand-by line where those that have come in hopes of getting in without tickets can wait and fill the empty seats. The stand-by line passes through security where there are church employees/volunteers who look at those coming in to make sure they are not known protesters. It seems like a perfect system, but with one small problem. The incentive to use tickets. If a ward unit is given ten tickets to conference, there is incentive to make sure that all ten get used. If not, this information is used to calculate the number of tickets that will be distributed to the ward at the next conference. If a ward in Washington state is only going to be using an average of 3 tickets each conference, let's only send them three. If another ward in California is going to be using 15, let's send them 15. Send the number of tickets the ward needs. This seems to be reasonable, but it provides incentive to make sure that every ticket gets used because even if a ward is not going to use a ticket, they might want the same number next conference, so they better make sure that it gets used. This leads to ticket exchanges (I don't want to refer to it as scalping). People holding signs in front of the conference center asking for extra tickets and people with extra tickets anxious to make sure the tickets get used. I am one of those that has been able to get into any session I've wanted to because I'm willing to beg for tickets. I've only had one person ever tell me that they would not give up their extra ticket. There's just too much incentive for everyone else to make sure that the tickets get used even though the Church would prefer that we all use the system, that of getting tickets from priesthood leaders or waiting in the stand-by line. The incentive to use the extra tickets is a guaranteed seat in the conference center. We have a tendency to believe that stating the Church's system is enough incentive for members to submit. That, however, isn't the case. So, I propose a solution. If each church unit had it's own bar code that could be reproduced as many times as desired, those coming in standby line could request copies of the bar code from their Bishop or Branch President and be scanned as they went in. These scans could then be taken into consideration when tickets were distributed for the next conference. This creates an incentive to using the standby line. There is still the incentive to beg for tickets, that of getting a guaranteed seat. But it might not be enough to outweigh the incentive of possibly more tickets in the future. And I imagine that priesthood leaders, upon learning of someone's upcoming trip to conference, would encourage everyone to use the unit's bar code. So, we just need to switch the incentives. Give people incentive to wait in the standby line. It always comes down to incentives.
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Friday, October 12, 2007
What do Utahns Google?
There was an article in the Deseret News that indicates Utahns may be googling for inappropriate content. This is no surprise, but the surprise might be that Utah ranks number one in the nation on Google Trends which normalizes the data. The article basically explores why a state that ranks number one in religious terms might also rank number one in inappropriate content search terms, implying that it is because we are expected to conform to certain standards and the internet provides an opportunity to break away from that conformity. Without a doubt, this explains some of it. But I think there is more to the story.
First, Utah does not even rank in the word "Porn," only pornography. Salt Lake City ranks number one in the world for "pornography addiction." This does not mean that it is the only place people have addictions, but of all google searches performed within SLC, has the highest average of people that are searching for information on it. That's a good thing. I buy keywords for my websites in Utah and Idaho on "pornography addiction" because I know people there that are searching for those terms are not actually searching for pornography, but rather for help with it. So, I guess you could say that it's the number one state trying to fight it. This does not explain why Utah ranks so highly on other terms, but that might be explained below.
On searches for nudity, strip tease, and strip poker, Utah ranked number one but did not have enough data to break down the amount of searches by city within the state. That means that the total amount of searches are not very many at all, but the amount of searches on Google dedicated to those terms are. And on the terms that do have enough volume to break down by city, Spanish Fork consistently ranks very high, often number one, as the cities within Utah for that term. Spanish Fork only has 20,000 people, so even for the search terms that do have enough data, it seems like the absolute numbers are not that high. Now, forty percent of Spanish Fork's population is under the age of 18, which is extremely high compared with the national average and even high compared with the Utah average. It would be interesting if the reason that Utah is ranking high in all of these is because Spanish Fork's teen population is particularly having a struggle with pornography. Spanish Fork was also the first city in Utah to provide high speed internet and cable television to its local businesses and residents.
When you take that into consideration along with the following, things start to look different. Utah is the state the ranks the highest for computers in the home, but along with Idaho has the greatest discrepancy of internet access in the home (source). That means that a lot of homes have computers, but no internet access. I imagine that this is for moral reasons. So the state is technologically advanced, but more prone to block all internet access. That means that you have a skewed demographic on the search engine. Those using the search engines are the ones not blocking the internet. If all of those homes that had computers also allowed the internet, the normalized data would be very different because they would be doing google searches on nicer terms. At least that's a possibility. It's also interesting to note that Utah ranks number one in internet, software, and computer, which isn't surprising considering that there are more computers per home in Utah than any other state and Utah Valley has one of the largest tech/startup industries on the west coast. Also, Spanish Fork is a part of the Utah Valley tech section.
With all of these tidbits of information combined, I think there might be more to the story than just Utah rankings showing a seedier side of the state. Just a possibility.
First, Utah does not even rank in the word "Porn," only pornography. Salt Lake City ranks number one in the world for "pornography addiction." This does not mean that it is the only place people have addictions, but of all google searches performed within SLC, has the highest average of people that are searching for information on it. That's a good thing. I buy keywords for my websites in Utah and Idaho on "pornography addiction" because I know people there that are searching for those terms are not actually searching for pornography, but rather for help with it. So, I guess you could say that it's the number one state trying to fight it. This does not explain why Utah ranks so highly on other terms, but that might be explained below.
On searches for nudity, strip tease, and strip poker, Utah ranked number one but did not have enough data to break down the amount of searches by city within the state. That means that the total amount of searches are not very many at all, but the amount of searches on Google dedicated to those terms are. And on the terms that do have enough volume to break down by city, Spanish Fork consistently ranks very high, often number one, as the cities within Utah for that term. Spanish Fork only has 20,000 people, so even for the search terms that do have enough data, it seems like the absolute numbers are not that high. Now, forty percent of Spanish Fork's population is under the age of 18, which is extremely high compared with the national average and even high compared with the Utah average. It would be interesting if the reason that Utah is ranking high in all of these is because Spanish Fork's teen population is particularly having a struggle with pornography. Spanish Fork was also the first city in Utah to provide high speed internet and cable television to its local businesses and residents.
When you take that into consideration along with the following, things start to look different. Utah is the state the ranks the highest for computers in the home, but along with Idaho has the greatest discrepancy of internet access in the home (source). That means that a lot of homes have computers, but no internet access. I imagine that this is for moral reasons. So the state is technologically advanced, but more prone to block all internet access. That means that you have a skewed demographic on the search engine. Those using the search engines are the ones not blocking the internet. If all of those homes that had computers also allowed the internet, the normalized data would be very different because they would be doing google searches on nicer terms. At least that's a possibility. It's also interesting to note that Utah ranks number one in internet, software, and computer, which isn't surprising considering that there are more computers per home in Utah than any other state and Utah Valley has one of the largest tech/startup industries on the west coast. Also, Spanish Fork is a part of the Utah Valley tech section.
With all of these tidbits of information combined, I think there might be more to the story than just Utah rankings showing a seedier side of the state. Just a possibility.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Church Videos on YouTube
As mentioned in other blogs, the church now has an official presence on YouTube. Subscribe to videos here.
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Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Dealing with Effects
I read in a recent article, All Washed UP of the Weekly Standard, that, surprising to economists, people wash rental cars more often than they wash their own based on the average use. For example, when I get a rental car, it's already been washed. If I keep it for 4 days and wash it before returning it, then that means that I let it go about 4 days before it needs a wash. I would never wash my own car every four days. The article points out that rental cars are commonly used as an example in economics classes across the country to show the effects of ownership. You would expect owners to take better care of their vehicles than they would a rental car. This is true. If renting a car and the check engine light comes on, you're not going to take it to the shop or get the oil changed or anything like that. You might take it back to the rental agency, but you won't do it or pay for it. Then the article brings out something interesting. If it really is ownership that determines whether we take care of our things or not, then why do we wash rental cars and why do leasers take just good care of their vehicles as if they owned them? The rental washing might be explained by your embarrassment at taking back a dirty vehicle or the innate desire we have to return things the way we found them or something like that, something social. But leasing? People treat leases like temporary ownership. Why? Because they have to deal with the effects of their decisions. If they don't change the oil in their lease vehicle, they may deal with effects while still having the vehicle in their possession. If you have to deal with the effects of any decision, you will treat it with temporary ownership responsibilities rather than rental responsibilities. Can we easily get all three of these confused? Let's break it down:
1. Rental - No ownership responsibility. You take it, use it within the agreed upon guidelines, but take no vested interest in maintaining the original value of what was rented.
2. Lease - Temporary ownership responsibility. You take it, use it within the agreed upon guidelines, taking some interest in maintaining the value of what was leased, inasmuch as it might effect you during the lease period.
3. Ownership - Full responsibility. You take it and do what you will with it. You have complete interest in maintaining the value and no one else has the same interest that you have.
Yes, people do get these confused all the time.
Bodies - We treat our own as if we owned it, but really, it's leased. Some might disagree with this because we should take more concern than for just the effects during our lease period. But when we consider we have not payed anything for this lease, any better care we take of it is to show gratitude for the gift of the lease. That would be above and beyond the lease expectations (except that we're expected to show gratitude). When treated as a lease, it is recognized that God is the owner. They are not our own. The confusion comes in when we start to believe that we own our own bodies. This can be confused in two different ways. I might inappropriately treat my body because I believe that I have full ownership and thus I am the only one concerned with maintaining it's value, which value is what I decide. I can do with it what I will. If I hold this idea, then when I might believe that others can use their bodies as they will, which may even include renting, the equivalent of pornography and other degrading and inappropriate activity. If they are the owners, they have the right to rent. The problem is obviously that this belief is based on the false belief that God does not own the body. When it comes down to it, renting from someone who does not own the rented material is theft. You can't rent out a leased item, at least not in this agreement. It's like the thief who says "I was just borrowing it." Without permission from the actual owner, you can't borrow it. It's not borrowing or even renting. God has told under what circumstances He will give His permission. There is an actual lease agreement. We may not remember signing it, but we did. There are things we agreed to use this leased material for and what we agreed we would not do with it.
Other things that are often confused in this arena include time and agency. I'm sure there are more, I just don't have time to think about them right now. So, how do we deal with a world that doesn't recognize the proper owner? How do you reason with someone who is so fundamentally of course that the entire foundation is wrong. Is this one of those situations where the gospel is the only answer? Can non-Christians believe that pornography is morally wrong for reasons other than social impact? Is there something else that I'm missing?
1. Rental - No ownership responsibility. You take it, use it within the agreed upon guidelines, but take no vested interest in maintaining the original value of what was rented.
2. Lease - Temporary ownership responsibility. You take it, use it within the agreed upon guidelines, taking some interest in maintaining the value of what was leased, inasmuch as it might effect you during the lease period.
3. Ownership - Full responsibility. You take it and do what you will with it. You have complete interest in maintaining the value and no one else has the same interest that you have.
Yes, people do get these confused all the time.
Bodies - We treat our own as if we owned it, but really, it's leased. Some might disagree with this because we should take more concern than for just the effects during our lease period. But when we consider we have not payed anything for this lease, any better care we take of it is to show gratitude for the gift of the lease. That would be above and beyond the lease expectations (except that we're expected to show gratitude). When treated as a lease, it is recognized that God is the owner. They are not our own. The confusion comes in when we start to believe that we own our own bodies. This can be confused in two different ways. I might inappropriately treat my body because I believe that I have full ownership and thus I am the only one concerned with maintaining it's value, which value is what I decide. I can do with it what I will. If I hold this idea, then when I might believe that others can use their bodies as they will, which may even include renting, the equivalent of pornography and other degrading and inappropriate activity. If they are the owners, they have the right to rent. The problem is obviously that this belief is based on the false belief that God does not own the body. When it comes down to it, renting from someone who does not own the rented material is theft. You can't rent out a leased item, at least not in this agreement. It's like the thief who says "I was just borrowing it." Without permission from the actual owner, you can't borrow it. It's not borrowing or even renting. God has told under what circumstances He will give His permission. There is an actual lease agreement. We may not remember signing it, but we did. There are things we agreed to use this leased material for and what we agreed we would not do with it.
Other things that are often confused in this arena include time and agency. I'm sure there are more, I just don't have time to think about them right now. So, how do we deal with a world that doesn't recognize the proper owner? How do you reason with someone who is so fundamentally of course that the entire foundation is wrong. Is this one of those situations where the gospel is the only answer? Can non-Christians believe that pornography is morally wrong for reasons other than social impact? Is there something else that I'm missing?
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