THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I think this applies to all of us, that we all follow only the rules we agree with.  The difference is that many of us have managed to convince ourselves that some of the bad rules are good rules, just to avoid having to go against the flow.  Or, we refuse to think about the issue because it makes us uncomfortable that we might have been wrong for so long.

Guys like Bill James and Babe Ruth and Branch Rickey are heroes to me because they put their foot in the “this is stupid” door.  It’s because of them that eventually it becomes socially acceptable to shed the silly rules and move forward.

Nitpicking the Bill James article a bit ...

He says that Babe Ruth benefitted from using corked bats.  Right above this blog entry, the one from the mythbusters seems to debunk that thought.  For what it’s worth, my recollection from The Physics of Baseball is that corked bats are not an advantage (disregarding any placebo effect).

Interesting.  A Canadian commented on Slate, where the article was posted, that he thought the comparison between Canadians and Americans was ridiculous.

I’m not sure about the grocery store by the railroad tracks with no railroad crossing example.  For those who didn’t read the article, the situation is that there is a grocery story by the railroad tracks, but no railroad crossing, and its illegal to cross the tracks if there is no crossing, meaning the only legal route to the store is this long roundabout route.  But Americans will just cross the tracks!  That is because Americans break the rules but are innovative!

Taking the example at face value, it seems that the government screwed by not doing at least one of the following 1) giving a permit to someone to open a grocery story in a place where no one could get to it safely or 2) not putting in a railroad crossing by the store or 3) at least making it legal to cross the tracks, maybe with a warning that its dangerous.  A competent government would have done one of the three.

So people adjust by essentially pretending that the government has done 3), including the cop.

One problem with rules breaking is that stupid rules remain on the books and still get enforced sporadically.  Sometimes its better to actually follow the rules and to force the rulesmakers to confront how self-defeating they are.  I’ve seen this tactic used before in bureaucracies.

The #2 difference is that Americans will sue anybody for anything.

So, in terms of liability, the town has to do what they did in terms of signage.

For what it is worth, one area I feel pretty sure works the opposite way is speeding. Up here in Canada, on our version on interstates, I regularly do 30% over the limit. I am a fast driver, but very rarely the fastest on the road. Meanwhile, I drove down to NYC for the long weekend, and doing 25% over the speed limit I was passing absolutely everyone, and a lot more people were driving the limit.

Yes, difference #3: ALOT more police per capita in USA.  That’s my impression, and it should be easy enough for someone to verify.

I’d even say the rate is at least 2x or 3x more in USA than Canada.

Difference #4: military service is much higher in USA than Canada.  Again, it’s part of the entire mindset / structure of USA.  This one has to be at least 3x, if not 5x, per capita of Canada.  And if you tell me 10x, I would not be surprised.

FBI’s site says 3.5 law enforcement employees per 1000 residents.  On another site, Canada shows 1.7 per 1000, and one of the lowest of 48 countries.

Of course, not necessarily the same accounting methods, but 2x here.

Funny, I have the opposite impression - especially with respect to traffic rules.

Ever been to Italy, or China? Utter chaos, especially China. Talk about guidelines. Car and people and farm equipment going every which direction. Of course it is incredibly dangerous to drive in China, more so since nobody is wearing a seatbelt. People seem quite free to do what they want in China except move or criticize the government.

Maybe America is wild and wooly compared to Canada and Northern Europe, but that’s pretty staid crowd.

Matt

i never really found it helpful to try to categorize an entire country’s “mindset”, especially not one as huge and diverse as the US.  things definitely are different in different countries, because of their history, structure (ie laws) etc. but how much evolutionary selection has been going on to get different “kinds of people”?  society shapes the culture, the people aren’t born with latent inveterate cultural proclivities.  americans are like X, whereas canadians are like Y, is usually a slippery slope that leads a conversation down a very distasteful road.

It’s clear that we are not Borg (*), right?

It should go without saying that I’m talking about bias, or disproportionate representation.

(*) Greatest team villain of all time?

borg are pretty vicious.  i just always think of my friend who taught middle schoolers in suburban japan for a few years coming back to the US and saying how ever time he did anything out off the ordinary (for typical japanese people) his students would all be like: “oh, so all americans where baseball hats… ok i get it.” and stuff like that.