Why do Good Things always Come to an End?

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. And this week, we're discussing why do good things always seem to come to an end? Nick, why do good things always seem to come to an end?

Speaker B: 00:00:27

Well, I was in a cab the other day, black cab, you know, traditional London cab. And the driver of this cab was really having a good old, you know, cabbies always whinge about stuff. If it's not Ken Livingstone, it's speed bumps. And then, you know, wind it forward. Now it's Uber. But this guy, I felt quite sorry for him. And he's, you know, he's in his 60s and basically hadn't got a pension or anything, had really been making loads of money all his life from being a cabbie. Of course, along comes Sat Nav and Uber. And he's suddenly the absolute bottom has fallen out of his, you know, his livelihood. And so, you know, he's saying he had to make work seven days a week instead of sort of four, and still earning less than he was back in the day. Now, personally, I thought, well, you know, it's a bit silly, really not seeing the writing on the wall there. And to some extent, you know, the cabbies through their sort of inflexibility have, you know, they could they could have once, once upon a time stood a chance of resisting Uber, if they'd have gone to a more flexible pricing and, you know, and sort of technological model, but they they didn't until it was too late. But, you know, I love black cabs. I think it's, you know, they're bloody expensive, no one doubts that, but it is like having a chauffeur, you know, it's really it's a really high quality service. I love the fact that they know every street in London. I think it's amazing. He said that young people now get in the cab and they give him a postcode. And he then says, I've got a clue what to do with the postcode. And of course, eventually they get to the road and he'd say, well, I'd know it if you told me the name of the road. And the thing is about Uber is they're a hugely effective company. I mean, they've really, you know, they use them a lot because they're really useful. Sometimes you need one, you've got to get a cab. And you can't rely on getting a black cab, but they are worse. I mean, you know, I know in the grand scheme of things, they're better, but as a company, they're worse. You know, the interaction is less personal. The cars aren't as nice as a black cab. There's not as much privacy that, you know, there's much more variability about how good the drivers are. And, you know, the thing is that this is mirrored. It feels to me like it's mirrored everywhere. You know, you look at one of my favorite restaurants in London, Gabby's Deli, closed down recently and is going to get replaced no doubt with a bloody eat or, you know, some other faceless chain store. And, you know, and then you've got sort of what I used to love Saturday morning TV, for example, this sort of zoo format, tis was those kinds of things. You know, people doing stuff on screen, fun things, games replaced with just, you know, chain cartoons back to back, most of them crappy American cartoons. The fact that, you know, flying used to be a pleasant experience and exciting. And now it's just total misery for most people, you know, because of security and because of the crappy service you get on modern, you know, Ryanair and type things. The fact that computer games, you know, where companies used to invest in artificial intelligence and good stories, you know, more and more, it's just sort of multiplayer and pay to win. Customer service is terrible now, you know, because it's the cheap, cheap is beating the good. And the worst of all, Mr. Brain's faggots in a West Country sauce, which, you know, used to be one of the tastiest things ever. And I got some recently for my kids. And the West Country sauce was just brown, like tasteless slop. It wasn't anything like as good as it used to be. So I'm just annoyed. I'm annoyed about seeing things that are high quality. When you find something high quality, you just know it's not going to last. You know that some bloody they're either going to make it worse and cheaper, you know, or it'll go out of business. Why? It's so annoying. Why is

Speaker A: 00:04:21

the world like this? Yeah, well, I pretty much agree with everything you said there. So let's finish this broadcast. Right. Thank you for joining us, Peter. So deep breath, Jack. I mean, come on. So it's not all that bad. Okay. Right. So let's hear from the optimist. I'd be interested

Speaker C: 00:04:36

to see to what degree Nick's gripes are actually true. What has actually got worse? I mean, is that brown sauce not just the same when you just remember it? No, it isn't. I have actually

Speaker B: 00:04:48

looked into it. Yes, it's a different recipe. It's crap. Okay. That aside, to what degree is

Speaker C: 00:04:53

people sort of this perception that all good things have to come to an end? A truism or is it just pastoralism? Is it just sort of harping back to the past and everything is better in my youth because I didn't know any better. Everything seemed new and exciting when I was young. So it therefore is more exciting. I mean, let's dig into this Uber thing a bit. What is it about black cabs that makes them better than Uber? I've had equally bad drivers and equally unpleasant drivers in Uber and in black cabs. Black cabs are way less comfortable than a mini cab style car. If you do want to talk to the driver, you have to shout through this glass plate in a black cab. No, you don't. You switch on the microphone. Typical millennial doesn't know how cabs work.

Speaker B: 00:05:40

There's a button which you can use to switch the microphone and then you have to sit back

Speaker C: 00:05:44

because the speaker's behind you. In an Uber, I sit in the front so I can talk to him.

Speaker B: 00:05:48

Oh God, the poor driver. Flipping out. Imagine Peter getting in the front of your Uber and talking to you about how brilliant sat-lamps are. About blockchain. Yeah. It's a total misery. If I just weigh in. Sorry, you can't get it on with a lady in an Uber.

Speaker A: 00:06:04

Well, hold on. I know you want to come in, Peter, but I just want to stay on black cabs for a minute. Because one thing that is great about a black cab is your driver definitely knows where he's going or where she's going, but it is usually a he. I mean, they definitely know where they're going. I need to go to Blackheath. I mean, they just won't be phased. Actually, as you say, funnily enough, I tried to give one a postcode the other day and it's the same thing. But they definitely know where they're going and you know you're going to get there.

Speaker B: 00:06:33

That's a party trick, isn't it? Because you don't, I mean, it used to be the best technology was getting humans to remember London. That was much better. That's why it was better than a minicab because you could just rely on them to take you there. Now sat-nav has made that technology redundant.

Speaker C: 00:06:45

It doesn't respond to current traffic conditions as well. Fraser now mentions the Waze app.

Speaker A: 00:06:52

I have not yet. Well, they should use Waze. There you go. Sorry, Peter, I interrupted your flow.

Speaker C: 00:06:59

So I'm interested to see if we could measure how a lot of these sort of, a lot of Nick's complaints about things getting worse seem to be quite qualitative and subjective. To what degree have actually things got worse? I know that prices and everything, but Uber has made the cost of cab drive, cab rides much, much lower and more accessible to lots of people. So that's pretty, that's a pretty good thing, right? So if people who couldn't afford to take cabs now can afford to take cabs and as a result, we've employed lots of people driving cabs, that's quite a good thing.

Speaker B: 00:07:38

I agree. I can't not agree. What I'm complaining about, I think, is the relentless victory of price over quality. Yeah. I think that's what I think this boils down to. Why is it the case that good quality shops go out of business? Like the Whitehall Cafe, right, which was a fantastic greasy spoon on Whitehall, kind of weird to get a greasy spoon on Whitehall, especially today. And it was wonderful. Italian guys have been running it for years, really nice fresh sandwiches, you could sit down, get hot food, really nice chips. It was great. Perfect little cafe. Closed down about 10 years ago. And what appeared in its place? One of those fucking tourist tat shops, selling little miniature plastic towers of London. How is that an improvement in the world? How is that better? Go on, Peter, you defend that.

Speaker C: 00:08:39

Well, I only assume that the greasy spoon got priced out by the rates.

Speaker B: 00:08:45

Yeah, so great. But they're obviously giving people a better service. What they're doing is giving tat to tourists. That's it.

Speaker C: 00:08:54

They're paying more local tax.

Speaker B: 00:08:55

I know from an economic point of view, they must be adding more value. They must be. But I feel like in the wider scheme of things, they're really not.

Speaker A: 00:09:03

So I see you're suggesting we could have some sort of government policy of intervention, of protection for the greasy spoons.

Speaker B: 00:09:11

No, I think I'm raining against the fact that the world is like this. I'm not saying we should do anything to stop it being like that. And I think so, yeah, existential despair. I mean, we haven't at this point injected much in the way of economics, but I think economics is behind all of this. Obviously, you know, there's a sort of there is a game theory aspect to this in that you could see some of this as a sort of tragedy of the commons in that. I think most people, I think almost everyone would say, yes, I'd rather the Whitehall Cafe was there than a tourist tat shop. But as a matter of fact, more people go into the tourist tat shop and spend more money than they did in the Whitehall Cafe. And so I think this is one of those situations where we have the existence value of something that I like black cabs being around. But, you know, I still use Uber. You know, I like the Church of England. Exactly. I mean, it's a perfect example because there's no market for it. I can't subscribe to the Church of England. You know, I can't subscribe to it being there. I love the fact that it sort of is or it's kind of sad that if you actually go into a church, how few people are there. But, you know, again, yeah, I think that's the problem. There's no market for a lot of the things that we value, you know, which are to do with the existence of good things.

Speaker A: 00:10:28

Well, this all brings us on to pubs. So famously in the UK, you know, however many thousands of pubs close a year or whatever it is. And certainly where I live in the last 10 years, I live in a sizable village. There's probably about 10, 12 pubs, which about a quarter of shut down in the last year. But finding a good pub can be tricky these days. And when you find one, you know damn well it's not going to be there for very long. Right. But what this makes me think of what you were saying is I remember reading in a newspaper once about this pub that was that was having to close down and then all the villagers said, no, no, this is we've got to save this pub. And the landlord was saying, well, it's all very well you're saying this. You should be coming to my pub for the last 10 years. It wouldn't we wouldn't need to close down. So it's kind of like we're saying that people like this stuff, but don't necessarily.

Speaker B: 00:11:17

Yeah. So I think now if I mean, the Coase theorem is the go to economic theorem here, which basically says, well, if you could assign ownership of all the goods that we enjoy, then, you know, then you would have efficient outcomes. So, you know, now you can't. But I mean, let's say that in theory, what you could do is say, well, the existence of a pub is something that, you know, you could imagine people subscribing to. So what is it that people like? People like having the pub in their village, say, you know. So if you could make it the case that half the village, you know, the people who wanted the pub could pay 10 pounds a month to keep that pub going, even if they didn't want it. And the other half didn't, but they weren't able to enjoy it. Right. For the other half, somehow the pub was invisible. Then you would get these outcomes. But the problem is that the existence of a pub simply it's a public good when it's there. You know, it's not excludable. You can't charge people walking past, you know, five quid to keep the pub going. So there's just an inherent problem with the way the world is, you know, that these sorts of outcomes can occur. I think another interesting angle on it, or at least something which I know is sort of something which in the rationalist community has sort of popped up recently is this concept of Moloch being a sort of embodiment of the system doing things that no one in the system wants. You know, and I think to my mind, one of the classic examples would be working nine to five, five days a week. I think if we could all collectively decide on how long we'd like to work for, I think we'd all rather be a bit poorer. House prices would be a bit lower. You know, but we could have an extra day in the weekend. Everyone wants that. And yet somehow it's impossible to coordinate on it. So there we all are, you know, working nine to five, behaving in a way that we collectively don't really want.

Speaker A: 00:13:13

Sorry, I didn't understand. Maybe I missed it. What's the Moloch thing?

Speaker B: 00:13:16

Well, it comes from a post by Scott Alexander, a blog post where he's referring to a Ginsburg poem.

Speaker C: 00:13:26

Moloch was a god in Old Testament times that had child sacrifices made to it. And it was one of the idols that Moses railed against. What's that got to do with a four day week?

Speaker B: 00:13:43

The idea being that if you think of the system as having characteristics of beyond the people in it, then it stops being in a way, it sort of stops being a puzzle. Why is that we can collectively end up doing things that we don't like? Right? You go, well, actually, let's refer to that force, whatever that force is that pushes us into doing that as Moloch. And then we have then we have something we can talk about. We can start saying, why are we doing this? Why do these forces, let's accept that this happens, that we collectively behave in a way that leads to outcomes we don't like. And if you think of that, then you're no longer in a position of saying, what do we as individuals have to do? We can say, well, what is it about the system that makes it push us into

Speaker C: 00:14:32

these outcomes? It's a sort of tragedy of the commons.

Speaker B: 00:14:35

Yeah, essentially, that is, I think behind all of it, but it's quite hard sometimes to spot where that is, like where the externality is, that's causing this behaviour.

Speaker A: 00:14:46

Okay, there's something, so look, I want to sort of change tack slightly. I know, I forget, you've mentioned once or twice before, Nick, there's that bloke who's doing, does TED Talks about actually things are better than, you know, than they were. You mean Hans Rosling? No, there's another one. Maybe it is, he's got like, great curly hair. Stephen Pinker. That's what I'm getting at. But no, but unarguably, there are some things that are definitely better. For example, war, there's way less deaths per annum than from war. Disease, and there's any number of things.

Speaker B: 00:15:18

We are, and actually all Ubers are, you know, as Peter says, like, strictly speaking, they're economic improvements, no doubt about it. People are better off because of Uber.

Speaker A: 00:15:28

Yeah. And yet, there are still definitely some...

Speaker B: 00:15:30

I think it's a bit like the opposite of creative destruction almost, you know, which is the idea that the economy grows, not because any individual company grows. The economy grows because new companies come along and destroy the old companies. So what you're going to see is a process of continual going out of business, which leads to a situation where we're all actually somehow better off. And I feel it's not unlike that, you know, it's actually sort of, you point to lots and lots of individual things and go, this is clearly better, this is an improvement. But somehow, at the end of it, you know, a lot of the good things have vanished.

Speaker A: 00:16:09

so we're talking the sort of: 1940

Speaker B: 00:16:44

This is what everyone says and I don't, I'm not buying it. Like you just, if you want people to be polite to each other in a village, have a high level of trust, but I don't see why you also have to have polio and domestic violence in the Second World War. Why can't we have the first thing and not the other things? Like everyone always says that. Oh, yeah, you want to go back to the days when it was illegal to beat your wife and stuff. But no, I don't, right? I just want to get rid of some of the really shit things.

Speaker C: 00:17:11

Yeah. I think the sort of child abuse and domestic violence were probably sky high. They just weren't reported.

Speaker B: 00:17:19

Right. Yeah, I know. I mean,

Speaker C: 00:17:21

And talked about. Whereas now, it's normal and you want people to talk about it. You want people to let you know if they're in trouble, because then they can help. That's much more open than they were before.

Speaker B: 00:17:33

Yeah. I mean, what I'm saying is that the problem is I feel like the conversation veers between two extremes. And I, as usual, am in the middle. One is people saying everything's gone to shit and it was better in the old days. And another is saying, well, look, here's 50,000 things that were worse in the old days. And I feel like usually they're talking about different things. And I certainly am. You know, the fact that I am, like Steven Pinker, always, usually defending the present doesn't mean that I don't recognize that there are things about the present that are unambiguously worse. I don't see why I have to accept that everything is better and we're living in a paradise because it's not, you know, it's patently not true. Some things are worse, you know. Yeah. We don't have Concord anymore, for example. Concord is a good example. Have you ever been on Concord? I've been inside a stationary one. Yeah. Yeah. It's not the same thing. I mean, no one actually used it. I can't understand how Concord couldn't have been economic. I mean, the people pay about 10,000 quid to be on it, you know. But it's a good example of something which was really, really bloody cool. You know, when I was a kid, everyone had a model Concord. And one day I was going to go on Concord. And, you know, and then it's disappeared. And now all you've got is Ryanair. Why? And actually, this brings me on.

Speaker A: 00:18:47

So annoying.

Speaker C: 00:18:48

Well, you haven't. That's not quite true. You have got different strata of levels of service. Have you got Concord? No, you haven't.

Speaker A: 00:18:56

So it's worse. Space shuttles, they've gone as well. Just by chance, I was on a Ryanair flight two nights ago. And I have to say quite a young cabin crew. And they were standing in front of me and they were having a good laugh and a conversation about something they're having the other night. And they were swearing quite a lot. Shocking. Yeah. Wouldn't happen on BA.

Speaker B: 00:19:16

I had a copper swear the other day. Really? To his fellow copper. Luckily, I didn't have my kids with him or I'd have told them off. Yeah, give them a piece of your mind. We really have turned into a bunch of old kids. Bringing the service to disrepute.

Speaker A: 00:19:29

We're close to one season. I'm not sure if we've achieved anything in this conversation. I've got a lot off my chest. Yeah, exactly. Other than getting, you know, feeling a bit better. And, you know, uh, Peter, to sort of round, there's one, there's a question I want to come on to. But before I do, is there anything you'd like to say, Peter?

Speaker C: 00:19:44

Well, yeah, if we've got time to pick up the village pub example, where you can't not charge people, because everyone's going to benefit a little bit from the pub being there. There are places you can. So airlines is a good example. You do have quite different strata of levels of service. And as a result, different price, different price models. So Ryanair somewhere near the bottom, arguably, and then BA and then other ones further up with higher, more comfortable levels of service. But I think where it does work, where you can have more complicating pricing models are places like online, online services. So if you buy any piece of software online, any web service, there's usually three or four different tiers. So there'll be the basic, which might even be free. Then there'll be an intermediate and a higher tier, which give you more stuff. Because it's possible to differentiate different levels of service and different functionality.

Speaker A: 00:20:39

Yeah, but this breaks down sometimes. So for example, going back to Ryanair the other day, I had priority boarding. And the reason why I'd purchased priority boarding was because I needed to have two bags with me to go into the cabin. Worked fine flying out of Stansted going to Italy. But flying back, no, it was just a complete free for all. And I was just standing there Is this at the Italian end by any chance?

Speaker B: 00:21:02

It was, it was. Oh, what a surprise. What a surprise that a queuing system breaks down. There, look, that is a good example of Moloch, I think. Actually, not quite what you were talking about. But you know, when they don't have priority boarding, it's just a free for all. Then they bring in priority boarding. So you know, you decide to get priority boarding. Great. Now I get to go on first and everyone else, it's a free for all. And then eventually people go, well, I'd better get priority boarding. And before you know it, we're all buying priority boarding. And we're no better off than we were in the first place. That is a perfect example of a Moloch type outcome. There's a come fly with me sketch exactly about that. Yeah. Well, look, we need to finish. We need to do a podcast about airline boarding. Yes, by the way, because there's a lot of really counterintuitive science about that. Oh, really? Yeah. Now I definitely want to do that. This is a different podcast.

Speaker A: 00:21:54

Look, just to round things off, a quick question. This podcast has been about, well, good things coming to an end. Well, let's talk about one thing that you really enjoy that hasn't come to an end and you can see hopefully carrying on for the future. Jump in when you're ready.

Speaker B: 00:22:11

Well, after every podcast recording, we go down to a restaurant called Bun & Bar on Green Lanes. And it is, I love the place. I think it's really nice atmosphere. It's always empty when we go in, which is worrying, I suppose, but, you know, the food is really nice. It's a very relaxed atmosphere. And it feels a bit like a place that probably ought to be in a different part of town. It probably should be in, you know, Shoreditch or something, but it's here in Turnpike Lane. And I love it. And I, you know, every time I go, I'm sort of thankful that it's that it is still open, you know, because I worry that one day I'll go down there and it'll turn into yet another Turkish restaurant.

Speaker A: 00:22:50

And which is funny, you should say that because I sit there staring longingly over the restaurant on the other side of the road, which is a Turkish restaurant, wishing I could go in there.

Speaker B: 00:22:57

When you live in a place where every other shop is a Turkish restaurant, you, you, you're, and as much as I love Turkish food, you know, you don't need any more of it. Yeah. Okay. Peter?

Speaker C: 00:23:09

A couple of things, but one is related is the, the relatively recent resurgence of beer as a culinary thing in, in, in, in Britain. So it's sort of, it's, it's partly to do with the resurgence of the kind of American style fizzy IPA stuff, but also the springing up of lots of little micro pubs all over the place. So it's, it's sort of the, the camera people have won and we've got good beer everywhere.

Speaker B: 00:23:40

Peter's right. It's a great, really, really good. Every time you're feeling pessimistic, remember camera campaign for real ale, they brought it back from the brink and, and we now have, you know, we have a really vibrant beer culture again. Let it, let us never, let us never

Speaker A: 00:23:56

forget. I feel like some stirring music should be coming off this point. Can you overlay, you know, some Beethoven or something on that? A bit of Elgar, I think. Actually, so my one, actually, I now can't think of anything else other than what you've just said. And going back to my village where I live, there's a great little pub called The Gate. It ticks all the boxes. I think it's got the largest collection of hand pump plates in England and they're hanging up all over the ceiling. So that's the first thing. The landlord, so it's run by three generations and the one who holds the license used to play centre back for Crystal Palace. So you've got a retired football player running the pub. So as should be. Perfect. They are also a micro brewery, but have been doing it for years and years and years. It's not had any work done to the pub in about 40 years, as far as I can see. That's fine with me. I like it as it is, you know, so proper old pub furnishings. Yeah. And also the landlord, the older, he can be a bit of a cantankerous old git and he's got a great line in swear words. I mean, it's just everything is as it should be. And also probably more important than anything else, it's cheap. It's really reasonably priced. It's

Speaker B: 00:25:08

still £3. I hear the terrifying sound of the Wetherspoons business development department

Speaker A: 00:25:15

sharpening their pencils. Yeah. I have to confess, I don't think it's going to be around for very long, that pub, for much longer now. But yes, so probably the same. There's something in there

Speaker C: 00:25:25

that everything we've mentioned has to do with beer. Good point. Okay. So on that note, let's

Speaker A: 00:25:32

go off and have a hamburger and a beer. Thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.