Meanwhile, I asked a female friend what she thought the answer was, but she was too depressed to respond.
What’s the Best Advice You Ever Got?
(SJD)
It’s that time of year: graduation. Celebrities, dignitaries, and the occasional wild card are ushered forth to send graduates into the future with courage, confidence, conviction (blah blah, blah blah, blah blah) . . .
And then there’s a woman we’ll call only S., for her mission is a secret one. Her son, N., is about to be graduated from high school, and S. is putting together an “album of advice” for him. She’s been writing to all sorts of people (including us) and asking: “What’s the best (or worst) advice you’ve ever been given?” As she writes further: “My mom did this for me when I graduated high school, and I wanted to carry on the tradition for my children. It was the most memorable gift I’ve ever received.”
How could anyone possibly turn down this request? My first inclination was to tell N. that the best advice I could give him was to have a mother who cared enough about her kids to solicit advice from strangers.
Anyway, here’s what I sent him. I can’t say it’s all that interesting, or even such great advice, but this is what came to mind:
Dear N.,
I once received a piece of advice when I was about fourteen that wasn’t even meant to be advice, but has stayed with me for my entire life.
I was out fishing on a small lake in a little motorboat with a man named Bernie Duszkiewicz. He was the local barber (well, one of two—but you get the idea: it was a very small town). My father had died when I was ten, and there were a few nice men around town who went out of their way to take me on little adventures. Most of these adventures involved fishing. I didn’t really like fishing all that much but I think my mom thought I did, and I was too timid or obedient to ever object.
We were out on the lake, fishing for bass, I suppose, going from one theoretically good spot to the next and catching absolutely nothing. Then it started to rain. Mr. Duszkiewicz drove the boat over toward the shore and anchored us under some low-hanging trees so we wouldn’t get drenched. We started casting from there—and lo and behold, I finally caught a fish. It couldn’t have been more than six inches long, a sunfish or rock bass, but at least it was a fish. And then I caught another, and another. They were too small to keep but it was fun catching them.
Then the sun came out, and Mr. Duszkiewicz pulled up the anchor. I was a very shy kid and it took everything I had to speak up: “Where are we going? This is a great spot!”
“Ah, we don’t want to keep catching these little ones,” he said. “They’re not worth the time. Let’s go catch a real fish.”
To be honest, my feelings were a little bit hurt—the fish I was catching were real fish, and a lot more fun than catching nothing at all. And we had the same bad luck when we got back out to the deeper spots in the lake: no fish at all.
But the lesson stuck with me. Even though we returned home empty-handed, we went for the big fish. In the short run, this kind of thinking might not be as much fun. But it’s the long run you should be thinking about—the big goals, the ones that require a lot of failure along the way. They might be worth it (of course, they might not be, too). It’s a lesson in opportunity cost: if you spend all your time catching the little fish, you won’t have time—or develop the technique, or the patience—to ever catch the big ones.
Wishing you the very best,
SJD
Well, that’s my fish story. The funny thing is that, as memorable as that advice was, I constantly fail to follow it today.
But just think how much worse off I’d be if it weren’t at least haunting me, like a second conscience.
The Highest Praise Anyone Could Ever Give
(SDL)
I got this e-mail from a fan yesterday:
I read Freakonomics and was—to say the least—floored. You are a brilliant thinker and honestly, you remind me of me.
Acknowledgments
Suzanne Gluck is our patron saint. Suzanne, we are so grateful for your support and especially your friendship. There are many others at WME to thank as well, including Tracy Fisher, Cathryn Summerhayes, Henry Reisch, Ben Davis, Lori Odierno, Eric Zohn, Dave Wirtschafter, Bradley Singer, and the folks who have over the years propped up everything: Eve Attermann, Erin Malone, Judith Berger, Sarah Ceglarski, Georgia Cool, Caroline Donofrio, Kitty Dulin, Samantha Frank, Evan Goldfried, Mac Hawkins, Christine Price, Clio Seraphim, Mina Shaghaghi, and Liz Tingue.
Huge thanks, as always, to the great crew at William Morrow/HarperCollins, who work so hard on our behalf and on behalf of many other lucky authors. These four Freakonomics books have been a long and wonderful ride with all of you! Special thanks to Henry Ferris, Claire Wachtel, Liate Stehlik, Lisa Gallagher, Michael Morrison, Brian Murray, Jane Friedman, Lynn Grady, Tavia Kowalchuk, Andy Dodds, Dee Dee DeBartlo, Trina Hunn, and the many other talented folks who’ve contributed so much to this endeavor.
At Penguin UK, we are extremely fortunate to have been edited by a pair of devoted thinkers and good friends, Alexis Kirschbaum and Will Goodlad. Thanks also to Stefan McGrath for continued support.
Thanks also to the wonderful people at the Harry Walker Agency, who routinely send us on great expeditions. And to the Freakonomics Radio crew at WNYC, who do such a great job of turning our rambling into something that approaches coherence.
And then there is the cast of dozens, at least, who have worked so hard over the years on the blog. Truly, it’s been a blast.
Thanks to Mary K. Elkins, Lorissa Shepstone and Gordon Clemmons of Being Wicked, and Chad Troutwine and his team for building and constantly rebuilding an online sandbox for us to play in.
At The New York Times, thanks especially to Gerry Marzorati, David Shipley, Sasha Koren, Jeremy Zilar, Jason Kleinman, and Brian Ernst.
The blog has had a succession of editors over the years who not only contributed a ton of great writing but also kept the two of us from falling off the wire. Thanks to Rachel Fershleiser, Nicole Tourtelot, Melissa Lafsky, Annika Mengisen, Ryan Hagen, Dwyer Gunn, Mathew Philips, Azure Gilman, Bourree Lam, and Caroline English, with special thanks to Bourree and Dwyer for doing early triage on eight-thousand-plus posts, and to Ryan for, among many other contributions, his piratical Q&A.
Thanks also to the many guest contributors on the Freakonomics blog over the years, from Q&As to Quorums to occasional essays. We are especially indebted to the awesome cadre of regular contributors, including: Ian Ayres, Captain Steve, Dan Hamermesh, Dean Karlan, Andrew Lo, Sanjoy Mahajan, James McWilliams, Eric Morris, Nathan Myhrvold, Jessica Nagy, Kal Raustiala, Seth Roberts, Steve Sexton, Fred Shapiro, Chris Sprigman, Sudhir Venkatesh, and Justin Wolfers. Special thanks to Captain Steve, James, and Sudhir for letting us put some of their posts in this book.
One component of the blog—one of the best components, to be sure—cannot be conveyed in this book: reader feedback. We’ve delighted in your clever or insightful or irate comments; your questions and suggestions; your massive curiosity and kindness. Thanks to every single reader: you are what kept us going for ten years.
Notes
CHAPTER 1: WE WERE ONLY TRYING TO HELP
8 “TERRORISM, PART II”: “The most hate mail . . . since the abortion-crime story first broke”: See Freakonomics and John J. Donohue III and Steven D. Levitt, “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, no. 2 (May 2001). / 9 “as Gary Becker and Yona Rubinstein have shown . . .”: See Becker and Rubinstein, “Fear and the Response to Terrorism: An Economic Analysis,” Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper 1079 (Sept. 2011) / 10 “The work of my University of Chicago colleague Robert Pape suggests . . .”: See, e.g., Pape, Dying to Win (Random House, 2005).
11 “HOW ABOUT A ‘WAR ON TAXES?’”: “David Cay Johnston . . . reports”: See Johnston, “I.R.S. Enlists Help in Collecting Delinquent Taxes,” The New York Times, August 20, 2006. / 12 “We touche
d on this subject in a Times column”: See Dubner and Levitt, “Filling in the Tax Gap,” The New York Times Magazine, April 2, 2006.
14 “IF PUBLIC LIBRARIES DIDN’T EXIST . . .”: For further thoughts on this topic, see Dubner, “What I Told the American Library Association,” Freakonomics.com, May 5, 2014.
16 “LET’S JUST GET RID OF TENURE . . .”: See also “The Freakonomics of Tenure,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 23, 2007.
23 “WHY RESTORING THE MILITARY DRAFT . . .”: “A long report in Time”: See Mark Thompson, “Restoring the Draft: No Panacea,” Time, July 21, 2007.
26 “A FREAKONOMICS PROPOSAL TO HELP . . .”: A “blogger named Noah Smith, who rails on us”: See Smith, “Market Priesthood,” Noahpinion.com, May 15, 2014.
29 “AN ALTERNATIVE TO DEMOCRACY?”: “Economists tend to have an indifference towards voting”: See Dubner and Levitt, “Why Vote?,” The New York Times Magazine, November 6, 2005; and Dubner, “We the Sheeple,” Freakonomics Radio, October 25, 2012. / 30 Glen Weyl’s voting mechanism: See Steven P. Lalley and E. Glen Weyl, “Quadratic Voting,” SSRN working paper, February 2015. / 31 “Two other economists . . . have been exploring a similar idea”: See Jacob K. Goeree and Jingjing Zhang, “Electoral Engineering: One Man, One Vote Bid,” working paper, August 27, 2012.
32 “WOULD PAYING POLITICIANS MORE . . .”: “A research paper by Claudio Ferraz and Frederico Finan”: See Ferraz and Finan, “Motivating Politicians: The Impacts of Monetary Incentives on Quality and Performance,” NBER working paper, April 2009. / 33 “Another, more recent paper”: See Finan, Ernest Dal Bó, and Martin Rossi, “Strengthening State Capabilities: The Role of Financial Incentives in the Call to Public Service,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 18, no. 3 (April 2013).
CHAPTER 2: LIMBERHAND THE MASTURBATOR AND THE PERILS OF WAYNE
40 “YOURHIGHNESS MORGAN”: “He sent an Orlando Sentinel article”: See Joe Williams, “What’s in a Name? A Royal Heritage,” Orlando Sentinel, August 18, 2006. / 40 “A sad San Diego Tribune article”: See “Ex-Navy Marksman Gets 84-to-Life in Gang Shooting,” U-T San Diego, May 25, 2006.
41 “WHAT A HEAVENLY NAME”: “Jennifer 8. Lee . . . has the story”: See Lee, “And if It’s a Boy, Will It Be Lleh?,” The New York Times, May 18, 2006. / 41 “The seventieth ranked name”: a great resource for baby-naming trends can be found on the Social Security Administration’s website: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/.
42 “THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF BABY NAMES”: See “Hurricane Dealt Blow to Popularity of Katrina as Baby Name,” The New York Times (Associated Press article), May 13, 2007; and, again, a good resource for baby-name trends in general is at http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/.
43 “BEAT THIS APTONYM”: “Limberhand the Masturbator”: See State of Idaho v. Dale D. Limberhand, No. 17656, Court of Appeals of Idaho, March 14, 1990.
CHAPTER 3: HURRAY FOR HIGH GAS PRICES!
51 “IF CRACK DEALERS TOOK LESSONS . . .”: “a TV news report . . .”: See Eileen Faxas, “Up Close: Cost of Generic Drugs Varies Widely,” KHOU-TV.com, December 13, 2003. / 53 “An extensive price comparison”: See “Generic Prescription Drug Price Comparison Chart,” WXYZ-TV.com. / 53 “A Consumer Reports survey”: See “Generic Drugs: Shop Around for the Best Deals,” ConsumerReports.org. / 53 “A research report . . . Dianne Feinstein”: See “Senator Feinstein Urges Californians to Be Aware That Generic Drug Prices Vary Greatly From Pharmacy to Pharmacy,” May 8, 2006. / 53 “A comprehensive Wall Street Journal article”: Sarah Rubenstein, “Why Generic Doesn’t Always Mean Cheap,” The Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2007.
57 “FOR $25 MILLION, NO WAY . . .”: “The virtues of offering big prizes to encourage . . . curing disease”: See Levitt, “Fight Global Pandemics (or at Least Find a Good Excuse When You’re Playing Hooky),” Freakonomics.com, May 18, 2007; “or improving Netflix’s algorithms”: See Levitt, “Netflix $ Million Prize,” Freakonomics.com, October 6, 2006. / 59 “As reported by ABC News”: See Matthew Cole, “U.S. Will Not Pay $25 Million Osama Bin Laden Reward, Officials Say,” ABCNews.com, May 19, 2011.
61 “CAN WE PLEASE GET RID OF THE PENNY ALREADY?”: A “60 Minutes segment called ‘Making Cents’”: See Morley Safer, “Should We Make Cents?,” 60 Minutes, February 10, 2008.
71 “JANE SIBERRY SNAPS”: “Anybody remember when Levitt announced . . .”: See Levitt, “The Two Smartest Musicians I Ever Met,” Freakonomics.com, April 5, 2006; and Levitt, “From Now on I Will Leave the Reporting to Dubner,” Freakonomics.com, April 9, 2006.
72 “HOW MUCH TAX ARE ATHLETES . . .”: “Manny Pacquiao will probably never fight in New York”: See “Manny Pacquiao Won’t Ever Fight in New York Due to State Tax Rates,” The Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2013. / 73 “Pacquiao may never fight anywhere in the U.S. again”: See Lance Pugmire, “Promoter: Manny Pacquiao May Never Again Fight in the U.S.,” The Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2013. / 73 “Phil Mickelson . . . ‘going to have to make some drastic changes’”: See “Golfer Phil Mickelson Plans ‘Drastic Changes’ Over Taxes,” CBSNews.com, January 21, 2013. / 74 “In Forbes, Kurt Badenhausen wrote . . . about Mickelson’s British tax tab”: See Badenhausen, “Phil Mickelson Wins Historic British Open and Incurs 61% Tax Rate,” Forbes.com, July 22, 2013. / 74 “Mick Jagger fled the U.K.”: See Larry King interview with Jagger on Larry King Live, CNN, May 18, 2010.
86 “HURRAY FOR HIGH GAS PRICES!”: historic gas prices are drawn from the U.S. Energy Information Administration; see also AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com. / 88 “In a paper I was proud to publish”: See Aaron S. Edlin and Pinar Karaca Mandic, “The Accident Externality From Driving,” The Journal of Political Economy 114.5 (2006). / 89 “According to a National Academy of Sciences report”: See Tires and Passenger Vehicle Fuel Economy: Informing Consumers, Improving Performance, The National Academies Press, Special Report 286 (2006). / 90 Expensive gas leads to more motorcycle fatalities: See He Zhu, Fernando A. Wilson, and Jim P. Stimpson, “The Relationship Between Gasoline Price and Patterns of Motorcycle Fatalities and Injuries,” Injury Prevention (2014).
CHAPTER 4: CONTESTED
96 “CONTEST: A Six-Word Motto . . .”: “England’s reluctant search for a national motto”: See Sarah Lyall, “Britain Seeks Its Essence, and Finds Punch Lines,” The New York Times, January 26, 2008. / 96 “A new book on six-word memoirs”: See Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith (eds.), Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure (HarperCollins, 2008). Side note: Rachel Fershleiser was the first editor of the Freakonomics blog.
CHAPTER 5: HOW TO BE SCARED OF THE WRONG THING
101 “WHOA NELLIE”: “A 1990 CDC report”: See “Current Trends Injuries Associated with Horseback Riding—United States, 1987 and 1988,” Centers for Disease Control. / 102 Horseback riders “are often under the influence of alcohol”: See “Alcohol Use and Horseback-Riding-Associated Fatalities— North Carolina, 1979–1989,” Centers for Disease Control.
103 “WHAT THE SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION . . .”: “On his official government blog”: See Ray LaHood, “Current Data Makes It Clear: Child Safety Seas and Booster Seats Save Lives, Prevent Injury,” Fast Lane (U.S. Dept. of Transportation blog), October 22, 2009. / 103 “My research on child safety seats”: See Levitt and Dubner, SuperFreakonomics (William Morrow, 2009); and Dubner and Levitt, “The Seat-Belt Solution,” The New York Times Magazine, July 10, 2005. / 103 “When I first told him about my work on teacher cheating”: See Levitt and Dubner, Freakonomics (William Morrow, 2005).
109 “‘PEAK OIL’”: “A recent . . . cover story”: See Peter Maass, “The Breaking Point,” The New York Times Magazine, August 21, 2005.
114 “BETTING ON PEAK OIL”: “John Tierney wrote a great . . . column”: See Tierney, “The $10,000 Question,” The New York Times, August 23, 2005. / 116 “Sadly, Matthew Simmons died”: See Tierney, “Economic Optimism? Yes, I’ll Take That Bet,” The New York Times, December 27, 2010.
116 “DOES OBESITY KILL?�
��: “An interesting paper”: See Shin-Yi Chou, Michael Grossman, and Henry Saffer, “An Economic Analysis of Adult Obesity: Results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System,” NBER working paper No. 9247, October 2002. / 117 “a paper calling into doubt”: See Jonathan Gruber and Michael Frakes, “Does Falling Smoking Lead to Rising Obesity?,” NBER working paper No. 11483, July 2005. / 118 “The panic over obesity may be as big a problem . . .”: See J. Eric Oliver, Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America’s Obesity Epidemic (Oxford University Press, 2006). / 119 “The tour company had been using the old standard . . .”: Al Baker and Matthew L. Wald, “Weight Rules for Passengers Called Obsolete in Capsizing,” The New York Times, July 1, 2006.
119 “DANIEL KAHNEMAN ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS”: See Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
127 “FOUR REASONS WHY THE U.S. CRACKDOWN . . .”: “The U.S. government recently shut down . . .”: See Matt Richtel, “U.S. Cracks Down on Online Gambling,” The New York Times, April 15, 2011. / 130 “I recently co-wrote a paper”: Levitt and Thomas J. Miles, “The Role of Skill Versus Luck in Poker,” NBER working paper 17023, May 2011.
130 “THE COST OF FEARING STRANGERS”: “an AirTran spokesman told The Washington Post”: Amy Gardner, “9 Muslim Passengers Removed From Jet,” The Washington Post, January 2, 2009. / 133 “How about child abduction? . . . a 2007 Slate article explains”: Christopher Beam, “800,000 Missing Kids? Really?,” Slate.com, January 17, 2007.
CHAPTER 6: IF YOU’RE NOT CHEATING, YOU’RE NOT TRYING
135 “CHEATING TO BE HOT”: “like the office workers who put money . . .”: See Levitt and Dubner, Freakonomics (William Morrow, 2005). / 136 “Farhad Manjoo’s article . . . about a contest”: Manjoo, “How Bots Rigged D.C.’s ‘Hot’ Reporter Contest,” Salon.com, August 22, 2007. / 137 “We have been accused of stuffing a ballot box”: See Melissa Lafsky, “Freakonomics v. Lolita: Can You Tell the Difference?,” Freakonomics.com, June 18, 2007.
When to Rob a Bank: ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants Page 25
