584. How to Pave the Road to Hell | Freakonomics Radio

Ben Shapiro episode

Very interesting unintended consequences for would-be do-gooder policy making. Dr. Thomas Sowell and others pointed out long ago that well intentioned policies like prohibition, welfare, affirmative action, etc. produced unintended harmful consequences that the policy makers went ahead to ignore.

It was funny to hear HW call it the Americans For Disabilities Act.

Unintended Consequences: Cyclists are the major beneficiaries of ADA.

In regard to the last example, men becoming wary of working with women in the wake of the "me too" movement, the conclusion was that there would come to be a new equilibrium. I think the current state (reduced collaboration) might be close to the equilibrium state, within the current state of legislation, litigation and social pressures. As has been noted, people often respond to incentives, positive and negative.

Social research has shown that the bulk of sexual harassment comes from a relatively small portion of men; if it were only them who were deterred from collaborating with women in the workplace, that would be a positive tradeoff. However, the fear of false allegations can incentivize a much larger group of non-harassing men from taking a chance, given that being accused would likely ruin their career and finances, even if falsely. Carefully considering what they have to gain from a collaboration, and what they have to lose, could cause them to rationally avoid the low-payoff high-risk option. The point here is that the men may be choosing wisely given the overall incentives they face, rather than from ignorance or malice.

Of course, most women would not consciously use false allegations of harassment - for career advancement, for revenge, or due to personality problems. But the men don't know which ones would, or even how many would. There are many political considerations which make knowing the frequency of such false accusations very difficult. Anybody who has a quick answer is likely projecting confirmation bias for their own political views, on any side.

If we want that to change, we would need to change the incentives. If men believed they would get "a fair trial" if falsely accused (in administrative hearings, in gossip networks, in public perception and in the actual courts), they might relax and be more willing to collaborate. There are many examples to the contrary (anecdotes), and hard statistics are difficult to find because of confidentiality.

Otherwise, such lower levels of collaboration (academically, or in business, eg: as mentors) may just be the tradeoff for making actual harassment more dangerous.

(Of course, if the people conduct their collaboration electronically (with recordings kept), and meet only in the presence of witnesses, collaboration can hopefully increase. This is more about reducing the limitation.)

Is it fewer women getting collaborations, or fewer unqualified women getting undeserved collaborations based on their desirability as targets of sexual harassment ? I dont think you can call the outcome unintended unless you also say that no person has ever taken advantage of their looks or youthful appearance ...

Hell is overreaching government policy.

It seems that unintended consequences are often simply accepted, and the law/procedure is not adjusted to minimize the negative effects. I would be interested in what adjustments were made to the ADA, and if they were effective.

When I was in the army I knew what people made based on rank, time in service and things such as hazardous duty and pro-pay. Using the same criteria they knew mine. As a Teamster I knew what the contract stated our wages would be based on our roll such as driver, car washer, porter and so forth. When I was salaried I had no idea what the others in the organization made, but I did think I was underpaid which is why I became self employed.

If people fear resentment at having their salary and/or earnings info released, then they likely know in their heart they don’t deserve the compensation they are receiving and see others working harder for less. How could this not be any more obvious.

Another example cycling worse as a form of transportation.

Sexual harassment is whatever any particular woman decides it is with or without any proof whatsoever. Incorporating this into academia gives every women the power to derail any man's career at any time based on her feelings on any particular day and with or without any sort of intent. As any wife can tell you, men inadvertently say stupid things open to misinterpretation all the time except now men can lose their livelihood over it. It simply isn't worth the risk. TBH I'm surprised collaborations only dropped 40%.

I had no idea of the subject of this podcast from just the title.