Why (most of) Ireland has little interest in a 'smart' economy

When I was growing up, the word 'smart' had two meanings.

The literal one was 'clever'. The more common interpretation was 'cheeky'. Today, it means 'We Don't Have A Plan But We're Going To Imply That We Aspire To A High Tech Strategy'.

A task force was announced over the weekend to advise on the creation of a 'smart' economy. 'Smart' seems to mean 'digital' and 'high tech'.

"We need to think smart, work smart, and be smart in order to build our future," said the Taoiseach (in a press release) on the issue.

Let's ignore the tired, hackneyed language here: who agrees with the concept of a 'smart' economy? Farmers? Unions? Music companies? Election agents?

Let's look at some of the leading 'smart' issues on which Ireland has expressed its opinion in recent years.

Smart issue 1: electronic voting
This makes all the sense in the world: a quick, accurate return on who has been fairly elected into power. But this is Ireland. "We don't want this kind of thing. It's better to see the counting being done in front of you, even if it takes a week and even if there are small inaccuracies."

Smart issue 2: e-government
Ireland's attempt to create a comprehensive working e-government system for its citizens is nearing 10 years in the making. 10 years! And we still have only a handful of services that can truly replace the post, interaction over the phone or a visit to an office. (Sorry, endlessly citing motortax.ie is no longer a substitute.)

Smart issue 3: digital networking
One of the hallmarks of a country that clearly engages in digital innovation is a preponderance to tinker about online and engage with digital networking services. Like Twitter, discussion boards, forums and the like. Yet ask the quintessential Irish businessman/politician/civil servant what their attitude is to new, very useful, services such as Twitter. "No, no, I don't think that's appropriate for someone in my position," is the usual response. Smart? Or Luddite?

Smart issue 4: broadband
Let's say you're a normal Irish householder. You have a choice of two broadband products. One gives 1Mbs and costs €20 per month. The other one gives 5Mbs and costs €30 per month. Which one do you go for? The first one, of course. Because that's enough to "do email" and "update my Facebook". And that's the level that (most) Irish people are at.

So when the Taoiseach continues to spout the following hackneyed 'smart' mantra, surely it's time for someone to stand up and ask a few questions about whether Irish people, as a whole, are interested in such an economy. (If you're reading this blog, you are, like me, one of the minority who is interested.)

“The country will have smart, efficient and citizen-oriented public services," says the Taoiseach. "It will be energy independent and have high-quality living environments with smart transport solutions... The Ireland of the future will be a smart, high-value, export-led economy. It will have some of the world’s leading research-intensive multinationals, a number of which will be Irish-owned."

For the record, here is the composition of the 'smart economy' task force that has been set up by the Taoiseach. (I wish them well. There are some good people there.)

Dermot McCarthy, secretary general, Department of the Taoiseach (chairman)
Lionel Alexander, vice-president general manager of Hewlett Packard (Manufacturing) and chairman of the Government’s Enterprise Feedback Group
Prof Don Barry, president, University of Limerick
Dr Hugh Brady, president, University College Dublin
Damien Callaghan, investment director, Intel Capital
Michael Carmody, president, Institute of Technology Tralee
Dr Steven Collins, co-founder chief technical officer, Kore Virtual Machines
Ned Costello, chief executive, Irish Universities Association
Joe Harford, chairman of the Government’s High Level Action Group on Green Enterprise
Dr John Hegarty, provost, Trinity College Dublin
Dr Chris Horn, co-founder of Iona Technologies
Dr Brian Kelly, founder chief executive, Celtic Catalysts
Dr Buron Lee, director, European entrepreneurship programme, Stanford University; managing partner, Innovarium Ventures
John Lynch, chief executive, Merrion Pharmaceuticals
Tara MacMahon, IP lawyer
Dan MacSweeney, chief executive, Carbery Group
Bryan Mohally, vice-president of supply chain operations Europe, Johnson and Johnson
Mark O’Donovan, director, Raglan Capital
Barry O’Sullivan, senior vice-president, Cisco Systems
Dr Paul Roben, president, Celtic Consulting
Anna Scally, partner, KPMG

Comments

[Chi]

One of the most important factors in a 'smart economy' is having an intelligent well educated population. At the macro-social level cognitive competence is more important than economic liberty for the economic growth of nations and it is more important than wealth for the democratic development of countries.

Which makes some of the current immigration policy which allows large numbers from low IQ groups enter the country quite disturbing.

Rindermann, H. (2007b). The big G-factor of national cognitive ability (author‘s response on open peer commentary). European Journal of Personality, 21, 767-787.

Rindermann, H. (2008a). Relevance of education and intelligence at the national level for the economic welfare of people. Intelligence, 36, 127-142.

Rindermann, H. (2008b). Relevance of education and intelligence for the political development of nations: Democracy, rule of law and political liberty. Intelligence, 36, 306-322.

Rushton, J. P., & Jensen, A. R. (2005). Thirty years of research on differences in cognitive ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 235-294.

http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf

[Brian Greene]

@Chi
NEXT an IQ test in Dublin Airport? there are doctors working in convenience stores, and IT professionals doing night security of data centres, should we legislate for these anomaly's also?

@Adrian
There are no less than 7 doctors on the task force. While I wish them all well I think that a mix of folk with more hands on experience of 'SMART' would be better that the career topping boffins that were picked.

[Stan]

In Galway the the Ffrench roundabout (at the Moneenageisha junction) was replaced by a 'smart' junction with a set of 'smart [traffic] lights'. In this case I have yet to decide whether the word denotes 'intelligent' or 'cheeky'.

(See: http://twitter.com/galwayindie/status/1933740735 )

[Adrian]

Chi,

That's a nonsense argument.

Cheers

[dahamsta]

Adrian, if you don't understand why eVoting isn't currently acceptable in Ireland in particular and the world in general, you probably shouldn't be talking about it.

[andyaz]

Chi,

Astonishing piece of overt racism there. If you're genuinely concerned with increasing the national IQ average, emigrate. Don't let the airport hit you on the way out.

Adrian,

I'd add "smart meters" to that list, a genuinely smart solution that they're well capable of screwing up if the public aren't watching. Good overview here: http://constructireland.ie/Articles/Renewable-Energy/Why-the-government-must-get-smart-metering-right.html

[Adrian]

We're opposed to the principle of e-voting. It's just a lucky coincidence that the government made a balls of it.

The principle of e-voting is progress (speed, accuracy).

But obviously, we all prefer the old system. What is it that we use as rationalisation? Oh, yes, I remember...

"It's important to give people a sense of involvement in the count..."

"It encourages participation in the event..."

"It's more exciting..."

etc etc

The principle of e-voting: we're against it.

[John McCormac]

Smart economies depend on innovation. At its core, that depends in on better technologists, scientists and business people. The problem is that Ireland has had too much emphasis on producing lawyers, PR flacks, estate agents and bankers rather then engineers, scientists and business people. Incompetent, ignorant fools are promoted in the government and they bail out those of the same ilk in the failed banks and property development. The disconnect is quite apparent - you cannot have a smart economy when it is run by morons.

As for the "taskforce" it looks like the usual bunch of government approved, politically safe choices that can be relied upon to make the usual grateful noises.

In real terms, the government just doesn't get technology and innovation. Like some strange cargo cult, it builds factories in the middle of nowhere without broadband in the hope of attracting FDI rather than developing Ireland's own industry and economy.

Forgive me for being cynical but I still remember the MediaLab Europe fiasco. And look how that turned out.

[dahamsta]

Who are "we" I wonder? I don't know who you think you're speaking for, but it ain't me. The simple fact of the matter is that even with a VVAT the potential for fraud is higher than with what we have now. The sole disadvantage is a day or two of waiting. Are "we" really all so caught up in ourselves that "we" can't wait a couple of days for a more reliable count? Have a little patience. Drink less coffee, turn off Tweetdeck, get a life.

[Brendan]

The last thing we need is a quango that will disappear into a dark room for six months and then emerge with well articulated but vague articulations on a new direction for our economy. Given the calibre of the group and the real-world practical experience that is in there, I would be hopeful that they might come back with what is needed - a direction with a plan comprised of shorter-term tactical, measurable and achievable goals.

@John, these are the luminaries of our business and achademic world. Are they the best we've got? They're probably among the best we've got and there are certainly a few omissions, but then how big a group is just unmaneagable. The real question is whether this is the right approach overall? Probably not. I think we should all be wary of anything launched at the moment that promises so much. We've had policy makers and business leaders tell the government for years what needs to be done and they've been ignored. Will that change now?

[Chi]

"Astonishing piece of overt racism there. If you're genuinely concerned with increasing the national IQ average, emigrate. Don't let the airport hit you on the way out.

Adrian"

Adrian,

Unfortunately, groups do differ on average. For instance, Ashkenazi Jews average 2/3 of a std deviation above other whites, while East Asians average a few points above the European average.

A difference in mean can lead to considerable differences at the upper end of the distribution. If two groups differed by, say, 10 points in average IQ (2/3 of a standard deviation), the respective distributions would overlap quite a bit (more in-group than between-group variation), but the fraction of people with IQ above some threshold (e.g., >140) would be radically different. It has been claimed that 20% of all Americans with IQ > 140 are Jewish, even though Jews comprise only 3% of the total population.

This causes major problems as inequality along ethnic lines can lead to resentment and hostility. For instance, the Chinese in Malaysia, Indians in Kenya and Uganda (before they were expelled) or the Jews in various places.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt at University of Virginia has discussed how the Human Genome project is likely to uncover the basis for these differences over the next 10 years.

"Recent "sweeps" of the genome across human populations show that hundreds of genes have been changing during the last 5-10 millennia in response to local selection pressures. (See papers by Benjamin Voight, Scott Williamson, and Bruce Lahn). No new mental modules can be created from scratch in a few millennia, but slight tweaks to existing mechanisms can happen quickly, and small genetic changes can have big behavioral effects, as with those Russian foxes. We must therefore begin looking beyond the Pleistocene and turn our attention to the Holocene era as well – the last 10,000 years. This was the period after the spread of agriculture during which the pace of genetic change sped up in response to the enormous increase in the variety of ways that humans earned their living, formed larger coalitions, fought wars, and competed for resources and mates.

The protective "wall" is about to come crashing down, and all sorts of uncomfortable claims are going to pour in. Skin color has no moral significance, but traits that led to Darwinian success in one of the many new niches and occupations of Holocene life — traits such as collectivism, clannishness, aggressiveness, docility, or the ability to delay gratification — are often seen as virtues or vices. Virtues are acquired slowly, by practice within a cultural context, but the discovery that there might be ethnically-linked genetic variations in the ease with which people can acquire specific virtues is — and this is my prediction — going to be a "game changing" scientific event. (By "ethnic" I mean any group of people who believe they share common descent, actually do share common descent, and that descent involved at least 500 years of a sustained selection pressure, such as sheep herding, rice farming, exposure to malaria, or a caste-based social order, which favored some heritable behavioral predispositions and not others.)...

There are reasons to hope that we'll ultimately reach a consensus that does not aid and abet racism. I expect that dozens or hundreds of ethnic differences will be found, so that any group — like any person — can be said to have many strengths and a few weaknesses, all of which are context-dependent. Furthermore, these cross-group differences are likely to be small when compared to the enormous variation within ethnic groups and the enormous and obvious effects of cultural learning. But whatever consensus we ultimately reach, the ways in which we now think about genes, groups, evolution and ethnicity will be radically changed by the unstoppable progress of the human genome project.

http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09_4.html#haidt

[Chi]

andyaz,

I'm not sure what the relevance of your comment was. Do you actually believe in evolution or are you a creationist? David Friedman makes the following point:

People who say they are against teaching the theory of evolution are very likely to be Christian fundamentalists. But people who are against taking seriously the implications of evolution, strongly enough to want to attack those who disagree, including those who teach those implications, are quite likely to be on the left...

The reasons to expect differences among racial groups as conventionally defined are weaker, since males of all races play the same role in reproduction, as do females of all races. But we know that members of such groups differ in the distribution of observable physical characteristics--that, after all, is the main way we recognize them. That is pretty strong evidence that their ancestors adapted to at least somewhat different environments.

There is no a priori reason to suppose that the optimal physical characteristics were different in those different environments but the optimal mental characteristics were the same. And yet, when differing outcomes by racial groups are observed, it is assumed without discussion that they must be entirely due to differential treatment by race. That might turn out to be true, but there is no good reason to expect it. Here again, anyone who argues the opposite is likely to find himself the target of ferocious attacks, mainly from people on the left."

http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2008/08/who-is-against-evolution.html

[Chi]

"@Chi
NEXT an IQ test in Dublin Airport? there are doctors working in convenience stores, and IT professionals doing night security of data centres, should we legislate for these anomaly's also?"

Brian Greene,

No, but immigration should where possible place a focus on highly skilled workers.

For an example of the consequences of large scale low skill immigration look at California which is near bankruptcy.

[Chi]

Although, to clarify that above comment I would refer to UC Davis economist Greg Clark's book 'A Farewell to Alms' in relation to the Industrial Revolution and this pdf on the same issue.

Particularly, Clark notes:

But the evidence from pre-industrial England suggests that economic success was highly hereditable. Given how hard it is to change by social policy traits that are acquired within families, this, in terms of modern social impact it does not matter whether the mechanism of inheritance was genetic or not.

But evidence from the modern world establishes that economic success has a very important genetic component. Putting these together we can establish that there must have been significant genetic change from generation to generation in this dimension in societies like pre-industrial England.

This evidence fits well with recent claims that the rate of evolution among humans speeded up in the past 10,000 years. A recent study of variations in DNA across individuals concluded that:

“Rapid population growth has been coupled with vast changes in cultures and ecology, creating new opportunities for adaptation. The past 10,000 years have seen rapid skeletal and dental evolution in human populations, as well as the appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and disease.”13

In one particular case, the evolution of lactose tolerance has been traced in Northern Europeans to only the last 5,000-10,000 years.14″

McCloskey citing the review of the book by Robert Solow, argues that the experience of countries like India and China recently, and of immigrants to the US, shows that the idea that there are deep seated cultural or genetic differences in peoples’ ability to succeed economically, which stem from the long histories of these societies, is unsupportable.

On the contrary, I think that there is a lot of modern evidence that is supportive of this possibility. What is emphasized in A Farewell to Alms is that the processes identified for England occurred in all settled pre-industrial agrarian societies, though perhaps with different force. That suggests that if we want to find the maximum possible cultural and genetic difference between groups in the modern world we should contrast the people from long settled agrarian societies with those from hunter-gatherer societies that never experienced settled institutionally stable agricultural systems. Can McCloskey point to a single hunter-gatherer group that has successfully and quickly adapted to modern capitalist economies?

Also can he explain why when Chinese and Indian indentured laborers were exported to various parts of South America, Africa, South East Asia and the Pacific in the colonial period they have tended to do very well economically? Unlike white settlers, these were unskilled laborers with no capital and no political advantage as the overlords of these societies. Yet in societies like Fiji, Mauritius, Kenya, Uganda, the Philippines, Peru, and Suriname they have succeeded economically much better than the indigenous population.

Why are there persistent income gaps between the indigenous population in most countries of the Americas and immigrants from Europe or Asia? Why is income per capita in the America’s in part predictable from the share of the population which is indigenous? Why do indigenous groups emigrating to the US from Mexico and Gautemala tend to do poorly economically?

Clearly the long histories of societies are not the only thing influencing current income levels and growth rates. But I think there is absolutely no cause to be confident that these things do not matter.

http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/Farewell

[Adrian]

Adam,

Reliable? 4,000 odd votes "put" into the "wrong bundle" in the last election? (Complete fluke that it was discovered -- Ganley had challenged it thinking he'd been disadvantage.)

That working for you, yeah?

Not me, mate.

[dermot]

Jesus wept. An interesting article by Adrian (which is pretty bang on) turn into a bad debate on racism.

[dahamsta]

Adrian, you're acting like red top reporter now, ignoring a clearly stated modifier ("more reliable") to make a silly point. I know we're on the internets an' all, but I would have expected better from a broadsheet journalist.

In all seriousness, for your own benefit and the benefit of your readers, do some research on evoting before commenting on it again. It simply isn't a viable option right now, and may not be for quite some time.

[Adrian]

Red top is fine, as long it's accurate :)

3,000 votes (not 4,000) were miscounted in one single constituency count earlier this month. Where was the outrage? The concern over the system being "viable"?

Gotta be consistent to be credible, I think :)

[John McCormac]

@Brendan If these are the "best" we've got then we really are in trouble. We need operators rather than wafflers. We need entrepreneurs who think about the future rather than a bunch of people who are trading on past glories - if any. I tend to be very cynical about government quangos as most of the people who are appointed are only appointed because they are politically acceptable choices. A Smart economy is by its very nature disruptive - that's why such a panel should have more real operators on it. Perhaps all this quango is meant to do is to give the dumb economy denizens in government a bunch of new buzzwords so that they can sound clever.

[Gerard Cunningham]

Hmmm, for some reason it seems an earlier post about e-voting from my netbook didn't make it, so here goes again.

Thanks to the paper trail, those mislaid votes in Ireland Northwest were identified and re-allocated correctly. With e-voting as proposed for Ireland, we would never have known there was a problem, there'd be no paper to check.

E-voting in Ireland was typical of FF (all Irish govts?) approach to things technical. Talk a lot about smart economies, broadband, digital republics and the like, but no actual substance and lousy implementations. But look, there's a nice shiny advertising campaign telling people they already know how to press buttons, so we're alright.

By the way, since I first tried to post here the news has come in that al Franken has finally been elected to the US Senate, after 209 days.

They use voting machines in Minnesota. Maybe they need to learn how to use tallymen.

[Chi]

"An interesting article by Adrian (which is pretty bang on) turn into a bad debate on racism."

No, simply that you need to have a smart and well educated population to have a 'smart economy'. See the papers by Rindermann cited in my original post.

[dahamsta]

I think Outrageous Indignation is the priority in red tops, accuracy is WAY down the list of priorities! Stealing People's Content is another speciality of theirs, especially our friends in the Star. But that's a whole other bitching session...

The electorate's usual collective stupidity isn't a valid reason for the occasional time they get something right. It might have been for the wrong reasons, but at least we don't have those damned machines any more. Where do we go for the refund, that's what I want to know.