Jevons Paradox: Perhaps Not a Paradox After All

We started by asking what happened to critical thinking and we were off and running. We certainly asked the right question.

We began by defining and describing 10 types of critical thinking, and we're still working on it.

You can check out our first four inaugural episodes to catch up with us. Today, we're going to make you challenge an old standby truism and rattle your brain while we're at it.

You know what George Bernard Shaw said about that, right?

That it's a good idea from time to time to hang a question mark on things we have long taken for granted and that brings us to today's topic.

Jevons Paradox.

Perhaps not a paradox at all.

If of late you haven't heard of or read about the Jevons Paradox, you likely will.

Named after 19th century British economist William Stanley Jevons, who observed in his 1865 book, The Coal Question, that the paradox states that as engines become more coal efficient and needed less coal, demand for coal actually increased.

So as the paradox would have it, decreased cost could lead to higher revenues. And Jevons' paradox says that when something becomes more efficient to use, people often use more of it, not less.

Now, how does this play out?

In the classic 1880s example, steam engines became more efficient, coal became cheaper to use, industries used more steam engines, and total coal consumption increased.

Modern examples of this are fuel-efficient cars, cloud computing, and AI.

Jevons and economists since have written extensively on the paradox, and all the graphs you could possibly want are available. To economists everywhere, where it remains a paradox. Now, Jevons paradox, as seen by soft scientists, is not a paradox.

Economics is what I call a hard science. It's data-driven and formula-dependent, thus explaining the stubborn, persistent state of paradox. On the other hand, to the psychologist, sociologist, the philosopher, the soft scientist, this phenomenon is easier to explain.

And it's easier to live with. Now, I rarely find myself referring to or leaning on Sigmund Freud.

But in this case, that works. We find ourselves in Freud's depiction of the human psyche.

The id, the ego, and the superego, that we feed our id's basic needs with little concern for the consequences. As we evolve, we become more ego self-serving and conscious of it.

It is here that we want to achieve, we want to amass, we want to surpass, we want to do all we can.

And then there's the superego, the place where we find our conscience.

Could we gives way to should we, both as individuals and as members of a larger society. Among other things, Freud tells us that three parts of our psyches are in constant conflict.

That should make the phenomenon of the competition between progress and ethics easy to understand. and to manage, until now.

Along comes AI, and whereas every human discovery or invention has brought with it the conflict between could we and should we, that's no longer in question. The question, especially with AI, is how far and how fast will it all happen?

AI has already demonstrated its inevitability, and we coolly nod in understanding to its nature, pace, and scope.

For the last decade or so, I've put nature, pace, and scope on the table and say, those are the three dimensions of measurement of progress. The nature meaning progress is in the hands of any you and me who can come up with it.

Pace, when the printing press hit in 1450, it took about 50 years for it to spread across the continent of Europe. room. Nice progress, but no big deal.

When OpenAI hit, it took 10 minutes for 1 million people to sign up. The question, especially with AI, is how far and how fast will it all happen?

AI has already demonstrated its inevitability, and we casually nod in understanding as to its nature, pace, and scope.

For sure, though, the conflict and the paradox are there.

Examining the intramurals going on within the human psyche doesn't resolve the conflicts, but it does explain them, thus moving Jevons' observation from the paradox column to the certainty column.

The certainty here is human nature.

But, said Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate, he becomes a mathematical certainty.

Let me pause here for a moment to thank the people who helped make Vantage Point Vantage Point is brought to you by Bergen Volunteers. Since 1966, they have been quietly at work in Bergen County. Neighbors helping neighbors across 70 towns. They mentor kids who need someone in their core, and they help seniors stay independent at home. Through their Bergen Leads program, they have trained hundreds of people to lead in their own community. They call what they do critical thinking with its sleeves rolled up, and that is exactly right.

To everyone at Bergen Volunteers, thank you for supporting this show. and thank you for the work you do. You can learn more about them at BergenVolunteers.org.

Here's another name you probably have not heard of.

That being Harold Janine.

Harold Janine was the president and CEO of ITT from 1959 to 1971.

When it was the largest conglomerate in the world.

And although he got involved in a lot of really controversial issues, global business, interfering with government and military, moving huge amounts of money around the world, there was no question that he was a giant business thinker.

And Harold Janine said, leadership can never be taught.

It can only be learned.

And so, true to himself, Janine didn't interfere with his corporate leaders, didn't interfere with the goings on going on between his corporations.

And his subsidiaries, his main corporation, et cetera.

He didn't interfere. He got involved and he got in trouble for it.

But he brought to us the certain truth that leadership can never be taught. It can only be learned.

Let's talk about the what-if.

Thomas J. Watson was the president of a little company in Cincinnati in the 1920s, early 20s, that made calculating and adding machines.

He saw great possibilities beyond those machines, and he restructured the company, and they started putting out much more advanced equipment. women. That company was renamed International Business Machines, IBM. And he saw a whole new way of looking at business and about business future.

He put a sign outside his office with one word think and from that point on i believe that was 1924 from that point on the international business machines company really changed the world with office equipment and then computers but in ways of doing business those people who couldn't get with the program as they say they found one of two ways to leave. They either voluntarily looked for life in another lane or were told to get there.

So influential was Thomas J. Watson that the research center that IBM put together in Armonk, New York on the Hudson River was named the Thomas J. Watson Research Center.

He was also unquestionably determined to produce excellent goods and services equipment service programming etc and he said if you want to do excellent work you can begin right now by deciding to do excellent work there's speculation that thomas J. Watson was not certain whether he should bring on that calculating machine company, what if he didn't demand that his people think? The question we're looking at now is what if these two men, Harold Janine and Thomas J. Watson, did not share the same kind of daring bravado with their managers and leaders?

What if they didn't give them the go-ahead to, as Watson said, think? And as Janine, let his leaders learn.

So coming up in the next few weeks, life and careers in the age of readiness.

Readiness is more important than experience.

I want to talk about critical traits for the 21st century. I want to talk about what made Sandy Koufax great that can work for you. And I want to talk about writing. So look forward to all of that in the episodes upcoming.

Thanks again for listening. Thanks for your input. And let me remind you to follow me on social media. And you can always find me on my website, Eliander.com. We'll see you next time. Until then, keep questioning, keep learning and keep thinking critically.