Geeks In the Public Forum?

cedarhillbilly writes "In his new book The Geek Manifesto, Mark Henderson 'pleads for citizens who value science to force it onto the mainstream political agenda and other main walks of life.' There are some important questions that need answers: 'Do you have to give up your tech practice to undertake a public role?' Also, 'Is political life (compromise, working by consensus, irrationality) antithetical to the "geek" values?'" The Guardian's coverage sums up the idea nicely: "What I desperately want is a move toward an evidence-based culture in politics. Politicians are free to say: 'I think people on drugs should be punished because drugs are immoral.' That's a moral call, albeit a rather stupid one in my opinion. What they shouldn't do is say: 'I want to reduce drug use, and sending all users to prison is the most cost-effective way to achieve that.' That's not a moral call, it's a factual statement; as such it should be evidence-based, or else the person making it should shut the hell up."

Comments

Technocrats

[MyLongNickName]

In short, Mark Henderson wants Technocrats not Politicians running our system. I tend to agree.

Re:Technocrats

[Anonymous Coward]

And the environmentalists want environmentalists running the system, the banks want financial people running the system, large corporations want businessmen running they system, and so on and so on. Yea, we all wish that politicians had our point of view, but it's not realistic. To get elected, you need to be able to convince more than half the population that you would properly represent them. If you're too focused in one area, then you'll have a real hard time getting support from people not in that area.

Re:Technocrats

[Anne_Nonymous]

What's always surprised me is why we can't have more pimply-faced, basement-dwelling virgins running the system.

Re:Technocrats

[bky1701]

Technocracy allows variation within it. It is more a methodology than an ideology. Environmentalists are largely monolithic; they vary on some issues, but it is an ideology. You can still have Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians... but it is about using fact-based arguments over appeals to emotion.

Will that ever work? Doubtful. Is it becoming more likely in the US? Hell no. But it is more complicated than "I want politicians who think like me," and it's disingenuous to paint this that way. We would be much better off if we didn't have the witch hunts, security theater, censorship, racism, and all other unfortunate little problems caused by people thinking with their crotch and not their head.

Re:Technocrats

[houghi]

In a two party system you are right. You must have a majority and then you can ignore all the others.

In a multi party system, you can not ignore them and that means compromising.
Yes, that means that nobody gets 100% what they want. However many more will get more or less what they want.

Re:Technocrats

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Well it would mean we'd get Firefly back, that's for sure.

Re:Technocrats

[MozeeToby]

Put another way, it isn't "I want politicians who think like me", it's "I want politicians who think". The idea is, in my mind at least, that any proposed course of action should have evidence, or at least a verifiable theory, to back it up. And, almost more importantly, results should be reviewed and fed back into the system, something that seems sorely lacking in today's political climate. A technocracy or meritocracy can have division over what is the correct course of action, just like you can have two software engineers who are both experts in their field disagree about the best way to solve a problem. It isn't about finding the one true path forward, it's about evaluating the possible paths based on reality instead of ideology.

Re:Technocrats

[causality]

You can still have Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians... but it is about using fact-based arguments over appeals to emotion.

They derive opposite conclusions from the same facts, so I don't see where that gets us.

That's his precise point. They do that because they are ideologies. For example, libertarianism is the ideology that consenting adults should be free to do whatever they want unless there is a necessary and compelling reason to forbid something. The only necessary and compelling reasons it recognizes are those things which infringe on the freedoms of other people who do not consent. For example, you are free to drink alcohol whether or not I think that's a good idea, because it is your body; but you are not free to drive drunk and put me in danger I didn't ask for.

Whereas a few extremely conservative people may feel that drinking is always wrong. They cannot be satisfied with simply not doing it themselves, because that gives no cause for controlling their neighbors, so they want alcohol to be illegal. They lost that battle a long time ago, and banning alcohol outright is no longer politically possible. So instead they implement local laws that make no sense, such as forbidding the sale of alcohol on Sundays (as though one couldn't stock up on Saturday).

Both of them are looking at the same thing: the act of consuming alcohol. All competent observers who watched you drink a beer would report the same data. It is the ideology that drives their responses to it. This is the difference between a conclusion and a response.

I also have wanted evidence-based politics for a very long time. Under such a system, we could not have a War on (some) Drugs without first demonstrating that it is a law-enforcement issue and not a medical issue. It would also have to be demonstrated that there is no such thing as responsible use and therefore all use of certain substances is always undesirable. Finally, it would also have to be proven that making drugs illegal prevents users from easily acquiring them through the black market, otherwise there is no point. Because all of those things are easily falsified, such a policy would not exist under that system.

The real frustration of modern politics is that so many people are at such an immature emotional level that they insist on continuing policies in the face of contradictory facts. It's as though they think that if you just try hard enough you can divide by zero. When you show them contradictory evidence in abundance, they get angry instead of saying "perhaps I should change my mind." For emotionally immature people, that would mean a victory for you and a loss for them, because they honestly believe they would be submitting to you personally for pointing something out and not to the truth. Thus politics is reduced to popularity because that's a form of brute force -- you have more numbers than me so it doesn't matter if you're wrong, you still get your way.

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address (emphasis mine)

Re:Technocrats

[TheCarp]

sure but thats not the only issue. There is also the question of ideology. I think everyone would like to see 'technocrats' in power. The problem is that who counts as a technocrat does come back to ideology... the ideology of what government policies should even be trying to accomplish...because that is not a valueless question, or even a purely technical one.

Lets go back to "drug policy", since its my favorite...from the original post:
"I want to reduce drug use, and sending all users to prison is the most cost-effective way to achieve that."

Its an interesting example but, it rests on that first statement "I want to do X". Well how do we determine that X is a good thing, and something that the government should be doing? What is their goal? What is it that they are intend to do?

Is it the governments job to protect us from our own bad decisions? Is it their job to enable us to live in freedom as we choose, or is it to build an orderly society that gets things done. Is it more important to build forward or to garauntee liberty? When these come into conflict, ideology will deterime which evidence is important.

Even if you were to make a technocratic argument that liberty is the most efficient way to achieve the goals of an orderly society that gets things done, it still can't answer whether that should be the goal. The goal itself has to come from ideology.

That's Democracy

[Sloppy]

Politicians say things that they think will cause us to vote for them. When they say stupid shit, the fault isn't so much in the limited realm of "politics" but rather the much wider realm of all of us. Do most people argue in terms of evidence? You're not going to make politics become evidence-based, until you can answer that last question with a confident Yes.

What an elitist

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, Mark Henderson wants Technocrats not Politicians running our system. I tend to agree.

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
  Isaac Asimov

Re:What an elitist

[cpu6502]

Strange that Asimov spent a lot of time writing about corrupt societies (Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Galactic Empire).

The problem is that a lot of these "technocrats" or regulators as we call them in the U.S. are horribly, horribly corrupt. They use their knowledge not for the benefit of the common man, but for their own personal benefit (and landing future jobs with RIAA or Bank of America). The regulators are in bed with the industries they are supposed to be regulating. And the industries are buying-off the regulators to get favors or exemptions (like MF Global not being prosecuted for stealing funds from customer accounts).

I would sooner put the power in the hands of the People who, in their everyday market decisions, will decide which products succeed and fail. It's the closest thing we have to democracy with people "voting" directly with their dollars.

Of course we need agencies like OSHA to protect the workers, and the EPA to stop dumping of chemicals in waterways, and FTC to keep investment banks (gambling houses) separate from savings banks..... but we should try to keep these things as minimal as possible. When they start arresting people for choosing to drink natural milk, then they've gone too far and need to be downsized.

Re:What an elitist

[Beardo the Bearded]

Uh, excuse me, I have a problem with the "Beardo Gets Kicked in the Nuts and Everyone Else Gets $500 Act."

passes 137,000,000 to 1... you guys are jerks.

Re:What an elitist

[causality]

Of course we need agencies like OSHA to protect the workers, and the EPA to stop dumping of chemicals in waterways, and FTC to keep investment banks (gambling houses) separate from savings banks..... but we should try to keep these things as minimal as possible. When they start arresting people for choosing to drink natural milk, then they've gone too far and need to be downsized.

A technocrat in the real sense wouldn't ever do that, because there is no evidence that drinking natural milk is a law-enforcement problem. The only thing a real technocrat would be concerned about is that milk of any kind is labelled accurately so that customers know what they're buying. There'd be nothing for them to do unless misrepresentation/fraud were taking place.

Re:What an elitist

[mrsquid0]

>>>Except that they feed that natural milk to their kids, and it has a tendency to do severe and permanent damage.

> Bullshit. People have been drinking natural milk for 10s of thousands of years without harm.

Rubbish. Lactose tolerance in humans is a very recent development. The mutation is only about 5000 years old, and far more recent in some populations. It is also not true that drinking raw milk did not harm people. For example, raw milk was one of the primary vectors for tuberculosis. Illness from milk was one of the leading causes of bacterial infection in pre-industrial farmers and herders. There is a reason that the world adopted Pasteurization as quickly as it did: it saved a lot of lives.

Federalism

[mdarksbane]

Theoretically, this is one of the arguments in favor of Federalism. Local communities can beta-test new ideas before they go into general deployment.

Doesn't always quite work that way, but that's the idea.

Re:Dawkins Said It...

[slapyslapslap]

Yeah, you tell 'em Anonymous Coward.

Lobbyists and Fascists Too

[betterunixthanunix]

Even without religious influences we are going to be stuck with some stupid laws. Drugs are not illegal because some politician thinks they are immoral; drugs are illegal because some fascist racists discovered a convenient way to increase the power of the police, pump up the profits of certain corporations, and attack minority communities while pretending to be working for the benefit of the people. For every idiotic law that you can attribute to religion, there is a dangerous law that can be attributed to lobbyists.

my take

[Tom]

I've been working fulltime in an elected, political position for about six years, so I kind of know what I'm talking about here:

If you get the chance, do it. This is a real win-win for everyone when it happens. It will help you do things with real meaning and bring about some important changes. I'm modest when I say that my approach to the office revolutionized it and most of the methods I developed are still in use today, four years after I left. That is the "evidence-based" approach TFA talks about, but more. Geeks in general have a less ideological approach to methods and procedures: We tend to have it easier dropping stuff that doesn't work instead of clinging to it "because we've always done it this way". That does get you into political fights sometimes, when you unceremoniously dump the pet method of someone, but it works and that's where you get the credit and trust you need to push more changes through.

And it also benefits you tremendeously. My social skills advanced greatly in this time. Instead of sitting at a computer most day with occasional meetings, my job suddenly was mostly about meeting people.

Negotiations are the greatest thing, ever. A geek with some negotiation training is most opponents worst nightmare. Most of us don't care enough about our own image to be tricked with the various ad hominem dialectics, and we have a great ability to cut through the bullshit and hit the facts of the matter. And since numbers and math are our friends, we aren't easily fooled by bullshit statistics.

And finally, you will almost certainly find that law is not the evil enemy, but just a different type of code. After a few years on the job, I was regularily discussing with full-time lawyers at eye level. A basic understanding of the law - not of any particular law, but the way the law in general works - is a benefit that will pay you back for the rest of your life.

So yes, yes, yes - if you geeks find an opportunity to enter politics, by all means do it. It doesn't have to be a for-life choice. I would've certainly been re-elected for a third term, but decided not to run again because I'd had enough. It isn't always easy, and sometimes all the politics and the people with their pet agendas and all the personal crap gets on your nerves, a lot. I wouldn't want to do it for live, but it was more than worth it doing it for a few years, and I know that both myself and the office profited from it.

Did I say you should go and do it?

Speaking of the war on drugs...

[doston]

Years ago -- maybe thirty five years ago -- around the time Nixon's first War on Drugs was called, there was a big study by the army and the RAND corporation (the main, outside advisory research bureau) analyzing the effects on drug use of various approaches to it. They studied four. The one that came out the most cost effective was prevention and treatment by a large margin. Next, much more expensive and less effective, was police work. Still less effective and more costly was border interdiction. And least effective and most costly was out-of-country operations like chemical warfare in Columbia. Well, the methods that are used are the exact opposite. Most of the funding goes into cross-border operations (least effective, most costly,) next, interdiction and police action, and least to prevention and treatment. Rational people don't keep pursuing a policy that's failing when they know there's a better policy unless there's some other reason, and I think the other reason is not terribly hidden.

Out-of-country operations are just a cover for counter-insurgency, or for clearing land in Columbia and driving out peasants so multi-national corporations can come in for mining, and resource-extraction, and agribusiness, and macra production, and so on. Which is why you have (outside of Afghanistan) probably the largest refugee population in the world in Columbia. The War on Drugs is not effecting drug production. In fact, it's going up.. But it's going to continue because that wasn't the purpose.

Here in the United States, the drug war has been associated, clearly, with a very sharp rise in incarceration. If you go back to 1980, the prison population in the United States, per capita, was approximately like other industrial countries -- kind of toward the high end, but not off the chart. Now, it's five to ten times as high and still going up. And most of it is drug related (also, length of sentences, and repeated sentences, and so on.)

And it mostly targets what are called the "dangerous classes," the poor, minorities, and so on. So like, black males, is astronomical. On the other hand, drug use among wealthy people is barely prosecuted. So it's a class-based form of control of superfluous population, and for that purpose, it seems to be working.

It's also making a lot of money for commercial enterprises. What some criminologists call the prison-industrial complex has been a pretty substantial development, especially for rural counties, it's a Godsend. When they build prisons, it brings in construction work, jobs, and surveillance. A couple of years ago, maybe still, the fastest growing white-collar profession was security officer, and it gets rid of people you don't want anything to do with. They don't have a place in the current industrial system. And there's also racial elements involved. So you can say the drug war is a success for what its real purpose is, but not for its proclaimed purposes. -Noam Chomsky

duh, politics has always been political

[alen]

the US Constitution was a result of months of bitter argument and bickering. same with politics in almost every democracy on earth. except that you will normally have a party win 40% or so of the vote and they will have to make a coalition with lots of smaller parties and make political deals as a process

this is called life. the US has 300 million people. say almost 200 million adults who can vote. almost everyone will have different opinions on every subject based on their home location, upbringing, etc.

to pass laws that affect different people you have to make political deals

this childish star trek fantasy of an all wise council making the right decision is just a fantasy. there is no right decision for most people

For y(x) = -1/x, What is Your Policy at Zero?

[eldavojohn]

In short, Mark Henderson wants Technocrats not Politicians running our system. I tend to agree.

I haven't read this book and I think the article discussing it doesn't accomplish much aside from briefly agreeing with the author on everything. I think this whole argument is sort of a nonstarter. Oftentimes I try to look at "soft" issues as an ethical engineer and I come to the conclusion that you can approach a lot of hotly debated issues from two sides. And, like the limit as x approaches zero in y(x) = -1/x, you can sort of logically come to two extremely different conclusions. As an oversimplified example, take anti-trust laws. From the left we start with something really innocuous like it's the government's job to protect an individual's basic rights which means that if they wish to enter a market then other individuals shouldn't be able to collude to keep them out of that market by price fixing which means that we should have government regulations against it ... and we're at positive infinity. But if you approach from the right you start with something really innocuous as well like governments should enable individuals to follow their dreams and if their dreams are price fixing so be it because the free market will decide whose product is better and the consumer will be smart enough to buy the new product if it is indeed made better and the price fixing will result in a loss to the colluding parties and so therefore we need to make the free market freer and truly free to alleviate all these issues ... and we're at negative infinity. Both sides are clamoring for one extreme and the engineer is just sitting there saying "Technically it's undefined."

Basically, two strong narratives will ruin an ethical engineer's best intents.

Another topic that I'm not sure how it is addressed is that you only get one experiment. There is no control group for your political policies. On top of that a negative stigma has been attached to people being used as lab rats so don't even try to divide your populace into statistical experiments -- they have to do that themselves. If an engineer does not have absolute control over an environment, he or she usually considers the experiment flawed and the resulting data potentially worthless. This is one of the defining hallmarks of our political process -- no one person controls all of the variables.

I'm left wondering why any ethical engineer would desire to be a technocrat.

I am 100% behind pushing science in the public forum and seeking more data and more models. I will argue, however, that the first decision an engineer makes in office will likely be as emotionally, personally and financially motivated as it would had Governor Evil been there instead.

Ummm, no...

[MikeRT]

You know who has societies where "geeks" (engineers, mainly) are highly placed throughout government? China, Iran and many other closed societies run by authoritarian states. Geek arrogance toward the common man combined with political power is an extremely dangerous combination. Thanks, but no.

"Scientific government" sounds great until you realize that in practice it'll be run by people who think statecraft and philosophy are nearly worthless endeavors and that it'll likely have an attitude of "hey, let's try this radical restructure of people's lives because the theory sounds great and looks applicable on paper."

Re:Religion First

[SirGarlon]

you'll need to remove all influence from the religious types first

While I agree that we'd be better off without "religous types" such as Pat Robertson and Rick Santorum, I'd like to remind you that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi were also "religious types."

Geeks are as bad as anyone else

[wcrowe]

"That's not at moral call, it's a factual statement; as such it should be evidence-based, or else the person making it should shut the hell up."

Right there is the problem. Geeks are often, by nature, chock full of hubris. Assuming that you have all the evidence, and that all your evidence is correct, and that you have interpreted the correct conclusion from your evidence, and therefore anyone who questions your evidence should just "shut the hell up", is not conducive to compromise or cooperation. It is precisely THAT attitude that got the U.S. into Iraq, to cite a recent example ("We KNOW there are WMD's, and we KNOW Saddam is going to use them, so we're going to invade Iraq and the rest of you can just shut the hell up.").

This is a constant problem at my office, where the .Net developers are so bloated with hubris that they think their applications are perfect, and always want to blame the DB2 database first when something goes wrong. And they continue to do this, even though evidence indicates that 99% of the time they have a bug in their application.

"Evidence" is not always objective, or correct, and geeks are just as prone to ignore facts as anyone else.

 

Gotta kill Bulverism first

[Oloryn]

Good luck getting an evidence-based culture developed in the face of the entrenched Bulverism of modern political discourse. Even more generally, we don't argue over the issues at hand, we argue over why the other side shouldn't be listened to (and Bulverism is just one tool in that arsenal). Not even the geeks or the scientists are immune. If you really want to move to an evidence-based culture, you're going to first have to pull people's focus off of defeating the opposition, and onto actually investigating the truth or falsity of particular issues. As C. S. Lewis put it "Until Bulverism is crushed, reason can play no effective part in human affairs". There's your assignment. Get to it.

Re:There is only one moral call

[grep_rocks]

I wish everyone who says there is no right to healthcare also embrace the repeal of legislation which requires ERs to take care of sick people who walk in - traffic accident, no insurance you are left to die on the side of the road - they should embrace the implications of their stance, just come out and say what kind of country you want to live in, likewise if you don't like taxes, fine don't pay them, but then no government services, rent your own security company, fire protection and drive on toll roads, educate your kids in a private school and eat food from unregulated providers - just do it already

Re:There is only one moral call

[Dr_Barnowl]

*sigh*

Yes, in a perfect world with a healthcare system paid out of taxes, people wouldn't do anything adverse to their health. One current hypothesis is that lowering your calorie intake to 20% below what is considered a "normal" intake is actually the best way to prolong your life ; I can't see that happening on a mass scale either.

I think the main point here is that everyone needs healthcare of some kind, statistically speaking, throughout their life. Some people need more than others, often through no fault of their own. Their right to life is often dependent on them getting this healthcare. But their right to life does not automatically give them the income to pay for it. With the economy the way it is, many people are struggling to eat, let alone pay for healthcare.

What you are essentially saying is "I don't give a shit if you die, I want my [pool | car | foreign holiday]."

On top of this, the way that healthcare is paid for in the USA currently makes it the most expensive in the world. Of the G8 nations, you pay nearly twice the cost per head of the next nation, for pretty similar outcomes. This extra cost is pretty obviously because of the nature of your health insurance industry. It seems insane to leave your health in the hands of a corporation who profit the most from denying you as much healthcare as possible. The extra bureaucracy the insurance industry engages in for their campaign to deny their customers treatment undoubtedly increases costs.

A libertarian will usually step in at this point and say "Well then, do away with the insurance companies, let me pay my doctor out of my own pocket, and the prices will drop!". This, alas, does not work well for everyone, as pointed out, because not everyone can afford healthcare, even healthcare that is now cheaper because of market forces. Healthcare is both labour intensive and employs many expensive, low-volume technologies, and neither of these costs can be depressed by mass production.

If you want a cheaper healthcare system, you only have to look to countries with socialised healthcare. Here in the UK, we have very similar outcomes to the USA (they have slightly better cancer treatment, largely because they have a larger population, and this means that drug trials for rare cancers are more viable, we have better cardiac outcomes). But we pay less than half per head what you do, because our healthcare system is run by the government, and the focus is not on making a profit, but providing the best outcomes. When we cut costs, we aren't trying to prop up the bottom line. We cut reluctantly, because we know that cut is hurting our patients, instead of rubbing our hands expecting a juicy bonus.

Well, I can see your point of view. Everyone has a selfish streak. No-one likes to be told what to do. But I would be interested to see how long your resolve to be a self-reliant individual lasts should you contract a medical condition or suffer an accident that outstrips your ability to pay for the care it requires.

Re:Religion First

[causality]

you'll need to remove all influence from the religious types first

While I agree that we'd be better off without "religous types" such as Pat Robertson and Rick Santorum, I'd like to remind you that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi were also "religious types."

They understood the difference between having your personal faith and respecting that others have the right to do (or not do) the same, versus implementing a theocracy.

Gandhi had no problem with the teachings of Christ even though he was thoroughly Hindu. His only complaint about Christianity was that the Christians who practice it are not enough like the Christ they claim to follow.

I personally admire the teachings of Christ. I believe he was better and more advanced than myself, and therefore I should listen to him (as I do with anyone meeting that criteria). I believe that practicing his teachings makes me a better, more loving, more forgiving person. But I cannot stand the way it's paraded around like it's a political issue.

One's faith should be a personal thing. I am spiritual, but spirituality is not something I can give to another person. If they want it, they have to find it themselves in their own terms. If they don't want it, I respect that even though I don't personally agree. In either case, telling someone else how they should live goes against everything I believe in. Selling one's faith in exchange for votes makes that person a sort of whore and calls into question the sincerity of their faith.

Not only do I not care what religion a candidate practices, I don't even want to know. Candidates should be judged on whether they promote freedom and prosperity, not whether they're in the same denominational club as oneself.

Re:Religion First

[Dr_Barnowl]

Removing the religion doesn't suddenly render you an immoral beast. I think the biggest problem with religion is that it provides an arbitrary justification for any stupid law you like, with a vast sourcebook of quotes that you can bend to support it. Without this, you have to justify your laws solely on their merits.

  "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty obvious - everyone has an interest in this one being enforced. If you permit arbitrary killing, you might be next.

Despite "Thou shalt not kill" being quite early in the Bible, the rest of the Old Testament is packed with killing, genocide, etc, all approved of by Jehovah ; it translates more closely to "Thou shalt not murder". Wars of conquest, apparently, don't count as murder when God Says So. Without the religion, it becomes a whole lot more impartial - you don't have any particular groups of people who you can dismiss as being unimportant by dint of their religious beliefs or geographic location. So, remove the God, and now you have fewer justifications for killing, and you only have evidence and logic to fall back on - which really only leaves you with self-defence as a viable justification. If people only killed people in self defence, no-one would kill anyone, because there wouldn't be any people killing anyone except in self defence...

"Thou shalt not steal" is also pretty damn obvious. If you ask a 5 year old "How would you like it if I took your sweeties?", they'll say that's not fair. So if a 5 year old can grasp it, I'm sure it's not really a very challenging leap to ask atheists to support this remaining on the law books.

I think the kind of depressingly stupid laws being referred to are things like :

Tax exemption for religion : even Jesus said "Pay unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" ; ie, pay your damn taxes. Religion is all about the next world, right? So you can chip in your fair share to maintain the mundane and worldly matters we have in this one.

Laws that require Women to be subjugated and marginalized.

Laws that target homosexuals for different treatment, despite the evidence being very clear that homosexuality is a natural variation in not just humans but many other species, and thus presumably part of God's design (if you believe in that sort of thing).