How Reasonable Are You? Critical Thinking Test for Social Issues

When people debate about social issues, many of them do not use good reasoning or argue based on facts. They may not even listen to the other side carefully. The following ten questions are to test your ability to reason and analyze based on what is given (not to test specific knowledge). They are not based on any country so you can imagine it is a country that we do not know. And they do not mention any specific kind of people, in order to allow you to not be influenced by real issues and think objectively. Answers are given in the middle and the end.

1. Race A is more prevalent in colleges than Race B. Why is this the case?

A. Colleges are very possibly racist.

B. People of race B do not try hard enough to earn better academic and other kinds of achievement. If they try harder, they will be able to get in, just like people of race A.

C. Without further information, there can be no inference.

2. Person X: "I do not think same-sex marriage is a good idea." What do we know about Person X?

A. Person X is religious.

B. Person X hates people who are gay/lesbian.

C. Both A and B.

D. Without further information, there can be no inference.

3. The following statement is made by Politician A: 

"I support the tax reform. And of course Politician B refuses to support the tax reform that would improve the life of the less privileged. He is Race X. "

What do we know from this?

A. The argument is prejudice against a race and is not sound. 

B. Politician A is probably right. We just need to confirm whether Politician B is of race X and whether people of race X tend to be the privileged ones.

C. Without further information, there can be no inference.

4. Person A is of Gender A and Person B is of Gender B. They have the same position at the same company, but Person A gets a higher monthly wage. We can say that...

A. Person B faces discrimination based on gender.

B. Person B does not face any discrimination.

C. Without further information, there can be no inference.

5. Most people of Religion A pray to the moon every night. Person C is of Religion A. Does Person C pray to the moon every night?

A. Yes.

B. No.

C. Probably. We do not know.

______________________

Answers (1-5): 

1. C. 

A or B could be possible but there is no evidence that supports neither of them. A possible reason why there more students of Race A than Race B can that the general population of Race A is higher than Race B, so the ratio of the races simply represents the general population.

2. D.

Although it is possible that Person X hates gays/lesbians, it is also possible that Person X simply thinks marriage should belong to heterosexual couples. Person may also support same-sex civil union but not marriage. And we do not know if Person X is against it based on religion neither.

3. A.

Race, which refers to skin color and facial features, does not determine someone's political beliefs or values. It is not possible to test someone's real motive behind a position.

4. C. 

It is possible that Person A produces/sells more than Person B so naturally the company pays Person A a higher wage.

5. C
If we knew that ALL people of Religion A pray to the moon every night, then Person C must do too. But we only know that MOST of them do.

______________________

6. According to a reliable source, 5% of the population owns more than 70% of the wealth of the whole country. Does this mean the system (i.e. the law, the legal system and/or the political system) is unjust?

A. Yes.

B. No.

C. Probably. We do not know.

7. According to a reliable study, teenagers aged between 11 and 15 who are raised by parents that are categorized to be Type A by the society, report to have less self-esteem and fewer friends, compared to other teenagers. What do we know from this result?

A. Type A people are inherently not suitable to be parents, for some reason.

B. Type A people are not good at parenting.

C. This is simply a coincident.

D. None of the above.

8. Person C: "Person D has done Action X against me."

Person D: "I swear I have not."

Has Person D done Action X against Person C?

A. Yes.

B. No.

C. Without further information, there can be no inference.

9. At the office of a governmental department that handles and distributes social safety net benefits, Person D is told by an official that "you are a person of Race A so we cannot give you the financial aid." What do we know from this?

A. Person D faces discrimination based on race and it is illegal.

B. Person D faces discrimination based on race if it is illegal.

C. Person D does not discrimination based on race if it is legal.

D. None of the above.

10. In the past month, on one of the biggest news channels, FAC, we have seen already 5 cases of homicide committed by immigrants (a mix of legal and illegal immigrants) this month already. In contrast, on FAC, we have only seen 1 case of homicide committed by a native-born citizen. The proportion of all immigrants is only 10% of the whole population, and the other 90% are native-born citizens. We can say that...

A. Immigrants commit more homicide than native-born citizens; therefore, we know that they tend to be more violent and brutal.

B. We do not know if immigrants tend to be more violent/brutal or not. We should get more information from other news channels, and/or get the official statistics from the government.

C. Immigrants are definitely not more violent or brutal than the native-born. Immigrants contribute to the diversity of a country.

______________________

Answers (6-10): 

6. C.

It is possible that the 5% are much more innovative, skilled, entrepreneurial, better at investing or handling finances. Or perhaps the system favors them. We do not know.

7. D

We do not know whether A or B is true. They can be true, or false. One possibility is that people of Type A (e.g. people from a specific town/village, an industry, etc.) tend to face discrimination in the society so teenagers from those household tend to face discrimination too, and thus they have less self-esteem and fewer friends.

8. C.

There is no evidence to prove who is telling the truth.

9. D.

No matter what the law says, we can determine whether someone is discriminated based on race. 

10. B.

We do not know the total number of homicides committed by native-born citizens and immigrants. The news cannot tell us that and their reporting can possibly be partial. If for whatever reason (e.g. culture/education), immigrants really tend to commit more homicide, then we can probably conclude that the immigrants, in general, tend to be more violent and brutal.

______________________

The takeaway is: sometimes we jump to conclusion very easily when we do not have enough information to tell us what is happening or what causes what.

Even if you have gotten a high score, you should ask yourself if you really think like that when real life context is applied.

*If you do not agree with the answers, feel free to talk to me.

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How Much Happiness Has Economic Growth Brought to Japan? None.

Although Japan suffered a lot from World War II, it recovered quickly and experienced the post-war economic miracle. Now, it is the third largest economy in the world (used to be the second). Income inequality is very low (ranked 78th). Infrastructure is great. It has a functioning democratic government. People's rights are generally protected. Then we should expect that Japanese people are happy, right? Not really.

                  (Japan's GDP until 2017, World Bank)

We see that many countries, including Japan, while having significant economic growth, did not experience an increase in subjective well-being. The first scholar who studied this was Richard Easterlin, an economist. He found that an increase in income level over time does not lead to higher subjective well-being, especially in richer countries. This is commonly known as the Easterlin Paradox. Japan is probably the best example because of the huge mismatch of the rapid economic growth and subjective well-being. The average of reported life satisfaction had barely changed from 1958 to 1990, even when real GDP per capita had increased roughly by a factor of 6 (Frey, 2008, p. 39). This should not be too surprising, though. We all should have known that national income or personal income does not dictate our happiness. There are many factors that determine our happiness. And there are many things that we can produce that are not good for us.

                             (Frey, 2008, p.39)

The World Happiness Report, an annual publication by the U.N., studies and ranks the happiness level of all countries in the world. There are six areas it takes into account: price adjusted GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy at birth, social support, freedom to make life choices, generosity, perceived corruption.* In all these areas, Japan is ranked high only in life expectancy. Overall, it is ranked 53rd, which is a huge mismatch with its economic size. 

While the crime rate is very low and there are relatively very few killings in Japan, people kill themselves. The suicide rate has been very high. About 16.6 out of every 100,000 people end their lives each year. It is the 5th highest among OECD Countries. The government says it is the 6th highest in the world (although according to WHO, it is way below that). Suicide rate is one of the useful indicators of the mental health and well-being of a country, and this shows us that many Japanese people feel miserable. Fortunately, the number has been decreasing and it is at its lowest within the past 22 years.


         

        (Red: Japan; Blue: Korea; Purple: US)

There are many reasons that contribute to the unhappiness of the Japanese people. One is career. Long working hours and stressful environment are common in Japan. "Overwork death" (Karoshi) is a phenomenon in Japan which people die from heart attack, stroke, suicide, etc. due to stress, fatigue and so on caused by extremely long hours of work. Sadly, it is not rare at all to see it on the news. There is also what is called "power harassment", which is a term that refers to the situation in which a person is harassed or bullied by someone who has a higher status (usually at the workplace). It is not hard to imagine why people may suffer from the abuse of power when the culture tells you that those who have a higher position than you or are older than you have a higher status, and you should respect them. A lot of times, people try to obey their supervisor/boss and avoid speaking up or talking back.

                                   (Tokyo Review)

Another reason is probably the lack of social connections. Many people do not see their friends or family enough, and this is partly from what is discussed above, long working hours. I barely get to see my friends in Tokyo because they are always busy with work and, if not work, studying for some kind of qualification exam. We see that hikkikomori (social withdrawal) is not rare in Japan. It is estimated that 540,000 people aged between 15 and 39 in Japan have not left home and interacted with anyone for six months. About 1.2% of the whole population have been in that condition.

For most of us, whether it is in our consciousness or the back of our mind, happiness is what we ultimately yearn for. However, as individuals and as a society, we do not seem to be doing much to keep us on the right track, right?　

Reference:
Frey, B.S. (2008). Happiness: A Revolution in Economics. The MIT Press. p.39

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How You Can Benefit from Marriage, from the Perspective of Economics

Economists do not think about money, production or inflation all the time. They may also think about marriage. In economics, we always talk about specialization and economies of scale, and they are encompassed in marriage. Here is an example:

Specialization is about people specializing in things that they are good at, or at the very least, focusing on their own tasks. The benefit of specialization is that it lowers opportunity costs. One of the possible ways of two people specializing after getting married is the one who earns more works more. 

In this example, originally, A earns $10 more than B per hour, and the total weekly wage of two people is $1200. They each work 40 hours a week and spend 5 hours on "chores and errands". If they get married, live together and choose to specialize based on wage, then A can skip chores and errands, and work 5 more hours (assuming A's working hours are flexible), and B can work 5 fewer hours and do the chores and errands for the household. 

Because of economies of scale, even in the absence of comparative advantage (i.e. B being better at doing chores and errands), there would be an addition of less than 5 hours when B does A's chores and errands. For example, we can imagine when A and B live separately and want to bake salmon, it would take 15 minutes separately and 30 minutes in total. But if they get married, start living together and B bakes salmon for both of them, it would only take 15 minutes in total, because the time for cooking salmon would not change, as long as the oven is not too small. In other words, the average cost of time for each salmon decreases to 7.5 minutes. If A is better at doing chores and errands than B, then we can see the time would even fall to less than 8 hours.

The total amount of time spent on both things and hourly wage do not change, but because of the wage difference and economies of scale, they can rearrange the use of their time and generate more income ($50 a week), and B can spare some extra leisure time (2 hr) for Netflix.

Economies of scale does not just stop right there. The average cost of living per person decreases as two people share a house, appliances, kitchenware and other things. You do not need a TV or an oven per person, right? If you live by yourself, you are paying for these things for yourself. If you get married and live with that person, you benefit from sharing resources that do not depreciate easily and are not rival (i.e. things of which the value or quantity decreases as one consumes it). Also you shop for grocery and daily necessities at a larger quantity which may give a better price.

Of course, the benefits from marriage are far more than just monetary and material resource-wise. Ideally, if you are in a good relationship with the right one, then you should be happier than when you were single. It is from the mental support, a sense of connection, sex, etc. Studies suggest that in general, married people tend to be happier than the unmarried, and it is more than correlation; it is causation. (There are some complications in it, though.)

In fact, you can argue that most of these things can be achieved by just living with your partner or even just friends, and it can be somewhat true. Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher, saw friendship as a main source of happiness and suggest that we should live in a community with our friends, not just see each other every once a while.

Wouldn't it be romantic if someone proposes to you and says, "let's increase our economies of scale and specialize?" Is it just me?

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