shortened_training.jsonl

{"prompt": "Date: June 25, 2018 5:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: A Civility Pause\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 25, 2018 5:00 pm \nTitle: A Civility Pause\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " When couples fight, they are so physiologically stressed \u2014 increased heart rate, cortisol in the bloodstream, perspiring, etc. \u2014 that it is impossible for them to have a rational discussion. With one couple, we intentionally stopped their argument about a recurring issue by saying we needed to adjust some of our equipment. We asked them to read magazines for 30 minutes before resuming the conversation. When they did so, their bodies had physiologically calmed down, which allowed them to communicate rationally and respectfully. We now teach that method to couples \u2014 if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed during a fight, take a break and come back to it later, even if that means sleeping on it. (more)Imagine you are hosting a family holiday gathering, and two guests get into a heated discussion. They raise their voices, sound emotional, and their facial expressions seem wild and out of control. They stand up, gesticulate wildly, point their fingers in each other\u2019s faces, and seem like they might start to throw things or hit each other. Unless they are arguing on an urgent matter about which big decisions must be made immediately, as a responsible host you will probably see it as your duty to try to break them up. Get them to stop for now, split apart, and restart the conversation later when they are more calm, rational, and in control. If you were a participant in this heated discussion, you might also see it as your duty to break away.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 25, 2018 5:00 pm \nTitle: A Civility Pause\nWhen couples fight, they are so physiologically stressed \u2014 increased heart rate, cortisol in the bloodstream, perspiring, etc. \u2014 that it is impossible for them to have a rational discussion. With one couple, we intentionally stopped their argument about a recurring issue by saying we needed to adjust some of our equipment. We asked them to read magazines for 30 minutes before resuming the conversation. When they did so, their bodies had physiologically calmed down, which allowed them to communicate rationally and respectfully. We now teach that method to couples \u2014 if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed during a fight, take a break and come back to it later, even if that means sleeping on it. (more)Imagine you are hosting a family holiday gathering, and two guests get into a heated discussion. They raise their voices, sound emotional, and their facial expressions seem wild and out of control. They stand up, gesticulate wildly, point their fingers in each other\u2019s faces, and seem like they might start to throw things or hit each other. Unless they are arguing on an urgent matter about which big decisions must be made immediately, as a responsible host you will probably see it as your duty to try to break them up. Get them to stop for now, split apart, and restart the conversation later when they are more calm, rational, and in control. If you were a participant in this heated discussion, you might also see it as your duty to break away.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Perhaps we should try the same with public conversations. When they degenerate from reasoned polite thoughtful engagement into heated emotional name-calling and shot-taking, then unless big decisions must be made soon, maybe at least one side should break it off, and wait to resume after emotions have cooled down. (The smaller-in-number and less-emotional side is better positioned to initiate this.) Most who joined the previous ruckus just to be part of a loud \u201cin fashion\u201d fight may not want to join a new polite calm discussion a bit later when the topic is no longer in fashion.I decided to try this strategy regarding the heated discussion that grew out of my April 26 tweet on \u201csex redistribution.\u201d I was plausibly partly complicit in causing the heat by posting right after a violent attack. So within a week I stopped posting on this topic, and I\u2019ve waited two months from that first date to broach the topic again. Maybe if those interested in reasoned debate engage now in a calm discussion, those seeking loud fights, now distracted with other loud fights, will stay so distracted. I\u2019ve heard informally that some had thoughtful analytic comments on the topic, but were put off from posting them previously by the tone of the prior debate; I\u2019m hoping some such folks will speak up now.Maybe they won\u2019t. But I think it worth a try. So my next two posts will return to that topic.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 15, 2019 12:40 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: A New Truth Mechanism\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 15, 2019 12:40 pm \nTitle: A New Truth Mechanism\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Early in 2017 I reported:This week Nature published some empirical data on a surprising-popularity consensus mechanism. The idea is to ask people to pick from several options, and also to have each person forecast the distribution of opinion among others. \u2026 Compared to prediction markets, this mechanism doesn\u2019t require that those who run the mechanism actually know the truth later. \u2026 The big problem \u2026 however, is that it requires that learning the truth be the cheapest way to coordinate opinion. \u2026. I can see variations on [this method] being used much more widely to generate standard safe answers that people can adopt with less fear of seeming strange or ignorant. But those who actually want to find true answers even when such answers are contrarian, they will need something closer to prediction markets.In a new mechanism\u00a0by Yuqing Kong,\u00a0N agents simultaneously and without communication give answers to T questions, each of which has C possible answers. The clues that agents have about each question can be arbitrarily correlated, and agents can have differing priors about that clue distribution. However, clues must be identically and independently distributed (IID) across questions.\u00a0If T \u2265 2C and N \u2265 2, then in this new mechanism telling the \u201ctruth\u201d (i.e., answer indicated by clue) is a dominant strategy, with a strictly higher payoff if anyone else also tells the truth!This is a substantial advance over the prior literature, and\u00a0I expect future mechanisms to weaken the IID across questions constraint. Alas, even so this seems to suffer for the same key problem of needing truth to be the cheapest way for respondents to coordinate answers. I expect this problem to be much harder to overcome.Of course if you add \u201ctruth speakers\u201d as some of the agents, and wait for those speakers\u2019 input before paying the other participants, you get something much closer to a prediction market.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 4, 2017 5:10 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: A Post-Em-Era Hint\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 4, 2017 5:10 pm \nTitle: A Post-Em-Era Hint\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A few months ago I noticed a pattern across the past eras of forager, farmer industry: each era has a major cycle (ice ages, empires rise & fall, business cycle) with a period of about one third of that era\u2019s doubling time. So I tentatively suggested that a em future might also have a major cycle of roughly one third of its doubling time. If that economic doubling time is about a month, the em major cycle period might be about a week.Now I report another pattern, to be treated similarly. In roughly the middle of each past era, a pair of major innovations in calculating and communicating appeared, and gradually\u00a0went from barely existing to having big social impacts.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 6, 2018 9:45 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: A Salute To Median Calm\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 6, 2018 9:45 pm \nTitle: A Salute To Median Calm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " It is a standard trope of fiction that people often get angry when they suffer life outcomes well below what they see as their justified expectations. Such sore losers are tempted to retaliate against the individuals and institutions they blame for their loss, causing increasing damage until others agree to fix the unfairness.Most outcomes, like income or fame, are distributed with mean outcomes well above median outcomes. As a result, well over half of everyone gets an outcome below what that they could have reasonably expected. So if this sore loser trope were true, there\u2019d be a whole lot of angry folks causing damage. Maybe even most people would be this angry. Hard to see how civilization could function here. This scenario is often hoped-for by those who seek dramatic revolutions to fix large scale social injustices.Actually, however, even though most people might plausibly see themselves as unfairly assigned to be losers, few become angry enough to cause much damage. Oh most people will have resentments and complaints, and this may lead on occasion to mild destruction, but most people are mostly peacefully. In the words of the old song, while they may not get what they want, they mostly get what they need.Not only do most people achieve much less than the average outcomes, they achieve far less than the average outcomes that they see in media and fiction. Furthermore, most people eventually realize that the world is often quite hypocritical about the qualities it rewards. That is, early in life people are told that certain admired types of efforts and qualities are the ones with the best chance to lead to high outcomes. But later people learn that in fact that other less cooperative or fair strategies are often rewarded more. They may thus reasonably conclude that the game was rigged, and that they failed in part because they were fooled for too long.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 6, 2018 9:45 pm \nTitle: A Salute To Median Calm\nIt is a standard trope of fiction that people often get angry when they suffer life outcomes well below what they see as their justified expectations. Such sore losers are tempted to retaliate against the individuals and institutions they blame for their loss, causing increasing damage until others agree to fix the unfairness.Most outcomes, like income or fame, are distributed with mean outcomes well above median outcomes. As a result, well over half of everyone gets an outcome below what that they could have reasonably expected. So if this sore loser trope were true, there\u2019d be a whole lot of angry folks causing damage. Maybe even most people would be this angry. Hard to see how civilization could function here. This scenario is often hoped-for by those who seek dramatic revolutions to fix large scale social injustices.Actually, however, even though most people might plausibly see themselves as unfairly assigned to be losers, few become angry enough to cause much damage. Oh most people will have resentments and complaints, and this may lead on occasion to mild destruction, but most people are mostly peacefully. In the words of the old song, while they may not get what they want, they mostly get what they need.Not only do most people achieve much less than the average outcomes, they achieve far less than the average outcomes that they see in media and fiction. Furthermore, most people eventually realize that the world is often quite hypocritical about the qualities it rewards. That is, early in life people are told that certain admired types of efforts and qualities are the ones with the best chance to lead to high outcomes. But later people learn that in fact that other less cooperative or fair strategies are often rewarded more. They may thus reasonably conclude that the game was rigged, and that they failed in part because they were fooled for too long.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Given all this, we should be somewhat surprised, and quite grateful, to live in such a calm world. Most people fall below the standard of success set by average outcomes, and far below that set by typical media-visible outcomes. And they learn that their losses are caused in part by winners taking illicit strategies and lying to them about the rewards to admired strategies. Yet contrary to the common fictional trope, this does not induce them to angrily try to burn down our shared house of civilization.So dear mostly-calm near-median person, I respectfully salute you. Without you and your stoic acceptance, civilization would not be possible. Perhaps I should salute men a bit more, as they are more prone to violent anger, and suffer higher variance and thus higher mean to median outcome ratios. And perhaps the old a bit more too, as they see more of the world\u2019s hypocrisy, and can hope much less for success via big future reversals. But mostly, I salute you all. Humans are indeed amazing creatures.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 26, 2007 8:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Academia Clumps\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 26, 2007 8:00 am \nTitle: Academia Clumps\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " From a distance it seems obvious \u2013 in the vast space of interesting topics, academics clump around a few familiar themes, neglecting vast territories between the currently fashionable clumps. This is sure how it seems to outsiders and students, at least for fields like social science or literature, fields which must cover a vast territory.\u00a0 \u00a0For example, economists have thousands of papers on auctions, and hardly any papers on romance, even though most people think romance far more interesting and important than auctions.  But up close, academics don\u2019t seem to see it that way.\u00a0 Journal referees usually reject submissions on the neglected topics as \"uninteresting,\" in favor of variations on the current fashionable topics, which referees call \"interesting.\"\u00a0 Thus outsiders disagree with insiders on what topics are \"interesting.\"\u00a0  Outsiders complain that clumping comes from insiders rewarding papers that build on their own work, no matter how obscure.\u00a0 But insiders say only they know the details which are crucial to deciding what is most interesting.\u00a0 How can we decide between these two views?Added:  Socially valuable reasons academics could clump include focusing on rare productive areas, and local scale economies of work, competition, and evaluation.\u00a0 \u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 23, 2009 7:10 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Academia Is Aging\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 23, 2009 7:10 pm \nTitle: Academia Is Aging\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Eric Drexler dissaproves of this NIH awardee aging trend:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 26, 2006 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Academic Overconfidence\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 26, 2006 6:00 am \nTitle: Academic Overconfidence\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Another important bias in academic consensus is overconfidence.\u00a0 Even in the hardest of hard science, Henrion and Fischhoff showed in 1986 (ungated for now here) that published error estimates for fundamental constants of physics were seriously overconfident.\u00a0 \u00a0Looking at 306 estimates for particle properties, 7% were outside of a 98% confidence interval (where only 2% should be).\u00a0 \u00a0In seven other cases, each with 14 to 40 estimates, the fraction outside the 98% confidence interval ranged from 7% to 57%, with a median of 14%.\u00a0 Last week\u2019s New Scientist described a dramatic example with policy implications (ungated for now here):\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 31, 2019 1:40 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Advice Wiki\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 31, 2019 1:40 pm \nTitle: Advice Wiki\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " People often give advice to others; less often, they request advice from others. And much of this advice is remarkably bad. For example, such as the advice to \u201cnever settle\u201d in pursuing your career dreams.When A takes advice from B, that is often seen as raising the status of B and lowering that of A. As a result, people often resist listening to advice, they ask for advice as a way to flatter and submit, and they give advice as a way to assert their status and goodness. For example, advisors often tell others to do what they did, as a way to affirm that they have good morals, and achieved good outcomes via good choices.These hidden motives understandably detract from the average quality of advice as a guide to action. And the larger is this quality reduction, the more potential there is for creating value via alternative advice institutions. I\u2019ve previously suggested using decision markets for advice in many contexts. In this post, I want to explore a simpler/cheaper approach: a wiki full of advice polls. (This is like something I proposed in\u00a02013.)Imagine a website where you could browse a space of decision contexts, connected to each other by the subset relation. For example under \u201cpicking a career plan after high school\u201d, there\u2019s \u201cpicking a college attendance plan\u201d and under that there\u2019s \u201cpicking a college\u201d and \u201cpicking a major\u201d. For each decision context, people can submit proposed decision advice, such as \u201cgo to the highest ranked college you can get into\u201d for \u201cpick a college\u201d. You and anyone could then vote to say which advice they endorse in which contexts, and you see the current voter distribution over advice opinion.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 31, 2019 1:40 pm \nTitle: Advice Wiki\nPeople often give advice to others; less often, they request advice from others. And much of this advice is remarkably bad. For example, such as the advice to \u201cnever settle\u201d in pursuing your career dreams.When A takes advice from B, that is often seen as raising the status of B and lowering that of A. As a result, people often resist listening to advice, they ask for advice as a way to flatter and submit, and they give advice as a way to assert their status and goodness. For example, advisors often tell others to do what they did, as a way to affirm that they have good morals, and achieved good outcomes via good choices.These hidden motives understandably detract from the average quality of advice as a guide to action. And the larger is this quality reduction, the more potential there is for creating value via alternative advice institutions. I\u2019ve previously suggested using decision markets for advice in many contexts. In this post, I want to explore a simpler/cheaper approach: a wiki full of advice polls. (This is like something I proposed in\u00a02013.)Imagine a website where you could browse a space of decision contexts, connected to each other by the subset relation. For example under \u201cpicking a career plan after high school\u201d, there\u2019s \u201cpicking a college attendance plan\u201d and under that there\u2019s \u201cpicking a college\u201d and \u201cpicking a major\u201d. For each decision context, people can submit proposed decision advice, such as \u201cgo to the highest ranked college you can get into\u201d for \u201cpick a college\u201d. You and anyone could then vote to say which advice they endorse in which contexts, and you see the current voter distribution over advice opinion.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Assume participants can be anonymous if they so choose, but can also be labelled with their credentials. Assume that they can change their votes at anytime, and that the record of each vote notes which options were available at the time. From such voting records, we might see not just the overall distribution of opinion regarding some kind of decision, but also how that distribution varies with quality indicators, such as how much success a person has achieved in related life areas. One might also see how advice varies with level of abstraction in the decision space; is specific advice different from general advice?Of course such poll results aren\u2019t plausibly as accurate as those resulting from decision markets, at least given the same level of participation. But they should also be much easier to produce, and so might attract far more participation. The worse are our usual sources of advice, the higher the chance that these polls could offer better advice. Compared to asking your friends and family, these distributions of advice less suffer from particular people pushing particular agenda, and anonymous advice may suffer less from efforts to show off. At least it might be worth a try.Added 1Aug: Note that decision context can include features of the decision maker, and that decision advice can include decision functions, which map features of the decision context to particular decisions.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 27, 2009 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Affirmative Action Isn\u2019t About Uplift\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 27, 2009 6:00 am \nTitle: Affirmative Action Isn\u2019t About Uplift\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In the spirit of politics isn\u2019t about policy, Shelby Steele:The original goal of affirmative action was to achieve two redemptions simultaneously. As society gave a preference to its former victims in employment and education, it hoped to redeem both those victims and itself. When America \u2014 the world\u2019s oldest and most unequivocal democracy \u2014 finally acknowledged in the 1960s its heartless betrayal of democracy where blacks were concerned, the loss of moral authority was profound. \u2026Affirmative action has always been more about the restoration of legitimacy to American institutions than the uplift of blacks and other minorities. For 30 years after its inception, no one even bothered to measure its effectiveness in minority progress. \u2026 Research \u2026 has completely failed to show that affirmative action ever closes the academic gap between minorities and whites. \u2026But affirmative action has been quite effective in its actual, if unacknowledged, purpose. It has restored moral authority and legitimacy to American institutions. When the Supreme Court seemed ready to nullify the idea of racial preferences in the 2003 University of Michigan affirmative action cases, more than 100 amicus briefs \u2014 more than for any other case in U.S. history \u2014 were submitted to the court by American institutions in support of group preferences. Yet there was no march on Washington by tens of thousands of blacks demanding affirmative action, not even a threat of such a move from a people who had \u201cmarched\u201d their way to freedom in the \u201960s. In 2003, the possible end of racial preferences did not panic minorities; it panicked institutional America.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 27, 2009 6:00 am \nTitle: Affirmative Action Isn\u2019t About Uplift\nIn the spirit of politics isn\u2019t about policy, Shelby Steele:The original goal of affirmative action was to achieve two redemptions simultaneously. As society gave a preference to its former victims in employment and education, it hoped to redeem both those victims and itself. When America \u2014 the world\u2019s oldest and most unequivocal democracy \u2014 finally acknowledged in the 1960s its heartless betrayal of democracy where blacks were concerned, the loss of moral authority was profound. \u2026Affirmative action has always been more about the restoration of legitimacy to American institutions than the uplift of blacks and other minorities. For 30 years after its inception, no one even bothered to measure its effectiveness in minority progress. \u2026 Research \u2026 has completely failed to show that affirmative action ever closes the academic gap between minorities and whites. \u2026But affirmative action has been quite effective in its actual, if unacknowledged, purpose. It has restored moral authority and legitimacy to American institutions. When the Supreme Court seemed ready to nullify the idea of racial preferences in the 2003 University of Michigan affirmative action cases, more than 100 amicus briefs \u2014 more than for any other case in U.S. history \u2014 were submitted to the court by American institutions in support of group preferences. Yet there was no march on Washington by tens of thousands of blacks demanding affirmative action, not even a threat of such a move from a people who had \u201cmarched\u201d their way to freedom in the \u201960s. In 2003, the possible end of racial preferences did not panic minorities; it panicked institutional America.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " So the question that followed from the Michigan cases \u2014 how long will minorities need some form of racial preferences? \u2014 is the wrong question. A better question is: How long it will take American institutions to feel legitimate without granting racial preferences? \u2026 Disparate impact and racial preferences \u2026 are \u201cwhite guilt\u201d legalisms created after the \u201960s as fast tracks to moral authority. They apologize for presumed white wrongdoing and offer recompense to minorities before any actual discrimination has been documented. \u2026Today\u2019s \u201cblack\u201d problem is underdevelopment, not discrimination. Success in modernity will demand profound cultural changes \u2014 changes in child-rearing, a restoration of marriage and family, a focus on academic rigor, a greater appreciation of entrepreneurialism and an embrace of individual development as the best road to group development.Whites are embarrassed to speak forthrightly about black underdevelopment, and blacks are too proud to openly explore it for all to see. So, by unspoken agreement, we discuss black underdevelopment in a language of discrimination and injustice. We rejoin the exhausted affirmative action debate as if it really mattered, and we do not acknowledge that this underdevelopment is primarily a black responsibility.Our policies are often not about what we say and think they are about.\u00a0 Each side in politics is better at seeing through other sides\u2019 hypocricies; don\u2019t assume that because you see many of their hypocricies and few on your side, that you don\u2019t have just as many.Added: This morning\u2019s Post says it is living in poor neighborhoods that most impoverishes middle class black kids.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t sound much like discrimination.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 11, 2010 12:15 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Africa HIV: Perverts or Bad Med?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 11, 2010 12:15 am \nTitle: Africa HIV: Perverts or Bad Med?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Why is AIDS so much more common in Africa than elsewhere?\u00a0 The standard theory is, essentially: Africans are sex perverts.\u00a0 Details have varied over the years: too much prostitution or polygamy or anal sex, too many partners, not enough condoms or circumcision, or girls starting too young.\u00a0 Most of these theories haven\u2019t found much support, or (like circumcision) are too weak to explain African excess.\u00a0 (For example, polygamy reduces risk.)The currently popular version is that Africans have too many concurrent (at the same time) long-term partners.\u00a0 There is some evidence that this happens in African more than elsewhere, and there are theoretical reasons to expect it to speed sex epidemics.\u00a0 But a December review says the case is far from closed.\u00a0 From Lancet in October:A four-city African study actually found lower rates of concurrency in places with larger HIV epidemics, and a study using nationally representative surveys in 22 countries (all but one of which was in Africa) concluded that \u2018\u2018the prevalence of concurrency does not seem correlated with HIV prevalence at the community level or at the country level, neither among women nor among men.\u2019\u2019 Additionally, Wellings and colleagues reviewed global sexual behaviour and could not \ufb01nd sufficient data to assess whether rates of concurrency differ across the world.The main reply is:[Critics] offer no credible alternative explanation \u2026 It is simply not plausible that serial monogamy by itself could generate the explosive generalised epidemics.But Karl Smith and David Friedman suggest bad med instead:Much of the transmission may be due to sloppy medical procedures, in particular the reuse of needles for injections.In fact, there is a whole journal devoted to this thesis:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 11, 2010 12:15 am \nTitle: Africa HIV: Perverts or Bad Med?\nWhy is AIDS so much more common in Africa than elsewhere?\u00a0 The standard theory is, essentially: Africans are sex perverts.\u00a0 Details have varied over the years: too much prostitution or polygamy or anal sex, too many partners, not enough condoms or circumcision, or girls starting too young.\u00a0 Most of these theories haven\u2019t found much support, or (like circumcision) are too weak to explain African excess.\u00a0 (For example, polygamy reduces risk.)The currently popular version is that Africans have too many concurrent (at the same time) long-term partners.\u00a0 There is some evidence that this happens in African more than elsewhere, and there are theoretical reasons to expect it to speed sex epidemics.\u00a0 But a December review says the case is far from closed.\u00a0 From Lancet in October:A four-city African study actually found lower rates of concurrency in places with larger HIV epidemics, and a study using nationally representative surveys in 22 countries (all but one of which was in Africa) concluded that \u2018\u2018the prevalence of concurrency does not seem correlated with HIV prevalence at the community level or at the country level, neither among women nor among men.\u2019\u2019 Additionally, Wellings and colleagues reviewed global sexual behaviour and could not \ufb01nd sufficient data to assess whether rates of concurrency differ across the world.The main reply is:[Critics] offer no credible alternative explanation \u2026 It is simply not plausible that serial monogamy by itself could generate the explosive generalised epidemics.But Karl Smith and David Friedman suggest bad med instead:Much of the transmission may be due to sloppy medical procedures, in particular the reuse of needles for injections.In fact, there is a whole journal devoted to this thesis:\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Seven years ago the International Journal of STD & AIDS (IJSA) began actively encouraging reexamination of the prevailing view that penile\u2013vaginal sex was driving African HIV epidemics, \u2026 Although the IJSA-published dissenting views have largely been ignored, dismissed or fiercely resisted by established HIV researchers and allied health agencies.A 2007 Annals of Epidemiology paper found:In regression analyses, nonuse of disable syringes is associated robustly with greater HIV prevalence in all models. \u2026 Greater HIV prevalence also is associated with higher Gini Index, less female economic activity, less urbanization, and less percentage of Muslims.World-wide, resusable needles are the second biggest binary predictor of HIV (after Sub-Saharan African location and before gender-literacy ratio):\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 5, 2022 9:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Against Day Fines\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 5, 2022 9:00 am \nTitle: Against Day Fines\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Today, more than 30 European and Latin American countries levy penalties using an income-graduated, or \u201cday fine,\u201d model. Under this system, people who break the law pay a fine equivalent to a percentage of their income, rather than a flat fee. \u2026 \u201ccan be thus seen to be more equal and effective than a system where the amount of fine is fixed.\u201d \u2026\u00a0American lawmakers have failed to take the idea of income-adjusted fines seriously. (More)Yes, making crime fines proportional to income can achieve a more progressive taxation. Even so, \u201cday fines\u201d make us worse off compared to using more direct forms of progressive taxation. To see this, consider the case of speeding and other rushed driving offenses.When people are driving, they trade the risk of an accident against saving time. For example, in their rush to get places, drivers can choose to not take as much time looking for pedestrians before making a right turn, or checking that a lane is empty before changing lanes. And they might drive faster; the rate of fatal accidents per mile seems to go as the cube of driving speed in the city, and rises even faster in rural areas.Of course if they were just at risk of hurting themselves, we might not care how they made their trade-offs. But most car accidents also involve other cars. So we want a way to encourage drivers to take the harm that their accident might inflict on other drivers into account. Speeding fines, and accident liability, help us to induce such concern. (B.t.w., with vouchers and well-set accident liability, we wouldn\u2019t need speeding fines.)\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 5, 2022 9:00 am \nTitle: Against Day Fines\nToday, more than 30 European and Latin American countries levy penalties using an income-graduated, or \u201cday fine,\u201d model. Under this system, people who break the law pay a fine equivalent to a percentage of their income, rather than a flat fee. \u2026 \u201ccan be thus seen to be more equal and effective than a system where the amount of fine is fixed.\u201d \u2026\u00a0American lawmakers have failed to take the idea of income-adjusted fines seriously. (More)Yes, making crime fines proportional to income can achieve a more progressive taxation. Even so, \u201cday fines\u201d make us worse off compared to using more direct forms of progressive taxation. To see this, consider the case of speeding and other rushed driving offenses.When people are driving, they trade the risk of an accident against saving time. For example, in their rush to get places, drivers can choose to not take as much time looking for pedestrians before making a right turn, or checking that a lane is empty before changing lanes. And they might drive faster; the rate of fatal accidents per mile seems to go as the cube of driving speed in the city, and rises even faster in rural areas.Of course if they were just at risk of hurting themselves, we might not care how they made their trade-offs. But most car accidents also involve other cars. So we want a way to encourage drivers to take the harm that their accident might inflict on other drivers into account. Speeding fines, and accident liability, help us to induce such concern. (B.t.w., with vouchers and well-set accident liability, we wouldn\u2019t need speeding fines.)\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " All else equal, drivers with twice the wages tend to put twice the dollar value on both saving an other minute of driving, and also on preventing another small chance of their own death. So if the dollar amounts of their speeding tickets and liability given an accident were also twice as large, then the dollar amounts on both sides of their tradeoff would all be twice as large. Thus in the same circumstances they would make the same choices to trade time versus the chance of an accident. So in the same car on the same road etc., they\u2019d drive the same speed, and take the same time to check before turning or changing lanes.However, having two drivers, one with twice the wage of the other, each take the same amount of time to use the same technology to prevent the same amount of harm to others is not efficient. That\u2019s wasteful, just like having a high-wage donor work the line at a soup kitchen, instead of working at their high-wage job a bit more to pay a low-wage worker to work that soup kitchen line. In the driving case, we can keep the car accident rate the same and make both drivers better off, if we have the lower wage person drive more carefully, the higher wage person drive less carefully, and have the high wage person pay the lower some cash.For example, the median US wage is now ~$16/hr, and workers tend to value commuting time at about half of their wage rate. So imagine that drivers A and B value each their driving time at $9/hr and $18/hr respectively, which is one and two pennies per four seconds. In this case both A and B can be\u00a0better off, while the total accident rate stays the same, if B gains 1.0 pennies by putting in 2 fewer seconds, A loses 0.5 pennies by putting in 2 more seconds, and B pays A 0.75 pennies.In general, we use traffic fines and accident liability to buy the time of drivers\u2019 to prevent more accidents. Day-fines proportional to income buy the same amount of time from all drivers in similar circumstances. But we can be better off if we instead buy more time from drivers with lower wages, and less time from drivers with higher wages. And roughly the right amount of time is induced from each via fines and liability that do not vary with income.You might complain that ordinary constant fines, that do not vary with income, do not include a cash transfer from high to low wage drivers. But that critique only makes sense if we currently had day-fines, and I was proposing to switch to constant fines. In fact constant fines are our status quo, which I\u2019m proposing that we keep. I don\u2019t see we should need transfers to reject an inefficient change and keep things the same.Note that a similar argument also says it is inefficient to give the same jail time sentence to high and low wage convicts. Jail is the least efficient of all known forms of punishment, and equal duration sentences just makes this worse. We should instead delegate punishment choices to\u00a0vouchers.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 3, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Against Disclaimers\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 3, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: Against Disclaimers\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Blog posts are short and have a broad audience.\u00a0 One of the worst things about writing them is having to make disclaimers.\u00a0 Not just legal disclaimers mind you \u2013 those are only the tip of an iceberg. Writing is hard in part because words have many associations that vary among readers.\u00a0 Even when we use carefully choose our words to signal certain associations, we know some readers will instead hear other associations.\u00a0 So in addition to saying what we do mean, we sometimes have to say explicitly what we do not mean.\u00a0  For example, most who say \"Can I help you with that?\" also mean to say \"I am offering to help you with that.\"\u00a0 So if you really just want to ask about your ability to help, but do not want to offer to help, you must explicitly disclaim the offer, as in \"I\u2019m not offering to help, but I was wondering, is it somehow possible for me to help?\"\u00a0 It seems reasonable to have to say more in this case, as this is the more unusual case.\u00a0  Less reasonably, in our current legal system anyone with an employer who writes anything is expected to explicitly declare that they are not speaking for their employer.\u00a0 Apparently if they do not their employer can be sued for anything they say. This is unreasonable because the vast majority of writings by people with jobs are not intended to speak officially for their employer.\u00a0 It would be far more reasonable to assume that we speak only for ourselves unless we explicitly say otherwise.\u00a0 It is similarly unreasonable for fiction authors to have to always declare all their characters are fictional. Unfortunately, the problem goes way beyond dumb legal rules.\u00a0 Consider these common presumptions:  \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 25, 2016 3:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Against DWIM Meta-Law\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 25, 2016 3:00 pm \nTitle: Against DWIM Meta-Law\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Smart capable personal assistants can be very useful. You give them vague and inconsistent instructions, and they \u201cdo what I mean\u201d (DWIM), fixing your mistakes. If you empower them to control your interactions, you need less fear mistakes messing up your interactions.But one thing a DWIM personal assistant can\u2019t help you so much with is your choice of assistants. If assistants were empowered to use DWIM on your choice to fire them, they might tend to decide you didn\u2019t really mean to fire them. So if you are to have an effective choice of assistants, and thus effective competition among potential assistants, then those same assistants can\u2019t protect you much from possible mistakes in your meta-choices regarding\u00a0assistants. They can\u00a0protect you from other choices, but not that choice.The same applies to letting people choose what city or nation to\u00a0live in. When people live in a nation then that national government can use regulation to protect them from making many mistakes. For example, it\u00a0can limit their legally available options of products, services, and contracts. But if people are to have an effective choice to change governments by changing regions, then such governments can\u2019t use regulation much to protect people from mistakes regarding region choice. After all, a government authorized to declare your plan to move away from it to be a mistake can\u00a0stop you from rejecting it.Similarly we can elect politicians who pass laws to protect us from many mistakes. But if we are to have an effective choice of politicians to represent us, then they can\u2019t protect us much from bad choices of politicians to represent us. We can\u2019t let our current elected leaders much\u00a0regulate who we can\u00a0elect to replace them, if we are to be able to actually replace them.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 25, 2016 3:00 pm \nTitle: Against DWIM Meta-Law\nSmart capable personal assistants can be very useful. You give them vague and inconsistent instructions, and they \u201cdo what I mean\u201d (DWIM), fixing your mistakes. If you empower them to control your interactions, you need less fear mistakes messing up your interactions.But one thing a DWIM personal assistant can\u2019t help you so much with is your choice of assistants. If assistants were empowered to use DWIM on your choice to fire them, they might tend to decide you didn\u2019t really mean to fire them. So if you are to have an effective choice of assistants, and thus effective competition among potential assistants, then those same assistants can\u2019t protect you much from possible mistakes in your meta-choices regarding\u00a0assistants. They can\u00a0protect you from other choices, but not that choice.The same applies to letting people choose what city or nation to\u00a0live in. When people live in a nation then that national government can use regulation to protect them from making many mistakes. For example, it\u00a0can limit their legally available options of products, services, and contracts. But if people are to have an effective choice to change governments by changing regions, then such governments can\u2019t use regulation much to protect people from mistakes regarding region choice. After all, a government authorized to declare your plan to move away from it to be a mistake can\u00a0stop you from rejecting it.Similarly we can elect politicians who pass laws to protect us from many mistakes. But if we are to have an effective choice of politicians to represent us, then they can\u2019t protect us much from bad choices of politicians to represent us. We can\u2019t let our current elected leaders much\u00a0regulate who we can\u00a0elect to replace them, if we are to be able to actually replace them.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019ve long been intrigued by the idea of private law, wherein people can stay in the same place but\u00a0contract with different legal systems, which then set the rules regarding their legal interactions with others. Such rules might in effect change the laws of tort, crime, marriage, etc. that people\u00a0live under. And so such competition between private laws might push the law to\u00a0evolve toward more efficient laws.One of the things that legal systems tend to do is to protect people from mistakes. For example, contract law won\u2019t enforce contracts it sees as mistakes, and it fills in contract holes it sees resulting from laziness. Law is often DWIM law. Which can be great when you trust your\u00a0law to choose well. But if one is to have an effective choice of private law, and real competition for that role, then one\u2019s current law shouldn\u2019t be able to overrule one\u2019s choice of a new law. Instead, one\u2019s choice of a private legal\u00a0system, like one\u2019s choice of nation, needs to\u00a0be a simple clear choice where one is not much protected from mistakes.Today we don\u2019t in fact have such private law, because our standard legal system won\u2019t enforce contracts we sign that declare our intent to use different legal systems. To achieve private law, we\u2019d need to change this key feature of our standard legal system.Your choice to change nations, either for temporary travel or for permanent moves, can be a big mistake. It might result from temporary mood fluctuations, or from misunderstandings about the old nation or the new. Nevertheless we have little regulation of such choices. Instead individuals are mostly fully exposes to their possible mistakes. For example, while Europe is heavily regulated in general, European teens today can decide to go join ISIS, even when many others greatly regret such choices. We\u00a0disapprove of nations that prevent people from leaving because that cuts\u00a0competition between nations to serve people.Similarly, if we want completion between legal systems without forcing people to move, we\u2019ll have to change our law to accept our not protecting people from bad choices of legal systems. There will have to be a simple clear act by which one chooses a law, a choice not much subject to legal review and reversal. We\u2019d want to encourage people to take such choices seriously, but then to accept the choices they make. Freedom of choice requires a\u00a0freedom to make mistakes. For big choices, those can be big mistakes.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 10, 2019 8:05 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Against Irony\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 10, 2019 8:05 am \nTitle: Against Irony\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Papua New Guinea. There are nearly 850 languages spoken in the country, making it the most linguistically diverse place on earth. \u2026 Mountains, jungles and swamps keep villagers isolated, preserving their languages. A rural population helps too: only about 13% of Papuans live in towns. \u2026. Fierce tribal divisions\u2014Papua New Guinea is often shaken by communal violence\u2014also encourages people to be proud of their own languages. The passing of time is another important factor. It takes about a thousand years for a single language to split in two, says William Foley, a linguist. With 40,000 years to evolve, Papuan languages have had plenty of time to change naturally. (more)British printer who used a mirrored question mark to distinguish rhetorical questions in 1575, and John Wilkins, a British scientist who proposed an inverted exclamation mark to indicate irony in 1668. \u2026 The problem with adopting new irony punctuation is that if the people reading you don\u2019t understand it, you\u2019re no better off. \u2026 The ironic punctuation mark that the social internet can claim as its own is the sarcasm tilde, as in, \u201cThat\u2019s so ~on brand~\u201d\u00a0\u2026 But tildes can feel a bit obvious. For a wryer mood, a drier wit, one might try a more subdued form of ironic punctuation\u2014writing in all lowercase.\u00a0\u2026Irony is a linguistic trust fall. When I write or speak with a double meaning, I\u2019m hoping that you\u2019ll be there to catch me by understanding my tone. The risks are high\u2014misdirected irony can gravely injure the conversation\u2014but the rewards are high, too: the sublime joy of feeling purely understood, the comfort of knowing someone\u2019s on your side. No wonder people through the ages kept trying so hard to write it. (more)\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 10, 2019 8:05 am \nTitle: Against Irony\nPapua New Guinea. There are nearly 850 languages spoken in the country, making it the most linguistically diverse place on earth. \u2026 Mountains, jungles and swamps keep villagers isolated, preserving their languages. A rural population helps too: only about 13% of Papuans live in towns. \u2026. Fierce tribal divisions\u2014Papua New Guinea is often shaken by communal violence\u2014also encourages people to be proud of their own languages. The passing of time is another important factor. It takes about a thousand years for a single language to split in two, says William Foley, a linguist. With 40,000 years to evolve, Papuan languages have had plenty of time to change naturally. (more)British printer who used a mirrored question mark to distinguish rhetorical questions in 1575, and John Wilkins, a British scientist who proposed an inverted exclamation mark to indicate irony in 1668. \u2026 The problem with adopting new irony punctuation is that if the people reading you don\u2019t understand it, you\u2019re no better off. \u2026 The ironic punctuation mark that the social internet can claim as its own is the sarcasm tilde, as in, \u201cThat\u2019s so ~on brand~\u201d\u00a0\u2026 But tildes can feel a bit obvious. For a wryer mood, a drier wit, one might try a more subdued form of ironic punctuation\u2014writing in all lowercase.\u00a0\u2026Irony is a linguistic trust fall. When I write or speak with a double meaning, I\u2019m hoping that you\u2019ll be there to catch me by understanding my tone. The risks are high\u2014misdirected irony can gravely injure the conversation\u2014but the rewards are high, too: the sublime joy of feeling purely understood, the comfort of knowing someone\u2019s on your side. No wonder people through the ages kept trying so hard to write it. (more)\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Just as the urge to signal loyalty to people nearby has kept New Guinea folks from understanding people over the next mountain, our similar urge pushes us to write in ways that make it hard for those outside our immediate social circles to understand us. Using irony, we sacrifice ease of wide understanding to show loyalty to a closer community.\u00a0Language is like religion, art, and many other customs in this way, helping to bond locals via barriers to wider interaction and understanding. If you think of yourself instead as a world cosmopolitan, preferring to promote world peace and integration via a global culture that avoids hostile isolationist ties to local ethnicities and cultures, then not only should you like world-wide travel, music, literature, emigration, and intermarriage, you should also dislike irony. Irony is the creation of arbitrary language barriers with the sole purpose of preventing wider cultural integration.\u00a0\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 7, 2009 11:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Against This Med Reform\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 7, 2009 11:00 pm \nTitle: Against This Med Reform\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Obama will to try to save his med reform effort by getting more involved; he won\u2019t leave it all to Congress anymore.\u00a0 Some encourage him to stand tough for a public option (i.e., a cheap widely available government run insurance plan), while others say:Obama still has a chance with his speech on Wednesday to wrest control of this monster, but he\u2019ll have to return to his original mission of lowering costs and making insurance portable and fair (no preexisting condition disqualification).But while most controversy has been on the public option, it is probably time for me to explain my opposition to that less controversial no-pre-existing-condition reform.\u00a0 My basic complaint is that I\u2019m pretty skeptical about the health value of medicine, at least at the usual spending margin, and I\u2019d like more people to become skeptics.\u00a0 But this reform would take away the huge financial reward for seeing the light and being a skeptic, because this reform would take a huge step toward nationalizing the med industry.\u00a0 Let me explain.At the moment US folks have their med plan tied to their employer, and so are only insured over the timescale of their job.\u00a0 If they have a medical condition when they switch jobs, they are no longer covered for that \u201cpre-existing\u201d condition under their new insurance.\u00a0 This is a real problem.\u00a0 The best solution is to break the employer-insurance tie and then encourage longer term insurance contracts, but that is said to be politically infeasible now.\u00a0 So instead the Dems propose to make it illegal for insurance companies to raise prices or exclude coverage based on pre-exisiting conditions.But by itself that rule would tempt people to skip med insurance, or only get very cheap insurance, and wait to buy generous insurance only when they have a serious medical problem.\u00a0 After all, the new rule on pre-existing conditions would make their insurance just as cheap even after their problem appeared.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 7, 2009 11:00 pm \nTitle: Against This Med Reform\nObama will to try to save his med reform effort by getting more involved; he won\u2019t leave it all to Congress anymore.\u00a0 Some encourage him to stand tough for a public option (i.e., a cheap widely available government run insurance plan), while others say:Obama still has a chance with his speech on Wednesday to wrest control of this monster, but he\u2019ll have to return to his original mission of lowering costs and making insurance portable and fair (no preexisting condition disqualification).But while most controversy has been on the public option, it is probably time for me to explain my opposition to that less controversial no-pre-existing-condition reform.\u00a0 My basic complaint is that I\u2019m pretty skeptical about the health value of medicine, at least at the usual spending margin, and I\u2019d like more people to become skeptics.\u00a0 But this reform would take away the huge financial reward for seeing the light and being a skeptic, because this reform would take a huge step toward nationalizing the med industry.\u00a0 Let me explain.At the moment US folks have their med plan tied to their employer, and so are only insured over the timescale of their job.\u00a0 If they have a medical condition when they switch jobs, they are no longer covered for that \u201cpre-existing\u201d condition under their new insurance.\u00a0 This is a real problem.\u00a0 The best solution is to break the employer-insurance tie and then encourage longer term insurance contracts, but that is said to be politically infeasible now.\u00a0 So instead the Dems propose to make it illegal for insurance companies to raise prices or exclude coverage based on pre-exisiting conditions.But by itself that rule would tempt people to skip med insurance, or only get very cheap insurance, and wait to buy generous insurance only when they have a serious medical problem.\u00a0 After all, the new rule on pre-existing conditions would make their insurance just as cheap even after their problem appeared.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " To avoid this behavior, the Dems also propose to require that everyone get insurance.\u00a0 But that won\u2019t really work if there are really cheap no-frills plans available \u2013 then people would just buy cheap plans while waiting for a problem to appear.\u00a0 So the Dem\u2019s fix is to specify in some detail just what all med plans have to cover, and to not allow prices to vary much.\u00a0 Yes this avoids the wait-to-insure problem, but at the cost having the government decide which are the good treatments, and then make everyone buy them; skeptics could no longer opt out of tossing their money down the med money pit.Here are some quotes from the July 14 med reform bill passed by the US House:A qualified health benefits plan may not impose any pre-existing condition exclusion \u2026 or otherwise impose any limit or condition on the coverage under the plan with respect to an individual or dependent based on any health status-related factors. \u2026An Exchange-participating health benefits plan \u2026. is required \u2026 to provide specified levels of benefits \u2026 A qualified health benefits plan may not impose any restriction (other than cost-sharing) unrelated to clinical appropriateness on the coverage of the health care items and services. \u2026The premium rate charged for an insured qualified health benefits plan may not vary except as follows: \u2026 By age (within such age categories as the Commissioner shall specify) so long as the ratio of the highest such premium to the lowest such premium does not exceed the ratio of 2 to 1. \u2026 By premium rating [geographic] area \u2026 By family enrollment (such as variations within categories and compositions of families) \u2026Minimum Services To Be Covered: ..(1) Hospitalization.(2) Outpatient hospital and outpatient clinic services, including emergency department services.(3) Professional services of physicians and other health professionals.(4) Such services, equipment, and supplies incident to the services of a physician\u2019s or a health professional\u2019s delivery of care in institutional settings, physician offices, patients\u2019 homes or place of residence, or other settings, as appropriate.(5) Prescription drugs.(6) Rehabilitative and habilitative services.(7) Mental health and substance use disorder services.(8) Preventive services. ..(9) Maternity care.(10) Well baby and well child care and oral health, vision, and hearing services, equipment, and supplies at least for children under 21 years of age. 20The Health Benefits Advisory Committee shall recommend to the Secretary of Health and Human Services \u2026 benefit standards\u2026 and periodic updates to such standards.Yes these rules appear to let plans exclude treatments that are \u201cclinically inappropriate,\u201d but since 46% of treatments are of \u201cunknown effectiveness\u201d, clearly they can\u2019t let plans exclude such treatments, or their whole strategy would collapses.\u00a0 Yes they might do more effectiveness research, but there are too many treatments to make more than a dent and the political pressures against excluding treatments would be enormous; so the reality will be that unless someone proved that a treatment doesn\u2019t work, everyone will be required to buy that treatment.\u00a0 Which would be a pretty sad situation if we med skeptics are right that on the margin med mostly doesn\u2019t work.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 27, 2010 9:30 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Against Trade War\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 27, 2010 9:30 am \nTitle: Against Trade War\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019m a huge fan of Robert Samuelson\u2019s long repeated harping on the coming Medicare train wreck \u2013 tell it brother! But I much oppose his war-mongering:No one familiar with the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 should relish the prospect of a trade war with China \u2014 but that seems to be where we\u2019re headed and probably should be where we are headed. Although the Smoot-Hawley tariff did not cause the Great Depression, it contributed to its severity by provoking widespread retaliation. Confronting China\u2019s export subsidies risks a similar tit-for-tat cycle at a time when the global economic recovery is weak. This is a risk, unfortunately, we need to take. \u2026The trouble is that China has never genuinely accepted the basic rules governing the world economy. \u2026 China\u2019s worst abuse involves its undervalued currency and its promotion of export-led economic growth. \u2026. China\u2019s underpricing of exports and overpricing of imports hurt most trading nations. \u2026 One remedy would be for China to revalue its currency, reducing the competitiveness of its exports. \u2026 [Some say] a revaluation of 20 percent would create 300,000 to 700,000 U.S. jobs over two to three years. \u2026If China won\u2019t revalue, the alternative is retaliation. This might start a trade war, because China might respond in kind. \u2026 More realistic would be a replay of Smoot-Hawley, just when the wobbly world economy doesn\u2019t need a fight between its two largest members. Economic nationalism, once unleashed here and there, might prove hard to control. But there\u2019s a big difference between then and now. Smoot-Hawley was blatantly protectionist. Dozens of tariffs increased; many countries retaliated. By contrast, American action today would aim at curbing Chinese protectionism. (more)\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 27, 2010 9:30 am \nTitle: Against Trade War\nI\u2019m a huge fan of Robert Samuelson\u2019s long repeated harping on the coming Medicare train wreck \u2013 tell it brother! But I much oppose his war-mongering:No one familiar with the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 should relish the prospect of a trade war with China \u2014 but that seems to be where we\u2019re headed and probably should be where we are headed. Although the Smoot-Hawley tariff did not cause the Great Depression, it contributed to its severity by provoking widespread retaliation. Confronting China\u2019s export subsidies risks a similar tit-for-tat cycle at a time when the global economic recovery is weak. This is a risk, unfortunately, we need to take. \u2026The trouble is that China has never genuinely accepted the basic rules governing the world economy. \u2026 China\u2019s worst abuse involves its undervalued currency and its promotion of export-led economic growth. \u2026. China\u2019s underpricing of exports and overpricing of imports hurt most trading nations. \u2026 One remedy would be for China to revalue its currency, reducing the competitiveness of its exports. \u2026 [Some say] a revaluation of 20 percent would create 300,000 to 700,000 U.S. jobs over two to three years. \u2026If China won\u2019t revalue, the alternative is retaliation. This might start a trade war, because China might respond in kind. \u2026 More realistic would be a replay of Smoot-Hawley, just when the wobbly world economy doesn\u2019t need a fight between its two largest members. Economic nationalism, once unleashed here and there, might prove hard to control. But there\u2019s a big difference between then and now. Smoot-Hawley was blatantly protectionist. Dozens of tariffs increased; many countries retaliated. By contrast, American action today would aim at curbing Chinese protectionism. (more)\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Relative currency values set relative prices.  China\u2019s current currency level now sets low prices for the stuff it sells to others, and high prices for the stuff it buys from others. You might dislike this if you compete with China to sell stuff, but you should mostly love it if you buy stuff from China, or compete with them to buy stuff. \u00a0Often you should love it if you sell stuff to China.  Low China prices do not obviously hurt the non-Chinese overall.Fear of being outcompeted in selling stuff is a terrible reason to start a war!  If someone is outcompeting you in selling stuff, well either step up your game or step aside.  That is how supply and demand should work.  We want a system where stuff is produced by the lowest cost suppliers and goes to the buyers who value it the most.  If some supplier offers to sell stuff to folks at a lower price, well then we want folks to switch to buying from that supplier.  If a supplier offers an unsustainably low price, it will soon go broke and buyers will switch away.This logic applies just as well to distant nations as it does to a\u00a0convenience\u00a0store down the street. \u00a0Don\u2019t be fooled into treating China differently because you were built to fear foreigners. \u00a0Wars are not needed or wanted as part of our supply and demand adjustment process!\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 5, 2016 8:45 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Age of Em Criticism\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 5, 2016 8:45 pm \nTitle: Age of Em Criticism\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " My book\u2019s topic seems to me so obviously important that I figure a reader\u2019s main question must be whether he can trust me to actually know something on it. As a result, potential readers should be especially interested to hear criticisms; where do reviewers think my book gets it wrong? And as the book\u00a0draws on many disciplines, readers should be especially interested in expert criticism, i.e., reviewers who find fault in an area they know well. Let us consider the reviews so far.Three reviews so far can be seen as \u201cmain stream media.\u201d At the Financial Times, journalist Sarah O\u2019Connor calls the book \u201calluring\u201d and \u201cfascinating\u201d, but notes that not everyone will accept the premise that ems are possible or \u201cthat current economic and social theories will hold in this strange new world.\u201d However, the closest she gets to direct criticism is:Some of the forecasts seem old-fashioned, like the notion that male ems will prefer females with \u201csigns of nurturing inclinations and fertility, such as youthful good looks\u201d while females will prefer males with \u201csigns of wealth and status\u201d.At the Guardian, journalist Zoe Williams uses the book to direct readers to her critical question: \u201cIn a world without work, how do we distribute resources?\u201d At Reason, journalist Ronald Bailey calls the book \u201cfascinating\u201d, and summarizes it in detail, but doesn\u2019t otherwise evaluate it, other than to note that \u201cother futurists have projected other pathways\u201d that the future might take.There are 2.5 reviews at widely read blogs. Economist Tyler Cowen likes the book, but cares less about its official topic than its indirect uses, such as a \u201cStraussian commentary on the world we actually live in\u201d and \u201cA reminder of how strange everything is.\u201d Economist Bryan Caplan has posted half of a review, on \u201cWhat\u2019s Right in Robin Hanson\u2019s The Age of Em\u201d; his\u00a0other shoe has yet to drop.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 5, 2016 8:45 pm \nTitle: Age of Em Criticism\nMy book\u2019s topic seems to me so obviously important that I figure a reader\u2019s main question must be whether he can trust me to actually know something on it. As a result, potential readers should be especially interested to hear criticisms; where do reviewers think my book gets it wrong? And as the book\u00a0draws on many disciplines, readers should be especially interested in expert criticism, i.e., reviewers who find fault in an area they know well. Let us consider the reviews so far.Three reviews so far can be seen as \u201cmain stream media.\u201d At the Financial Times, journalist Sarah O\u2019Connor calls the book \u201calluring\u201d and \u201cfascinating\u201d, but notes that not everyone will accept the premise that ems are possible or \u201cthat current economic and social theories will hold in this strange new world.\u201d However, the closest she gets to direct criticism is:Some of the forecasts seem old-fashioned, like the notion that male ems will prefer females with \u201csigns of nurturing inclinations and fertility, such as youthful good looks\u201d while females will prefer males with \u201csigns of wealth and status\u201d.At the Guardian, journalist Zoe Williams uses the book to direct readers to her critical question: \u201cIn a world without work, how do we distribute resources?\u201d At Reason, journalist Ronald Bailey calls the book \u201cfascinating\u201d, and summarizes it in detail, but doesn\u2019t otherwise evaluate it, other than to note that \u201cother futurists have projected other pathways\u201d that the future might take.There are 2.5 reviews at widely read blogs. Economist Tyler Cowen likes the book, but cares less about its official topic than its indirect uses, such as a \u201cStraussian commentary on the world we actually live in\u201d and \u201cA reminder of how strange everything is.\u201d Economist Bryan Caplan has posted half of a review, on \u201cWhat\u2019s Right in Robin Hanson\u2019s The Age of Em\u201d; his\u00a0other shoe has yet to drop.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Psychiatrist Scott Alexander really likes and highly recommends the book, though he worries that it is not weird enough, and he thinks I overstate my case on prior futurist accuracy. Alexander assigns low moral value to the scenario I describe, even though he sees it as full of happy complex creatures. He fears it will get even worse, leading to ems who are only ever focused on their particular work task, with no mind-wandering, breaks from work, or socializing.There are also five reviews at other blogs. (There are also three reviews at Goodreads, and one more at Amazon, which\u00a0don\u2019t mention author\u00a0expertise or offer\u00a0field-specific\u00a0criticisms.)Futurist and computational neuroscientist Anders Sandberg calls the book a \u201cvery rich synthesis of many ideas with a high density of fascinating arguments,\u201d but warns \u201cmost readers will disagree with large parts of it\u201d and \u201cmany elements presented as uncontroversial will be highly controversial.\u201d He himself only complains that I put in \u201ctoo little effort bolstering the plausibility\u201d of the basic idea of an emulation, a topic to which he has devoted in much effort.Education reformer Neerav Kingsland calls the book \u201cworth reading\u201d though he would have rather I had written more fiction. He questions our ability to foresee the results of changes this big, and he questions my prediction of low wages: \u201cPerhaps it would become taboo to replicate yourself, akin to teenage pregnancy?\u201dPrivate investor Peter McCluskey calls the book \u201cquite valuable\u201d though he notes my key assumptions could end up being wrong. He wishes I would have estimated wages relative to suspense more precisely, though he felt I was borderline overconfident overall, and thought I devoted too much attention to topics like swearing, relative to topics like democracy.Economist Peter St Onge says \u201cThe pacing is fast, chock-full of interesting ideas to play with .. Hanson has done a fantastic job.\u201d But he sees me as \u201ctoo pessimistic\u201d because the cost to run an em is very low compared to the cost to maintain a human today, and he just can\u2019t see marginal product of human-like labor falling that low, no matter how many workers there are.Physicist Richard Jones, in contrast, to the above nine reviewers, criticizes just about everything but my physics. He has\u00a0long criticized Eric Drexler\u2019s efforts to apply principles of mechanical engineering to tiny chemical systems. On Age of Em, he says:Mind uploading .. will not be possible any time soon .. The brain .. is not the product of design, it is the product of evolution, and for this reason we can\u2019t expect there to be such a digital abstraction layer. .. It would need to incorporate a molecularly accurate model of brain development and plasticity. .. His argument is that our understanding of human nature and the operations of human societies .. is now sufficiently robust that .. meaningful predictions can be made about the character of the resulting post-human societies. I don\u2019t find this enormously convincing. .. Hanson often is simply unable to make firm predictions; this is commendably even-handed, but somewhat undermines his broader argument. .. How do we know what forager values actually were? Very few forager societies survived in any form into historical times, .. and what we know about their values is mediated by the biases of the anthropologists and ethnographers that recorded them.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Psychiatrist Scott Alexander really likes and highly recommends the book, though he worries that it is not weird enough, and he thinks I overstate my case on prior futurist accuracy. Alexander assigns low moral value to the scenario I describe, even though he sees it as full of happy complex creatures. He fears it will get even worse, leading to ems who are only ever focused on their particular work task, with no mind-wandering, breaks from work, or socializing.There are also five reviews at other blogs. (There are also three reviews at Goodreads, and one more at Amazon, which\u00a0don\u2019t mention author\u00a0expertise or offer\u00a0field-specific\u00a0criticisms.)Futurist and computational neuroscientist Anders Sandberg calls the book a \u201cvery rich synthesis of many ideas with a high density of fascinating arguments,\u201d but warns \u201cmost readers will disagree with large parts of it\u201d and \u201cmany elements presented as uncontroversial will be highly controversial.\u201d He himself only complains that I put in \u201ctoo little effort bolstering the plausibility\u201d of the basic idea of an emulation, a topic to which he has devoted in much effort.Education reformer Neerav Kingsland calls the book \u201cworth reading\u201d though he would have rather I had written more fiction. He questions our ability to foresee the results of changes this big, and he questions my prediction of low wages: \u201cPerhaps it would become taboo to replicate yourself, akin to teenage pregnancy?\u201dPrivate investor Peter McCluskey calls the book \u201cquite valuable\u201d though he notes my key assumptions could end up being wrong. He wishes I would have estimated wages relative to suspense more precisely, though he felt I was borderline overconfident overall, and thought I devoted too much attention to topics like swearing, relative to topics like democracy.Economist Peter St Onge says \u201cThe pacing is fast, chock-full of interesting ideas to play with .. Hanson has done a fantastic job.\u201d But he sees me as \u201ctoo pessimistic\u201d because the cost to run an em is very low compared to the cost to maintain a human today, and he just can\u2019t see marginal product of human-like labor falling that low, no matter how many workers there are.Physicist Richard Jones, in contrast, to the above nine reviewers, criticizes just about everything but my physics. He has\u00a0long criticized Eric Drexler\u2019s efforts to apply principles of mechanical engineering to tiny chemical systems. On Age of Em, he says:Mind uploading .. will not be possible any time soon .. The brain .. is not the product of design, it is the product of evolution, and for this reason we can\u2019t expect there to be such a digital abstraction layer. .. It would need to incorporate a molecularly accurate model of brain development and plasticity. .. His argument is that our understanding of human nature and the operations of human societies .. is now sufficiently robust that .. meaningful predictions can be made about the character of the resulting post-human societies. I don\u2019t find this enormously convincing. .. Hanson often is simply unable to make firm predictions; this is commendably even-handed, but somewhat undermines his broader argument. .. How do we know what forager values actually were? Very few forager societies survived in any form into historical times, .. and what we know about their values is mediated by the biases of the anthropologists and ethnographers that recorded them.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " So according to Jones, we can\u2019t trust anthropologists to describe\u00a0foragers they\u2019ve met, we can\u2019t trust economics when tech\u00a0changes society, and familiar design principles fail for understanding brains and\u00a0tiny chemical systems. Apparently only his field, physics, can be trusted well outside current experience. In reply, I say I\u2019d rather rely on experts in each field, relative to his generic skepticism. Brain scientists see familiar design principles as applying to brains, even when designed by evolution, economists see economics as applying to past and distant societies with different tech, and anthropologists think they can understand cultures they visit.Regarding O\u2019Connor concerns on\u00a0old-fashioned mate preferences I cited a literature on that, and regarding Alexander\u2019s zero-leisure fears the book cites a literature on max productivity breaks and vacations. Regarding Kingsland and St Onge hopes for high wages, I\u2019ll note that though most of history before the industrial era, taboos against having kids didn\u2019t prevent marginal productivity from typically being very low.So far I\u2019d say that reviews give readers reasons to suspect my emphasis is at times off, but not strong reasons to fear that Age of Em\u00a0is so wrong as to be\u00a0not worth reading. But more reviews are yet to come.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 15, 2015 9:40 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Age of Em in Amsterdam\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 15, 2015 9:40 am \nTitle: Age of Em in Amsterdam\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " At 6pm on Tuesday, 24 November 2015, I\u2019ll speak at Amsterdam University College on:The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the EarthRobots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled earth like? Many think the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or ems. Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer and you have a robot brain, but recognisably human. Ems make us question common assumptions of moral progress because they reject many of the values we hold dear. Applying decades of expertise in physics, computer science and economics, Robin Hanson uses standard theories to paint a detailed picture of a world dominated by ems. (more)The day before I\u2019ll speak on the same subject at an invitation-only session of CIO Day. Added: I\u2019ll also be\u00a0on a panel on Enterprise Prediction Markets\u00a0during the more open session on Tuesday.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 5, 2018 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Age of Em Paperback\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 5, 2018 6:00 am \nTitle: Age of Em Paperback\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Today is the official U.S. release date for the paperback version of my first book The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth. (U.K. version came out a month ago.) Here is the new preface:I picked this book topic so it could draw me in, and I would finish. And that worked: I developed an obsession that lasted for years. But once I delivered the \u201cfinal\u201d version to my publisher on its assigned date, I found that my obsession continued. So I collected a long file of notes on possible additions. And when the time came that a paperback edition was possible, I grabbed my chance. As with the hardback edition, I had many ideas for changes that might make my dense semi-encyclopedia easier for readers to enjoy. But my core obsession again won out: to show that detailed analysis of future scenarios is possible, by showing just how many reasonable conclusions one can draw about this scenario.Also, as this book did better than I had a right to expect, I wondered: will this be my best book ever? If so, why not make it the best it can be? The result is the book you now hold. It has over 42% more citations, and 18% more words, but it is only a bit easier to read. And now I must wonder: can my obsession stop now, pretty please?Many are disappointed that I do not more directly declare if I love or hate the em world. But I fear that such a declaration gives an excuse to dismiss all this; critics could say I bias my analysis in order to get my desired value conclusions. I\u2019ve given over 100 talks on this book, and never once has my audience failed to engage value issues. I remain confident that such issues will not be neglected, even if I remain quiet.These are the only new sections in the paperback: Anthropomorphize, Motivation, Slavery, Foom, After Ems. (I previewed two of them\u00a0here & here.) \u00a0I\u2019ll make these two claims for my book:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 10, 2019 3:55 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Agency Failure AI Apocalypse?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 10, 2019 3:55 pm \nTitle: Agency Failure AI Apocalypse?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Years ago my ex-co-blogger Eliezer Yudkowsky and I argued here on this blog about his AI risk fear than an AI so small dumb & weak that few had ever heard of it, might without warning, suddenly \u201cfoom\u201d, i.e., innovate very fast, and take over the world after one weekend. I mostly argued that we have a huge literature on economic growth at odds with this. Historically, the vast majority of innovation has been small, incremental, and spread across many industries and locations. Yes, humans mostly displaced other pre-human species, as such species can\u2019t share innovations well. But since then sharing and complementing of innovations has allowed most of the world to gain from even the biggest lumpiest innovations ever seen. Eliezer said a deep conceptual analysis allowed him to see that this time is different.Since then there\u2019s been a vast increase in folks concerned about AI risk, many focused on scenarios like Yudkowsky\u2019s. (But almost no interest in my critique.) In recent years I\u2019ve heard many say they are now less worried about foom, but have new worries just as serious. Though I\u2019ve found it hard to understand what worries could justify big efforts now, compared to later when we should know far more about powerful AI details. (E.g., worrying about cars, TV, or nukes in the year 1000 would have been way too early.)Enter Paul Christiano (see also Vox summary). Paul says:The stereotyped image of AI catastrophe is a powerful, malicious AI system that takes its creators by surprise and quickly achieves a decisive advantage over the rest of humanity. I think this is probably not what failure will look like, and I want to try to paint a more realistic picture. \u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 10, 2019 3:55 pm \nTitle: Agency Failure AI Apocalypse?\nYears ago my ex-co-blogger Eliezer Yudkowsky and I argued here on this blog about his AI risk fear than an AI so small dumb & weak that few had ever heard of it, might without warning, suddenly \u201cfoom\u201d, i.e., innovate very fast, and take over the world after one weekend. I mostly argued that we have a huge literature on economic growth at odds with this. Historically, the vast majority of innovation has been small, incremental, and spread across many industries and locations. Yes, humans mostly displaced other pre-human species, as such species can\u2019t share innovations well. But since then sharing and complementing of innovations has allowed most of the world to gain from even the biggest lumpiest innovations ever seen. Eliezer said a deep conceptual analysis allowed him to see that this time is different.Since then there\u2019s been a vast increase in folks concerned about AI risk, many focused on scenarios like Yudkowsky\u2019s. (But almost no interest in my critique.) In recent years I\u2019ve heard many say they are now less worried about foom, but have new worries just as serious. Though I\u2019ve found it hard to understand what worries could justify big efforts now, compared to later when we should know far more about powerful AI details. (E.g., worrying about cars, TV, or nukes in the year 1000 would have been way too early.)Enter Paul Christiano (see also Vox summary). Paul says:The stereotyped image of AI catastrophe is a powerful, malicious AI system that takes its creators by surprise and quickly achieves a decisive advantage over the rest of humanity. I think this is probably not what failure will look like, and I want to try to paint a more realistic picture. \u2026\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " If I want to convince Bob to vote for Alice, I can experiment with many different persuasion strategies \u2026 Or I can build good predictive models of Bob\u2019s behavior \u2026 These are powerful techniques for achieving any goal that can be easily measured over short time periods. But if I want to help Bob figure out whether he should vote for Alice\u2014whether voting for Alice would ultimately help create the kind of society he wants\u2014that can\u2019t be done by trial and error. To solve such tasks we need to understand what we are doing and why it will yield good outcomes. \u2026It\u2019s already much easier to pursue easy-to-measure goals, but machine learning will widen the gap by letting us try a huge number of possible strategies and search over massive spaces of possible actions. \u2026 Eventually our society\u2019s trajectory will be determined by powerful optimization with easily-measurable goals rather than by human intentions about the future. \u2026over time [our] proxies will come apart:Corporations will deliver value to consumers as measured by profit. Eventually this mostly means manipulating consumers, capturing regulators, extortion and theft. Investors \u2026 instead of actually having an impact they will be surrounded by advisors who manipulate them into thinking they\u2019ve had an impact. Law enforcement will drive down complaints and increase \u2026 a false sense of security, \u2026 As this world goes off the rails, there may not be any discrete point where consensus recognizes that things have gone off the rails. \u2026 human control over levers of power gradually becomes less and less effective; we ultimately lose any real ability to influence our society\u2019s trajectory. \u2026Patterns that want to seek and expand their own influence\u2014organisms, corrupt bureaucrats, companies obsessed with growth. \u2026 will tend to increase their own influence and so can come to dominate the behavior of large complex systems unless there is competition or a successful effort to suppress them. \u2026 a wide variety of goals could lead to influence-seeking behavior, \u2026 an influence-seeker would be aggressively gaming whatever standard you applied \u2026If influence-seeking patterns do appear and become entrenched, it can ultimately lead to a rapid phase transition \u2026 where humans totally lose control. \u2026 For example, an automated corporation may just take the money and run; a law enforcement system may abruptly start seizing resources and trying to defend itself from attempted decommission. \u2026 Eventually we reach the point where we could not recover from a correlated automation failure. (more)While I told Yudkowsky his fear doesn\u2019t fit with our large literature on economic growth, I\u2019ll tell Christiano his fear doesn\u2019t fit with our large (mostly economic) literature on agency failures (see 1 2 3 4 5).An agent is someone you pay to assist you. You must always pay to get an agent who consumes real resources. But agents can earn extra \u201cagency rents\u201d when you and other possible agents can\u2019t see everything that they know and do. And even if an agent doesn\u2019t earn more rents, a more difficult agency relation can cause \u201cagency failure\u201d, wherein you get less of what you want from your agent.Now like any agent, an AI who costs real resources must be paid. And depending on the market and property setup this could let AIs save, accumulate capital, and eventually collectively control most capital. This is an well-known AI concern, that AIs who are more useful than humans might earn more income, and thus become richer and more influential than humans. But this isn\u2019t Christiano\u2019s fear.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "If I want to convince Bob to vote for Alice, I can experiment with many different persuasion strategies \u2026 Or I can build good predictive models of Bob\u2019s behavior \u2026 These are powerful techniques for achieving any goal that can be easily measured over short time periods. But if I want to help Bob figure out whether he should vote for Alice\u2014whether voting for Alice would ultimately help create the kind of society he wants\u2014that can\u2019t be done by trial and error. To solve such tasks we need to understand what we are doing and why it will yield good outcomes. \u2026It\u2019s already much easier to pursue easy-to-measure goals, but machine learning will widen the gap by letting us try a huge number of possible strategies and search over massive spaces of possible actions. \u2026 Eventually our society\u2019s trajectory will be determined by powerful optimization with easily-measurable goals rather than by human intentions about the future. \u2026over time [our] proxies will come apart:Corporations will deliver value to consumers as measured by profit. Eventually this mostly means manipulating consumers, capturing regulators, extortion and theft. Investors \u2026 instead of actually having an impact they will be surrounded by advisors who manipulate them into thinking they\u2019ve had an impact. Law enforcement will drive down complaints and increase \u2026 a false sense of security, \u2026 As this world goes off the rails, there may not be any discrete point where consensus recognizes that things have gone off the rails. \u2026 human control over levers of power gradually becomes less and less effective; we ultimately lose any real ability to influence our society\u2019s trajectory. \u2026Patterns that want to seek and expand their own influence\u2014organisms, corrupt bureaucrats, companies obsessed with growth. \u2026 will tend to increase their own influence and so can come to dominate the behavior of large complex systems unless there is competition or a successful effort to suppress them. \u2026 a wide variety of goals could lead to influence-seeking behavior, \u2026 an influence-seeker would be aggressively gaming whatever standard you applied \u2026If influence-seeking patterns do appear and become entrenched, it can ultimately lead to a rapid phase transition \u2026 where humans totally lose control. \u2026 For example, an automated corporation may just take the money and run; a law enforcement system may abruptly start seizing resources and trying to defend itself from attempted decommission. \u2026 Eventually we reach the point where we could not recover from a correlated automation failure. (more)While I told Yudkowsky his fear doesn\u2019t fit with our large literature on economic growth, I\u2019ll tell Christiano his fear doesn\u2019t fit with our large (mostly economic) literature on agency failures (see 1 2 3 4 5).An agent is someone you pay to assist you. You must always pay to get an agent who consumes real resources. But agents can earn extra \u201cagency rents\u201d when you and other possible agents can\u2019t see everything that they know and do. And even if an agent doesn\u2019t earn more rents, a more difficult agency relation can cause \u201cagency failure\u201d, wherein you get less of what you want from your agent.Now like any agent, an AI who costs real resources must be paid. And depending on the market and property setup this could let AIs save, accumulate capital, and eventually collectively control most capital. This is an well-known AI concern, that AIs who are more useful than humans might earn more income, and thus become richer and more influential than humans. But this isn\u2019t Christiano\u2019s fear.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " It is easy to believe that agent rents and failures generally scale roughly with the overall important and magnitude of activities. That is, when we do twice as much, and get roughly twice as much value out of it, we also lose about twice as much potential via agency failures, relative to a perfect agency relation, and the agents gain about twice as much in agency rents. So it is plausible to think that this also happens with AIs as they become more capable; we get more but then so do they, and more potential is lost.Christiano instead fears that as AIs get more capable, the AIs will gain so much more agency rents, and we will suffer so much more due to agency failures, that we will actually become worse off as as result. And not just a bit worse off; we apparently get apocalypse level worse off! This sort of agency apocalypse is not only a far larger problem than we\u2019d expect via simple scaling, it is also not supported anywhere I know of in the large academic literature on agency problems.This literature has found many factors that influence the difficulty of agency relations. Agency tends to be harder when more relevant agent info and actions are hidden both to principals and other agents, when info about outcomes get noisier, when there is more noise in the mapping between effort and outcomes, when agents and principals are more impatient and risk averse, when agents are more unique, when principals can threaten more extreme outcomes, and when agents can more easily coordinate.But this literature has not found that smarter agents are more problematic, all else equal. In fact, the economics literature that models agency problems typically assumes perfectly rational and thus infinitely smart agents, who reason exactly correctly in every possible situation. This typically results in limited and modest agency rents and failures.For concreteness, imagine a twelve year old rich kid, perhaps a king or queen, seeking agents to help manage their wealth or kingdom. It is far from obvious that this child is on average worse off when they choose a smarter more capable agent, or when the overall pool of agents from which they can choose becomes smarter and more capable. And its even less obvious that the kid becomes maximally worse off as their agents get maximally smart and capable. In fact, I suspect the opposite.Of course it remains possible that there is something special about the human-AI agency relation that can justify Christiano\u2019s claims. But surely the burden of \u201cproof\u201d (really argument) should lie on those say this case is radically different from most found in our large and robust agency literatures. (Google Scholar lists 234K papers with keyword \u201cprincipal-agent\u201d.)And even if AI agency problems turn out to be unusual severe, that still doesn\u2019t justify trying to solve them so far in advance of knowing about their details.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 21, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Agree with Yesterday\u2019s Duplicate\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 21, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Agree with Yesterday\u2019s Duplicate\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A week ago I tried to offer a clear example of justified disagreement.\u00a0 \u00a0Today, I try to offer a clear example where disagreement is not justified.\u00a0 \u00a0Imagine: \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 6, 2022 1:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: AI Language Progress\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 6, 2022 1:00 pm \nTitle: AI Language Progress\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Brains first evolved to do concrete mental tasks, like chasing prey. Then language evolved, to let brains think together, such as on how to chase prey together. Words are how we share thoughts.So we think a bit, say some words, they think a bit, they say some words, and so on. Each time we hear some words we update our mental model on their thoughts, which also updates us about the larger world. Then we think some more, drawing more conclusions about the world, and seek words that, when said, help them to draw similar conclusions. Along the way, mostly as a matter of habit, we judge each other\u2019s ability to think and talk. Sometimes we explicit ask questions, or assign small tasks, which we expect to be especially diagnostic of relevant abilities in some area.The degree to which such small task performance is diagnostic of abilities re the more human fundamental task of thinking together varies a lot. It depends, in part, on how much people are rewarded merely for passing those tests, and how much time and effort they can focus on learning to pass tests. We teachers are quite familiar with such \u201cteaching to the test\u201d, and it is often a big problem. There are many topics that we don\u2019t teach much because we see that we just don\u2019t have good small test tasks. And arguably schools actually fail most of the time; they arguably pretend to teach many things but mostly just rank students on general abilities to learn to pass tests, and inclinations to do what they are told. Abilities which can predict job performance.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 6, 2022 1:00 pm \nTitle: AI Language Progress\nBrains first evolved to do concrete mental tasks, like chasing prey. Then language evolved, to let brains think together, such as on how to chase prey together. Words are how we share thoughts.So we think a bit, say some words, they think a bit, they say some words, and so on. Each time we hear some words we update our mental model on their thoughts, which also updates us about the larger world. Then we think some more, drawing more conclusions about the world, and seek words that, when said, help them to draw similar conclusions. Along the way, mostly as a matter of habit, we judge each other\u2019s ability to think and talk. Sometimes we explicit ask questions, or assign small tasks, which we expect to be especially diagnostic of relevant abilities in some area.The degree to which such small task performance is diagnostic of abilities re the more human fundamental task of thinking together varies a lot. It depends, in part, on how much people are rewarded merely for passing those tests, and how much time and effort they can focus on learning to pass tests. We teachers are quite familiar with such \u201cteaching to the test\u201d, and it is often a big problem. There are many topics that we don\u2019t teach much because we see that we just don\u2019t have good small test tasks. And arguably schools actually fail most of the time; they arguably pretend to teach many things but mostly just rank students on general abilities to learn to pass tests, and inclinations to do what they are told. Abilities which can predict job performance.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Which brings us to the topic of recent progress in machine learning. Google just announced its PaLM system, which fit 540 billion parameters to a \u201chigh-quality corpus of 780 billion tokens that represent a wide range of natural language use cases\u201d, in order to predict from past words the next words appropriate for a wide range of small language tasks. Its performance is impressive; it does well compared to humans on a wide range of such tasks. And yet it still basically \u201cbabbles\u201c; it seems not remotely up to the task of thinking together with a human. If you talked with it for a long time, you might well find ways that it could help you. But still, it wouldn\u2019t think with you.Maybe this problem will be solved by just adding more parameters and data. But I doubt it. I expect that a bigger problem is that such systems have been training at these small language tasks, instead of at the more fundamental task of thinking together. Yes, most of the language data on which they are built is from conversations where humans were thinking together. So they can learn well to say the next small thing in such a conversation. But they seem to be failing to infer the deeper structures that support shared thinking among humans.It might help to assign such a system the task of \u201cuseful inner monologue\u201d. That is, it would start talking to itself, and keep talking indefinitely, continually updating its representations from the data of its internal monologue. The trick would be to generate these monologues and do this update so that the resulting system got better at doing other useful tasks. (I don\u2019t know how to arrange this.) While versions of this approach have been tried before, the fact that this isn\u2019t the usual approach suggests that it doesn\u2019t now produce gains as fast, at least for doing these small language tasks. Even so, if those are misleading metrics, this approach might help more to get real progress at artificial thinking.I will sit up and take notice when the main improvements to systems with\u00a0impressive broad language abilities come from such inner monologues, or from thinking together on other useful tasks. That will look more like systems that have learned how to think. And when such abilities work across a wide scope of topics, that will look to me more like the proverbial \u201cartificial general intelligence\u201d. But I still don\u2019t expect to see that for a long time. We see progress, but the road ahead is still quite long.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 31, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: A.I. Old-Timers\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 31, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: A.I. Old-Timers\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Artificial Intelligence pioneer Roger Schank at the Edge:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 7, 2006 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Alas Amateur Futurism\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 7, 2006 6:00 am \nTitle: Alas Amateur Futurism\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The Nov. 18 New Scientist features \"leading scientists make their predictions\" about the future.\u00a0 (Our own Nick Bostrom is included.)\u00a0 Nov. 30 Hawking made the news with our future in space.\u00a0 My reaction here is similar my published reaction to a recent Wilson Quarterly special issue on the future: why can\u2019t we hear more future specialists?\u00a0 \u00a0We hear these groups on the future:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 30, 2016 5:30 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Alexander on Age of Em\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 30, 2016 5:30 pm \nTitle: Alexander on Age of Em\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " If I ever have an executioner, I want him to be Scott Alexander. Alexander has such a winning way with words that I and his many fans enjoy him even when we disagree. I\u2019d hardly notice my destination as his pleasing patter entranced me while we took the long way around to the gallows.So I am honored that Alexander wrote a long review of Age of Em (9K words, 6% as long as the book), wherein he not only likes and recommends it, he also accepts pretty much all its claims within its main focus. That is, I present my book as being expert on the topic of what would actually happen if cheap ems were our next huge social change. Where Alexander disagrees is on two auxiliary topics, which I mention but on which I claim less expertise, namely how likely is this key scenario assumption, and how valuable is the resulting civilization I describe.On the subject of value, Alexander leans forager (i.e., liberal) on the forager vs. farmer scale. He dislikes civilization evolving away from the behaviors and values of our forager ancestors, and today he partly blames this on capitalism. He doesn\u2019t see our increase in numbers, comfort, and lifespan as sufficient compensation. (I think he\u2019d like the book Against Civilization.) He says:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 30, 2016 5:30 pm \nTitle: Alexander on Age of Em\nIf I ever have an executioner, I want him to be Scott Alexander. Alexander has such a winning way with words that I and his many fans enjoy him even when we disagree. I\u2019d hardly notice my destination as his pleasing patter entranced me while we took the long way around to the gallows.So I am honored that Alexander wrote a long review of Age of Em (9K words, 6% as long as the book), wherein he not only likes and recommends it, he also accepts pretty much all its claims within its main focus. That is, I present my book as being expert on the topic of what would actually happen if cheap ems were our next huge social change. Where Alexander disagrees is on two auxiliary topics, which I mention but on which I claim less expertise, namely how likely is this key scenario assumption, and how valuable is the resulting civilization I describe.On the subject of value, Alexander leans forager (i.e., liberal) on the forager vs. farmer scale. He dislikes civilization evolving away from the behaviors and values of our forager ancestors, and today he partly blames this on capitalism. He doesn\u2019t see our increase in numbers, comfort, and lifespan as sufficient compensation. (I think he\u2019d like the book Against Civilization.) He says:\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " [Nick Land\u2019s Ascended Economy] seems to me the natural end of the economic system. Right now it needs humans only as laborers, investors, and consumers. But robot laborers are potentially more efficient, companies based around algorithmic trading are already pushing out human investors, and most consumers already aren\u2019t individuals \u2013 they\u2019re companies and governments and organizations. At each step you can gain efficiency by eliminating humans, until finally humans aren\u2019t involved anywhere. .. The Age of Em is an economy in the early stages of such a transformation. Instead of being able to replace everything with literal robots, it replaces them with humans who have had some aspects of their humanity stripped away. Biological bodies. The desire and ability to have children normally. ..I envision a spectrum between the current world of humans and Nick Land\u2019s Ascended Economy. Somewhere on the spectrum we have ems who get leisure time. A little further on the spectrum we have ems who don\u2019t get leisure time. But we can go further. .. I expect [greatly reduced sex desire] would happen about ten minutes after the advent of the Age of Em .. Combine that with the stimulant use mentioned above, and you can have people who will never have nor want to have any thought about anything other than working on the precise task at which they are supposed to be working at any given time. ..I see almost no interesting difference between an em world with full use of these tweaks and an Ascended Economy world. Yes, there are things that look vaguely human in outline laboring in the one and not the other, but it\u2019s not like there will be different thought processes or different results. I\u2019m not even sure what it would mean for the ems to be conscious in a world like this \u2013 they\u2019re not doing anything interesting with the consciousness. .. If we get ems after all, I expect them to be lobotomized and drugged until they become effectively inhuman, cogs in the Ascended Economy that would no more fall in love than an automobile would eat hay and whinny.Alexander seems to strongly endorse the usual forager value of leisure over work, so much so that he can\u2019t see people focused on their work as human, conscious, or of any moral value. Creatures only seem valuable to him to the extent that they have sex, leisure time, minds wandering away from work, and desires to do things other than work.This seems ironic because Scott Alexander is one of the most human and productive workers I know. He has a full time job as a psychiatrist, an especially demanding job, and in addition finds time to write frequent long careful analyses of many topics. I find it hard to see where he has that much time for leisure, and doubt he would in fact be substantially more productive overall if he took drugs to make him forget sex, mentally wander less, and focus more on his immediate tasks. He is exactly the sort of person an em economy would want many copies of, pretty much just as he is. Yet if we are to believe him, he only sees value in his brief leisure hours.I see Alexander as having too little respect for the functionality of human behaviors and mind design. Yes, maximally competitive em-era\u00a0behaviors and minds won\u2019t be exactly like current ones. But that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean one wants to throw out most existing behaviors and brain modules wholesale and start over from scratch. As these behaviors and modules all arose because they helped our ancestors be more competitive in some prior context, it makes more sense to try to repair, reform, and repurpose them.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "[Nick Land\u2019s Ascended Economy] seems to me the natural end of the economic system. Right now it needs humans only as laborers, investors, and consumers. But robot laborers are potentially more efficient, companies based around algorithmic trading are already pushing out human investors, and most consumers already aren\u2019t individuals \u2013 they\u2019re companies and governments and organizations. At each step you can gain efficiency by eliminating humans, until finally humans aren\u2019t involved anywhere. .. The Age of Em is an economy in the early stages of such a transformation. Instead of being able to replace everything with literal robots, it replaces them with humans who have had some aspects of their humanity stripped away. Biological bodies. The desire and ability to have children normally. ..I envision a spectrum between the current world of humans and Nick Land\u2019s Ascended Economy. Somewhere on the spectrum we have ems who get leisure time. A little further on the spectrum we have ems who don\u2019t get leisure time. But we can go further. .. I expect [greatly reduced sex desire] would happen about ten minutes after the advent of the Age of Em .. Combine that with the stimulant use mentioned above, and you can have people who will never have nor want to have any thought about anything other than working on the precise task at which they are supposed to be working at any given time. ..I see almost no interesting difference between an em world with full use of these tweaks and an Ascended Economy world. Yes, there are things that look vaguely human in outline laboring in the one and not the other, but it\u2019s not like there will be different thought processes or different results. I\u2019m not even sure what it would mean for the ems to be conscious in a world like this \u2013 they\u2019re not doing anything interesting with the consciousness. .. If we get ems after all, I expect them to be lobotomized and drugged until they become effectively inhuman, cogs in the Ascended Economy that would no more fall in love than an automobile would eat hay and whinny.Alexander seems to strongly endorse the usual forager value of leisure over work, so much so that he can\u2019t see people focused on their work as human, conscious, or of any moral value. Creatures only seem valuable to him to the extent that they have sex, leisure time, minds wandering away from work, and desires to do things other than work.This seems ironic because Scott Alexander is one of the most human and productive workers I know. He has a full time job as a psychiatrist, an especially demanding job, and in addition finds time to write frequent long careful analyses of many topics. I find it hard to see where he has that much time for leisure, and doubt he would in fact be substantially more productive overall if he took drugs to make him forget sex, mentally wander less, and focus more on his immediate tasks. He is exactly the sort of person an em economy would want many copies of, pretty much just as he is. Yet if we are to believe him, he only sees value in his brief leisure hours.I see Alexander as having too little respect for the functionality of human behaviors and mind design. Yes, maximally competitive em-era\u00a0behaviors and minds won\u2019t be exactly like current ones. But that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean one wants to throw out most existing behaviors and brain modules wholesale and start over from scratch. As these behaviors and modules all arose because they helped our ancestors be more competitive in some prior context, it makes more sense to try to repair, reform, and repurpose them.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " For example, the robust productivity gains observed from workers who take breaks don\u2019t seem to depend much on worker motivation. Breaks aren\u2019t just about motivation; they are a deeply entrenched part of being productive. Similarly, wandering minds may take away from the current immediate task, but they help one to search for hidden problems and opportunities. Also, workers today who focus on just doing immediate tasks often lose out to others who attend more to building and managing social relations, as well as office politics. Love and sex can be very helpful in forming and maintaining relations.Of course I\u2019m not trying to offer any long term assurances, and it is quite reasonable to worry about what we will lose along with what we will gain. But since today most of the people we most respect and celebrate tend to be workaholics, I just can\u2019t buy the claim that most of us today can\u2019t find value in similarly productive and work-focused ems. And I just can\u2019t see\u00a0thoughtless workers being the most productive in\u00a0the early em era of my book.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 23, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Aliens Among Us\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 23, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Aliens Among Us\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " If you simply assume that everything around you is just like the few things you have seen up close, you may not notice clues that some things are very different.\u00a0 \u00a0This applies to the sex lives of your neighbors, and to alien biology.\u00a0 On the aliens, Paul Davies in the November Scientific American:\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 21, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: All Ethics Roads Lead To Ours?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 21, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: All Ethics Roads Lead To Ours?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In the latest Philosophical Investigations, Olli Lagerspetz reviews James Sterba\u2019s The Triumph of Practice over Theory in Ethics.\u00a0 Lagerspetz summarizes the book\u2019s thoughtful premise:\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 3, 2010 5:30 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Am I A Sim?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 3, 2010 5:30 pm \nTitle: Am I A Sim?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The simulation argument says that IF you:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 30, 2021 11:30 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: An \u2018Amazon\u2019 of Online College?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 30, 2021 11:30 am \nTitle: An \u2018Amazon\u2019 of Online College?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Once upon a time, stores sold things. Some stores specialized in selling particular things, while \u201cdepartment\u201d stores sold a wider range of things. While there were some scale economies in branding and distribution, they were mild enough to allow many different department stores. With the internet, however, much bigger stores have been favored. Not only can huge online stores hold more variety, with scale economies in storage and distribution a single store can dominate that industry. Hence, Amazon.While the internet favors a few huge platforms for some types of products and services, the strength of this effect varies with the kind of product or service. For example, there seems to be room for many movie streaming services, as there seem to be fewer scale or scope economies there. Yes, one can better price discriminate by selling many movies rather than just one, but that still leaves room for many services each of which has many movies. Though perhaps the current variety of streaming services won\u2019t last long.What about college? In the past, students attended class in person, and so each college arranged to have many classes all close enough that one could live nearby and travel to all of its classes. So travel time between classes set a maximum feasible size for a college. But now there are (for many non-lab-or-hands-on topics) online classes which one can attend from anywhere in the world. In a future of online college classes (and tests), will we still have the same size colleges, or will much larger platforms take over?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 30, 2021 11:30 am \nTitle: An \u2018Amazon\u2019 of Online College?\nOnce upon a time, stores sold things. Some stores specialized in selling particular things, while \u201cdepartment\u201d stores sold a wider range of things. While there were some scale economies in branding and distribution, they were mild enough to allow many different department stores. With the internet, however, much bigger stores have been favored. Not only can huge online stores hold more variety, with scale economies in storage and distribution a single store can dominate that industry. Hence, Amazon.While the internet favors a few huge platforms for some types of products and services, the strength of this effect varies with the kind of product or service. For example, there seems to be room for many movie streaming services, as there seem to be fewer scale or scope economies there. Yes, one can better price discriminate by selling many movies rather than just one, but that still leaves room for many services each of which has many movies. Though perhaps the current variety of streaming services won\u2019t last long.What about college? In the past, students attended class in person, and so each college arranged to have many classes all close enough that one could live nearby and travel to all of its classes. So travel time between classes set a maximum feasible size for a college. But now there are (for many non-lab-or-hands-on topics) online classes which one can attend from anywhere in the world. In a future of online college classes (and tests), will we still have the same size colleges, or will much larger platforms take over?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Clearly there is a big potential for much larger individual classes. Instead of a thousand profs teaching the same class all over the world to thirty students each, maybe only ten profs will teach to three thousand students each. At least when individual grading and talk isn\u2019t the main cost. And if students can choose from classes made all over the world, a far wider variety of classes can be made available to each student, classes on more topics, at more levels, and with more different teaching/learning styles.Yes, the most elite colleges would probably be the last to contribute their courses to large online catalogs of courses. They\u2019d say, \u201cif you want the very best college experience, you should come here and limit yourself to our classes.\u201d But that pitch wouldn\u2019t work so well coming from mid-rank colleges.Still I wonder: will the thirty or so classes on a future student college transcript be mostly from teachers who all produce their classes near each other at the same \u201ccollege\u201d, or will student transcripts instead contain classes from twenty or more different sources? And if the latter, how many distributors or platforms will there be? That is, will there be a single \u201cAmazon\u201d from which most all students select their classes, or will there be many different strongly competing distributors of classes, more like movie streaming services today. Another way to ask this question is: what are the scale and scope economies that might favor a few big college class distributors, instead of the thousands of colleges we have today?As mentioned above, price discrimination offers one scope economy, but this runs out near the scale of a typical college, so won\u2019t push for much larger units. A similar logic applies to other scale and scope economies that mostly run out near the scale of typical colleges today. For example, an online college class platform may want to select and evaluate the classes that if offers, to judge which classes could serve as prerequisites for which other classes, and maybe also to select and evaluate students for their suitability for various classes. And yes, these tasks look easier for larger platforms. But such effects still seem to allow a lot of room for many competing platforms.However, here is a scale and scope effect that may push more toward a more Amazon-like scenario: giving students grades that are comparable over wide scopes. Today employers mostly look at a college graduate\u2019s school and major, and sometimes also at their GPA. This works because schools have known reputations, and majors are pretty similar across many colleges.This is in stark contrast to most jobs that students might take instead of going to college; it is much harder to know how to compare letters of recommendation based on typical job performance. Even US military veterans face this problem; employers find it hard to know what school/major/GPA record is comparable to 2 years as a \u201chelicopter repairer\u201d. Superior college comparability is a big reason many go to college instead of starting work (or the military) right after high school.Imagine a college class platform that gives you a transcript showing what classes you took, and what grades you got in each class, but that doesn\u2019t do much to help employers know how to compare the grades obtained from different sources. That wouldn\u2019t be so valuable. In contrast, a college platform is much more valuable to future employers, and thus to students, if it can rank and categorize student performance in comparable and meaningful ways.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Clearly there is a big potential for much larger individual classes. Instead of a thousand profs teaching the same class all over the world to thirty students each, maybe only ten profs will teach to three thousand students each. At least when individual grading and talk isn\u2019t the main cost. And if students can choose from classes made all over the world, a far wider variety of classes can be made available to each student, classes on more topics, at more levels, and with more different teaching/learning styles.Yes, the most elite colleges would probably be the last to contribute their courses to large online catalogs of courses. They\u2019d say, \u201cif you want the very best college experience, you should come here and limit yourself to our classes.\u201d But that pitch wouldn\u2019t work so well coming from mid-rank colleges.Still I wonder: will the thirty or so classes on a future student college transcript be mostly from teachers who all produce their classes near each other at the same \u201ccollege\u201d, or will student transcripts instead contain classes from twenty or more different sources? And if the latter, how many distributors or platforms will there be? That is, will there be a single \u201cAmazon\u201d from which most all students select their classes, or will there be many different strongly competing distributors of classes, more like movie streaming services today. Another way to ask this question is: what are the scale and scope economies that might favor a few big college class distributors, instead of the thousands of colleges we have today?As mentioned above, price discrimination offers one scope economy, but this runs out near the scale of a typical college, so won\u2019t push for much larger units. A similar logic applies to other scale and scope economies that mostly run out near the scale of typical colleges today. For example, an online college class platform may want to select and evaluate the classes that if offers, to judge which classes could serve as prerequisites for which other classes, and maybe also to select and evaluate students for their suitability for various classes. And yes, these tasks look easier for larger platforms. But such effects still seem to allow a lot of room for many competing platforms.However, here is a scale and scope effect that may push more toward a more Amazon-like scenario: giving students grades that are comparable over wide scopes. Today employers mostly look at a college graduate\u2019s school and major, and sometimes also at their GPA. This works because schools have known reputations, and majors are pretty similar across many colleges.This is in stark contrast to most jobs that students might take instead of going to college; it is much harder to know how to compare letters of recommendation based on typical job performance. Even US military veterans face this problem; employers find it hard to know what school/major/GPA record is comparable to 2 years as a \u201chelicopter repairer\u201d. Superior college comparability is a big reason many go to college instead of starting work (or the military) right after high school.Imagine a college class platform that gives you a transcript showing what classes you took, and what grades you got in each class, but that doesn\u2019t do much to help employers know how to compare the grades obtained from different sources. That wouldn\u2019t be so valuable. In contrast, a college platform is much more valuable to future employers, and thus to students, if it can rank and categorize student performance in comparable and meaningful ways.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " One simple way to do this is to sometimes randomize which classes students take. That is, flatter, pay, or cajole many students into letting the platform sometimes pick which particular class they take, out of a set of similar classes offered on the platform. With enough students taking enough classes that give enough feedback on student performance, standard statistical models could estimate individual student abilities and specializations. Which helps not only future employers, but also the providers of classes when deciding which students to admit into their classes. It also helps to estimate student satisfaction in particular classes as expressed by student evaluation of classes.Yes, if all student class performance info were made available to all platforms, many of them could produce similar statistical estimates. But the largest platforms may use privacy excuses to successfully resist efforts to force them to share their customer info, as have social media giants today. Yes, platforms with less data might claim that they had found clever uses of machine learning etc. that give similar quality evaluations of students. But it isn\u2019t clear why students and employers should believe such claims.Scale economies in using customer data to make student performance comparable across a wide scope of classes may push toward a single huge Amazon-like catalog of online college classes.From a conversation with Phil Magness.Added 9a: College admissions and grading has recently become a political battleground. While today such battles are limited by the fact that colleges must compete with each other, such limits might be less when one of a few big orgs dominated the online college catalog market.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 3, 2014 11:10 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Announcing: SciCast\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 3, 2014 11:10 am \nTitle: Announcing: SciCast\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A year ago I announced that our IARPA-funded DAGGRE prediction market on world events had finally implemented my combinatorial prediction market tech (which I was prevented from showcasing nine years earlier), with a new-improved tech for efficient exact computation in near-tree-shaped networks.Now we announce: DAGGRE is dead, and SciCast is born. Still funded by IARPA, SciCast focuses on predicting science and technology, it has a cleaner interface developed by Inkling, and it has been reimplemented from scratch to support ten times as many users and questions. We also now have Bruce D\u2019Ambrosio\u2019s firm Tuuyi on board to develop and implement even more sophisticated algorithms.But wait, there\u2019s more. We\u2019ve got formal partnerships with AAAS and IEEE, have a thousand folks pre-registered to participate, and we hope to attract thousands of expert users, folks who really know their sci/tech. We\u2019ve seeded SciCast with over a hundred questions, many contributed by top experts, and hope to soon have thousands of questions, mostly submitted by users.Alas, we aren\u2019t allowed to pay our participants money or prizes. But if you have sci/tech issues you want forecasted, if you want to prove your insight into the future of sci/tech, or if you want to influence the perceived consensus on sci/tech, join us at SciCast.org!\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 24, 2007 12:49 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Applaud Info, Not Agreement\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 24, 2007 12:49 pm \nTitle: Applaud Info, Not Agreement\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Bryan Caplan makes the point:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 8, 2011 10:40 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Are Gardens Fertile?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 8, 2011 10:40 pm \nTitle: Are Gardens Fertile?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Cosmologists tend to think that the physics we see around us is not universal. There is instead a vast \u201clandscape\u201d of possible ways a local physics could be, and different (large far away) places in the universe embody or express these different physics.When adjacent space-time places have different local physics, there must be a common \u201cmeta\u201d physics that describes their border. This meta-physics will say how often places of one type lead to places of other types nearby, including \u201cends\u201d where nothing is nearby.Let us distinguish two special kinds of places:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 28, 2011 2:30 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Are Workaholics Human?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 28, 2011 2:30 pm \nTitle: Are Workaholics Human?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I might better ask \u201cAre workaholic lives worth living?\u201d \u2014 I\u2019m taking about \u201chuman\u201d here in the sense that we call \u201cinhuman\u201d people who do things we disrespect, or whose lives lack enough input from the \u201chumanities.\u201d The question is: are the lives of the workaholics around you are within an order of magnitude of being worth as much as typical human lives?Why ask this? Because this is a key issue for judging if the coming em (whole brain emulation) revolution is glorious or horrifying. I\u2019ve talked about how there\u2019d be a huge em population and that wages would quickly fall to near \u201csubsistence\u201d level.  But the images that the word \u201csubsistence\u201d brings to mind often mislead people here I think.This isn\u2019t world of much famine, disease, war, or pain, of severe isolation, or of drawing-with-sticks-in-the-dust level entertainment.  The costs of high bandwidth long-distance communication and vast detailed arbitrarily-luxurious virtual reality would be small\u00a0compared to the cost of just running an em brain, so the main limits to em enjoyment would be status and time. If you want something because it is in short supply, you may well not get it.  And among all the humans available for scanning, the first generation of ems would select for humans who are both very productive, and willing to work very hard. So ems would be world-class-capable workaholics who stop working not much longer than needed to recuperate and rest.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 28, 2011 2:30 pm \nTitle: Are Workaholics Human?\nI might better ask \u201cAre workaholic lives worth living?\u201d \u2014 I\u2019m taking about \u201chuman\u201d here in the sense that we call \u201cinhuman\u201d people who do things we disrespect, or whose lives lack enough input from the \u201chumanities.\u201d The question is: are the lives of the workaholics around you are within an order of magnitude of being worth as much as typical human lives?Why ask this? Because this is a key issue for judging if the coming em (whole brain emulation) revolution is glorious or horrifying. I\u2019ve talked about how there\u2019d be a huge em population and that wages would quickly fall to near \u201csubsistence\u201d level.  But the images that the word \u201csubsistence\u201d brings to mind often mislead people here I think.This isn\u2019t world of much famine, disease, war, or pain, of severe isolation, or of drawing-with-sticks-in-the-dust level entertainment.  The costs of high bandwidth long-distance communication and vast detailed arbitrarily-luxurious virtual reality would be small\u00a0compared to the cost of just running an em brain, so the main limits to em enjoyment would be status and time. If you want something because it is in short supply, you may well not get it.  And among all the humans available for scanning, the first generation of ems would select for humans who are both very productive, and willing to work very hard. So ems would be world-class-capable workaholics who stop working not much longer than needed to recuperate and rest.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019ve known quite a few workaholics (many are engineers), and it seems to me that, compared to average lives, workaholic lives are usually no less than half as worth living, and often far more. To me, such folks are quite recognizably human, expressing qualities I respect, and many of the values celebrated in the \u201chumanities.\u201d Yes, workaholics consume fewer stories, and spend less time in idle conversation and play, and ems bodies would alienate them a bit more from their distant human ancestors and feelings. But since such ems seem to me quite \u201chuman\u201d with lives well worth living, that suggests the em revolution is more glorious than horrifying.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 19, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Arguments and Duels\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 19, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Arguments and Duels\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Why men disagree, from a New Yorker review of duelling history:  \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 30, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Arrogance as Virtue\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 30, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Arrogance as Virtue\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Ko and Huanga, in the May Journal of Financial Economics:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 17, 2021 1:20 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: \u201cArtificial\u201d = Not-Self-Made?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 17, 2021 1:20 pm \nTitle: \u201cArtificial\u201d = Not-Self-Made?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Recently I\u2019ve said that it seems obvious that our descendants will soon be artificial, as will be any advanced aliens we meet. And I\u2019ve complained of futurists and astrobiologists who ignore this possibility. But I\u2019ve realized that even though I may \u201cknow it when I see it\u201d, I don\u2019t have a good definition of \u201cartificial\u201d.Usually it works to say that stuff is \u201cartificial\u201d if humans made it, but didn\u2019t inherit their ability to make it from pre-humans. Making spears, language, and bags \u201cartificial\u201d. But this definition doesn\u2019t work well for alien civilizations, or for our future after humans are gone. So let me try here to find a better definition of \u201cartificial\u201d, in contrast to \u201corganic\u201d.And let me make my task easier by assuming that we have some working definition of \u201clife\u201d, something like \u201cprocesses that consume negentropy to try to perpetuate stuff like itself.\u201d We can of course talk about artificial life, and artificial non-life.The concept of \u201cartificial\u201d that I want to explore here is \u201cnot self made\u201d. (With \u201corganic\u201d meaning \u201cself made\u201d.) Now of course nothing is literally self-made, but things are sometimes made by things very much like themselves. For example, when an asexual cell reproduces, the new cell is very similar to the old one, at least if we can distinguish between the thing itself, its environment, and the ways that environments naturally change things.In contrast, when a beaver makes a dam, or when a human writes a program, the things made differ far more from from the things that make them. So we can consider calling these made things \u201cartificial\u201d in the sense of \u201cnot self made\u201d, relative to \u201corganic\u201d things that are \u201cself made\u201d. Now let\u2019s explore more examples of this distinction, to see how useful it might be.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 17, 2021 1:20 pm \nTitle: \u201cArtificial\u201d = Not-Self-Made?\nRecently I\u2019ve said that it seems obvious that our descendants will soon be artificial, as will be any advanced aliens we meet. And I\u2019ve complained of futurists and astrobiologists who ignore this possibility. But I\u2019ve realized that even though I may \u201cknow it when I see it\u201d, I don\u2019t have a good definition of \u201cartificial\u201d.Usually it works to say that stuff is \u201cartificial\u201d if humans made it, but didn\u2019t inherit their ability to make it from pre-humans. Making spears, language, and bags \u201cartificial\u201d. But this definition doesn\u2019t work well for alien civilizations, or for our future after humans are gone. So let me try here to find a better definition of \u201cartificial\u201d, in contrast to \u201corganic\u201d.And let me make my task easier by assuming that we have some working definition of \u201clife\u201d, something like \u201cprocesses that consume negentropy to try to perpetuate stuff like itself.\u201d We can of course talk about artificial life, and artificial non-life.The concept of \u201cartificial\u201d that I want to explore here is \u201cnot self made\u201d. (With \u201corganic\u201d meaning \u201cself made\u201d.) Now of course nothing is literally self-made, but things are sometimes made by things very much like themselves. For example, when an asexual cell reproduces, the new cell is very similar to the old one, at least if we can distinguish between the thing itself, its environment, and the ways that environments naturally change things.In contrast, when a beaver makes a dam, or when a human writes a program, the things made differ far more from from the things that make them. So we can consider calling these made things \u201cartificial\u201d in the sense of \u201cnot self made\u201d, relative to \u201corganic\u201d things that are \u201cself made\u201d. Now let\u2019s explore more examples of this distinction, to see how useful it might be.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Compared to an asexually reproducing cell, the child of a sexual cell differs more from its parents. In Eukaryote cells, different parts reproduce separately, and so are only like the matching parts of their parents, and less like other parts. In a multi-cellular organism, most of the cells differ a lot more from the stem cells from which they start, which were made by parent stem cells. So if we focus on individual cells, then most cells in such a creature seem more artificial. It is only when we look at the entire organism that we can see it as relatively organic.Thus how \u201cself made\u201d something is depends on how we divide it from its environment, and on what size units we consider. Evolutionary progress has consisted in substantial part of moving to larger self-made units, where their parts are less self-made. How artificial something looks should also depend on the timescale we pick, and on our diversity reference. Things look more self-made on short timescales, relative to long, as distant ancestors may be quite different. And things look more self-made the wider the variety of other creatures to which we compare them, as parent-child differences will loom less large then.Once humans developed culture, our behaviors were less made by our parents, and more by a larger culture from which we learned. Isolated groups of humans together with their cultures were relatively organic. But as our world has become more integrated, we are made less by local associates and more by the entire world culture.For example, an individual firm that tries to be profit maximizing is \u201cmade\u201d to some degree by its investors, designers, producers, managers, suppliers, and customers, all of whom are watching the entire world for ideas on more efficient ways to do things. Such a firm is \u201clike\u201d the prior firms associated with such people mainly because the prior experiences of they or their ancestors shaped their sunk investments, expectations and understandings. To a substantial degree, it is the entire world economy that is \u201cself-made\u201d, with each firm being much less so. Firms are more artificial, but the whole economy is more organic.But even so, there are still identifiable smaller units that are \u201cself-made\u201d to important degrees. Individuals, firms, and nations, among other units, \u201cown\u201d and control resources that they use to promote the future prosperity of \u201ctheir\u201d future units. Especially their investors.Governance processes are justified in terms of promoting the future of the units they govern, but internal sub-units are often rightly suspicious that such processes are used by rival units to gain relative advantages over them. Governed units become less \u201cself-made\u201d, which carries substantial risks. Competition between larger units can restrain such internal predation via governance, but competition would not restrain a world government.Someday humans will probably create artificial creatures who are fully capable of cheaply doing all the tasks needed in their future economy. These creatures are likely to differ more from humans than from the creatures that they make to follow them. So relatively \u201cself made\u201d humanity will \u201cartificially\u201d make new creatures who then more \u201cself make\u201d their new world. But each particular new creature will be much less \u201cself made\u201d, and thus more \u201cartificial\u201d, as it will be made more by its entire civilization.Okay, while this concept of \u201cself-made\u201d depends on units and timescale, it still seems useful for discussing how future life should be more \u201cartificial\u201d. Life will in general be less self-made on smaller unit scales, even if still self-made on an entire civilization scale. And after alien civilizations meet each other, even they may become less self-made.Added Jun18: I had this related conversation on Twitter with the author of Natural: How Faith in Nature\u2019s Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 22, 2013 9:50 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Ask Questions That Matter\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 22, 2013 9:50 pm \nTitle: Ask Questions That Matter\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I know a lot of people who think of themselves as intellectuals. That is, they spend a substantial fraction of their free time dealing in ideas. Most of these people are mainly consumers who take in ideas, but don\u2019t seem to do much with them, at least as far as anyone else ever sees. But others are more outward facing, talking and writing about ideas, often quite eagerly.Oddly however, most of these idea dealers seem to define themselves mostly in terms of the answers they want to promote, instead of the questions they want to answer. Most idea-oriented Facebook status updates seem like this \u2013 saying yay for some answer they agree with. The few that deal in questions also seem to be mainly promoting them, saying yay for the sort of people who like that question.Now yes, in addition to question-answering the world also needs some answer indexing, aggregation, and yes, sometimes even promotion. And yes, sometimes the world needs people to generate and even promote good questions. But my guess is that most intellectual progress comes from people who focus on a question to which they do not currently know the answer, and then try to answer it. Yes, people doing other things sometimes stumble on a new answer, but in general it helps to be looking in order to find.I also know lots of academics, and they all have one or more research topics. And if you ask them they can usually phrase these topics in terms of questions they want to answer. And this is a big part of what makes academics more intellectually productive. But alas, few academics are able to articulate in much detail why it is important to the world that their questions get answered. They usually just invoke some vague associations, apparently considering it sufficient that some journal is willing to publish their answers. They seem to think it is someone else\u2019s job to decide what questions are important. Unfortunately, most academic journal articles are answering pretty uninteresting questions.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 22, 2013 9:50 pm \nTitle: Ask Questions That Matter\nI know a lot of people who think of themselves as intellectuals. That is, they spend a substantial fraction of their free time dealing in ideas. Most of these people are mainly consumers who take in ideas, but don\u2019t seem to do much with them, at least as far as anyone else ever sees. But others are more outward facing, talking and writing about ideas, often quite eagerly.Oddly however, most of these idea dealers seem to define themselves mostly in terms of the answers they want to promote, instead of the questions they want to answer. Most idea-oriented Facebook status updates seem like this \u2013 saying yay for some answer they agree with. The few that deal in questions also seem to be mainly promoting them, saying yay for the sort of people who like that question.Now yes, in addition to question-answering the world also needs some answer indexing, aggregation, and yes, sometimes even promotion. And yes, sometimes the world needs people to generate and even promote good questions. But my guess is that most intellectual progress comes from people who focus on a question to which they do not currently know the answer, and then try to answer it. Yes, people doing other things sometimes stumble on a new answer, but in general it helps to be looking in order to find.I also know lots of academics, and they all have one or more research topics. And if you ask them they can usually phrase these topics in terms of questions they want to answer. And this is a big part of what makes academics more intellectually productive. But alas, few academics are able to articulate in much detail why it is important to the world that their questions get answered. They usually just invoke some vague associations, apparently considering it sufficient that some journal is willing to publish their answers. They seem to think it is someone else\u2019s job to decide what questions are important. Unfortunately, most academic journal articles are answering pretty uninteresting questions.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " So the important intellectual progress comes down to the rather small fraction of intellectuals who both define their focus in terms of a question, rather than an answer, and who bother to think about what questions actually matter. To these, I salute, and bow. They are the sweet thirst-quenching fount of progress.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2015 11:50 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Assimilated Futures\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2015 11:50 am \nTitle: Assimilated Futures\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019ve long said that it is backwards to worry that technology will change faster than society can adapt, because the ability of society adapt is one of the main constraints on how fast we adopt\u00a0new technologies. This insightful 2012 post by Venkatesh Rao elaborates on a related theme:Both science fiction and futurism \u2026 fail to capture the way we don\u2019t seem to notice when the future actually arrives. \u2026 The future always seems like something that is going to happen rather than something that is happening. \u2026Futurists, artists and edge-culturists \u2026 like to pretend that they are the lonely, brave guardians of the species who deal with the \u201creal\u201d future and pre-digest it for the rest of us. But \u2026 the cultural edge is just as frozen in time as the mainstream, \u2026 people who seek more stimulation than the mainstream, and draw on imagined futures to feed their cravings rather than inform actual future-manufacturing. \u2026When you are sitting on a typical modern jetliner, you are traveling at 500 mph in an aluminum tube that is actually capable of some pretty scary acrobatics. \u2026 Yet a typical air traveler never experiences anything that one of our ancestors could not experience on a fast chariot or a boat. Air travel is manufactured normalcy. \u2026This suggests that only those futures arrive for which there is human capacity to cope. This conclusion is not true, because a future can arrive before humans figure out whether they have the ability to cope. For instance, the widespread problem of obesity suggests that food-abundance arrived before we figured out that most of us cannot cope. And this is one piece of the future that cannot be relegated to specialists. \u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2015 11:50 am \nTitle: Assimilated Futures\nI\u2019ve long said that it is backwards to worry that technology will change faster than society can adapt, because the ability of society adapt is one of the main constraints on how fast we adopt\u00a0new technologies. This insightful 2012 post by Venkatesh Rao elaborates on a related theme:Both science fiction and futurism \u2026 fail to capture the way we don\u2019t seem to notice when the future actually arrives. \u2026 The future always seems like something that is going to happen rather than something that is happening. \u2026Futurists, artists and edge-culturists \u2026 like to pretend that they are the lonely, brave guardians of the species who deal with the \u201creal\u201d future and pre-digest it for the rest of us. But \u2026 the cultural edge is just as frozen in time as the mainstream, \u2026 people who seek more stimulation than the mainstream, and draw on imagined futures to feed their cravings rather than inform actual future-manufacturing. \u2026When you are sitting on a typical modern jetliner, you are traveling at 500 mph in an aluminum tube that is actually capable of some pretty scary acrobatics. \u2026 Yet a typical air traveler never experiences anything that one of our ancestors could not experience on a fast chariot or a boat. Air travel is manufactured normalcy. \u2026This suggests that only those futures arrive for which there is human capacity to cope. This conclusion is not true, because a future can arrive before humans figure out whether they have the ability to cope. For instance, the widespread problem of obesity suggests that food-abundance arrived before we figured out that most of us cannot cope. And this is one piece of the future that cannot be relegated to specialists. \u2026\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Successful products are precisely those that do not attempt to move user experiences significantly, even if the underlying technology has shifted radically. In fact the whole point of user experience design is to manufacture the necessary normalcy for a product to succeed and get integrated. \u2026 What we get is a Darwinian weeding out of those manifestations of the future that break the continuity of technological experience. \u2026What about edge-culturists who think they are more alive to the real oncoming future? \u2026 The edge today looks strangely similar to the edge in any previous century. It is defined by reactionary musical and sartorial tastes and being a little more outrageous than everybody else in challenging the prevailing culture of manners. \u2026 If it reveals anything about technology or the future, it is mostly by accident. . \u2026At a more human level, I find that I am unable to relate to people who are deeply into any sort of cyberculture or other future-obsessed edge zone. There is a certain extreme banality to my thoughts when I think about the future. Futurists as a subculture seem to organize their lives as future-experience theaters. These theaters are perhaps entertaining and interesting in their own right, as a sort of performance art, but are not of much interest or value to people who are interested in the future in the form it might arrive in, for all.It is easy to make the distinction explicit. Most futurists are interested in the future beyond the [manufactured normalcy field]. I am primarily interested in the future once it enters the Field, and the process by which it gets integrated into it. This is also where the future turns into money, so perhaps my motivations are less intellectual than they are narrowly mercenary. \u2026This also explains why so few futurists make any money. They are attracted to exactly those parts of the future that are worth very little. They find visions of changed human behavior stimulating. Technological change serves as a basis for constructing aspirational visions of changed humanity. Unfortunately, technological change actually arrives in ways that leave human behavior minimally altered. .. The mainstream never ends up looking like the edge of today. Not even close. The mainstream seeks placidity while the edge seeks stimulation. (more)Yes,\u00a0I\u2019m a guilty-as-charged futurist focused on changes far enough distant\u00a0that there\u2019s little money to be made understanding them now. But I share Rao\u2019s emotional distance from the future-obsessed cultural edge. I want to understand the future not as morality tale to validate my complaints against today\u2019s dominant culture; I instead want to foresee\u00a0the assimilated future. That is, I want to see how future people will actually see their own world, after they\u2019ve found ways to see it banally as a minimal change from the past.Cultural futurists have complained that the future I describe in my upcoming book The Age of Em is too conservative in presuming the continuation of supply and demand, inequality, big organizations, status seeking, and so on. Don\u2019t I know that tech will change everything, and soon? No, actually\u00a0I don\u2019t know that.Added: To be clear,\u00a0eventually fundamentals may well change. But the rate of such changes is low enough that in\u00a0a medium term future most fundamental features probably haven\u2019t changed yet.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 25, 2011 10:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Atheists Distrusted\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 25, 2011 10:00 am \nTitle: Atheists Distrusted\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Most folks distrust athiests, because atheists don\u2019t fear punishment from\u00a0God:Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion\u2019s effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust. Consistent with this theoretical framework, a broad sample of American adults revealed that distrust characterized anti-atheist prejudice but not anti-gay prejudice. \u2026 A description of a criminally untrustworthy individual was seen as comparably representative of atheists and rapists but not representative of Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, feminists, or homosexuals. \u2026 Results were consistent with the hypothesis that the relationship between belief in God and atheist distrust was fully mediated by the belief that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them. \u2026 Atheists were systematically socially excluded only in high-trust domains; belief in God, but not authoritarianism, predicted this discriminatory decision-making against atheists in high trust domains. (more)So are\u00a0atheists\u00a0actually less trustworthy? \u00a0I\u2019d guess that they are, but that the difference is less than people think. Believing that atheists are untrustworthy, like believing in God, helps signal your trustworthiness to others.I suspect a similar effect applies to human law enforcement. Most people probably also signal their trustworthiness by\u00a0over-estimating their chances of getting caught and punished if they commit a crime.Added 1p: Here are experiments on religion and trustworthiness:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 25, 2011 10:00 am \nTitle: Atheists Distrusted\nMost folks distrust athiests, because atheists don\u2019t fear punishment from\u00a0God:Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion\u2019s effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust. Consistent with this theoretical framework, a broad sample of American adults revealed that distrust characterized anti-atheist prejudice but not anti-gay prejudice. \u2026 A description of a criminally untrustworthy individual was seen as comparably representative of atheists and rapists but not representative of Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, feminists, or homosexuals. \u2026 Results were consistent with the hypothesis that the relationship between belief in God and atheist distrust was fully mediated by the belief that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them. \u2026 Atheists were systematically socially excluded only in high-trust domains; belief in God, but not authoritarianism, predicted this discriminatory decision-making against atheists in high trust domains. (more)So are\u00a0atheists\u00a0actually less trustworthy? \u00a0I\u2019d guess that they are, but that the difference is less than people think. Believing that atheists are untrustworthy, like believing in God, helps signal your trustworthiness to others.I suspect a similar effect applies to human law enforcement. Most people probably also signal their trustworthiness by\u00a0over-estimating their chances of getting caught and punished if they commit a crime.Added 1p: Here are experiments on religion and trustworthiness:\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Perrin (2000) tested the relationship between religiosity and cheating behaviour among 150 undergraduate students. In the experiment, subjects were asked to check their grades in an ostensibly wrongly-graded class test. Only 32% reported back honestly, 52% falsely claimed their tests were correctly graded, and 16% claimed they were owed a point. Four out of seven measures of religiosity were significant and positively related to honesty. \u2026Two players each make simultaneous withdrawals (i.e. under imperfect information) from an envelope containing 100 coins. If the sum of withdrawals exceeds 100, neither wins anything. Otherwise, players receive their withdrawals plus half of the sum remaining in the envelope multiplied by 1.5. \u2026 Religious males withdrew less than religious females and secular males. This effect is found to be driven by those religious males who attend synagogue daily.\u00a0\u2026Using a naturally-occurring classification of religiosity based on 103 male subjects studying for priesthood or secular qualifications in rural India, \u2026 the average [public goods game] contributions of religious (66%) and non-religious (51) students differ significantly (p = 0.014). \u2026Fehr et al. (2002) find that in among 429 German household survey respondents contacted to participate in a trust game experiment, Catholic religion raised sending levels significantly in a regression model with a baseline of religiously unaffiliated subjects. \u2026 The impression from these studies is low explanatory power of religious variables, especially when compared to demographics. \u2026 Senders send more the greater the religiosity of responders which they were told. This relationship holds overall and for high-religiosity senders, but not for those with lower religiosity. (more)Added 26Nov: In case its not obvious, I\u2019m an atheist.Added 7Dec: Evidence that religion makes your more truthful.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 29, 2017 10:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Automatic Norms in Academia\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 29, 2017 10:00 am \nTitle: Automatic Norms in Academia\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In my career as a researcher and professor, I\u2019ve come across many decisions where my intuition told me that some actions are prohibited by norms. I\u2019ve usually just obeyed these intuitions, and assumed that everyone agrees. However, I only rarely observe what others think regarding the same situations. In these rare cases, I\u2019m often surprised to see that others don\u2019t agree with me.I illustrate with the following set of questions on which I\u2019ve noticed divergent opinions. Most academic institutions have no official rules to answer them, nor even an official person to which one can ask. Professors are just supposed to judge for themselves, which they usually do without consulting anyone. And yet many people treat these decisions if they are governed by norms.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 9, 2019 9:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Automation: So Far, Business As Usual\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 9, 2019 9:00 pm \nTitle: Automation: So Far, Business As Usual\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Since at least 2013, many have claimed that we are entering a big automation revolution, and so should soon expect to see large trend-deviating increases in job automation levels, in related job losses, and in\u00a0patterns of which jobs are more automated.For example, in the October 15 Democratic debate between 12 U.S. presidential candidates, 6 of them addressed automation concerns introduced via this moderator\u2019s statement:According to a recent study, about a quarter of American jobs could be lost to automation in just the next ten years.Most revolutions do not appear suddenly or fully-formed, but instead grow from precursor trends. Thus we might hope to test this claim of an automation revolution via a broad study of recent automation.My coauthor Keller Scholl and I have just released such a study. We use data on 1505 expert reports regarding the degree of automation of 832 U.S. job types over the period 1999-2019, and similar reports on 153 other job features, to try to address these questions:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 7, 2018 7:30 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Avoiding Blame By Preventing Life\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 7, 2018 7:30 pm \nTitle: Avoiding Blame By Preventing Life\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " If morality is basically a package of norms, and if norms are systems for making people behave, then each individual\u2019s main moral priority becomes: to avoid blame. While the norm system may be designed to on average produce good outcomes, when that system breaks then each individual has only weak incentives to fix it. They mainly seek to avoid blame according to the current broken system. In this post I\u2019ll discuss an especially disturbing example, via a series of four hypothetical scenarios.1. First, imagine we had a tech that could turn ordinary humans into productive zombies. Such zombies can still do most jobs effectively, but they no longer have feelings or an inner life, and from the outside they also seem dead inside, lacking passion, humor, and liveliness. Imagine that someone proposed to use this tech on a substantial fraction of the human population. That is, they propose to zombify those who do jobs that others see as boring, routine, and low status, like collecting garbage, cleaning bedpans, or sweeping floors. As in this scenario living people would be turned into dead zombies, this proposal would probably be widely seen as genocide, and soundly rejected.2. Second, imagine someone else proposes the following variation: when a new child of a parent seems likely enough to grow up to take such a low status job, this zombie tech is applied very early to the fetus. So no non-zombie humans are killed, they are just prevented from existing. Zombie kids are able to learn and eventually learn to do those low status. Thus technically this is not genocide, though it could be seen as the extermination of a class. And many parents would suffer from losing their chance to raise lively humans. Whoever proposed all this is probably considered evil, and their proposal rejected.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 7, 2018 7:30 pm \nTitle: Avoiding Blame By Preventing Life\nIf morality is basically a package of norms, and if norms are systems for making people behave, then each individual\u2019s main moral priority becomes: to avoid blame. While the norm system may be designed to on average produce good outcomes, when that system breaks then each individual has only weak incentives to fix it. They mainly seek to avoid blame according to the current broken system. In this post I\u2019ll discuss an especially disturbing example, via a series of four hypothetical scenarios.1. First, imagine we had a tech that could turn ordinary humans into productive zombies. Such zombies can still do most jobs effectively, but they no longer have feelings or an inner life, and from the outside they also seem dead inside, lacking passion, humor, and liveliness. Imagine that someone proposed to use this tech on a substantial fraction of the human population. That is, they propose to zombify those who do jobs that others see as boring, routine, and low status, like collecting garbage, cleaning bedpans, or sweeping floors. As in this scenario living people would be turned into dead zombies, this proposal would probably be widely seen as genocide, and soundly rejected.2. Second, imagine someone else proposes the following variation: when a new child of a parent seems likely enough to grow up to take such a low status job, this zombie tech is applied very early to the fetus. So no non-zombie humans are killed, they are just prevented from existing. Zombie kids are able to learn and eventually learn to do those low status. Thus technically this is not genocide, though it could be seen as the extermination of a class. And many parents would suffer from losing their chance to raise lively humans. Whoever proposed all this is probably considered evil, and their proposal rejected.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " 3. Third, imagine combining this proposal with another tech that can reliably induce identical twins. This will allow the creation of extra zombie kids. That is, each birth to low status parents is now of identical twins, one of which is an ordinary kid, and the other is a zombie kid. If parent\u2019s don\u2019t want to raise zombie kids, some other organization will take over that task. So now the parents get to have all their usual lively kids, and the world gains a bunch of extra zombie kids who grow up to do low status jobs. Some may support this proposal, but surely many others will find it creepy. I expect that it would be pretty hard to create a political consensus to support this proposal.While in the first scenario people were killed, and in the second scenario parents were deprived, this third scenario is designed to take away these problems. But this third proposal still has two remaining problems. First, if we have a choice between creating an empty zombie and a living feeling person who finds their life worth living, this second option seems to result in a better world. Which argues against zombies. Second, if zombies seem like monsters, supporters of this proposal might might be blamed for creating monsters. And as the zombies look a lot like humans, many will see you as a bad person if you seem inclined to or capable of treating them badly. It looks bad to be willing to create a lower class, and to treat them like a disrespected lower class, if that lower class looks a lot like humans. So by supporting this third proposal, you risk being blamed.4. My fourth and last scenario is designed to split apart these two problems with the third scenario, to make you choose which problem you care more about. Imagine that robots are going to take over most all human jobs, but that we have a choice about which kind of robot they are. We could choose human-like robots, who act lively with passion and humor, and who inside have feelings and an inner life. Or we could choose machine-like robots, who are empty inside and also look empty on the outside, without passion, humor, etc.If you are focused on creating a better world, you\u2019ll probably prefer the human-like robots, as that which choice results in more creatures who find their lives worth living. But if you are focused on avoiding blame, you\u2019ll probably prefer the machine-like robots, as few will blame you for for that choice. In that choice the creatures you create look so little like humans that few will blame you for creating such creatures, or for treating them badly.I recently ran a 24 hour poll on Twitter about this choice, a poll to which 700 people responded. Of those who make a choice, 77% picked the machine-like robots:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 12, 2011 12:50 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Avoiding Death Is Far\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 12, 2011 12:50 am \nTitle: Avoiding Death Is Far\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Avoiding death is a primary goal of medicine. Avoiding side effects of treatment is a secondary goal. \u00a0So it makes sense that in a far mode doctors emphasize avoiding death, but in nearer mode avoiding side effects matters more:The study asked more than 700 primary-care doctors to choose between two treatment options for cancer and the flu \u2014 one with a higher risk of death, one with a higher risk of serious, lasting complications. In each of the two scenarios, doctors who said they\u2019d choose the deadlier option for themselves outnumbered those who said they\u2019d choose it for their patients. \u2026 Two hypothetical situations were presented: one involved choosing between two types of colon cancer surgery; the less deadly option\u2019s risks included having to wear a colostomy bag and chronic diarrhea. The other situation involved choosing no treatment for the flu, or choosing a made-up treatment less deadly than the disease but which could cause permanent paralysis. (more; HT Tyler)As other people are far compared to yourself, advice about them is more far. Similar effects are seen elsewhere:One study asked participants if they would approach an attractive stranger in a bar if they noticed that person was looking at them. Many said no, but they would give a friend the opposite advice. Saying \u201cno\u201d meant avoiding short-term pain \u2014 possible rejection by an attractive stranger \u2014 but also missing out on possible long-term gain \u2014 a relationship with that stranger.Since fear of being laughed at for doing something weird is also near, far mode also seems the best place to get people to favor cryonics. A best case: folks recommending that\u00a0other people sign up at some future date. How could we best use that to induce concrete action?Added 11p: Katja offers a plausible alternative theory.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 11, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bad College Quality Incentives\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 11, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Bad College Quality Incentives\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A week ago I puzzled: \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 26, 2009 10:55 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bad Emulation Advance\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 26, 2009 10:55 pm \nTitle: Bad Emulation Advance\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " You may recall my guess is that within a century or so, human whole brain emulations (ems) will induce a change so huge as to be in the top four changes in the last hundred million years. So major advances toward such ems are big news:IBM\u2019s Almaden Research Center \u2026 announced \u2026 they have created the largest brain simulation to date on a supercomputer. The number of neurons and synapses in the simulation exceed those in a cat\u2019s brain; previous simulations have reached only the level of mouse and rat brains. \u2026 C2 \u2026 re-create[s] 1 billion neurons connected by 10 trillion individual synapses. C2 runs on \u201cDawn,\u201d a BlueGene/P supercomputer. \u2026\u00a0 DARPA \u2026 is spending at least US $40 million to develop an electronic processor that mimics the mammalian brain\u2019s function, size, and power consumption. The DARPA project \u2026 was launched late last year and will continue until 2015 with a goal of a prototype chip simulating 10 billion neurons connected via 1 trillion synapses. The device must use 1 kilowatt or less (about what a space heater uses) and take up less than 2 liters in volume. \u2026\u201cEach neuron in the network is a faithful reproduction of what we now know about neurons,\u201d he says. This in itself is an enormous step forward for neuroscience, .. Dawn \u2026 takes 500 seconds for it to simulate 5 seconds of brain activity, and it consumes 1.4 MW.\u201cEnormous step\u201d seems a bit too much, but even so Randal Koene agrees this is big news:This recent demonstration of computing power in simulations of biologically inspired neuronal networks is a good measure to indicate how far we have come and when it will be possible to emulate the necessary operations of a complete human brain. Given the storage capacity that was used in the simulation, at least some relevant information could be stored for each updatable synapse in the experiment. That makes this markedly different than the storageless simulations carried out by Izhikevich.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 26, 2009 10:55 pm \nTitle: Bad Emulation Advance\nYou may recall my guess is that within a century or so, human whole brain emulations (ems) will induce a change so huge as to be in the top four changes in the last hundred million years. So major advances toward such ems are big news:IBM\u2019s Almaden Research Center \u2026 announced \u2026 they have created the largest brain simulation to date on a supercomputer. The number of neurons and synapses in the simulation exceed those in a cat\u2019s brain; previous simulations have reached only the level of mouse and rat brains. \u2026 C2 \u2026 re-create[s] 1 billion neurons connected by 10 trillion individual synapses. C2 runs on \u201cDawn,\u201d a BlueGene/P supercomputer. \u2026\u00a0 DARPA \u2026 is spending at least US $40 million to develop an electronic processor that mimics the mammalian brain\u2019s function, size, and power consumption. The DARPA project \u2026 was launched late last year and will continue until 2015 with a goal of a prototype chip simulating 10 billion neurons connected via 1 trillion synapses. The device must use 1 kilowatt or less (about what a space heater uses) and take up less than 2 liters in volume. \u2026\u201cEach neuron in the network is a faithful reproduction of what we now know about neurons,\u201d he says. This in itself is an enormous step forward for neuroscience, .. Dawn \u2026 takes 500 seconds for it to simulate 5 seconds of brain activity, and it consumes 1.4 MW.\u201cEnormous step\u201d seems a bit too much, but even so Randal Koene agrees this is big news:This recent demonstration of computing power in simulations of biologically inspired neuronal networks is a good measure to indicate how far we have come and when it will be possible to emulate the necessary operations of a complete human brain. Given the storage capacity that was used in the simulation, at least some relevant information could be stored for each updatable synapse in the experiment. That makes this markedly different than the storageless simulations carried out by Izhikevich.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Even if big news, this is not good news.\u00a0 You see, ems require three techs, and we have clear preferences over which tech is ready last:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 9, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bad Faith Voter Drives\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 9, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: Bad Faith Voter Drives\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Brian Weatherson wonders why profs may push voting in general but not particular candidates: \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 27, 2018 2:34 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bad-News Boxes\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 27, 2018 2:34 pm \nTitle: Bad-News Boxes\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Many firms fail to pass bad news up the management chain, and suffer as a result, even though simple fixes have long been known:Wall Street Journal placed the blame for the \u201crot at GE\u201d on former CEO Jeffrey Immelt\u2019s \u201csuccess theater,\u201d pointing to what analysts and insiders said was a history of selectively positive projections, a culture of overconfidence and a disinterest in hearing or delivering bad news. \u2026The article puts GE well out of its usual role as management exemplar. And it shines a light on a problem endemic to corporate America, leadership experts say. People naturally avoid conflict and fear delivering bad news. But in professional workplaces where a can-do attitude is valued above all else, and fears about job security remain common, getting unvarnished feedback and speaking candidly can be especially hard. \u2026So how can leaders avoid a culture of \u201csuccess theater?\u201d \u2026 They have to model the behavior, being realistic about goals and forecasts and candid when things go wrong. They should host town halls where employees can speak up with criticism, structuring them so bad news can flow to the top. For instance, he recommends getting respected mid-level managers to first interview lower-level employees about what\u2019s not working to make sure tough subjects are aired. \u2026Doing that is harder than it sounds, making it critical for leaders to create systemic ways to offer feedback, rather than just talking about it. She tells the story of a former eBay manager who would leave a locked orange box near the office bathrooms where people could leave critical questions. He would later read them aloud in meetings \u2014 with someone else unlocking the box to prove he hadn\u2019t edited its contents \u2014 hostile questions and all. \u201cPeople never trusted anything was really anonymous except paper,\u201d she said. \u201cHe did it week in and week out.\u201d\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 27, 2018 2:34 pm \nTitle: Bad-News Boxes\nMany firms fail to pass bad news up the management chain, and suffer as a result, even though simple fixes have long been known:Wall Street Journal placed the blame for the \u201crot at GE\u201d on former CEO Jeffrey Immelt\u2019s \u201csuccess theater,\u201d pointing to what analysts and insiders said was a history of selectively positive projections, a culture of overconfidence and a disinterest in hearing or delivering bad news. \u2026The article puts GE well out of its usual role as management exemplar. And it shines a light on a problem endemic to corporate America, leadership experts say. People naturally avoid conflict and fear delivering bad news. But in professional workplaces where a can-do attitude is valued above all else, and fears about job security remain common, getting unvarnished feedback and speaking candidly can be especially hard. \u2026So how can leaders avoid a culture of \u201csuccess theater?\u201d \u2026 They have to model the behavior, being realistic about goals and forecasts and candid when things go wrong. They should host town halls where employees can speak up with criticism, structuring them so bad news can flow to the top. For instance, he recommends getting respected mid-level managers to first interview lower-level employees about what\u2019s not working to make sure tough subjects are aired. \u2026Doing that is harder than it sounds, making it critical for leaders to create systemic ways to offer feedback, rather than just talking about it. She tells the story of a former eBay manager who would leave a locked orange box near the office bathrooms where people could leave critical questions. He would later read them aloud in meetings \u2014 with someone else unlocking the box to prove he hadn\u2019t edited its contents \u2014 hostile questions and all. \u201cPeople never trusted anything was really anonymous except paper,\u201d she said. \u201cHe did it week in and week out.\u201d\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " When she worked at Google, where she led online sales and operations for AdSense, YouTube and Doubleclick, she had a crystal statue she called the \u201cI was wrong, you were right\u201d statue that she\u2019d hand out to colleagues and direct reports. (more)Consider what signal a firm sends by NOT regularly reading the contents of locked anonymous bad news boxes at staff meetings. They in effect admit that they aren\u2019t willing to pay a small cost to overcome a big problem, if that interferes with the usual political games. You might think investors would see this as a big red flag, but in fact they hardly care.I\u2019m not sure how exactly to interpret this equilibrium, but it is clearly bad news for prediction markets in firms. Such markets are also sold as helping firms to uncover useful bad news. If firms don\u2019t do easier simpler things to learn bad news, why should we expect them to do more complex expensive things?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 28, 2011 2:20 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bad Sound, Bad Sign\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 28, 2011 2:20 pm \nTitle: Bad Sound, Bad Sign\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " \u201cPlease hold on, please set luggage cart brake to on.\u201dThat sound irritates me every minute or so when I ride the SFO airport tram. George Will feels similarly:You step onto an airport\u2019s moving walkway \u2026. soon a recorded voice says: \u201cThe moving sidewalk is coming to an end. Please look down.\u201d \u2026 Is that announcement about it ending really necessary? \u2026 Passing through a U.S. airport is an immersion in a merciless river of words \u2026 clearly they flow from \u2026 the assumption is that we are all infants or imbeciles in need of constant, kindly supervision and nudging \u2026 all this noise is symptomatic of \u2026 an entitlement mentality that \u2026 If something bad \u2026 happens to us, even if it results from our foolishness \u2026 we are entitled to sue someone for restitution. \u2026 Almost none of this noise is necessary for people mature enough to be allowed to walk around the block, let alone fly around the country. (more)Yes this shows an entitlement mentality, but I see worse: common knowledge that we are well aware of problems we don\u2019t intend to fix. We all know these warnings are excessive, bothersome, and counterproductive. But we also know that they are a reaction to lawsuits where jurors give big awards to show their concern and loyalty for accident victims, and hostility and defiance toward big organizations. When we repeatedly see thousands of others notice and ignore this problem, we learn that we have decided to let that symbolic support continue, accepting the useless-bothersome-warnings costs it imposes.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 28, 2011 2:20 pm \nTitle: Bad Sound, Bad Sign\n\u201cPlease hold on, please set luggage cart brake to on.\u201dThat sound irritates me every minute or so when I ride the SFO airport tram. George Will feels similarly:You step onto an airport\u2019s moving walkway \u2026. soon a recorded voice says: \u201cThe moving sidewalk is coming to an end. Please look down.\u201d \u2026 Is that announcement about it ending really necessary? \u2026 Passing through a U.S. airport is an immersion in a merciless river of words \u2026 clearly they flow from \u2026 the assumption is that we are all infants or imbeciles in need of constant, kindly supervision and nudging \u2026 all this noise is symptomatic of \u2026 an entitlement mentality that \u2026 If something bad \u2026 happens to us, even if it results from our foolishness \u2026 we are entitled to sue someone for restitution. \u2026 Almost none of this noise is necessary for people mature enough to be allowed to walk around the block, let alone fly around the country. (more)Yes this shows an entitlement mentality, but I see worse: common knowledge that we are well aware of problems we don\u2019t intend to fix. We all know these warnings are excessive, bothersome, and counterproductive. But we also know that they are a reaction to lawsuits where jurors give big awards to show their concern and loyalty for accident victims, and hostility and defiance toward big organizations. When we repeatedly see thousands of others notice and ignore this problem, we learn that we have decided to let that symbolic support continue, accepting the useless-bothersome-warnings costs it imposes.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " This sets a bad precedent regarding our many other social problems. The better informed among us might hope that the public doesn\u2019t quite understand many of our problems, and that we\u2019ll fix our problems when the public better understands them. For example, when the public better sees the ineffectiveness of our war on terror, the harm to kids when teacher unions block school reform, or the waste from excess professional licensing. But such informed folks also know that such harmful policies arise naturally as symbolism, to show respect for terrorism victims, teachers, professionals, etc.So the more that informed folks see cases like excess airport warnings, where everyone seems pretty clearly aware that we\u2019d rather accept high costs and bother to let symbolic signals continue, the more they should reasonably conclude that this holds for our other big problems as well. Why try to work to end a wasteful war on terror, for example, if most everyone seems ok with wasting vast sums to continue to signal our support for terror victims?The US is rich, but we spend an increasing fraction of our economy on wasteful symbolic signals regarding law, war, medicine, school, the elderly, etc. Yes, this trend cannot continue forever, but it can continue for a few decades more. And our unwillingness to limit the waste in cases where it is the clearest that we all see and understand the waste is a bad sign about our willingness to cut back anytime soon\u00a0on these other wasteful signals.One reason to come down hard on visible petty crime like vandalism is that people may interpret getting away with petty crime as a signal that they can probably get away with bigger crimes as well. Similarly, by actually fixing these very visible wastes, we might raise hopes that we\u2019ll also fix not quite so visible problems. For now, alas, I\u2019m not holding my breath.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 3, 2010 4:35 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Be Self-Styled\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 3, 2010 4:35 pm \nTitle: Be Self-Styled\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " self-styled \u2013 considered and called (something specified) only by the individual himself or herself; alleged (to be such) only by the person concerned; pretended; professed.Here are the 8 most recent uses of this phrase in the Washington Post:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 28, 2013 5:25 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Best Combos Are Robust\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 28, 2013 5:25 pm \nTitle: Best Combos Are Robust\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019ve been thinking a lot lately about what a future world of ems would be like, and in doing so I\u2019ve been naturally drawn to a simple common intuitive way to deal with complexity: form best estimates on each variable one at a time, and then adjust each best estimate to take into account the others, until one has a reasonably coherent baseline combination: a set of variable values that each seem reasonable given the others.I\u2019ve gotten a lot of informal complaints that this approach is badly overconfident, unscientific, and just plain ignorant. Don\u2019t I know that any particular forecasted combo is very unlikely to be realized? Well yes I do know this. But I don\u2019t think critics realize how robust and widely used is this best combo approach.For example, this is the main approach historians use studying ancient societies. A historian estimating Roman Empire copper trade will typically rely on the best estimates by other experts on Roman population, mine locations, trade routes, travel time, crime rates, lifespans, climate, wages, copper use in jewelry, etc. While such estimates are sometimes based on relatively direct clues about those parameters, historians usually rely more on consistency with other parameter estimates. While they usually acknowledge their uncertainty, and sometimes identify coherent sets of alternative values for small sets of variables, historians mostly build best estimates on the other historians\u2019 best estimates.As another example, the scheduling of very complex projects, as in construction, is usually done via reference to \u201cbaseline schedules,\u201d which specify a best estimate start time, duration, and resource use for each part. While uncertainties are often given for each part, and sophisticated algorithms can take complex uncertainty dependencies into account in constructing this schedule (more here), most attention still focuses on that single best combination schedule.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 28, 2013 5:25 pm \nTitle: Best Combos Are Robust\nI\u2019ve been thinking a lot lately about what a future world of ems would be like, and in doing so I\u2019ve been naturally drawn to a simple common intuitive way to deal with complexity: form best estimates on each variable one at a time, and then adjust each best estimate to take into account the others, until one has a reasonably coherent baseline combination: a set of variable values that each seem reasonable given the others.I\u2019ve gotten a lot of informal complaints that this approach is badly overconfident, unscientific, and just plain ignorant. Don\u2019t I know that any particular forecasted combo is very unlikely to be realized? Well yes I do know this. But I don\u2019t think critics realize how robust and widely used is this best combo approach.For example, this is the main approach historians use studying ancient societies. A historian estimating Roman Empire copper trade will typically rely on the best estimates by other experts on Roman population, mine locations, trade routes, travel time, crime rates, lifespans, climate, wages, copper use in jewelry, etc. While such estimates are sometimes based on relatively direct clues about those parameters, historians usually rely more on consistency with other parameter estimates. While they usually acknowledge their uncertainty, and sometimes identify coherent sets of alternative values for small sets of variables, historians mostly build best estimates on the other historians\u2019 best estimates.As another example, the scheduling of very complex projects, as in construction, is usually done via reference to \u201cbaseline schedules,\u201d which specify a best estimate start time, duration, and resource use for each part. While uncertainties are often given for each part, and sophisticated algorithms can take complex uncertainty dependencies into account in constructing this schedule (more here), most attention still focuses on that single best combination schedule.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " As a third example, even when people go to all the trouble to set up a full formal joint probability distribution over a complex space, as in a complex Bayesian network, and so would seem to have the least need to crudely avoid complexity by focusing on just one joint state, they still quite commonly want to compute the \u201cmost probable explanation\u201d, i.e., that single most likely joint state.We also robustly use best tentative combinations when solving puzzles like Sudoku, crossword, or jigsaw. In fact, it is hard to think of realistic complex decision or inference problems full of interdependencies where we don\u2019t rely heavily on a few current best guess baseline combinations. Since I\u2019m not willing to believe that we are so badly mistaken in all these areas as to heavily rely on a terribly mistaken method, I have to believe it is a reasonable and robust method. I don\u2019t see why I should hesitate to apply it to future forecasting.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 26, 2018 12:10 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bets As Signals of Article Quality\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 26, 2018 12:10 pm \nTitle: Bets As Signals of Article Quality\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " On October 15, I talked at the Rutgers Foundation of Probability Seminar on Uncommon Priors Require Origin Disputes. While visiting that day, I talked to Seminar host Harry Crane about how the academic replication crisis might be addressed by prediction markets, and by his related proposal to have authors offer bets supporting their papers. I mentioned to him that I\u2019m now part of a project that will induce a great many replication attempts, set up prediction markets about them beforehand, and that we would love to get journals to include our market prices in their review process. (I\u2019ll say more about this when I can.)When the scheduled speaker for the next week slot of the seminar cancelled, Crane took the opening to give a talk comparing our two approaches (video & links\u00a0here). He focused on papers for which it is possible to make a replication attempt and said \u201cWe don\u2019t need journals anymore.\u201d That is, he argued that we should not use which journal is willing to publish a paper as a signal of paper quality, but that we should use the signal of what bet authors offer in support of their paper.That author betting offer would specify what would count as a replication attempt, and as a successful replication, and include an escrowed amount of cash and betting odds which set the amount a challenger must put up to try to win that escrowed amount. If the replication fails, the challenger wins these two amounts minus the\u00a0cost of doing a replication attempt; if not the authors win that amount.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 26, 2018 12:10 pm \nTitle: Bets As Signals of Article Quality\nOn October 15, I talked at the Rutgers Foundation of Probability Seminar on Uncommon Priors Require Origin Disputes. While visiting that day, I talked to Seminar host Harry Crane about how the academic replication crisis might be addressed by prediction markets, and by his related proposal to have authors offer bets supporting their papers. I mentioned to him that I\u2019m now part of a project that will induce a great many replication attempts, set up prediction markets about them beforehand, and that we would love to get journals to include our market prices in their review process. (I\u2019ll say more about this when I can.)When the scheduled speaker for the next week slot of the seminar cancelled, Crane took the opening to give a talk comparing our two approaches (video & links\u00a0here). He focused on papers for which it is possible to make a replication attempt and said \u201cWe don\u2019t need journals anymore.\u201d That is, he argued that we should not use which journal is willing to publish a paper as a signal of paper quality, but that we should use the signal of what bet authors offer in support of their paper.That author betting offer would specify what would count as a replication attempt, and as a successful replication, and include an escrowed amount of cash and betting odds which set the amount a challenger must put up to try to win that escrowed amount. If the replication fails, the challenger wins these two amounts minus the\u00a0cost of doing a replication attempt; if not the authors win that amount.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In his talk, Crane contrasted his approach with an alternative in which the quality signal would be the odds in an open prediction market of replication, conditional on a replication attempt.\u00a0In comparing the two, Crane seems to think that authors would not usually participate in setting market odds. He lists three advantages of author bets over betting market odds: 1) Authors bets give authors better incentives to produce non-misleading papers. 2) Market odds are less informed because market participants know less that paper authors about their paper. 3) Relying on market odds allows a mistaken consensus to suppress surprising new results. In the rest of this post, I\u2019ll respond.I am agnostic on whether journal quality should remain as a signal of article quality. If that signal goes away, then we are talking about what other signals can be how useful. And if that signal remains, then we can be talking about other signals that might be used by journals to make their decisions, and also by other observers to evaluate article quality. But whatever signals are used, I\u2019m pretty sure that most observers will demand that a few simple easy-to-interpret signals be distilled from the many complex signals available. Tenure review committees, for example, will need signals nearly as simple as journal prestige.Let me also point out that these two approaches of market odds or author bets can also be applied to non-academic articles, such as news articles, and also to many other kinds of quality signals. For example, we could have author or market bets on how many future citations or how much news coverage an article will get, whether any contained math proofs will be shown to be in error, whether any names or dates will be shown to have been misreported in the article, or whether coding errors will be found in supporting statistical analysis. Judges or committees might also evaluate overall article quality at some distant future date. Bets on any of these could be conditional on whether serious attempts were made in that category.Now, on the comparison between author and market bets, an obvious alternative is to offer both author bets and market odds as signals, either to ultimate readers or to journals reviewing articles. After all, it is hard to justify suppressing any potentially useful signal. If a market exists, authors could easily make betting offers via that market, and those offers could easily be flagged for market observers to take as signals.I see market odds as easier for observers to interpret than author bet offers. First, authors bets are more easily corrupted via authors arranging for a collaborating shill to accept their bet. Second, it can be hard for observers to judge how author risk-aversion influences author odds, and how replication costs and author wealth influences author bet amounts. For market odds, in contrast, amounts take care of themselves via opposing bets, and observers need only judge any overall differences in wealth and risk-aversion between the two sides, differences that tend to be smaller, vary less, and matter less for market odds.Also, authors would usually participate in any open market on their paper, giving those authors bet incentives and making market odds include their info. The reason authors will bet is that\u00a0other participants will expect authors to bet to puff up their odds, and so other participants will push the odds down to compensate. So if authors don\u2019t in fact participate, the odds will tend to look bad for them. Yes, market odds will be influenced by views others than those of authors, but when evaluating papers we want our quality signals to be based on the views of people other than paper authors. That is why we use peer review, after all.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "In his talk, Crane contrasted his approach with an alternative in which the quality signal would be the odds in an open prediction market of replication, conditional on a replication attempt.\u00a0In comparing the two, Crane seems to think that authors would not usually participate in setting market odds. He lists three advantages of author bets over betting market odds: 1) Authors bets give authors better incentives to produce non-misleading papers. 2) Market odds are less informed because market participants know less that paper authors about their paper. 3) Relying on market odds allows a mistaken consensus to suppress surprising new results. In the rest of this post, I\u2019ll respond.I am agnostic on whether journal quality should remain as a signal of article quality. If that signal goes away, then we are talking about what other signals can be how useful. And if that signal remains, then we can be talking about other signals that might be used by journals to make their decisions, and also by other observers to evaluate article quality. But whatever signals are used, I\u2019m pretty sure that most observers will demand that a few simple easy-to-interpret signals be distilled from the many complex signals available. Tenure review committees, for example, will need signals nearly as simple as journal prestige.Let me also point out that these two approaches of market odds or author bets can also be applied to non-academic articles, such as news articles, and also to many other kinds of quality signals. For example, we could have author or market bets on how many future citations or how much news coverage an article will get, whether any contained math proofs will be shown to be in error, whether any names or dates will be shown to have been misreported in the article, or whether coding errors will be found in supporting statistical analysis. Judges or committees might also evaluate overall article quality at some distant future date. Bets on any of these could be conditional on whether serious attempts were made in that category.Now, on the comparison between author and market bets, an obvious alternative is to offer both author bets and market odds as signals, either to ultimate readers or to journals reviewing articles. After all, it is hard to justify suppressing any potentially useful signal. If a market exists, authors could easily make betting offers via that market, and those offers could easily be flagged for market observers to take as signals.I see market odds as easier for observers to interpret than author bet offers. First, authors bets are more easily corrupted via authors arranging for a collaborating shill to accept their bet. Second, it can be hard for observers to judge how author risk-aversion influences author odds, and how replication costs and author wealth influences author bet amounts. For market odds, in contrast, amounts take care of themselves via opposing bets, and observers need only judge any overall differences in wealth and risk-aversion between the two sides, differences that tend to be smaller, vary less, and matter less for market odds.Also, authors would usually participate in any open market on their paper, giving those authors bet incentives and making market odds include their info. The reason authors will bet is that\u00a0other participants will expect authors to bet to puff up their odds, and so other participants will push the odds down to compensate. So if authors don\u2019t in fact participate, the odds will tend to look bad for them. Yes, market odds will be influenced by views others than those of authors, but when evaluating papers we want our quality signals to be based on the views of people other than paper authors. That is why we use peer review, after all.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " When there are many possible quality metrics on which bets could be offered, article authors are unlikely to offer bets on all of them. But in an open market, anyone could offer to bet on any of those metrics. So an open market could show estimates regarding any metric for which anyone made an offer to bet. This allows a much larger range of quality metrics to be available under the market odds approach.While the simple market approach merely bets conditional on someone attempting a replication attempt, an audit lottery variation that I\u2019ve proposed would instead use a small fixed percentage of amounts bet to pay for replication attempts. If the amount collected is insufficient, then it and all betting amounts are gambled so that either a sufficient amount is created, or all these assets disappear.Just as 5% significance is treated as a threshold today for publication evaluation, I can imagine particular bet reliability thresholds being important for evaluating article quality. News articles might even be filtered or show simple icons based on a reliability category. In this case the betting offer and market options would more tend to merge.For example, an article might be considered \u201cgood enough\u201d if it had no more than a 5% chance of being wrong, if checked. The standard for checking this might be if anyone was currently offering to bet at 19-1 odds in favor of reliability. For as long as the author or anyone else maintained such offers, the article would qualify as at least that reliable, and so could be shown via filters or icons as meeting that standard. For this approach we don\u2019t need to support a market with varying prices; we only need to keep track of how much has been offered and accepted on either side of this fixed odds bet.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 19, 2009 12:15 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Better Bill Scoring\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 19, 2009 12:15 pm \nTitle: Better Bill Scoring\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Megan McArdle says med reform will pass, via bills exploiting CBO budget scoring errors:I now put the chances of a substantial health care bill passing at 75%, and the chances of the Democrats losing the house in 2010 at about 66%. \u2026 The real game changer is that the CBO is willing to score health care savings on the grounds that the bill contains automatic spending cuts.Conservatives are filled with rage and anguish. \u2026\u00a0 They are absolutely right:\u00a0 the savings cuts will not be made, and I doubt that many in the Democratic party leadership, or the liberal wonkosphere believe that they will. \u2026\u00a0 The fact that the CBO has minimal discretion and uses roughly the same standards for every analysis is, despite its problems, a feature rather than a bug.\u00a0 We may not like the fact that the CBO scores what\u2019s in the law, rather than what is most likely to happen.\u00a0 But the alternative is what?\u00a0 An agency that can give the thumbs up or thumbs down according to how it feels about the legislators? \u2026This will make it very hard to keep the bill from passing, because legislators are, natch, more concerned about the appearance of fiscal rectitude than actual conservative budgeting.\u00a0 \u2026 The public is probably going to accept the CBO numbers.The alternative is prediction markets.\u00a0 Compared to the value of making good decisions on these bills, or to the effort spent in \u201crage and anguish\u201d on them, the cost to create prediction markets giving quality unbiased estimates of actual bill budgets would be small.So why don\u2019t now-loudly-wailing conservatives direct some of their energy to creating and promoting bill-scoring prediction markets?\u00a0 Because they expect better bill budget estimates to make their positions look worse as often as better.\u00a0 Sure, better estimates would help conservatives in this particular case, but they aren\u2019t fool enough to think liberals lie about budgets more often than conservatives.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 19, 2009 12:15 pm \nTitle: Better Bill Scoring\nMegan McArdle says med reform will pass, via bills exploiting CBO budget scoring errors:I now put the chances of a substantial health care bill passing at 75%, and the chances of the Democrats losing the house in 2010 at about 66%. \u2026 The real game changer is that the CBO is willing to score health care savings on the grounds that the bill contains automatic spending cuts.Conservatives are filled with rage and anguish. \u2026\u00a0 They are absolutely right:\u00a0 the savings cuts will not be made, and I doubt that many in the Democratic party leadership, or the liberal wonkosphere believe that they will. \u2026\u00a0 The fact that the CBO has minimal discretion and uses roughly the same standards for every analysis is, despite its problems, a feature rather than a bug.\u00a0 We may not like the fact that the CBO scores what\u2019s in the law, rather than what is most likely to happen.\u00a0 But the alternative is what?\u00a0 An agency that can give the thumbs up or thumbs down according to how it feels about the legislators? \u2026This will make it very hard to keep the bill from passing, because legislators are, natch, more concerned about the appearance of fiscal rectitude than actual conservative budgeting.\u00a0 \u2026 The public is probably going to accept the CBO numbers.The alternative is prediction markets.\u00a0 Compared to the value of making good decisions on these bills, or to the effort spent in \u201crage and anguish\u201d on them, the cost to create prediction markets giving quality unbiased estimates of actual bill budgets would be small.So why don\u2019t now-loudly-wailing conservatives direct some of their energy to creating and promoting bill-scoring prediction markets?\u00a0 Because they expect better bill budget estimates to make their positions look worse as often as better.\u00a0 Sure, better estimates would help conservatives in this particular case, but they aren\u2019t fool enough to think liberals lie about budgets more often than conservatives.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " But aren\u2019t there substantial organized political groups dedicated to uncovering and promoting the best policies, no matter whose ox they gore?\u00a0 Apparently not.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 18, 2010 1:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Active Placebos\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 18, 2010 1:00 pm \nTitle: Beware Active Placebos\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In my health econ class I review a classic \u201998 paper by Irving Kirsch and others, suggesting that the apparent benefit of antidepressants is actually an \u201cactive placebo effect,\u201d a stronger placebo effect than from sugar pills; patients who see they get side effects, like sleepiness or dry-mouth, feel assured they have a \u201creal\u201d drug:Mean effect sizes for changes in depression were calculated for 2,318 patients who had been randomly assigned to either antidepressant medication or placebo in 19 double-blind clinical trials. As a proportion of the drug response, the placebo response was constant across different types of medication (75%), and the correlation between placebo effect and drug effect was .90. \u2026 These data raise the possibility that the apparent drug effect (25% of the drug response) is actually an active placebo effect. (more)Kirsch is still working on the topic. His new paper avoids publication selection bias by looking at all 47 trials ever done. He still gets similar results:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 18, 2010 1:00 pm \nTitle: Beware Active Placebos\nIn my health econ class I review a classic \u201998 paper by Irving Kirsch and others, suggesting that the apparent benefit of antidepressants is actually an \u201cactive placebo effect,\u201d a stronger placebo effect than from sugar pills; patients who see they get side effects, like sleepiness or dry-mouth, feel assured they have a \u201creal\u201d drug:Mean effect sizes for changes in depression were calculated for 2,318 patients who had been randomly assigned to either antidepressant medication or placebo in 19 double-blind clinical trials. As a proportion of the drug response, the placebo response was constant across different types of medication (75%), and the correlation between placebo effect and drug effect was .90. \u2026 These data raise the possibility that the apparent drug effect (25% of the drug response) is actually an active placebo effect. (more)Kirsch is still working on the topic. His new paper avoids publication selection bias by looking at all 47 trials ever done. He still gets similar results:\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " We requested from the FDA all publicly releasable information about the clinical trials for ef\ufb01cacy conducted for marketing approval of \ufb02uoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, paroxetine, sertraline, and citalopram, the six most widely prescribed antidepressants approved between 1987 and 1999. \u2026 Forty-seven clinical trials were identi\ufb01ed in the data obtained from the FDA. \u2026 Unlike prior studies, we restricted our analysis to complete datasets that included all trials conducted, whether published or not. Thus, simple publication bias cannot underlie the results. \u2026 We found no linear relation between severity and response to medication. \u2026 The differences between drug and placebo were not clinically signi\ufb01cant in clinical trials involving either moderately or very severely depressed patients, but did reach the criterion for trials involving patients whose mean initial depression scores were at the upper end of the very severe depression category. \u2026 The response to placebo in these trials was exceptionally large, duplicating more than 80% of the improvement observed in the drug groups. In contrast, the effect of placebo on pain is estimated to be about 50% of the response to pain medication. (more)\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 27, 2006 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Amateur Science History\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 27, 2006 6:00 am \nTitle: Beware Amateur Science History\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In 1980 I took a cosmology class with Virginia Trimble at UC Irvine, and every time she would come to an effect that was named after someone, she would say \"The X effect, because it was discovered earlier by Y,\" where X and Y were two different names.\u00a0 \u00a0Usually X was male and Y was female.\u00a0 \u00a0 When I studied history of science at the University of Chicago the following year I learned that Trimble was right; the usual histories of science by scientists, such as those found in the introduction of science articles, are usually only loosely tied to what historians find when they study things carefully.\u00a0 They are like learning the history of cars from the Ford Motor Company, or the history of computers from Microsoft.\u00a0 \u00a0 Before a famous \"discovery,\" often many others had \"discovered\" and tried to publicize very similar things.\u00a0 \u00a0Who became famous for the discovery was decide mostly by academic power, i.e., by who could make more people tell the story their way.In July I came across a New Scientist opinion article (un-gated for now here) by Henry Nicholls where he gives more examples of persistent science myths, such as that Darwin thought of natural selection while visiting the Galapagos islands.\u00a0 \u00a0Oddly, Nicholls then concludes with this shoulder shrug:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 4, 2011 2:50 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Big Bad Novelties\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 4, 2011 2:50 pm \nTitle: Beware Big Bad Novelties\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A central issue of this blog is: when exactly is it how important to emphasize truth, relative to other belief functions? New data suggest that truth is more important in bad times than in good, and when problems are big rather than small. Specifically, rose-colored marriage glasses help in good times, but hurt in bad times:Individuals in new marriages were interviewed separately about their ongoing stressful experiences, and their own appraisals of those experiences were compared with those of the interviewers. \u2026 Spouses\u2019 tendencies to form positively biased appraisals of their stressful experiences predicted fewer depressive symptoms over the subsequent 4 years among individuals judged to be facing relatively mild experiences but more depressive symptoms among individuals judged to be facing relatively severe experiences. \u2026 These effects were mediated by changes in those experiences, such that the interaction between the tendency to form positively biased appraisals of stressful experiences and the objectively rated severity of initial levels of those experiences directly predicted changes in those experiences, which in turn accounted for changes in depressive symptoms. (more)Truth should also be especially important for situations that are novel relative to our evolved intuitions. The more our current situation differs from situations where our ancestors evolved (genetically or culturally) their intuitions about when to be truth-oriented, the more we risk by following such intuitions. And this seems especially likely for \u201cfuturistic\u201d issues, with few genetic or cultural\u00a0precedents.Put them together and it is especially important for humanity to be truth-oriented regarding big bad evolutionarily-novel problems. Beware rose-colored glasses when turning a new corner to the future.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2021 3:30 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Centralization\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2021 3:30 pm \nTitle: Beware Centralization\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Imagine merging three public firms, by making each firm into a division of a single new firm with one new boss. In principle, this new boss has the option to keep these firms running exactly as before. The prior CEOs could become division heads, with complete freedom to run their divisions as before, and paid the same, such as via options on new assets that track the new profits of each division. Under this arrangement, the profits of the new firm could arguably be the same of the profits of the old firms, minus a little bit for the salary of the new boss.However, this new boss would also have the option to do other things. Like cutting redundancies between some subdivisions, such as shipping or human resources. Or reviewing the major decisions of division managers. Or sharing technology between firms. Or using the larger size of this new firm to negotiate better deals with unions, suppliers, or politicians.Arguably the fact that there is the option to get at least the old profit levels, combined with many new options for making and using synergies across these firms, suggests that such merged firms can in general make more profits than they could separately. Which suggests that firms should just keep on merging until they are very large. But in fact firms do not do this, because their investors do not support it. For example, firms with more than 250 employees employed only 55% of the private US work force in 2020.So why don\u2019t firms merge to achieve these gains? Yes, regulators and tax authorities may treat larger firms less favorably. Yes, maybe customers and employees dislike larger firms and so treat them worse. But the typical scale of most firms seems far smaller than can be explained by these effects. There seem to be much stronger reasons why most firms are not much larger.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2021 3:30 pm \nTitle: Beware Centralization\nImagine merging three public firms, by making each firm into a division of a single new firm with one new boss. In principle, this new boss has the option to keep these firms running exactly as before. The prior CEOs could become division heads, with complete freedom to run their divisions as before, and paid the same, such as via options on new assets that track the new profits of each division. Under this arrangement, the profits of the new firm could arguably be the same of the profits of the old firms, minus a little bit for the salary of the new boss.However, this new boss would also have the option to do other things. Like cutting redundancies between some subdivisions, such as shipping or human resources. Or reviewing the major decisions of division managers. Or sharing technology between firms. Or using the larger size of this new firm to negotiate better deals with unions, suppliers, or politicians.Arguably the fact that there is the option to get at least the old profit levels, combined with many new options for making and using synergies across these firms, suggests that such merged firms can in general make more profits than they could separately. Which suggests that firms should just keep on merging until they are very large. But in fact firms do not do this, because their investors do not support it. For example, firms with more than 250 employees employed only 55% of the private US work force in 2020.So why don\u2019t firms merge to achieve these gains? Yes, regulators and tax authorities may treat larger firms less favorably. Yes, maybe customers and employees dislike larger firms and so treat them worse. But the typical scale of most firms seems far smaller than can be explained by these effects. There seem to be much stronger reasons why most firms are not much larger.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " One usual story is that the manager of the new merged firm just can\u2019t help interfering with and inter-connecting these divisions. After all, he or she has career ambitions which are poorly served by a complete hands-off management style. But after such manager \u201chelp\u201d, it becomes harder to evaluate the performance of each division independently from the rest. And the quality of the people wiling to work as heads of these divisions, instead of as CEOs of them as independent firms, gets lower. These costs of size are said to be larger than the benefits to be found from exploiting synergies, which is why firms are not larger.A similar thing happens with government agencies assigned to manage sectors of society. Imagine that we created a government agency in charge of food for the whole nation. This agency is given an authorization so broad that it could allow exactly the existing food practice and industries, such as farms, grocery stores, restaurants, and personal kitchens. Or it could completely nationalize all these resources, and use tax revenue to reorganize them as it saw fit. Or it could do anything in between. Imagine that such an agency had been created in the U.S. in 1970.It seems obvious to me that by now such a food agency would have intervened in food production, processing, and distribution far more extensively that has been the case in our actual history. Large government agencies would have formed with many thousands of employees, many of them directly managing food activities. Everyone would get access to some food, and some government activities would achieve larger scale economies than seen in the private sector. But this would be achieved in part via more uniformity, standardization, and stability of food processes. Government managed food would end up with less variety and adaptation to individual circumstances and preferences, and this food would improve and innovate less over time.The amazing thing is that all this would happen even with high quality oversight and accountability by agencies to politicians, and politicians to voters. Voters would tell politicians about things they liked more and less, politicians would pass on these messages to agencies, and agencies would often change their policies and strategies in the suggested directions. But even in the absence of much corruption, civil servant selfishness, or partisan rancor, and even with the best political processes that we can imagine, a food industry managed by a government agency with broad powers would still probably end up creating a worse world of food over the long run.Similarly, a new firm that merged three random prior firms would typically earn less profits, even with the sincere and helpful advice of its investors, boards of advisors, and management consulting firms, and even in the absence of stupid or corrupt firm managers and advisors. Processes of governance and oversight can and do help, but they are generally insufficient to cancel the harms from an overly centralized organization structure.These patterns, if true, are seem important regarding the ideal scales of both business and government. And I fear the U.S. public is insufficiently aware of them, as we seem to be on the verge of a historic increase in the scale and depth of government management of society.Added 4Oct: Let me emphasize that what I\u2019m describing is theoretically puzzling, in that it isn\u2019t very directly implied by our standard models of profit maximization or democratic accountability. There is something important that we don\u2019t understand well going on here.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 18, 2011 9:20 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware \u201cConsensus\u201d?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 18, 2011 9:20 am \nTitle: Beware \u201cConsensus\u201d?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " If your doctor discourages you from seeking another opinion, you have even more reason to get one. (more)Honest contrarians who expect reasonable outsiders to give their contrarian view more than normal credence should point to strong outside indicators that correlate enough with contrarians tending more to be right. (more)Perhaps one strong outside indicator that a contrarian view is right is when the media goes out of its way to say that it is opposed by a \u201cscientific consensus\u201d! Ron Bailey in July:Several [out of the eight media-declared] scientific consensuses before 1985 turned out to be wrong or exaggerated, e.g., saccharin, dietary fiber, fusion reactors, stratospheric ozone depletion, and even arguably acid rain and high-dose animal testing for carcinogenicity.It seems to me that for folks with a contrarian bent, getting more better studies like this should be a high priority. More details from Ron:I decided to mine the \u201cliterature\u201d on the history of uses of the phrase \u201cscientific consensus.\u201d I restricted my research to Nexis searches of major world publications, figuring that\u2019s where mainstream views would be best represented. \u2026\u00a0My Nexis search found that 36 articles using that phrase appeared in major world publications prior to my arbitrary June 1985 search cutoff.One of the first instances of the uses of the phrase appears in the July 1, 1979 issue of The Washington Post on the safety of the artificial sweetener saccharin. \u201cThe real issue raised by saccharin is not whether it causes cancer (there is now a broad scientific consensus that it does)\u201d reported the Post. \u2026Thirty years later, the National Cancer Institute reports that \u201cthere is no clear evidence that saccharin causes cancer in humans.\u201d \u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 18, 2011 9:20 am \nTitle: Beware \u201cConsensus\u201d?\nIf your doctor discourages you from seeking another opinion, you have even more reason to get one. (more)Honest contrarians who expect reasonable outsiders to give their contrarian view more than normal credence should point to strong outside indicators that correlate enough with contrarians tending more to be right. (more)Perhaps one strong outside indicator that a contrarian view is right is when the media goes out of its way to say that it is opposed by a \u201cscientific consensus\u201d! Ron Bailey in July:Several [out of the eight media-declared] scientific consensuses before 1985 turned out to be wrong or exaggerated, e.g., saccharin, dietary fiber, fusion reactors, stratospheric ozone depletion, and even arguably acid rain and high-dose animal testing for carcinogenicity.It seems to me that for folks with a contrarian bent, getting more better studies like this should be a high priority. More details from Ron:I decided to mine the \u201cliterature\u201d on the history of uses of the phrase \u201cscientific consensus.\u201d I restricted my research to Nexis searches of major world publications, figuring that\u2019s where mainstream views would be best represented. \u2026\u00a0My Nexis search found that 36 articles using that phrase appeared in major world publications prior to my arbitrary June 1985 search cutoff.One of the first instances of the uses of the phrase appears in the July 1, 1979 issue of The Washington Post on the safety of the artificial sweetener saccharin. \u201cThe real issue raised by saccharin is not whether it causes cancer (there is now a broad scientific consensus that it does)\u201d reported the Post. \u2026Thirty years later, the National Cancer Institute reports that \u201cthere is no clear evidence that saccharin causes cancer in humans.\u201d \u2026\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Similarly, the Post reported later that same year (October 6, 1979) a \u201cprofound shift\u201d in the prevailing scientific consensus about the causes of cancer. \u2026 One of the more important [new] findings was that increased dietary fiber appeared to reduce significantly the incidence of colon cancer. \u2026 In 2005, another big study confirmed that \u201chigh dietary fiber intake was not associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer.\u201d \u2026In its June 1, 1984 issue, The Washington Post reported the issuance of a massive new report by the White House science office supporting the scientific consensus that \u201cagents found to cause cancer in animals should be considered \u2018suspect human carcinogens,\u2019\u201d and that \u201cgiving animals high doses of an agent is a proper way to test its carcinogenicity.\u201d Although such studies remain a regulatory benchmark, at least some researchers question the usefulness of such tests today.The December 17, 1979 issue of Newsweek reported that the Department of Energy was boosting research spending on fusion energy reactors based on a scientific consensus that the break-even point\u2014that a fusion reactor would produce more energy than it consumes\u2014could be passed within five years. That hasn\u2019t happened yet. \u2026An article in the June 8, 1981 issue of The Washington Post cited a spokesman for the American Medical Association opposing proposed federal legislation that would make abortion murder as saying, \u201cThe legislation is founded on the idea that a scientific consensus exists that life begins at the time of conception. We will go up there to say that no such consensus exists.\u201d It still doesn\u2019t.In the years prior to 1985, several publications reported the scientific consensus that acid rain emitted by coal-fired electricity generation plants belching sulfur dioxide was destroying vast swathes of forests and lakes in the eastern United States. \u2026 In 1991, \u2026 study \u2026 actually reported \u2026 \u201cAcid rain was not damaging forests, did not hurt crops. \u2026Interestingly, the only mention of a scientific consensus with regard to stratospheric ozone depletion by ubiquitous chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs) refrigerants was an article in the October 6, 1982 issue of the industry journal Chemical Week. That article noted that the National Research Council had just issued a report that had cut estimates of ozone depletion in half from a 1979 NRC report. \u2026 \u201cThe steady state reduction in total global ozone\u2026could be between 5 and 9 percent.\u201d Such a reduction might have been marginally harmful, but not catastrophic. \u2026 [But] the discovery of the \u201cozone hole\u201d over Antarctica \u2026 quickly led to the adoption of an international treaty aiming to drastically reduce the global production of CFCs in 1987.With regard to anthropogenic climate change, my Nexis search of major world publications finds before 1985 just a single 1981 New York Times article. \u201cThere has been a growing scientific consensus that the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is creating a \u2018greenhouse effect\u2019 by trapping some of the earth\u2019s heat and warming the atmosphere,\u201d reported the Times in its January 14, 1981 issue. \u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 11, 2016 11:45 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Futurism As Political Allegory\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 11, 2016 11:45 am \nTitle: Beware Futurism As Political Allegory\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Imagine that you are junior in high school who expects to attend college. At that point in your life you have opinions related to frequent personal choices if blue jeans feel comfortable\u00a0or\u00a0if\u00a0you prefer vanilla to\u00a0chocolate ice cream. And you have opinions on social norms in your social world, like how much money it is okay to borrow from a friend, how late one should stay at a party, or what are acceptable excuses for breaking up with boy/girlfriend. And you know you will soon need opinions on imminent major life choices, such as what college to attend, what major to have, and whether to live on campus.But at that point in life you will have less need of opinions on what classes to take as college senior, and where to live then. You know you can wait\u00a0and learn more before making such decisions. And you have even less need of opinions on borrowing money, staying at parties, or breaking up as a college senior. Social norms on those choices will come from future communities, who may not yet have even decided on such things.In general, you should expect to have more sensible and stable opinions related to choices you actually make often, and less coherent and useful opinions regarding choices you will make in the future, after you learn many new things. You should\u00a0have less coherent opinions on how your future communities will evaluate the morality and social acceptability of your future choices. And your opinions on collective choices, such as via government, should be even less reliable, as your incentives to get those right are even weaker.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 11, 2016 11:45 am \nTitle: Beware Futurism As Political Allegory\nImagine that you are junior in high school who expects to attend college. At that point in your life you have opinions related to frequent personal choices if blue jeans feel comfortable\u00a0or\u00a0if\u00a0you prefer vanilla to\u00a0chocolate ice cream. And you have opinions on social norms in your social world, like how much money it is okay to borrow from a friend, how late one should stay at a party, or what are acceptable excuses for breaking up with boy/girlfriend. And you know you will soon need opinions on imminent major life choices, such as what college to attend, what major to have, and whether to live on campus.But at that point in life you will have less need of opinions on what classes to take as college senior, and where to live then. You know you can wait\u00a0and learn more before making such decisions. And you have even less need of opinions on borrowing money, staying at parties, or breaking up as a college senior. Social norms on those choices will come from future communities, who may not yet have even decided on such things.In general, you should expect to have more sensible and stable opinions related to choices you actually make often, and less coherent and useful opinions regarding choices you will make in the future, after you learn many new things. You should\u00a0have less coherent opinions on how your future communities will evaluate the morality and social acceptability of your future choices. And your opinions on collective choices, such as via government, should be even less reliable, as your incentives to get those right are even weaker.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " All of this suggests that you be wary of simply asking your intuition for opinions about what you or anyone else should do in strange distant futures. Especially regarding moral and collective choices. Your intuition may dutifully generate such opinions, but they\u2019ll probably depend a lot on how the questions were framed, and the context in which questions were asked. For more reliable opinions, try instead to chip away at such topics.However, this context-dependence is gold to those who seek to influence others\u2019 opinions. Warriors attack where an enemy is weak. When seeking to convert others to a point of view, you can have only limited influence on topics where they have accepted a particular framing, and have incentives to be careful. But you can more influence how a new topic is framed, and when there are many new topics you can emphasize the few where your preferred framing helps more.So legal advocates want to control how courts pick cases to review and the new precedents they set. Political advocates want to influence which news stories get\u00a0popular and how those stories are framed. Political advocates also seek to influence the choices and interpretations of cultural icons like songs and movies, because being less constrained\u00a0by\u00a0facts such things are more open to framing.As with the example above of future college choices, distant future choices are less thoughtful or stable, and thus more subject to selection and framing effects. Future moral choices are even less stable, and more related to political positions that advocates want to push. And future moral choices expressed via culture like movies are even more flexible, and thus more useful. So newly-discussed culturally-expressed distant future collective moral choices create a perfect storm of random context-dependent unreliable opinions, and thus are\u00a0ideal for advocacy influence, at least when you can get people to pay attention to them.Of course most people are usually reluctant to think much about distant future choices, including moral and collective ones. Which greatly limits the value of such\u00a0topics to advocates. But a few choices related to distant futures have engaged wider audiences, such as climate change and, recently, AI risk. And political advocates do seem quite eager to influence such topics, due to their potency. They\u00a0seem select such topics from a far larger set of similarly important issues, in part for their potency at pushing common political positions. The science-fiction truism really does seem to apply: most talk on\u00a0the distant future is really indirect talk on\u00a0our world today.Of course the future really will happen eventually, and we should want to consider choices today that importantly influence that future, some of those choices will have moral and collective aspects, some of these issues can be expressed via culture like movies, and at some point such issue discussion will be new. But as with big hard problems in general, it is probably better to chip away at such problems.That is: Anchor your thoughts to reality rather than to fiction. Make sure you have a grip on current and past behavior before looking at related future behavior. Try to stick with analyzing facts for longer before being forced to make value choices. Think about amoral and decentralized choices carefully before considering moral and collective ones. Avoid feeling pressured to jump to strong conclusions on recently popular topics. Prefer robust and reliable methods even when they are less easy and direct. Mostly the distant future doesn\u2019t need action today \u2013 decisions will wait a bit for us to\u00a0think more carefully.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 27, 2012 10:15 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Gods Out There\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 27, 2012 10:15 am \nTitle: Beware Gods Out There\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Bryan Caplan notes that we\u2019d actually treat X-men quite differently from the stories:In the X-men comics, t.v. series, and movies, normal humans instinctively treat super-powered mutants with fear and disgust. The popular mutant policy options are: (a) register them as deadly weapons, (b) preemptively imprison them, or (c) kill them one and all.Is this how real-world humans would actually react to the emergence of super-humans? I seriously doubt it. As long as the mutants accepted conventional norms of their societies, we\u2019d treat them like celebrities or sports stars. Each country would take nationalistic pride in \u201ctheir\u201d mutants, just as each country now takes pride in their freakishly talented countrymen in the Olympics. \u2026If 5% of mutants tried to seize power, existing authorities would almost certainly recruit the remaining 95% to defend themselves \u2013 and hasten to add that \u201cThe best defense is a good offense.\u201d If the U.S. and U.S.S.R. could competitively embrace former Nazi scientists after World War II, it\u2019s hard to believe that the world\u2019s leading governments would ever decide, \u201cThe only good mutant is a dead mutant.\u201d (more)As it happens, I just re-watched the first three episodes of the original Star Trek TV series, all of which were about super-powerful human-like beings, seen as monsters to be killed or isolated. In the third episode, a brush with something just outside the galaxy kick-starts rapid ESP-power growth in a few crew members, who then get big heads about it, and so must be killed:KIRK: You must help me. Before it goes too far.DEHNER: What he\u2019s doing is right for him and me.KIRK: And for humanity? You\u2019re still human.DEHNER: No, IKIRK: At least partly, you are, or you wouldn\u2019t be here talking to me.DEHNER: Earth is really unimportant. Before long, we\u2019ll be where it would have taken mankind millions of years of learning to reach.KIRK: What will Mitchell learn in getting there? Will he know what to do with his power? Will he acquire the wisdom?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 27, 2012 10:15 am \nTitle: Beware Gods Out There\nBryan Caplan notes that we\u2019d actually treat X-men quite differently from the stories:In the X-men comics, t.v. series, and movies, normal humans instinctively treat super-powered mutants with fear and disgust. The popular mutant policy options are: (a) register them as deadly weapons, (b) preemptively imprison them, or (c) kill them one and all.Is this how real-world humans would actually react to the emergence of super-humans? I seriously doubt it. As long as the mutants accepted conventional norms of their societies, we\u2019d treat them like celebrities or sports stars. Each country would take nationalistic pride in \u201ctheir\u201d mutants, just as each country now takes pride in their freakishly talented countrymen in the Olympics. \u2026If 5% of mutants tried to seize power, existing authorities would almost certainly recruit the remaining 95% to defend themselves \u2013 and hasten to add that \u201cThe best defense is a good offense.\u201d If the U.S. and U.S.S.R. could competitively embrace former Nazi scientists after World War II, it\u2019s hard to believe that the world\u2019s leading governments would ever decide, \u201cThe only good mutant is a dead mutant.\u201d (more)As it happens, I just re-watched the first three episodes of the original Star Trek TV series, all of which were about super-powerful human-like beings, seen as monsters to be killed or isolated. In the third episode, a brush with something just outside the galaxy kick-starts rapid ESP-power growth in a few crew members, who then get big heads about it, and so must be killed:KIRK: You must help me. Before it goes too far.DEHNER: What he\u2019s doing is right for him and me.KIRK: And for humanity? You\u2019re still human.DEHNER: No, IKIRK: At least partly, you are, or you wouldn\u2019t be here talking to me.DEHNER: Earth is really unimportant. Before long, we\u2019ll be where it would have taken mankind millions of years of learning to reach.KIRK: What will Mitchell learn in getting there? Will he know what to do with his power? Will he acquire the wisdom?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " DEHNER: Please go back while you still can.KIRK: Did you hear him joke about compassion? Above all else, a god needs compassion. Mitchell! Elizabeth.DEHNER: What do you know about gods?KIRK: Then let\u2019s talk about humans, about our frailties. As powerful as he gets, he\u2019ll have all that inside him.DEHNER: Go back.KIRK: You were a psychiatrist once. You know the ugly, savage things we all keep buried, that none of us dare expose. But he\u2019ll dare. Who\u2019s to stop him? He doesn\u2019t need to care. Be a psychiatrist for one minute longer. What do you see happening to him? What\u2019s your prognosis, Doctor? (more)After they kill him they apparently never go back to this place again, even though it had done the same thing to a previous ship. In the real world, of course, groups would eagerly be sending ships to the area in the hope of creating their own gods, or becoming gods themselves.Do we understand why fiction and reality are so different here? I think so \u2013 resisting an illicit dominator is our most common hero story, and early TV writers seeking a mass audience for stories set \u201cout there\u201d naturally focused on the very human scenario of humans becoming extreme out there. So of course they tell stories of how out there makes people into powerful illicit dominators, who heros resist.Beware: powerful illicit dominators resisted by heroes remains an all too tempting story for us to tell about our future as well.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 12, 2009 9:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Ideal Screen Theories\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 12, 2009 9:00 am \nTitle: Beware Ideal Screen Theories\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Variable B \"screens\" variable A from variable C when learning the value of B makes A and C no longer dependent on one another; once you know B, A says nothing about C.\u00a0\u00a0 Screening is a useful concept, but we are often over eager to apply it.\u00a0 For example:Mood Swings \u2013 Since your internal state must pass through time, you know that in the absence of outside influences, your state today can only depend on your state two days ago via the intermediary of your state yesterday.\u00a0 So if something bad happened to you two days ago, but yesterday you felt fine, you might conclude you are over it; that bad event can't hurt your mood today unless it causes some new outside influence on you.\u00a0 Alas, your mood only summarizes a small part of your internal state.\u00a0 What happened two days ago can pop up and bother you today, even if yesterday you were fine.\u00a0 Disagreement \u2013 When someone disagrees with you, you should wonder what they know that you do not. They might explain their reasons for their differing belief, i.e., their evidence and analysis, and you might hear and ponder those reasons and yet find that you still disagree.\u00a0 In this case you might feel that the fact that they disagree no longer informs you on this topic; the reasons for their belief screen their belief from informing your belief.\u00a0 And yes, if they could give you all their reasons, that would be enough.\u00a0 But except in a few extremely formal contexts, this is not even remotely close to being true.\u00a0 We are usually only aware of a small fraction of the relevant evidence and analysis that influences our beliefs.\u00a0\u00a0 Disagreement is problematic, even after you've exchanged reasons.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 12, 2009 9:00 am \nTitle: Beware Ideal Screen Theories\nVariable B \"screens\" variable A from variable C when learning the value of B makes A and C no longer dependent on one another; once you know B, A says nothing about C.\u00a0\u00a0 Screening is a useful concept, but we are often over eager to apply it.\u00a0 For example:Mood Swings \u2013 Since your internal state must pass through time, you know that in the absence of outside influences, your state today can only depend on your state two days ago via the intermediary of your state yesterday.\u00a0 So if something bad happened to you two days ago, but yesterday you felt fine, you might conclude you are over it; that bad event can't hurt your mood today unless it causes some new outside influence on you.\u00a0 Alas, your mood only summarizes a small part of your internal state.\u00a0 What happened two days ago can pop up and bother you today, even if yesterday you were fine.\u00a0 Disagreement \u2013 When someone disagrees with you, you should wonder what they know that you do not. They might explain their reasons for their differing belief, i.e., their evidence and analysis, and you might hear and ponder those reasons and yet find that you still disagree.\u00a0 In this case you might feel that the fact that they disagree no longer informs you on this topic; the reasons for their belief screen their belief from informing your belief.\u00a0 And yes, if they could give you all their reasons, that would be enough.\u00a0 But except in a few extremely formal contexts, this is not even remotely close to being true.\u00a0 We are usually only aware of a small fraction of the relevant evidence and analysis that influences our beliefs.\u00a0\u00a0 Disagreement is problematic, even after you've exchanged reasons.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Evolved Betrayal \u2013 We take actions that influence people around us, and we wonder how blameworthy we are regarding those actions.\u00a0 We know evolution shaped our minds to promote our selfish genetic interests relative to others, but we'd like to feel we can ignore that fact when we are consciously aware of positive intentions toward them.\u00a0 If our conscious intentions toward others were our only evolution-influenced mental factors which change our behavior toward others, this would be correct; intentions would screen evolved selfishness from our behavior.\u00a0 Alas, this seems quite unlikely.\u00a0 Our minds are very complex, and a great many processes influence each choice we make, processes about which we are mostly unaware.\u00a0 For example, if we take an action that gives us selfish benefits, and if our minds saw clues with enough info to feasibly identify that selfish action, the fact that we had no conscious awareness of intending to achieve that selfish benefit should offer little reassurance.\u00a0 It is a good bet that our mind was influenced by this selfish benefit, as well as by the impressions others might get from seeing such a selfish action.\u00a0 You can hurt the ones you love, on \"purpose.\" \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 25, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Identity\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 25, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: Beware Identity\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " More from Paul Graham\u2019s fantastic essay on lying to kids: \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 19, 2011 10:50 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Mind Drugs\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 19, 2011 10:50 am \nTitle: Beware Mind Drugs\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " One in eight Americans take prescribed mind drugs, which probably hurt on average (vs. talking cures):I first took a close look at treatments for mental illness 15 years ago while researching an article for Scientific American. At the time, sales of a new class of antidepressants, \u2026 SSRI\u2019s, were booming. \u2026 Clinical trials told a different story. SSRI\u2019s are no more effective than two older classes of antidepressants. \u2026 Antidepressants as a whole were not more effective than so-called talking cures. \u2026 According to some investigators, treatments for depression and other common ailments work\u2014if they do work\u2014by harnessing the placebo effect. \u2026In retrospect, my critique of modern psychiatry was probably too mild. According to Anatomy of an Epidemic \u2026 by \u2026 Robert Whitaker, psychiatry has not only failed to progress but may now be harming many of those it purports to help. \u2026As recently as the 1950s, Whitaker contends, the four major mental disorders\u2014depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia\u2014often manifested as episodic and \u201cself limiting\u201d; that is, most people simply got better over time. Severe, chronic mental illness was viewed as relatively rare. But over the past few decades the proportion of Americans diagnosed with mental illness has skyrocketed. \u2026 One in eight Americans, including children and even toddlers, is now taking a psychotropic medication. \u2026Whitaker compiles anecdotal and clinical evidence that when patients stop taking SSRI\u2019s, they often experience depression more severe than what drove them to seek treatment. A multination report by the World Health Organization in 1998 associated long-term antidepressant usage with a higher rather than a lower risk of long-term depression. \u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 19, 2011 10:50 am \nTitle: Beware Mind Drugs\nOne in eight Americans take prescribed mind drugs, which probably hurt on average (vs. talking cures):I first took a close look at treatments for mental illness 15 years ago while researching an article for Scientific American. At the time, sales of a new class of antidepressants, \u2026 SSRI\u2019s, were booming. \u2026 Clinical trials told a different story. SSRI\u2019s are no more effective than two older classes of antidepressants. \u2026 Antidepressants as a whole were not more effective than so-called talking cures. \u2026 According to some investigators, treatments for depression and other common ailments work\u2014if they do work\u2014by harnessing the placebo effect. \u2026In retrospect, my critique of modern psychiatry was probably too mild. According to Anatomy of an Epidemic \u2026 by \u2026 Robert Whitaker, psychiatry has not only failed to progress but may now be harming many of those it purports to help. \u2026As recently as the 1950s, Whitaker contends, the four major mental disorders\u2014depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia\u2014often manifested as episodic and \u201cself limiting\u201d; that is, most people simply got better over time. Severe, chronic mental illness was viewed as relatively rare. But over the past few decades the proportion of Americans diagnosed with mental illness has skyrocketed. \u2026 One in eight Americans, including children and even toddlers, is now taking a psychotropic medication. \u2026Whitaker compiles anecdotal and clinical evidence that when patients stop taking SSRI\u2019s, they often experience depression more severe than what drove them to seek treatment. A multination report by the World Health Organization in 1998 associated long-term antidepressant usage with a higher rather than a lower risk of long-term depression. \u2026\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Before the introduction of Thorazine in the 1950s, Whitaker asserts, almost two-thirds of the patients hospitalized for an initial episode of schizophrenia were released within a year, and most of this group did not require subsequent hospitalization. Over the past half-century, the rate of schizophrenia-related disability has grown by a factor of four, and schizophrenia has come to be seen as a largely chronic, degenerative disease. A decades-long study by the World Health Organization found that schizophrenic patients fared better in poor nations, such as Nigeria and India, where antipsychotics are sparingly prescribed. \u2026Beginning in the 1970s, Harrow tracked a group of 64 newly diagnosed schizophrenics. Forty percent of the nonmedicated patients recovered\u2014meaning that they could become self-supporting\u2014versus 5 percent of those who were medicated. \u2026 Electroconvulsive therapy \u2026 fell out of favor in the 1970s, in part because of its negative portrayal in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest, and yet about 100,000 Americans a year still receive ECT. \u2026 virtually everyone who receives electroconvulsive therapy relapses within a year without further treatment. (more)Added 1p: I\u2019ve blogged before on antidepressants as placebos.Added 21Sept: Yvian has convinced me to doubt the claim above I had found most interesting, that\u00a0schizophrenia changed from a temporary to a chronic condition. So now I doubt this author in general as a source.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 25, 2022 10:10 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Mob War Strategy\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 25, 2022 10:10 pm \nTitle: Beware Mob War Strategy\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The game theory is clear: it can be in your interest to make threats that it would not be in your interest to carry out. So you can gain from committing to carrying out such threats. But only if you do it right. Your commitment plan must be simple and clear enough for your audience to see when it applies to them, how it is their interest to go along with it, and that people who look like you to them have in fact been consistently following such a plan.So, for example, it probably won\u2019t work to just lash out at whomever happens to be near you whenever the universe disappoints you somehow. The universe may reorganize to avoid your lashings, but probably not by catering to your every whim. More likely, others will avoid you, or crush you. That\u2019s a bad commitment plan.Here\u2019s a good commitment plan. A well-run legal system can usefully deter crime via committing to consistently punish law violations. Such a system clearly defines violations, and shows potential violators an enforcement system wherein a substantial fraction of violations will be detected, prosecuted, and punished. Those under the jurisdiction of this law can see this fact, and understand which acts lead to which punishments. Such acts can thus be deterred.Here\u2019s another pretty good commitment plan. The main nations with nuclear weapons seem to have created a mutual expectation of \u201cmutually assured destruction.\u201d Each nation is committed to responding to a nuclear attack with a devastating symmetric attack. So devastating as to deter attack even if there is a substantial chance that such a response wouldn\u2019t happen. This commitment plan is simple, easy to understand, clearly communicated, and quite focused on particular scenarios. So far, it seems to have worked.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 25, 2022 10:10 pm \nTitle: Beware Mob War Strategy\nThe game theory is clear: it can be in your interest to make threats that it would not be in your interest to carry out. So you can gain from committing to carrying out such threats. But only if you do it right. Your commitment plan must be simple and clear enough for your audience to see when it applies to them, how it is their interest to go along with it, and that people who look like you to them have in fact been consistently following such a plan.So, for example, it probably won\u2019t work to just lash out at whomever happens to be near you whenever the universe disappoints you somehow. The universe may reorganize to avoid your lashings, but probably not by catering to your every whim. More likely, others will avoid you, or crush you. That\u2019s a bad commitment plan.Here\u2019s a good commitment plan. A well-run legal system can usefully deter crime via committing to consistently punish law violations. Such a system clearly defines violations, and shows potential violators an enforcement system wherein a substantial fraction of violations will be detected, prosecuted, and punished. Those under the jurisdiction of this law can see this fact, and understand which acts lead to which punishments. Such acts can thus be deterred.Here\u2019s another pretty good commitment plan. The main nations with nuclear weapons seem to have created a mutual expectation of \u201cmutually assured destruction.\u201d Each nation is committed to responding to a nuclear attack with a devastating symmetric attack. So devastating as to deter attack even if there is a substantial chance that such a response wouldn\u2019t happen. This commitment plan is simple, easy to understand, clearly communicated, and quite focused on particular scenarios. So far, it seems to have worked.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Humans are often willing to suffer large costs to punish those who violate their moral rules. In fact, we probably evolved such moral indignation in part as a way to commit to punishing violations of our local moral norms. In small bands, with norms that were stable across many generations, members could plausibly achieve sufficient clarity and certainty about norm enforcement to deter violations via such threats. So such commitments might have had good plans in that context.But this does not imply that things would typically go well for us if we freely indulged our moral indignation inclinations in our complex modern world. For example, imagine that we encouraged, instead of discouraged, mob justice. That is, if we encouraged people to gossip to convince their friends to share their moral outrange, building off of each until they chased down and \u201clynched\u201d any who offended them.This sort of mob justice can go badly for a great many reasons. We don\u2019t actually share norms as closely as we think, mob members are often more eager to show loyalty to each other than to verify accusation accuracy, and some are willing to make misleading accusations to take down rivals. More fundamentally, we might say that mob justice goes bad because it is not based on a good commitment plan. Observers just can\u2019t predict mob justice outcomes well enough for it to usefully encourage good behavior, at least compared to a formal legal system.Now consider the subject of making peace deals to end wars. Such as the current war between Russia and Ukraine. An awful lot of people, probably a majority, of the Ukrainian supporters I\u2019ve heard from seem to be morally offended by the idea of such a peace deal in this case. Even though the usual game theory analyses of war say that there are usually peace deals that both sides would prefer at the time to continued war. (Such deals could focus on immediately verifiable terms; they needn\u2019t focus on unverifiable promises of future actions. In April 2022 Russia and Ukraine\u00a0apparently had a tentative deal, scuttled due to pressure from Ukrainian allies.)Many of these peace deal opponents are willing to justify this stance in consequentialist terms: they say that we should commit to not making such deals. Which, as they are eager to point out, is a logically coherent stance due to the usual game theory analysis. We should thus \u201chold firm\u201d, \u201cteach them a lesson\u201d, \u201cdon\u2019t let them get away with it\u201d, etc. All justified by game theory, they say.The problem is, I haven\u2019t seen anyone outline anything close to a good commitment plan here. Nothing remotely as clear and simple as we have with criminal law, or with mutually assured destruction. They don\u2019t clearly specify the set of situations where the commitment is to apply, the ways observers are to tell when they are in such situations, the behavior that has been committed to there, or the dataset of international events that shows that people that look like us have in fact consistently behaved in this way. Peace deal opponents (sometimes called \u201cwar mongers\u201d) instead mainly just seem to point to their mob-inflamed feelings of moral outrage.For example, some talk as if we should just ignore the fact that Russia has nuclear weapons in this war, as if we have somehow committed to doing that in order to prevent anyone from using nuclear weapons as a negotiating leverage. The claim that nations have been acting according to such a commitment doesn\u2019t seem to me at all a good summary of the history of nuclear powers. And if the claim is that we should start now to create such a commitment by just acting as if it had always existed, that seems even crazier.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Humans are often willing to suffer large costs to punish those who violate their moral rules. In fact, we probably evolved such moral indignation in part as a way to commit to punishing violations of our local moral norms. In small bands, with norms that were stable across many generations, members could plausibly achieve sufficient clarity and certainty about norm enforcement to deter violations via such threats. So such commitments might have had good plans in that context.But this does not imply that things would typically go well for us if we freely indulged our moral indignation inclinations in our complex modern world. For example, imagine that we encouraged, instead of discouraged, mob justice. That is, if we encouraged people to gossip to convince their friends to share their moral outrange, building off of each until they chased down and \u201clynched\u201d any who offended them.This sort of mob justice can go badly for a great many reasons. We don\u2019t actually share norms as closely as we think, mob members are often more eager to show loyalty to each other than to verify accusation accuracy, and some are willing to make misleading accusations to take down rivals. More fundamentally, we might say that mob justice goes bad because it is not based on a good commitment plan. Observers just can\u2019t predict mob justice outcomes well enough for it to usefully encourage good behavior, at least compared to a formal legal system.Now consider the subject of making peace deals to end wars. Such as the current war between Russia and Ukraine. An awful lot of people, probably a majority, of the Ukrainian supporters I\u2019ve heard from seem to be morally offended by the idea of such a peace deal in this case. Even though the usual game theory analyses of war say that there are usually peace deals that both sides would prefer at the time to continued war. (Such deals could focus on immediately verifiable terms; they needn\u2019t focus on unverifiable promises of future actions. In April 2022 Russia and Ukraine\u00a0apparently had a tentative deal, scuttled due to pressure from Ukrainian allies.)Many of these peace deal opponents are willing to justify this stance in consequentialist terms: they say that we should commit to not making such deals. Which, as they are eager to point out, is a logically coherent stance due to the usual game theory analysis. We should thus \u201chold firm\u201d, \u201cteach them a lesson\u201d, \u201cdon\u2019t let them get away with it\u201d, etc. All justified by game theory, they say.The problem is, I haven\u2019t seen anyone outline anything close to a good commitment plan here. Nothing remotely as clear and simple as we have with criminal law, or with mutually assured destruction. They don\u2019t clearly specify the set of situations where the commitment is to apply, the ways observers are to tell when they are in such situations, the behavior that has been committed to there, or the dataset of international events that shows that people that look like us have in fact consistently behaved in this way. Peace deal opponents (sometimes called \u201cwar mongers\u201d) instead mainly just seem to point to their mob-inflamed feelings of moral outrage.For example, some talk as if we should just ignore the fact that Russia has nuclear weapons in this war, as if we have somehow committed to doing that in order to prevent anyone from using nuclear weapons as a negotiating leverage. The claim that nations have been acting according to such a commitment doesn\u2019t seem to me at all a good summary of the history of nuclear powers. And if the claim is that we should start now to create such a commitment by just acting as if it had always existed, that seems even crazier.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " If we have not actually found and clearly implemented a good commitment plan, then it seems to me that we should proceed as if we have not made such a commitment. So we must act in accord with the usual game theory analysis. Which says to compromise and make peace if possible. Especially as a way to reduce the risk of a large nuclear war.The possibility of a global nuclear war seems a very big deal. Yes, war seems sacred and that inclines us toward relying on our intuitions instead of conscious calculations. It inclines us toward mob war strategy. But this issue seems plenty important enough to justify our resisting that inclination. Yes, a careful analysis may well identify some good commitment plans, after which we could think about how to move toward making commitments according to those plans.But following the vague war strategy inclinations of our mob-inflamed moral outrage seems a poor substitute for such a good plan. If we have not yet actually found and implemented a good plan, we should deal with a world where we have not made useful commitments. And so make peace, to avoid risking the destructions of war.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 7, 2011 8:40 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Morality Porn\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 7, 2011 8:40 pm \nTitle: Beware Morality Porn\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " \u201cPorn\u201d stimulates strong sexual desire and satisfaction in ways detached from many of the contextual features that usually accompany such desire and satisfaction in real and praiseworthy sex. Critics complain that this detachment is often bad or unhealthy.Metaphorical applications of this porn concept include food porn, gadget porn, shelter porn, and chart porn. \u201cX porn\u201d refers to stimuli that induce desires and/or satisfactions usually related to X, but detached in possibly unhealthy ways from context that ideally accompanies X.  Food porn, for example, might entice you to eat foods with poor nutrition, or distract you from socializing while eating.Of course how fair it is to call something \u201cX porn\u201d depends on how bad it is to desire X detached from some ideal context. For example, isn\u2019t it ok to sometimes eat really tasty but unhealthy food, as long as you don\u2019t do that too often? And what\u2019s so wrong about loving cool-looking gadgets, even ones that aren\u2019t very useful \u2013 everyone\u2019s gotta have a hobby, right? \u00a0In fact, many use \u201cX porn\u201d terms not as criticism but to say they like a stimulation even though others may disapprove of its detachment.But there\u2019s one case where the \u201cX porn\u201d criticism seems to me especially solid: morality. \u00a0Let us call a stimuli \u201cmorality porn\u201d if it gives people a strong desire to act morally, and a feeling of satisfaction of that desire, but without their actually acting morally. It seems an especially bad idea for people to feel moral, without actually acting moral.For example, the Lord of the Rings movies are some of my favorites. They let viewers vicariously feel Frodo\u2019s moral quandary \u2013 whether or not to sacrifice himself for the greater good \u2013 and then vicariously feel Frodo feeling good about himself for doing the right thing. Many war movies function similarly as morality porn.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 7, 2011 8:40 pm \nTitle: Beware Morality Porn\n\u201cPorn\u201d stimulates strong sexual desire and satisfaction in ways detached from many of the contextual features that usually accompany such desire and satisfaction in real and praiseworthy sex. Critics complain that this detachment is often bad or unhealthy.Metaphorical applications of this porn concept include food porn, gadget porn, shelter porn, and chart porn. \u201cX porn\u201d refers to stimuli that induce desires and/or satisfactions usually related to X, but detached in possibly unhealthy ways from context that ideally accompanies X.  Food porn, for example, might entice you to eat foods with poor nutrition, or distract you from socializing while eating.Of course how fair it is to call something \u201cX porn\u201d depends on how bad it is to desire X detached from some ideal context. For example, isn\u2019t it ok to sometimes eat really tasty but unhealthy food, as long as you don\u2019t do that too often? And what\u2019s so wrong about loving cool-looking gadgets, even ones that aren\u2019t very useful \u2013 everyone\u2019s gotta have a hobby, right? \u00a0In fact, many use \u201cX porn\u201d terms not as criticism but to say they like a stimulation even though others may disapprove of its detachment.But there\u2019s one case where the \u201cX porn\u201d criticism seems to me especially solid: morality. \u00a0Let us call a stimuli \u201cmorality porn\u201d if it gives people a strong desire to act morally, and a feeling of satisfaction of that desire, but without their actually acting morally. It seems an especially bad idea for people to feel moral, without actually acting moral.For example, the Lord of the Rings movies are some of my favorites. They let viewers vicariously feel Frodo\u2019s moral quandary \u2013 whether or not to sacrifice himself for the greater good \u2013 and then vicariously feel Frodo feeling good about himself for doing the right thing. Many war movies function similarly as morality porn.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " But is this good? First it might be bad for people to feel good about their morality when they haven\u2019t actually been moral \u2013 maybe this will make them feel like they\u2019ve done enough when they\u2019ve hardly done anything. Second, it is way too easy to imagine from the comfort of your seat that you would do the heroic thing in the situation on the screen, when in fact you would do no such thing.Third, movie morality is often unhealthily detached from important moral context. For example, movies usually focus more on whether characters have the strength of will to do what is obviously right than on whether they have the wisdom to discern what is right. And movie characters rarely have to choose between the praise of associates and doing the right thing\u00a0\u2013 key associates usually support doing the right thing.I\u2019m not saying all porn is bad, or even that any porn is bad. Or even that morality is good. But if I was going to worry about some sort of porn, I\u2019d worry most about morality porn.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 8, 2019 9:15 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware Multi-Monopolies\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 8, 2019 9:15 am \nTitle: Beware Multi-Monopolies\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Back in 1948, the Supreme Court ordered Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and other movie studios to divest themselves of their theater chains, ruling that the practice of giving their own theaters preference on the best movies amounted to illegal restraint of trade.In 1962, MCA, then the most powerful force in Hollywood as both a talent agency and producer of TV shows, was forced to spin off its talent agency after the Justice Department concluded that the combination gave it unfair advantage in both markets.And in 1970, the Federal Communications Commission prohibited the broadcast networks \u2014 ABC, CBS and NBC \u2014 from owning or producing programming aired during prime time, ushering in a new golden era of independent production.In recent decades, however, because of new technology and the government\u2019s willful neglect of the antitrust laws, most of those prohibitions have fallen by the wayside. (more)My last post talked about how our standard economic models of firms competing in industries typically show industries having too many, not too few, firms. It is a suspicious and damning fact that economists and policy makers have allowed themselves and the public to gain the opposite impression, that our best theories support interventions to cut industry concentration.My last post didn\u2019t mention the most extreme example of this, the case where we have the strongest theory reason to expect insufficient concentration:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 29, 2006 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Beware of Disagreeing with Lewis\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 29, 2006 6:00 am \nTitle: Beware of Disagreeing with Lewis\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " David Lewis, my guess for the most important philosopher of the last half century, seems to reduce philosophers who disagree with him to saying \"just because, that\u2019s why.\"\u00a0 Consider Peter van Inwagen and Phillip Bricker. Peter van Inwagen\u2019s 1992 paper \"It Is Wrong, Everywhere, Always, and for Anyone, to Believe Anything upon Insufficient Evidence?\" was the first in the modern series of philosophy papers on the rationality of disagreement.\u00a0 \u00a0 He wrote \"a polemic against what I perceive as a widespread double standard in writings about the relation of religious belief to evidence and argument\":\u00a0 \u00a0  \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 17, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bias on Self-Control Bias\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 17, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Bias on Self-Control Bias\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Since Eliezer is concerned about our ability to resist modern temptations, let me summarize recent economic analysis:\u00a0 Paternalism does not help people who are aware of their self-control problems, and are able to make future commitments.\u00a0 \u00a0To argue for paternalism regarding self-control, one has to assume we are biased to underestimate our self-control problems.\u00a0 From a 2004 paper in Quarterly Journal of Economics:We analyze the profit-maximizing contract design of firms if consumers have time-inconsistent preferences and are partially naive about it. We consider \u2026 goods with immediate costs and delayed benefits (investment goods) such as health club attendance, and goods with immediate benefits and delayed costs (leisure goods) such as credit card-financed consumption. \u2026 The predictions of the theory match the empirical contract design in the credit card, gambling, health club, life insurance, mail order, mobile phone, and vacation time-sharing industries. \u2026 time inconsistency has adverse effects on consumer welfare only if consumers are naive.From a 2002 paper by O\u2019Donoghue and Rabin, who have many related papers:We investigate the role that self-control problems \u2013 modeled as time-inconsistent, present-biased preferences \u2013 and a person\u2019s awareness of those problems might play in leading people to develop and maintain harmful addictions. Present-biased preferences create a tendency to over-consume addictive products, and awareness of future selfcontrol problems can mitigate or exacerbate this over-consumption, depending on the environment. \u2026 For realistic environments self-control problems are a plausible source of severely harmful addictions only in conjunction with some unawareness of future self-control problems.So, are we in fact biased to underestimate our self-control problems?\u00a0 \u00a0If so, why isn\u2019t it easier to just tell us we have self-control problems?\u00a0 \u00a0Why wouldn\u2019t we believe such advice?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 17, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Bias on Self-Control Bias\nSince Eliezer is concerned about our ability to resist modern temptations, let me summarize recent economic analysis:\u00a0 Paternalism does not help people who are aware of their self-control problems, and are able to make future commitments.\u00a0 \u00a0To argue for paternalism regarding self-control, one has to assume we are biased to underestimate our self-control problems.\u00a0 From a 2004 paper in Quarterly Journal of Economics:We analyze the profit-maximizing contract design of firms if consumers have time-inconsistent preferences and are partially naive about it. We consider \u2026 goods with immediate costs and delayed benefits (investment goods) such as health club attendance, and goods with immediate benefits and delayed costs (leisure goods) such as credit card-financed consumption. \u2026 The predictions of the theory match the empirical contract design in the credit card, gambling, health club, life insurance, mail order, mobile phone, and vacation time-sharing industries. \u2026 time inconsistency has adverse effects on consumer welfare only if consumers are naive.From a 2002 paper by O\u2019Donoghue and Rabin, who have many related papers:We investigate the role that self-control problems \u2013 modeled as time-inconsistent, present-biased preferences \u2013 and a person\u2019s awareness of those problems might play in leading people to develop and maintain harmful addictions. Present-biased preferences create a tendency to over-consume addictive products, and awareness of future selfcontrol problems can mitigate or exacerbate this over-consumption, depending on the environment. \u2026 For realistic environments self-control problems are a plausible source of severely harmful addictions only in conjunction with some unawareness of future self-control problems.So, are we in fact biased to underestimate our self-control problems?\u00a0 \u00a0If so, why isn\u2019t it easier to just tell us we have self-control problems?\u00a0 \u00a0Why wouldn\u2019t we believe such advice?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Surely some of us do underestimate our self-control problems, but curiously I can\u2019t seem to find any papers in this (large) economics literature that consider people who overestimate their self-control problems.\u00a0 This ethics paper by Tyler Cowen, however, does consider it and convince me that such situations are common.\u00a0 \u00a0Are we biased to assume others are biased toward too little self-control?Added 14Nov2014: A 2011 QJE theory paper finds:When learning [about your own self-control abilities] fails at the limit, I find that it occurs in a particular direction, namely that individuals underestimate their self-control.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 2, 2007 1:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Biased Revenge?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 2, 2007 1:00 pm \nTitle: Biased Revenge?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Yesterday Bryan Caplan asked:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 5, 2012 9:30 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Biases Of Fiction\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 5, 2012 9:30 am \nTitle: Biases Of Fiction\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " This essay, on \u201cThe 38 most common fiction writing mistakes\u201d, offers advice to writers. But the rest of us can also learn useful details on how fiction can bias our thinking. Here are my summary of key ways it says fiction differs from reality (detailed quotes below):Features of fictional folk are more extreme than in reality; real folks are boring by comparison. Fictional folks are more expressive, and give off clearer signs about their feelings and intentions. Their motives are simpler and clearer, and their actions are better explained by their motives and local visible context. Who they are now is better predicted by their history. Compared to real people, they are more likely to fight for what they want, especially when they encounter resistance. Their conversations are mostly pairwise, more logical, and to the point. In fiction, events are determined more by motives and plans, relative to random chance and larger social forces. Overt conflict between people is more common than in real life.And I\u2019ll add that stories tend to affirm standard moral norms. Good guys, who do good acts, have more other virtuous features than in reality, and and good acts are rewarded more often than in reality.A lot of our biases come, I think, from expecting real life to be like fiction. For example, when we have negative opinions on important subjects, we tend too much to expect that we should explicitly and directly express those negative opinions in a dramatic conversation scene. We should speak our mind, make it clear, talk it through, etc. This usually a bad idea. We also tend to feel bad about ourselves when we notice that we avoid confrontation, and back off when from things we want when we encounter\u00a0resistance. But such retreat is usually for the best.Those promised quotes:In more than twenty years of teaching courses in professional writing at the University of Oklahoma, I think I\u2019ve encountered almost every difficulty an aspiring writer might face. \u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 5, 2012 9:30 am \nTitle: Biases Of Fiction\nThis essay, on \u201cThe 38 most common fiction writing mistakes\u201d, offers advice to writers. But the rest of us can also learn useful details on how fiction can bias our thinking. Here are my summary of key ways it says fiction differs from reality (detailed quotes below):Features of fictional folk are more extreme than in reality; real folks are boring by comparison. Fictional folks are more expressive, and give off clearer signs about their feelings and intentions. Their motives are simpler and clearer, and their actions are better explained by their motives and local visible context. Who they are now is better predicted by their history. Compared to real people, they are more likely to fight for what they want, especially when they encounter resistance. Their conversations are mostly pairwise, more logical, and to the point. In fiction, events are determined more by motives and plans, relative to random chance and larger social forces. Overt conflict between people is more common than in real life.And I\u2019ll add that stories tend to affirm standard moral norms. Good guys, who do good acts, have more other virtuous features than in reality, and and good acts are rewarded more often than in reality.A lot of our biases come, I think, from expecting real life to be like fiction. For example, when we have negative opinions on important subjects, we tend too much to expect that we should explicitly and directly express those negative opinions in a dramatic conversation scene. We should speak our mind, make it clear, talk it through, etc. This usually a bad idea. We also tend to feel bad about ourselves when we notice that we avoid confrontation, and back off when from things we want when we encounter\u00a0resistance. But such retreat is usually for the best.Those promised quotes:In more than twenty years of teaching courses in professional writing at the University of Oklahoma, I think I\u2019ve encountered almost every difficulty an aspiring writer might face. \u2026\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " \u201cWally, these characters are dull. What they are is flat and insipid. They are pasteboard. They have no life, no color, no vivacity. They need a lot of work. \u201dWally looked shocked. \u201cHow can these characters be dull? They\u2019re real people-every one of them! I took them right out of real life!\u201d\u201cOh\u201d, I said. \u201cSo that\u2019s the problem. \u201d\u201cWhat?\u201d he said.\u201cYou can never use real people in your story. \u201d\u201cWhy?\u201d\u201cFor one reason, real people might sue you. But far more to the point in fiction copy, real people \u2013 taken straight over and put on the page of a story \u2013 are dull. \u201d \u2026Good fiction characters, in other words, are never, ever real people. Your idea for a character may begin with a real person, but to make him vivid enough for your readers to believe in him, you have to exaggerate tremendously; you have to provide shortcut identifying characteristics that stick out all over him, you have to make him practically a monster-for readers to see even his dimmest outlines.For example, if your real person is loyal, you will make your character tremendously, almost unbelievably loyal; if he tends to be a bit impatient in real life, your character will fidget, gnash his teeth, drum his fingers, interrupt others, twitch, and practically blow sky high with his outlandishly exaggerated impatience\u2026.Good fiction characters also tend to be more understandable than real-life people. They do the things they do for motives that make more sense than real-life motives often do. While they\u2019re more mercurial and colorful, they\u2019re also more goal-motivated. Readers must be able to understand why your character does what he does; they may not agree with his motives, but you have carefully set things up so at least they can see that he\u2019s acting as he is for some good reason. \u2026In real life, a young woman may come out of a poverty-stricken rural background and still somehow become the president of a great university. Except in a long novel, where you might have sufficient space to make it believable, you would have a hard time selling this meshing of background and present reality in fiction. \u2026 In short fiction, characters and their backgrounds are almost always much more consistent than people in real life.Motivation? Again, fictional characters are better than life. In real life, people often seem to do things for no reason we can understand. They act on impulses that grow out of things in their personalities that even they sometimes don\u2019t understand. But in fiction there is considerably less random chance. \u2026 in real life people often don\u2019t make sense. But in fiction, they do. \u2026interesting characters are almost always characters who are active-risk-takers \u2013 highly motivated toward a goal. Many a story has been wrecked at the outset because the writer chose to write about the wrong kind of person -a character of the type we sometimes call a wimp. \u2026 He\u2019s the one who wouldn\u2019t fight under any circumstances.Ask him what he wants, and he just sighs. Poke him, and he flinches-and retreats. Confront him with a big problem, and he fumes and fusses and can\u2019t make a decision. \u2026In reality-in the real world -much of what happens is accidental. \u2026 In most effective fiction, accidents don\u2019t determine the outcome. And your story people don\u2019t sit around passively. \u2026 In good fiction, the story people determine the outcome. Not fate.\u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "\u201cWally, these characters are dull. What they are is flat and insipid. They are pasteboard. They have no life, no color, no vivacity. They need a lot of work. \u201dWally looked shocked. \u201cHow can these characters be dull? They\u2019re real people-every one of them! I took them right out of real life!\u201d\u201cOh\u201d, I said. \u201cSo that\u2019s the problem. \u201d\u201cWhat?\u201d he said.\u201cYou can never use real people in your story. \u201d\u201cWhy?\u201d\u201cFor one reason, real people might sue you. But far more to the point in fiction copy, real people \u2013 taken straight over and put on the page of a story \u2013 are dull. \u201d \u2026Good fiction characters, in other words, are never, ever real people. Your idea for a character may begin with a real person, but to make him vivid enough for your readers to believe in him, you have to exaggerate tremendously; you have to provide shortcut identifying characteristics that stick out all over him, you have to make him practically a monster-for readers to see even his dimmest outlines.For example, if your real person is loyal, you will make your character tremendously, almost unbelievably loyal; if he tends to be a bit impatient in real life, your character will fidget, gnash his teeth, drum his fingers, interrupt others, twitch, and practically blow sky high with his outlandishly exaggerated impatience\u2026.Good fiction characters also tend to be more understandable than real-life people. They do the things they do for motives that make more sense than real-life motives often do. While they\u2019re more mercurial and colorful, they\u2019re also more goal-motivated. Readers must be able to understand why your character does what he does; they may not agree with his motives, but you have carefully set things up so at least they can see that he\u2019s acting as he is for some good reason. \u2026In real life, a young woman may come out of a poverty-stricken rural background and still somehow become the president of a great university. Except in a long novel, where you might have sufficient space to make it believable, you would have a hard time selling this meshing of background and present reality in fiction. \u2026 In short fiction, characters and their backgrounds are almost always much more consistent than people in real life.Motivation? Again, fictional characters are better than life. In real life, people often seem to do things for no reason we can understand. They act on impulses that grow out of things in their personalities that even they sometimes don\u2019t understand. But in fiction there is considerably less random chance. \u2026 in real life people often don\u2019t make sense. But in fiction, they do. \u2026interesting characters are almost always characters who are active-risk-takers \u2013 highly motivated toward a goal. Many a story has been wrecked at the outset because the writer chose to write about the wrong kind of person -a character of the type we sometimes call a wimp. \u2026 He\u2019s the one who wouldn\u2019t fight under any circumstances.Ask him what he wants, and he just sighs. Poke him, and he flinches-and retreats. Confront him with a big problem, and he fumes and fusses and can\u2019t make a decision. \u2026In reality-in the real world -much of what happens is accidental. \u2026 In most effective fiction, accidents don\u2019t determine the outcome. And your story people don\u2019t sit around passively. \u2026 In good fiction, the story people determine the outcome. Not fate.\u2026\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In fiction, the best times for the writer- and reader- are when the story\u2019s main character is in the worst trouble. \u2026 There are many kinds of fiction trouble, but the most effective kind is conflict. You know what conflict is. It\u2019s active give-and-take, a struggle between story people with opposing goals. \u2026 The calmer and more peaceful your real life, the better, in all likelihood. Your story person\u2019s life is just the opposite. You the author must never duck trouble \u2026 Because fiction is make-believe, it has to be more logical than real life if it is to be believed. In real life, things may occur for no apparent reason. But in fiction you the writer simply cannot ever afford to lose sight of logic and let things happen for no apparent reason. \u2026In real life, coincidence happens all the time. But in fiction \u2013 especially when the coincidence helps the character be at the right place at the right time, or overhear the crucial telephone conversation, or something similar -coincidence is deadly. Your readers will refuse to believe it. \u2026Your character must have an immediate, physical cause for what he does. This immediate stimulus cannot be merely a thought inside his head; for readers to believe many transactions, they have to be shown a stimulus to action that is outside of the character-some kind of specific prod that is onstage right now. Turning this around, it\u2019s equally true that if you start by showing a stimulus, then you can\u2019t simply ignore it; you must show a response. \u2026 In real life, you might get a random thought for no apparent reason, and as a consequence do or say something. But \u2026 fiction has to be better than life, clearer and more logical. \u2026Writers sometimes mess up their dialogue. Sometimes, without realizing it, they let their characters talk on and on, boringly, becoming windbags. \u2026 The great majority of your characters have to be more terse and logical than we often are in real life, if the dialogue on the page is to appear realistic. \u2026 whenever possible, set up your dialogue scenes so that they play out \u201cone-on-one\u201d, getting rid of other characters (who might interrupt and make the conversation more complicated). \u2026 Simplicity\u2026 directness\u2026 goal orientation\u2026 brevity. These are the hallmarks of modern story dialogue. \u2026If you have any doubt that the reader will understand the meaning of what someone in the story says or does, you must work in at once some method of pointing out what you may think is obvious. (more; HT Eliezer Yudkowsky)\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 9, 2016 7:20 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Big Impact Isn\u2019t Big Data\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 9, 2016 7:20 pm \nTitle: Big Impact Isn\u2019t Big Data\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A common heuristic for estimating the quality of something is: what has it done for me lately? For example, you could estimate the quality of a restaurant via a sum or average of how much you\u2019ve enjoyed your meals there. Or you might weight recent visits more, since quality may change over time. Such methods are simple and robust, but they aren\u2019t usually the best. For example, if you know of others who ate at that restaurant, their meal enjoyment is also data, data that can improve your quality estimate. Yes, those other people might have different meal priorities, and that may be a reason to give their meals less weight than your meals. But still, their\u00a0data is useful.Consider an extreme case where one meal, say your wedding reception meal, is far more important to you than the others. If you weigh your meal experiences in proportion to meal importance, your whole evaluation may depend mainly on one meal. Yes, if meals of that important type differ substantially from other meals then using this method best avoids biases from using unimportant types of meals to judge important types. But the noise in your estimate will be huge; individual restaurant meals can vary greatly for many random reasons even when the underlying quality stays the same. You just won\u2019t know much about meal quality.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 9, 2016 7:20 pm \nTitle: Big Impact Isn\u2019t Big Data\nA common heuristic for estimating the quality of something is: what has it done for me lately? For example, you could estimate the quality of a restaurant via a sum or average of how much you\u2019ve enjoyed your meals there. Or you might weight recent visits more, since quality may change over time. Such methods are simple and robust, but they aren\u2019t usually the best. For example, if you know of others who ate at that restaurant, their meal enjoyment is also data, data that can improve your quality estimate. Yes, those other people might have different meal priorities, and that may be a reason to give their meals less weight than your meals. But still, their\u00a0data is useful.Consider an extreme case where one meal, say your wedding reception meal, is far more important to you than the others. If you weigh your meal experiences in proportion to meal importance, your whole evaluation may depend mainly on one meal. Yes, if meals of that important type differ substantially from other meals then using this method best avoids biases from using unimportant types of meals to judge important types. But the noise in your estimate will be huge; individual restaurant meals can vary greatly for many random reasons even when the underlying quality stays the same. You just won\u2019t know much about meal quality.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I mention all this because many seem eager to give the recent presidential election (and the recent Brexit vote) a huge weight in their estimate the quality of various prediction sources. Sources that did poorly on those two events are judged to be poor sources overall. And yes, if these were by far more important events to you, this strategy avoids the risk that familiar prediction sources have a different accuracy on events like this than they do on other events. Even so, this strategy mostly just puts you at the mercy of noise. If you use a small enough set of events to judge accuracy, you just aren\u2019t going to be able to see\u00a0much of a difference between sources; you will have little reason to think that those sources that did better on these few events will do much better on other future events.Me, I don\u2019t see much reason to think that familiar prediction sources have an accuracy that is very different on\u00a0the most important events, relative to other events, and so I mainly trust comparisons that use a lot of data. For example, on large datasets prediction markets have shown\u00a0a robustly high accuracy compared to other sources. Yes, you might find other particular sources that seem to do better in particular areas, but you have to worry about selection effects \u2013 how many similar sources did you look at to find those few winners? And if prediction market participants became\u00a0convinced that these particular sources had high accuracy, they\u2019d drive market prices to reflect those predictions.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 10, 2010 6:10 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Big Questions\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 10, 2010 6:10 pm \nTitle: Big Questions\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " When young, I imagined that the giants of the intellectual world would be found chipping away at our deepest most important questions.\u00a0 Sure perhaps most intellectuals would work on practical problems with paying customers, or do less glorious but needed ground work, but the best and the brightest would focus on combining that ground work into deep answers.\u00a0 Aspiring to high status, I also tried to identify and chip away at deep questions.Imagine how strange, then, the real world seems to me.\u00a0 For example, Caltech prof and top science blogger Sean Carroll publishes a well-written book, From Eternity to Here, arguing for his explanation for the arrow of time, clearly one of our deepest questions.\u00a0 Yet not only are such attempts rare, they get surprising little engagement.\u00a0 Of the fourteen other blurbs, reviews, and articles (besides mine) listed at the book website, none express an opinion on whether Carroll\u2019s answer is right, much less offer reasons for such an opinion.\u00a0 Of the six Amazon reviews, two do express an opinion, one by complete-crank Ranger McCoy, and one by Lubos Motl, who says there is no arrow of time problem.\u00a0 I also found a review by Peter Woit, who rejects the whole idea of a multiverse.\u00a0 Geez, what does it take to get serious engagement of a proposed answer to a deep question?If you search for \u201carrow of time\u201d or \u201corigin time asymmetry\u201d at arxiv.org you\u2019ll find a smattering of papers, but almost no one makes the subject their main focus.\u00a0 In our real intellectual world, smart ambitious folks find it far easier to signal their ability by working on more mundane ground work or practical questions.\u00a0 So only a crank focuses their effort on a deep question, inducing people afraid of being confused with cranks to be careful to avoid such questions.\u00a0 Super bigshots sometimes counter-signal, rambling on about such topics without having given them much thought, just to show that they can.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 10, 2010 6:10 pm \nTitle: Big Questions\nWhen young, I imagined that the giants of the intellectual world would be found chipping away at our deepest most important questions.\u00a0 Sure perhaps most intellectuals would work on practical problems with paying customers, or do less glorious but needed ground work, but the best and the brightest would focus on combining that ground work into deep answers.\u00a0 Aspiring to high status, I also tried to identify and chip away at deep questions.Imagine how strange, then, the real world seems to me.\u00a0 For example, Caltech prof and top science blogger Sean Carroll publishes a well-written book, From Eternity to Here, arguing for his explanation for the arrow of time, clearly one of our deepest questions.\u00a0 Yet not only are such attempts rare, they get surprising little engagement.\u00a0 Of the fourteen other blurbs, reviews, and articles (besides mine) listed at the book website, none express an opinion on whether Carroll\u2019s answer is right, much less offer reasons for such an opinion.\u00a0 Of the six Amazon reviews, two do express an opinion, one by complete-crank Ranger McCoy, and one by Lubos Motl, who says there is no arrow of time problem.\u00a0 I also found a review by Peter Woit, who rejects the whole idea of a multiverse.\u00a0 Geez, what does it take to get serious engagement of a proposed answer to a deep question?If you search for \u201carrow of time\u201d or \u201corigin time asymmetry\u201d at arxiv.org you\u2019ll find a smattering of papers, but almost no one makes the subject their main focus.\u00a0 In our real intellectual world, smart ambitious folks find it far easier to signal their ability by working on more mundane ground work or practical questions.\u00a0 So only a crank focuses their effort on a deep question, inducing people afraid of being confused with cranks to be careful to avoid such questions.\u00a0 Super bigshots sometimes counter-signal, rambling on about such topics without having given them much thought, just to show that they can.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Kudos to Sean for bucking the trend, and I hope he gets more serious engagement sometime soon.\u00a0 As I said, his story is consistent, if speculative:Many of these are far-from-proven conjectures, but still it does all hold together. \u2026 Even so, it is very hard to over-emphasize just how far one must project current physics beyond the accuracy with which we have verified it to talk about tiny new universes popping out of quantum fluctuations in empty space at 10-29K.In the social sciences books that propose answers to deep questions do at least get reviews that engage those proposed answers.\u00a0 Is that because we actually care more about social science questions?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 18, 2014 8:35 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Big Scope Status Bias\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 18, 2014 8:35 pm \nTitle: Big Scope Status Bias\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Some data points:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 25, 2019 1:41 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Big War Remains Possible\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 25, 2019 1:41 pm \nTitle: Big War Remains Possible\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The following poll suggests that a majority of my Twitter followers think war will decline; in the next 80 years we won\u2019t see a 15 year period with a war death rate above the median level we\u2019ve see over the last four centuries:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 7, 2011 10:20 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Blackmail History\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 7, 2011 10:20 am \nTitle: Blackmail History\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The most common way academics study regulation is to seek models under which such regulation could be efficient (or moral), and to seek empirical data on details of current local regulatory practice to distinguish such models. But this standard approach tends to neglect both models where people personally gain by supporting inefficient (or immoral) regulation, and the patterns of such regulations across diverse cultures, times, and topics. Some other day I\u2019ll elaborate on this general point. Today I\u2019ll apply my own advice to blackmail, and consider the history of blackmail law.Some say that we ban blackmail today in order to encourage more gossip. Others say blackmail law is driven mainly by elites wanting to protect themselves. Relevant to both of these theories is the fact that both blackmail and negative gossip were illegal in ancient Rome. (Details below.) But only regarding elites. Unless you had a special privilege, it was illegal to say something embarrassing about an elite. It wasn\u2019t until the last few centuries that law has allowed gossip that says bad true things about elites, and then to compensate we greatly increased blackmail penalties. So at least regarding the pre-modern era, the elite protection theory gets a boost, while the gossip support theory looks weak. This data also helps one understand how the ancients could affirm such high moral standards \u2013 few were allowed to point out elite hypocrisy.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 7, 2011 10:20 am \nTitle: Blackmail History\nThe most common way academics study regulation is to seek models under which such regulation could be efficient (or moral), and to seek empirical data on details of current local regulatory practice to distinguish such models. But this standard approach tends to neglect both models where people personally gain by supporting inefficient (or immoral) regulation, and the patterns of such regulations across diverse cultures, times, and topics. Some other day I\u2019ll elaborate on this general point. Today I\u2019ll apply my own advice to blackmail, and consider the history of blackmail law.Some say that we ban blackmail today in order to encourage more gossip. Others say blackmail law is driven mainly by elites wanting to protect themselves. Relevant to both of these theories is the fact that both blackmail and negative gossip were illegal in ancient Rome. (Details below.) But only regarding elites. Unless you had a special privilege, it was illegal to say something embarrassing about an elite. It wasn\u2019t until the last few centuries that law has allowed gossip that says bad true things about elites, and then to compensate we greatly increased blackmail penalties. So at least regarding the pre-modern era, the elite protection theory gets a boost, while the gossip support theory looks weak. This data also helps one understand how the ancients could affirm such high moral standards \u2013 few were allowed to point out elite hypocrisy.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Foragers relied heavily on gossip \u2013 \u201cleaders\u201d and \u201clegal guilt and punishment\u201d were determined almost entirely by informal uncontrolled gossip. Farmer elites tried to crush gossip as a social force competing with their edicts, though gossip stayed stronger among elites. In the modern world we have returned more to forager values, and so we more empower and rely on gossip, though usually within limits. We allow juries to decide legal trials, though we limit outside gossip influence on jurors. Via democracy, public opinion now picks top leaders, and mass media is recently getting comfortable saying bad things about leaders\u2019 personal lives. Via a celebrity and media culture, gossip chooses many other elites. And we also allow freer speech, including saying embarrassing things about elites.Forager values seem less enamored of money, since a money-based relation is often framed as a kind of domination, and for foragers domination is illicit. So while the modern world more embraces decentralized conversation, we seem to often be wary of letting base money and commerce influence conversation, which we idealize. For example, there is today widespread wariness of paid advertising, open campaign finance, and of for profit firms controlling schools and media, and publishing research. While this wariness doesn\u2019t usually lead to prohibitions of money interacting with gossip, it makes people more willing to accept such prohibitions.Blackmail can be framed as a base thing, money, polluting both our idealized conversation, and our idealized private lives. Distaste for pollution of high things by low, together with strong elite distate for blackmail, which mostly targets them, seems enough to explain why blackmail remains illegal.Some quotes on blackmail law history:[In Ancient Rome,] the first question in assessing the legality of any statement or threat was to ask whether or not the plaintiff would naturally be harmed by it. The second question was whether the defendant could show a privilege to speak as he had done. In the context of letters of reference, for instance, one had a privilege to speak about the servant\u2019s shortcomings. \u2026 The privilege to describe a servant\u2019s abilities did not extend to false, malicious, or irrelevant statements about him. \u2026 The words spoken or written had to be sufficiently certain to cause harm. \u2026 The plaintiff had also be to sufficiently free from the taint of scandal before the revelation (or its threat). \u2026 The victim had to be sufficiently elevated in social rank so that he would suffer actual harm from the revelation. The very poor were impossible to blackmail. \u2026 If the revelation of the plaintiff\u2019s crime, loathsome disease, or illegitimacy had been made for a malicious purpose, the defendant\u2019s privilege \u2026 would be lost. \u2026[Under] medieval church [law] \u2026. it could not be wrong in principle to punish those who revealed the secret faults of others, except in a narrow range of cases where utility to the commonweal clearly outweighed the harm caused. \u2026 It was also regarded as a requirement of the Gospel that if anyone sinned in secret, he should be reproved in secret. Threatening to reveal private faults\u2014or doing so in fact\u2014was subversive of that requirement. \u2026 Sentences \u2018\u2018imposing silence\u2019\u2019 on offenders appear in the records of the ecclesiastical courts, and not only in the situation where threats had been made. \u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Foragers relied heavily on gossip \u2013 \u201cleaders\u201d and \u201clegal guilt and punishment\u201d were determined almost entirely by informal uncontrolled gossip. Farmer elites tried to crush gossip as a social force competing with their edicts, though gossip stayed stronger among elites. In the modern world we have returned more to forager values, and so we more empower and rely on gossip, though usually within limits. We allow juries to decide legal trials, though we limit outside gossip influence on jurors. Via democracy, public opinion now picks top leaders, and mass media is recently getting comfortable saying bad things about leaders\u2019 personal lives. Via a celebrity and media culture, gossip chooses many other elites. And we also allow freer speech, including saying embarrassing things about elites.Forager values seem less enamored of money, since a money-based relation is often framed as a kind of domination, and for foragers domination is illicit. So while the modern world more embraces decentralized conversation, we seem to often be wary of letting base money and commerce influence conversation, which we idealize. For example, there is today widespread wariness of paid advertising, open campaign finance, and of for profit firms controlling schools and media, and publishing research. While this wariness doesn\u2019t usually lead to prohibitions of money interacting with gossip, it makes people more willing to accept such prohibitions.Blackmail can be framed as a base thing, money, polluting both our idealized conversation, and our idealized private lives. Distaste for pollution of high things by low, together with strong elite distate for blackmail, which mostly targets them, seems enough to explain why blackmail remains illegal.Some quotes on blackmail law history:[In Ancient Rome,] the first question in assessing the legality of any statement or threat was to ask whether or not the plaintiff would naturally be harmed by it. The second question was whether the defendant could show a privilege to speak as he had done. In the context of letters of reference, for instance, one had a privilege to speak about the servant\u2019s shortcomings. \u2026 The privilege to describe a servant\u2019s abilities did not extend to false, malicious, or irrelevant statements about him. \u2026 The words spoken or written had to be sufficiently certain to cause harm. \u2026 The plaintiff had also be to sufficiently free from the taint of scandal before the revelation (or its threat). \u2026 The victim had to be sufficiently elevated in social rank so that he would suffer actual harm from the revelation. The very poor were impossible to blackmail. \u2026 If the revelation of the plaintiff\u2019s crime, loathsome disease, or illegitimacy had been made for a malicious purpose, the defendant\u2019s privilege \u2026 would be lost. \u2026[Under] medieval church [law] \u2026. it could not be wrong in principle to punish those who revealed the secret faults of others, except in a narrow range of cases where utility to the commonweal clearly outweighed the harm caused. \u2026 It was also regarded as a requirement of the Gospel that if anyone sinned in secret, he should be reproved in secret. Threatening to reveal private faults\u2014or doing so in fact\u2014was subversive of that requirement. \u2026 Sentences \u2018\u2018imposing silence\u2019\u2019 on offenders appear in the records of the ecclesiastical courts, and not only in the situation where threats had been made. \u2026\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In English practice, [blackmail] utterances were routinely handled as criminal matters. \u2026 The ordinary remedy \u2026 seems to have been something like a common-law equivalent of the canonical orders to keep silence: requiring the offender to enter a bond to keep the peace. The higher courts at Westminster, by contrast, seem to have become involved only in enforcing the statutes Scandalum magnatum, in which great men of the realm sought redress against their detractors. \u2026 For Coke [who died in 1634] it was \u2018\u2018not material\u2019\u2019 whether the words were true or false. The potential danger to public order and harm to the individual defamed by the revelation of shameful conduct were what counted. (more)When in 1757 the sending of a letter threatening to accuse of the more serious crimes \u201cwith a view or intent to extort or gain\u201d was made an offence it was only a misdemeanour punishable with seven years\u2019 transportation, not a severe sentence according to the standards of the time. It is now [in 1941] a felony punishable with the severest sentence known to the law, short of death. (more)According to the Victorian compromise: \u201cVice at least was tolerable, although only in small amounts and only if discreet and under a good deal of control.\u201d \u2026 In a chapter [of Guarding Life\u2019s Dark Secrets (2007)] on blackmail, Friedman observes that the blackmail laws fit with the Victorian compromise \u2014 they were designed to help elites protect their public reputations, to help prevent them from being threatened and extorted by the often poorer individuals who were blackmailing them (their illicit lovers or servants). He notes that \u201cthe blackmail statutes began to appear roughly about the same time and with the same underlying ethos as the other laws that made up the Victorian compromise.\u201d (p. 99). A similar point is made in Angus McLaren\u2019s book-length account of blackmail, Sexual Blackmail: A Modern History (2002). McLaren observes that courts would ignore the truth or falsity of the blackmailer\u2019s accusations, which, if true, would often mean that the blackmail victim had engaged in serious criminal conduct. (more)\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 25, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Blaming The Unlucky\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 25, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: Blaming The Unlucky\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A recent working paper finds that we call the same decision immoral when it leads to a bad outcome, but moral when it leads to a good outcome:\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 3, 2009 12:15 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Blowhard Insight\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 3, 2009 12:15 pm \nTitle: Blowhard Insight\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " David Mazzotta gets me:The trick when surfing these days is not to find curious bits of entertainment news that is ahead of the curve, but to find high quality thoughtful posting; things of intellectual or critical value that you can really sink your teeth into. In that respect, the web is no different than any other source of communication. So let me recommend four \u201cblogs\u201d where I regularly find thoughtful posts. Were I still an old school blogger, I bet 80% my posts would come from these places.\u00a0 First and foremost is Overcoming Bias.Yes, thoughtful is what I\u2019m trying for.\u00a0 One of the other three blogs is 2blowhards, where I find this insightful gem:Killing time waiting for The Wife at the hair salon, I leafed through some women\u2019s magazines. \u2026 I had a good time noting down some of the fantasies \u2026 these magazines\u2019 readers enjoy indulging in:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 5, 2006 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bosses Prefer Overconfident Managers\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 5, 2006 6:00 am \nTitle: Bosses Prefer Overconfident Managers\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A 2004 Journal of System and Software paper by Magne Jorgensen and Karl Halvor Teigen and Kjetil Molokken examined the preferences of bosses for accurate versus overconfident project leaders:\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 27, 2011 8:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Boston Talk Monday\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 27, 2011 8:00 pm \nTitle: Boston Talk Monday\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Tomorrow (Monday) I\u2019ll talk on \u201cAre We Homo Hypocritus?\u201d at a Bentley University economics seminar, in Lindsey, room 28, at 2:10pm.Added Wed: Slides here.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 23, 2015 1:55 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Bowing To Elites\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 23, 2015 1:55 pm \nTitle: Bowing To Elites\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Imagine that that you are a politically savvy forager in a band of size thirty, or a politically savvy farmer near a village of size thousand. You have some big decisions to make, including\u00a0who to put in various roles, such as son-in-law, co-hunter, employer, renter, cobbler, or healer. Many people may see your choices. How should you decide?Well first you meet potential candidates in person and see how much you intuitively respect them, get along with them, and can agree on relative status. It isn\u2019t enough for you to have seen their handiwork, you want to make an ally out of these associates, and that won\u2019t work without respect, chemistry, and peace. Second, you see what your closest allies think of candidates. You want to be allies together, so it is best if they also respect and get along with your new allies.Third, if there is a strong leader in your world, you want to know what that leader thinks. Even if this leader says explicitly that you can do anything you like, they don\u2019t care, if you get any hint whatsoever that they do care, you\u2019ll look closely to infer their preferences. And you\u2019ll avoid doing anything they\u2019d dislike too much, unless your alliance is\u00a0ready to mount an overt challenge.Fourth, even if there is no strong leader, there may be a dominant coalition encompassing your band or town. This is a group of people who tend to support each other, get deference from others, and win in conflicts. We call these people \u201celites.\u201d If your world has elites, you\u2019ll want to treat their shared opinions like those of a strong leader. If elites would gossip disapproval of a choice, maybe you don\u2019t want it.What if someone sets up objective metrics to rate people in\u00a0suitability for the roles you are choosing? Say an archery contest for picking hunters, or a cobbler contest to pick cobblers. Or public track records of how often healer patients die, or how long cobbler shoes last. Should you let it be known that such metrics weigh heavily in your choices?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 23, 2015 1:55 pm \nTitle: Bowing To Elites\nImagine that that you are a politically savvy forager in a band of size thirty, or a politically savvy farmer near a village of size thousand. You have some big decisions to make, including\u00a0who to put in various roles, such as son-in-law, co-hunter, employer, renter, cobbler, or healer. Many people may see your choices. How should you decide?Well first you meet potential candidates in person and see how much you intuitively respect them, get along with them, and can agree on relative status. It isn\u2019t enough for you to have seen their handiwork, you want to make an ally out of these associates, and that won\u2019t work without respect, chemistry, and peace. Second, you see what your closest allies think of candidates. You want to be allies together, so it is best if they also respect and get along with your new allies.Third, if there is a strong leader in your world, you want to know what that leader thinks. Even if this leader says explicitly that you can do anything you like, they don\u2019t care, if you get any hint whatsoever that they do care, you\u2019ll look closely to infer their preferences. And you\u2019ll avoid doing anything they\u2019d dislike too much, unless your alliance is\u00a0ready to mount an overt challenge.Fourth, even if there is no strong leader, there may be a dominant coalition encompassing your band or town. This is a group of people who tend to support each other, get deference from others, and win in conflicts. We call these people \u201celites.\u201d If your world has elites, you\u2019ll want to treat their shared opinions like those of a strong leader. If elites would gossip disapproval of a choice, maybe you don\u2019t want it.What if someone sets up objective metrics to rate people in\u00a0suitability for the roles you are choosing? Say an archery contest for picking hunters, or a cobbler contest to pick cobblers. Or public track records of how often healer patients die, or how long cobbler shoes last. Should you let it be known that such metrics weigh heavily in your choices?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " You\u2019ll first want to see what your elites or leader think of these\u00a0metrics. If they are enthusiastic, then great, use them. And if elites strongly oppose, you\u2019d best only use them when elites can\u2019t see. But what if elites say, \u201cYeah you could use those metrics, but watch out because they can be misleading and make\u00a0perverse incentives, and don\u2019t forget that we elites have set up this whole other helpful process for rating people in\u00a0such roles.\u201dWell in this case you should worry that elites are jealous of this alternative metric displacing their advice. They like the power and rents that come from advising on who to pick for what. So elites may undermine this metric, and punish those who use it.When elites advise people on who to pick for what, they will favor candidates who seem loyal to elites, and punish those who seem disloyal, or who aren\u2019t sufficiently deferential. But since\u00a0most\u00a0candidates are\u00a0respectful enough, elites often\u00a0pick those they think\u00a0will actually do well in the role. All else equal, that will make them look good, and help\u00a0their society. While their first priority is loyalty, looking good\u00a0is often a close second.Since\u00a0humans evolved to be unconscious political savants, this is my basic model to explain the many puzzles I listed\u00a0in my last post. When choosing lawyers, doctors, real estate agents, pundits, teachers, and more, elites put many obstacles\u00a0in the way of objective metrics like track records, contests, or prediction markets. Elites instead suggest picking\u00a0via\u00a0personal impressions, personal\u00a0recommendations, and school and institution prestige. We ordinary people mostly follow\u00a0this elite advice. We don\u2019t seek\u00a0objective metrics, and instead use elite endorsements, such as the prestige of where someone went to school or now works.\u00a0In general we favor\u00a0those who elites say have the potential to do X, over those\u00a0who actually did X.This all pushes me to more favor two hypotheses:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 9, 2012 8:15 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Brands Show Identity\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 9, 2012 8:15 am \nTitle: Brands Show Identity\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Marketers have long noticed puzzlingly high levels of brand loyalty:Consumers appear to have high willingness to pay for particular brands, even when the alternatives are objectively similar. The majority of consumers typically buy a single brand of beer, cola, or margarine, even though relative prices vary signi\ufb01cantly over time, and consumers often cannot distinguish their preferred brand in blind \u201ctaste tests\u201d. Consumers pay large premia to buy homogeneous goods like books and CDs from branded online retailers, even when they are using a \u201cshopbot\u201d that eliminates search costs. A large fraction of consumers buy branded medications, even though chemically equivalent generic substitutes are available at the same stores for much lower prices.Brand loyalty is big barrier to innovation, and an important reason why inefficient firms manage to survive so long.Brand preferences create large entry barriers and durable advantages for incumbent firms, and can explain persistence of early-mover advantage over long periodsIn the latest American Economic Review Bronnenberg, Dube, & Gentzkow offer new clues:Variation in where consumers have lived in the past allows us to isolate the causal effect of past experiences on current purchases, holding constant contemporaneous supply-side factors such as availability, prices, and advertising. \u2026 60 percent of the gap in purchases between the origin and destination state closes immediately when a consumer moves. \u2026 The remaining 40 percent gap between recent migrants and lifetime residents closes steadily, but slowly. It takes more than 20 years for half of the gap to close, and even 50 years after moving the gap remains statistically signi\ufb01cant. \u2026 The relative importance of brand capital is higher in [product] categories with high levels of advertising and high levels of social visibility. (more)This ad effect is puzzling because:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 9, 2012 8:15 am \nTitle: Brands Show Identity\nMarketers have long noticed puzzlingly high levels of brand loyalty:Consumers appear to have high willingness to pay for particular brands, even when the alternatives are objectively similar. The majority of consumers typically buy a single brand of beer, cola, or margarine, even though relative prices vary signi\ufb01cantly over time, and consumers often cannot distinguish their preferred brand in blind \u201ctaste tests\u201d. Consumers pay large premia to buy homogeneous goods like books and CDs from branded online retailers, even when they are using a \u201cshopbot\u201d that eliminates search costs. A large fraction of consumers buy branded medications, even though chemically equivalent generic substitutes are available at the same stores for much lower prices.Brand loyalty is big barrier to innovation, and an important reason why inefficient firms manage to survive so long.Brand preferences create large entry barriers and durable advantages for incumbent firms, and can explain persistence of early-mover advantage over long periodsIn the latest American Economic Review Bronnenberg, Dube, & Gentzkow offer new clues:Variation in where consumers have lived in the past allows us to isolate the causal effect of past experiences on current purchases, holding constant contemporaneous supply-side factors such as availability, prices, and advertising. \u2026 60 percent of the gap in purchases between the origin and destination state closes immediately when a consumer moves. \u2026 The remaining 40 percent gap between recent migrants and lifetime residents closes steadily, but slowly. It takes more than 20 years for half of the gap to close, and even 50 years after moving the gap remains statistically signi\ufb01cant. \u2026 The relative importance of brand capital is higher in [product] categories with high levels of advertising and high levels of social visibility. (more)This ad effect is puzzling because:\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Large literatures have measured the effects of advertising, but these studies often \ufb01nd no effects [of ads on sales], and the effects they do measure are estimated to dissipate over a horizon ranging from a few weeks to at most \ufb01ve or six months.Let me\u00a0suggest that an important use of brands is to create and signal identities. We create a coherent understandable idea of the kind of person we are, integrated with the kind of products we use, and we prefer not to change that concept, so that others can continue to rely on their expectations about us. We are willing to pay higher prices, and neglect info about quality, in order to keep a persistent style and appearance. So brands are naturally more important for products we use that others see more, and where ads have made connections to identity more salient.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 19, 2008 12:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Britain Was Too Small\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 19, 2008 12:00 am \nTitle: Britain Was Too Small\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Apparently the relevant unit in the last singularity was Western Europe; Britain was too small to support the industrial revolution by itself.\u00a0 From the May American Economic Review:\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 4, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Brownlee on Selling Anxiety\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 4, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: Brownlee on Selling Anxiety\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Shannon Brownlee in the Post on drug companies inventing new diseases: \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 21, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Buss on True Love\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 21, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Buss on True Love\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " We have a request for more on romance.\u00a0 Two years ago The Edge asked \"What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?\" David Buss answered:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 17, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Buy Health, Not Medicine\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 17, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Buy Health, Not Medicine\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " To neutralize my nattering nabobs of negativity on medicine, here is a constructive suggestion. The biggest problem in medicine is: what general process or institution can ordinary sick patients and concerned loved ones rely on to distinguish helpful from harmful medicine?\u00a0 Recently there has been interest in \"paying for performance,\" but that usually means small bonuses tied to statistics like how often doctors remind patients to stop smoking, or how often doctors prescribe antibiotics for ordinary flu symptoms.\u00a0 In contrast, I published a pretty general solution in 1994.\u00a0 (A similar idea appears in the 2003 book Why Not? )\u00a0 I remain puzzled to see no interest in this idea. For example, here is how we could reform Medicare.\u00a0 If you were on Medicare, there would be a particular health plan responsible for paying all your medical expenses.\u00a0 If a medical treatment were done to you, they would pay for it.\u00a0 (You would still pay non-medical health expenses, like for diet or exercise.)\u00a0 But your plan would also have wide discretion to veto treatment; no treatment would happen unless you and they both agreed.\u00a0 This includes all treatment details, like where, when, and who.\u00a0  Why would you trust plans with such power?\u00a0 Because they would \"feel your pain.\"\u00a0 Each year, the government would pay your plan a dollar amount based on your quality of life that year.\u00a0 This might be $100,000 if you were healthy, $50,000 if you were disabled, $30,000 if you were in great pain, and so on.\u00a0 (These evaluations of disability and pain might be based on random auditor visits.)\u00a0 Thus bad medical choices would hurt them just as such choices hurt you.  \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 17, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Buy Health, Not Medicine\nTo neutralize my nattering nabobs of negativity on medicine, here is a constructive suggestion. The biggest problem in medicine is: what general process or institution can ordinary sick patients and concerned loved ones rely on to distinguish helpful from harmful medicine?\u00a0 Recently there has been interest in \"paying for performance,\" but that usually means small bonuses tied to statistics like how often doctors remind patients to stop smoking, or how often doctors prescribe antibiotics for ordinary flu symptoms.\u00a0 In contrast, I published a pretty general solution in 1994.\u00a0 (A similar idea appears in the 2003 book Why Not? )\u00a0 I remain puzzled to see no interest in this idea. For example, here is how we could reform Medicare.\u00a0 If you were on Medicare, there would be a particular health plan responsible for paying all your medical expenses.\u00a0 If a medical treatment were done to you, they would pay for it.\u00a0 (You would still pay non-medical health expenses, like for diet or exercise.)\u00a0 But your plan would also have wide discretion to veto treatment; no treatment would happen unless you and they both agreed.\u00a0 This includes all treatment details, like where, when, and who.\u00a0  Why would you trust plans with such power?\u00a0 Because they would \"feel your pain.\"\u00a0 Each year, the government would pay your plan a dollar amount based on your quality of life that year.\u00a0 This might be $100,000 if you were healthy, $50,000 if you were disabled, $30,000 if you were in great pain, and so on.\u00a0 (These evaluations of disability and pain might be based on random auditor visits.)\u00a0 Thus bad medical choices would hurt them just as such choices hurt you.  \n\n###\n\n", "completion": " As a result, plans would have incentives to make good tradeoffs between medical spending and health gains (at least for gains reflected in official quality of life payment schedules).\u00a0 Plans would also have good incentives to advise you on your health choices, and you would have good incentive to listen.\u00a0 Of course you start out with good incentives, so good incentives are not enough.\u00a0 But being large organizations, such plans would be far better positioned than you to figure out how to respond to these incentives.\u00a0  Since payments to plans would usually far exceed medical expenses, an auction would be used to assign plans to people.\u00a0 The plan willing to pay the government the most would get the (tradable) right to be your health plan forever more.\u00a0 A full record of your medical history would be visible to auction bidders.\u00a0 In this scenario net payments from the government equal expected medical spending.\u00a0 Yes, the government would acquire a financial incentive to hurt your health, but public monitoring should prevent them from acting on this incentive. Employer-provided medical coverage could use a similar mechanism, if a distant third party, unable to harm employee health, was paid up front to become responsible for making annual payments to health plans.\u00a0 Employers might adjust value of life figures to employee details, and might allow employees to add funds to raise those figures.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 22, 2009 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Byron vs. Wordsworth\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 22, 2009 6:00 am \nTitle: Byron vs. Wordsworth\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " [Lord Byron] chose to be noisily \u201cimmoral\u201d not because he was any worse (or any better) than the average aristocrat of his time but as a weapon against the moralism of Wordsworth. I don\u2019t mean \u201cmoralism\u201d in a normative sense \u2013 God no. I remember sifting through the elderly Wordsworth\u2019s letters looking for any comment at all on the Great Famine which was extirpating the Irish, and finding only one remark, in which the great moralist earnestly prays that England will not weaken, ie provide any aid whatsoever.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of the curiosities of English literary history that you\u2019ll never find the least particle of compassion for the Irish in \u201cmoral\u201d poets like Wordsworth.Only the \u201cmad, bad and dangerous\u201d Byron mentioned the slaughter of 1798, attacking the PM, Castlereagh, for \u201cdabbling [his] sleek young hands in Erin\u2019s gore\u201d and, as Pope would have recommended, delivering an extra kick to his enemy\u2019s corpse in this epitaph: \u201cPosterity will never survey a nobler grave than this: here lie the bones of Castlereagh: stop, traveler, and piss.\u201dMore here.\u00a0 Why is it that those who seemed at the time to most emphasize morality often end up later looking the least moral?Hat tip to Paul Gowder.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 8, 2022 5:40 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Can Combined Agents Limit Drugs?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 8, 2022 5:40 pm \nTitle: Can Combined Agents Limit Drugs?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Using pre-covid stats, a new J. Law & Econ paper tries to account for all U.S. crime costs, i.e., costs due to not everyone fully obeying all laws. These costs include prevention efforts, opportunity costs, and risks to life and health. The annual social loss is estimated at $2.9T, comparable to the $2.7T we spend on food and shelter, the $3.8T on medicine, and a significant fraction of our $21T GDP. One of the biggest contributions is $1.1T from 104K lives lost in 2018 at $10.6M each, including $0.7T from 67K drug overdoses deaths.But such drug deaths have been roughly doubling every decade since 1980, and in the year up to April 2021, there were 100K US drug overdose deaths, making that loss by itself $1T, at least if you accepted a $10M per life estimate, which I do think is too high. Even so, drug overdose deaths are clearly a huge problem, worth thinking about. What can we do?Reading up on the topic, I see a lot of conflicting theories on what would work best. But a big part of the problem seems to me to be that it isn\u2019t clear who exactly owns this problem. We might see it as a family problem, an employer problem, a medical problem, or a legal problem. Yet each of those groups resists taking responsibility, and we don\u2019t fully empower any of them to deal well with the problem.Now I\u2019m no expert on drug overdosing, bit I do fancy myself a bit of an expert on getting organizations to own problems. So let me try my hand at that.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 8, 2022 5:40 pm \nTitle: Can Combined Agents Limit Drugs?\nUsing pre-covid stats, a new J. Law & Econ paper tries to account for all U.S. crime costs, i.e., costs due to not everyone fully obeying all laws. These costs include prevention efforts, opportunity costs, and risks to life and health. The annual social loss is estimated at $2.9T, comparable to the $2.7T we spend on food and shelter, the $3.8T on medicine, and a significant fraction of our $21T GDP. One of the biggest contributions is $1.1T from 104K lives lost in 2018 at $10.6M each, including $0.7T from 67K drug overdoses deaths.But such drug deaths have been roughly doubling every decade since 1980, and in the year up to April 2021, there were 100K US drug overdose deaths, making that loss by itself $1T, at least if you accepted a $10M per life estimate, which I do think is too high. Even so, drug overdose deaths are clearly a huge problem, worth thinking about. What can we do?Reading up on the topic, I see a lot of conflicting theories on what would work best. But a big part of the problem seems to me to be that it isn\u2019t clear who exactly owns this problem. We might see it as a family problem, an employer problem, a medical problem, or a legal problem. Yet each of those groups resists taking responsibility, and we don\u2019t fully empower any of them to deal well with the problem.Now I\u2019m no expert on drug overdosing, bit I do fancy myself a bit of an expert on getting organizations to own problems. So let me try my hand at that.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019ve previously suggested that people choose health agents, who pay for and choose medicine but who lose lots of money if their clients become disabled, in pain, or die. I\u2019ve also suggested that people choose crime vouchers, who must pay for cash fines when their clients are found guilty of crimes, but who have client-voucher contracts able to set client co-liability and to choose punishments and freedoms of association, movement, and privacy. I\u2019ve also suggested having agents who insure you against hard times, career agents who get some fraction of your future income, and that parents get such a fraction to compensate for raising you.So as a man with all these hammers staring at this tough nail of drug overdoses, I\u2019m tempted to merge them into one big hammer and take a swing. That is, how would a merged agent who had all these incentives try to deal with a potential drug problem?Imagine a for-profit experienced expert org approved by the client\u2019s parents when they are a kid, or by the client when they are adult. In a world with with few legal constraints on the contracts that this agent can agree to with clients. An org who probably also represents many of this client\u2019s friends and family. An org who gains from client income, but who must pay when a client is found guilty of a crime, or suffers hard times, pain, disability, or death. An org able to limit client freedoms of privacy, movement, and association, And able to set client punishments for verified events, and to make associated clients co-liable, so that they are all punished together re events involving any one of them.Such an agent might make sure to get addicts a reliable drug supply, or to have overdose drugs readily available. Or they might forbid clients from mixing with drug types. Or they might test clients regularly, or encourage althetics that conflict with drug use. Or any of a thousand other possible approaches. The whole point is that I don\u2019t have to figure that out; it would be their job to figure out what works.Now if an org with incentives and powers like that can\u2019t find a way to get clients to avoid becoming drug addicts, or to not overdose if they do, then that would probably either be due to some larger social context that they couldn\u2019t change, or because many individuals just like drugs so much that they are willing to take substantial chances of overdosing.What if a larger social policy related to drugs or users was a key problem? For example, maybe drug laws are too strict, or too lax. If so, I\u2019d expect these orgs to figure out which and lobby for changes. And given their expertise and incentives, I\u2019d be tempted to listen to them. If you didn\u2019t trust them so much, well then you might consider using futarchy to choose. But honestly I expect such combined agents could handle the problem regardless of larger policies.In sum, I suggest that the key underlying problem with drug overdoses is that no expert org owns the problem, by being approved by clients yet given clear abilities and incentives to solve the problem. Yes this is a big ask, and this is my generic solution to many problems. Doesn\u2019t mean it won\u2019t work.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 26, 2017 5:20 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Can Human-Like Software Win?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 26, 2017 5:20 pm \nTitle: Can Human-Like Software Win?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Many, perhaps most, think it obvious that computer-like systems will eventually be more productive than human-like systems in most all jobs. So they focus on how humans might maintain control, even after this transition. But this eventuality is less obvious than it seems, depending on what exactly one means by \u201chuman-like\u201d or \u201ccomputer-like\u201d systems. Let me explain.Today the software that sits in human brains is stuck in human brain hardware, while the other kinds of software that we write (or train) sit in the artificial hardware that we make. And this artificial hardware has been improving rapidly far more rapidly than has human brain hardware. Partly as a result of this, systems of artificial software and hardware have been improving rapidly compared to human brain systems.But eventually we will find a way to transfer the software from human brains into artificial hardware. Ems are one way to do this, as a relatively direct port. But other transfer mechanics may be developed.Once human brain software is in the same sort of artificial computing hardware as all the other software, then the relative productivity of different software categories comes down to a question of quality: which categories of software tend to be more productive on which tasks?Of course there will many different variations available within each category, to match to different problems. And the overall productivity of each category will depend both on previous efforts to develop and improve software in that category, and also on previous investments in other systems to match and complement that software. For example, familiar artificial software will gain because we have spent longer working to match it to familiar artificial hardware, while human software will gain from being well matched to complex existing social systems, such as language, firms, law, and government.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 26, 2017 5:20 pm \nTitle: Can Human-Like Software Win?\nMany, perhaps most, think it obvious that computer-like systems will eventually be more productive than human-like systems in most all jobs. So they focus on how humans might maintain control, even after this transition. But this eventuality is less obvious than it seems, depending on what exactly one means by \u201chuman-like\u201d or \u201ccomputer-like\u201d systems. Let me explain.Today the software that sits in human brains is stuck in human brain hardware, while the other kinds of software that we write (or train) sit in the artificial hardware that we make. And this artificial hardware has been improving rapidly far more rapidly than has human brain hardware. Partly as a result of this, systems of artificial software and hardware have been improving rapidly compared to human brain systems.But eventually we will find a way to transfer the software from human brains into artificial hardware. Ems are one way to do this, as a relatively direct port. But other transfer mechanics may be developed.Once human brain software is in the same sort of artificial computing hardware as all the other software, then the relative productivity of different software categories comes down to a question of quality: which categories of software tend to be more productive on which tasks?Of course there will many different variations available within each category, to match to different problems. And the overall productivity of each category will depend both on previous efforts to develop and improve software in that category, and also on previous investments in other systems to match and complement that software. For example, familiar artificial software will gain because we have spent longer working to match it to familiar artificial hardware, while human software will gain from being well matched to complex existing social systems, such as language, firms, law, and government.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " People give many arguments for why they expect human-like software to mostly lose this future competition, even when it has access to the same hardware. For example, they say that other software could lack human biases and also scale better, have more reliable memory, communicate better over wider scopes, be easier to understand, have easier meta-control and self-modification, and be based more directly on formal abstract theories of learning, decision, computation, and organization.Now consider two informal polls I recently gave my twitter followers:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 9, 2012 8:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Can Humans Be The FORTRAN Of Creatures?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 9, 2012 8:00 am \nTitle: Can Humans Be The FORTRAN Of Creatures?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " It is one of the most fundamental questions in the social and human sciences: how culturally plastic are people? Many anthropologists have long championed the view that humans are very plastic; with matching upbringing people can be made to behave a very wide range of ways, and to want a very wide range of things. Others say human nature is far more constrained, and collect descriptions of \u201chuman universals\u201d (See Brown\u2019s 1991 book.)This dispute has been politically potent. For example, in gender relations some have said that social institutions should reflect the fact that men and women have certain innate differences, while others say that we can pick most any way we want the genders to relate, and then teach our children to be like that.But let\u2019s set those issues aside, look to the distant future, and ask: do varying degrees of human cultural plasticity make different predictions about the future?The easiest predictions are at the extremes. For example, if human nature is extremely rigid, and hard to change, then humans will most likely just go extinct. Eventually environments will change, and other creature will evolve or be designed that are better adapted to those new environments. Humans won\u2019t adapt very well, by assumption, so they lose.At the other extreme, if human nature is very plastic, then it will adapt to most changes, and change to embody whatever innovations are required for such adaptation. But then there would be very little left of us by the end; our descendants would become whatever any initially very plastic species would have become in such an environment.So if you want some distinctive human features to last, you\u2019ll have to hope for an intermediate level of plasticity. Human nature has to be flexible enough to not be out competed by a more flexible design platform, but inflexible enough to retain some of its original features.For example, consider the programming language FORTRAN:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 9, 2012 8:00 am \nTitle: Can Humans Be The FORTRAN Of Creatures?\nIt is one of the most fundamental questions in the social and human sciences: how culturally plastic are people? Many anthropologists have long championed the view that humans are very plastic; with matching upbringing people can be made to behave a very wide range of ways, and to want a very wide range of things. Others say human nature is far more constrained, and collect descriptions of \u201chuman universals\u201d (See Brown\u2019s 1991 book.)This dispute has been politically potent. For example, in gender relations some have said that social institutions should reflect the fact that men and women have certain innate differences, while others say that we can pick most any way we want the genders to relate, and then teach our children to be like that.But let\u2019s set those issues aside, look to the distant future, and ask: do varying degrees of human cultural plasticity make different predictions about the future?The easiest predictions are at the extremes. For example, if human nature is extremely rigid, and hard to change, then humans will most likely just go extinct. Eventually environments will change, and other creature will evolve or be designed that are better adapted to those new environments. Humans won\u2019t adapt very well, by assumption, so they lose.At the other extreme, if human nature is very plastic, then it will adapt to most changes, and change to embody whatever innovations are required for such adaptation. But then there would be very little left of us by the end; our descendants would become whatever any initially very plastic species would have become in such an environment.So if you want some distinctive human features to last, you\u2019ll have to hope for an intermediate level of plasticity. Human nature has to be flexible enough to not be out competed by a more flexible design platform, but inflexible enough to retain some of its original features.For example, consider the programming language FORTRAN:\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Originally developed by IBM \u2026 in the 1950s for scientific and engineering applications, Fortran came to dominate this area of programming early on and has been in continual use for over half a century in computationally intensive areas such as numerical weather prediction, finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, computational physics and computational chemistry. It is one of the most popular languages in the area of high-performance computing and is the language used for programs that benchmark and rank the world\u2019s fastest supercomputers. (more)FORTRAN isn\u2019t the best possible programming language, but because it was first, it collected a powerful installed base well adapted to it. It has been flexible enough to stick around, but it isn\u2019t infinitely flexible \u2014 one can very much recognize early FORTRAN features in current versions.Similarly, humans have the advantage of being the first species to master culture in a powerful way. We have slowly accumulated many powerful innovations we call civilization, and we\u2019ve invested a lot in adapting those innovations to the particulars of humanity. This installed based of the ways civilization is matched well to humans gives us an advantage over creatures with a substantially differing design.If humans are flexible enough, but not too flexible, we may become the FORTRAN of future minds, clunky but still useful enough to keep around, noticeably retaining many of its original features.I should note that some hope to preserve humanity by ending decentralized competition; they hope a central power will ensure than human features survive regardless of their local efficiency in future environments. I have a lot of concerns about that, but yes it should be included on the list of possibilities.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 22, 2022 2:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Can We Tame Political Minds?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 22, 2022 2:00 pm \nTitle: Can We Tame Political Minds?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Give me a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth. (Archimedes)A democracy \u2026 can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. (Tytler)Politics is the mind killer. (Yudkowsky)The world is a vast complex of interconnected subsystems. Yes, this suggests that you can influence most everything else via every little thing you do. So you might help the world by picking up some trash, saying a kind word, or rating a product on Yelp.Even so, many are not satisfied to have some effect, they seek a max effect. For this reason, they say, they seek max personal popularity, wealth, or political power. Or they look for the most neglected people to help, like via African bed nets. Or they seek dramatic but plausibly neglected disaster scenarios to prevent, such as malicious foreigners, eco-apocalypse, or rampaging robots.Our future is influenced by a great many things, including changes in tech, wealth, education, political power, military power, religion, art, culture, public opinion, and institutional structures. But which of these offers the strongest lever to influence that future? Note that if we propose to change one factor in order to induce changes in all the others, critics may reasonably question our ability to actually control that factor, since in the past such changes seem to have been greatly influenced by other factors.Thus a longtime favorite topic in \u201cserious\u201d conversation is: where are the best social levers, i.e. factors which do sometimes change, which people like us (this varies with who is in the conversation) can somewhat influence, and where the effects of this factor on other factors seem lasting and stronger than reverse-direction effects.When I was in tech, the consensus there saw tech as the strongest lever. I\u2019ve heard artists make such claims about art. And I presume that priests, teachers, activists, and journalists are often told something similar about their factors.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 22, 2022 2:00 pm \nTitle: Can We Tame Political Minds?\nGive me a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth. (Archimedes)A democracy \u2026 can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. (Tytler)Politics is the mind killer. (Yudkowsky)The world is a vast complex of interconnected subsystems. Yes, this suggests that you can influence most everything else via every little thing you do. So you might help the world by picking up some trash, saying a kind word, or rating a product on Yelp.Even so, many are not satisfied to have some effect, they seek a max effect. For this reason, they say, they seek max personal popularity, wealth, or political power. Or they look for the most neglected people to help, like via African bed nets. Or they seek dramatic but plausibly neglected disaster scenarios to prevent, such as malicious foreigners, eco-apocalypse, or rampaging robots.Our future is influenced by a great many things, including changes in tech, wealth, education, political power, military power, religion, art, culture, public opinion, and institutional structures. But which of these offers the strongest lever to influence that future? Note that if we propose to change one factor in order to induce changes in all the others, critics may reasonably question our ability to actually control that factor, since in the past such changes seem to have been greatly influenced by other factors.Thus a longtime favorite topic in \u201cserious\u201d conversation is: where are the best social levers, i.e. factors which do sometimes change, which people like us (this varies with who is in the conversation) can somewhat influence, and where the effects of this factor on other factors seem lasting and stronger than reverse-direction effects.When I was in tech, the consensus there saw tech as the strongest lever. I\u2019ve heard artists make such claims about art. And I presume that priests, teachers, activists, and journalists are often told something similar about their factors.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " We economists tend to see strong levers in the formal mechanisms of social institutions, which we happen to be well-placed to study. And in fact, we have seen big effects of such formal institutions in theory, the lab, and the field. Furthermore, we can imagine actually changing these mechanisms, because they tend to be stable, are sometimes changed, and can be clearly identified and concisely described. Even stronger levers are found in the higher level legal, regulatory, and political institutions that control all the other institutions.My Ph.D. in social science at Caltech focused on such controlling institutions, via making formal game theory models, and testing them in the lab and field. This research finds that institution mechanisms and rules can have big effects on outcomes. Furthermore, we seem to see many big institutional failures in particular areas like telecom, transport, energy, education, housing, and medicine, wherein poor choices of institutions, laws, and regulations in such areas combine to induce large yet understandable waste and inefficiency. Yes institutions do matter, a lot.However, an odd thing happens when we consider higher level models. When we model the effects of general legal and democratic institutions containing rational agents, we usually find that such institutions work out pretty well. Common fears of concentrated interests predating on diffuse interests, or of the poor taxing the rich to death, are not usually borne out. While the real world does seem full of big institutional problems at lower levels, our general models of political processes do not robustly predict these common problems. Even when such models include voters who are quite ignorant or error prone. What are such models missing?Bryan Caplan\u2019s book\u00a0Myth of the Rational Voter gets a bit closer to the truth with his concept of \u201crational irrationality\u201d. And I was heartened to see Alex Tabarrok [AT] and Ezra Klein [EK], who have quite different political inclinations, basically agree on the key problem in their recent podcast:[AT:] Mancur Olson thought he saw \u2026 more and more of these distributional coalitions, which are not just redistributing resources to themselves, but also slowing down\u2026 change. \u2026 used to be that we required three people to be on the hiring committee. This year, we have nine \u2026 Now, we need [more] rules. \u2026 we\u2019ve created this more bureaucratic, kind of rule-bound, legalistic and costly structure. And that\u2019s not a distributional coalition. That\u2019s not lobbying. That\u2019s sort of something we\u2019ve imposed upon ourselves. \u2026[EK:] it\u2019s not that I want to go be part of slowing down society and an annoying bureaucrat. Everybody\u2019s a hero of their own story. So how do you think the stories people tell themselves in our country have changed for this to be true? \u2026[AT:] an HOA composed of kind of randos from the community telling you what your windows can look like, it\u2019s not an obvious outcome of a successful society developing coalitions who all want to pursue their own self-interest. \u2026 naked self-interest is less important than some other things. And I\u2019ll give you an example which supports what you\u2019re saying. And that is, if you look at renters and the opinions of renters, and they are almost as NIMBY, Not In My Backyard, as owners, right, which is crazy.\u2026 farmers get massive redistribution in their favor. \u2026 But yet, if you go to the public \u2026 They\u2019re, oh, no, we\u2019ve got to protect the family farm. \u2026[EK:] a lot of political science \u2026 traditionally thought redistribution would be more powerful than it has proven to be \u2026 as societies get richer, they begin emphasizing what he calls post-materialist values, these moral values, these identity values, values about fairness. (More)\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "We economists tend to see strong levers in the formal mechanisms of social institutions, which we happen to be well-placed to study. And in fact, we have seen big effects of such formal institutions in theory, the lab, and the field. Furthermore, we can imagine actually changing these mechanisms, because they tend to be stable, are sometimes changed, and can be clearly identified and concisely described. Even stronger levers are found in the higher level legal, regulatory, and political institutions that control all the other institutions.My Ph.D. in social science at Caltech focused on such controlling institutions, via making formal game theory models, and testing them in the lab and field. This research finds that institution mechanisms and rules can have big effects on outcomes. Furthermore, we seem to see many big institutional failures in particular areas like telecom, transport, energy, education, housing, and medicine, wherein poor choices of institutions, laws, and regulations in such areas combine to induce large yet understandable waste and inefficiency. Yes institutions do matter, a lot.However, an odd thing happens when we consider higher level models. When we model the effects of general legal and democratic institutions containing rational agents, we usually find that such institutions work out pretty well. Common fears of concentrated interests predating on diffuse interests, or of the poor taxing the rich to death, are not usually borne out. While the real world does seem full of big institutional problems at lower levels, our general models of political processes do not robustly predict these common problems. Even when such models include voters who are quite ignorant or error prone. What are such models missing?Bryan Caplan\u2019s book\u00a0Myth of the Rational Voter gets a bit closer to the truth with his concept of \u201crational irrationality\u201d. And I was heartened to see Alex Tabarrok [AT] and Ezra Klein [EK], who have quite different political inclinations, basically agree on the key problem in their recent podcast:[AT:] Mancur Olson thought he saw \u2026 more and more of these distributional coalitions, which are not just redistributing resources to themselves, but also slowing down\u2026 change. \u2026 used to be that we required three people to be on the hiring committee. This year, we have nine \u2026 Now, we need [more] rules. \u2026 we\u2019ve created this more bureaucratic, kind of rule-bound, legalistic and costly structure. And that\u2019s not a distributional coalition. That\u2019s not lobbying. That\u2019s sort of something we\u2019ve imposed upon ourselves. \u2026[EK:] it\u2019s not that I want to go be part of slowing down society and an annoying bureaucrat. Everybody\u2019s a hero of their own story. So how do you think the stories people tell themselves in our country have changed for this to be true? \u2026[AT:] an HOA composed of kind of randos from the community telling you what your windows can look like, it\u2019s not an obvious outcome of a successful society developing coalitions who all want to pursue their own self-interest. \u2026 naked self-interest is less important than some other things. And I\u2019ll give you an example which supports what you\u2019re saying. And that is, if you look at renters and the opinions of renters, and they are almost as NIMBY, Not In My Backyard, as owners, right, which is crazy.\u2026 farmers get massive redistribution in their favor. \u2026 But yet, if you go to the public \u2026 They\u2019re, oh, no, we\u2019ve got to protect the family farm. \u2026[EK:] a lot of political science \u2026 traditionally thought redistribution would be more powerful than it has proven to be \u2026 as societies get richer, they begin emphasizing what he calls post-materialist values, these moral values, these identity values, values about fairness. (More)\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " That is, our larger political and legal systems induce, and do not fix, many more specific institutional failures. But not so much because of failures in the structure of our political or legal institutions. Instead, the key problem seems to lie in voters\u2019 minds. In political contexts, minds that are usually quite capable of being reasonable and pragmatic, and attending to details, instead suffer from some strange problematic mix of confused, incoherent, and destructive pride, posturing, ideology, idealism, loyalty, and principles. For want of a better phrase, let\u2019s just call these \u201cpolitical minds.\u201dPolitical minds are just not well described by the usual game theory or \u201crational\u201d models. But they do seem to be a good candidate for a strong social level to move the future. Yes, political minds are probably somewhat influenced by political institutions, and by communications structures of who talks to and listens to whom. And by all the other systems in the world. Yet it seems much clearer how they influence other systems than how the other systems influence them. In particular, it is much clearer how political minds influence institution mechanisms than how those mechanisms influence political minds.In our world today, political minds somehow induce and preserve our many more specific institutional failures. And also the accumulation of harmful veto players and added procedures discussed by [AT] and [EK]. Even so, as strong levers, these political minds remain gatekeepers of change. It seems hard to fix the problems they cause without somehow getting their buy-in. But can we tame politician minds?This is surely one of the greatest questions to be pondered by those aware enough to see just how big a problem this is. I won\u2019t pretend to answer it here, but I can at least review six possibilities.War \u2013 One ancient solution was variation and selection of societies, such as via war and conquest. These can directly force societies to accept truths that they might not otherwise admit. But such processes are now far weaker, and political minds fiercely oppose strengthening them. Furthermore, the relevant political minds are in many ways now integrated at a global level.Elitism \u2013 Another ancient solution was elitism: concentrate political influence into fewer higher quality hands. Today influence is not maximally distributed; we still don\u2019t let kids or pets vote. But the trend has definitely been in that direction. We could today limit the franchise more, or give more political weight to those who past various quality tests. But gains there seem limited, and political minds today mostly decry such suggestions.Train \u2013 A more modern approach is try to better train minds in general, in the hope that will also improve minds in political contexts. And perhaps universal education has helped somewhat there, though I have doubts. It would probably help to replace geometry with statistics in high school, and to teach more economics and evolutionary biology earlier. But remember that the key problem is reasonable minds turning unreasonable when politics shows up; none of these seem to do much there.Teach \u2013 A more commonly \u201cpracticed\u201d approach today is just to try to slowly persuade political minds person by person and topic by topic, to see and comprehend their many particular policy mistakes. And do this faster than new mistakes accumulate. That has long been a standard \u201ceducational\u201d approach taken by economists and policy makers. It seems especially popular because one can pretend to do this while really just playing the usual political games. Yes, there are in fact people like Alex and Ezra who do see and call attention to real institutional failures. But overall this approach doesn\u2019t seem to be going very well. Even so, it may still be our best hope.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "That is, our larger political and legal systems induce, and do not fix, many more specific institutional failures. But not so much because of failures in the structure of our political or legal institutions. Instead, the key problem seems to lie in voters\u2019 minds. In political contexts, minds that are usually quite capable of being reasonable and pragmatic, and attending to details, instead suffer from some strange problematic mix of confused, incoherent, and destructive pride, posturing, ideology, idealism, loyalty, and principles. For want of a better phrase, let\u2019s just call these \u201cpolitical minds.\u201dPolitical minds are just not well described by the usual game theory or \u201crational\u201d models. But they do seem to be a good candidate for a strong social level to move the future. Yes, political minds are probably somewhat influenced by political institutions, and by communications structures of who talks to and listens to whom. And by all the other systems in the world. Yet it seems much clearer how they influence other systems than how the other systems influence them. In particular, it is much clearer how political minds influence institution mechanisms than how those mechanisms influence political minds.In our world today, political minds somehow induce and preserve our many more specific institutional failures. And also the accumulation of harmful veto players and added procedures discussed by [AT] and [EK]. Even so, as strong levers, these political minds remain gatekeepers of change. It seems hard to fix the problems they cause without somehow getting their buy-in. But can we tame politician minds?This is surely one of the greatest questions to be pondered by those aware enough to see just how big a problem this is. I won\u2019t pretend to answer it here, but I can at least review six possibilities.War \u2013 One ancient solution was variation and selection of societies, such as via war and conquest. These can directly force societies to accept truths that they might not otherwise admit. But such processes are now far weaker, and political minds fiercely oppose strengthening them. Furthermore, the relevant political minds are in many ways now integrated at a global level.Elitism \u2013 Another ancient solution was elitism: concentrate political influence into fewer higher quality hands. Today influence is not maximally distributed; we still don\u2019t let kids or pets vote. But the trend has definitely been in that direction. We could today limit the franchise more, or give more political weight to those who past various quality tests. But gains there seem limited, and political minds today mostly decry such suggestions.Train \u2013 A more modern approach is try to better train minds in general, in the hope that will also improve minds in political contexts. And perhaps universal education has helped somewhat there, though I have doubts. It would probably help to replace geometry with statistics in high school, and to teach more economics and evolutionary biology earlier. But remember that the key problem is reasonable minds turning unreasonable when politics shows up; none of these seem to do much there.Teach \u2013 A more commonly \u201cpracticed\u201d approach today is just to try to slowly persuade political minds person by person and topic by topic, to see and comprehend their many particular policy mistakes. And do this faster than new mistakes accumulate. That has long been a standard \u201ceducational\u201d approach taken by economists and policy makers. It seems especially popular because one can pretend to do this while really just playing the usual political games. Yes, there are in fact people like Alex and Ezra who do see and call attention to real institutional failures. But overall this approach doesn\u2019t seem to be going very well. Even so, it may still be our best hope.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Privatize \u2013 A long shot approach is to try to convince political minds to not trust their own judgements as political minds, and thus to try to reduce the scope for politics to influence human affairs. That is, push to privatize and take decisions away from large politicized units, and toward more local units who face stronger selection and market pressures, and induce less politicized minds. Of course many have been trying to do exactly this for centuries. Even so, this approach might still be our best hope.Futarchy \u2013 My proposed solution is also to try to convince political minds to not trust their own judgements, but only regarding on matters of fact, and only relative to the judgements of speculative markets. Speculative market minds are in fact vastly more informed and rational than the usual political minds. And cheap small scale trials are feasible that could lead naturally to larger scale trials that could go a long way toward convincing many political minds of this key fact. It is quite possible to adopt political institutions that put speculative markets in charge of estimating matters of fact. At which point we\u2019d only be subject to political mind failures regarding values. I have other ideas for this, but let\u2019s tackle one problem at a time.Politics is indeed the mind killer. But once we know that, what can we do? War could force truths, though at great expense. Elitism and training could improve minds, but only so far. Teaching and privatizing are being tried, but are progressing terribly slowly, if at all.While it might never be possible to convince political minds to distrust themselves on facts, relative to speculative markets, this approach has hardly been tried, and seems cheap to try. So, world, why not try it?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 26, 2010 11:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Cannibals Die Fast\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 26, 2010 11:00 am \nTitle: Cannibals Die Fast\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I just watched the movie The Road, and then skimmed the book.  The scenario is that a calamity covers the sky with ash, making things cold and dark, and basically wiping out most of the biosphere. The story is about a child born after this starts, now at least 7 (the actor who plays him was 12 when filmed).  He and his dad travel south seeking warmer climes, scavenging food along the way and avoiding \u201cbad\u201d folks who have resorted to cannibalism.Both the book and movie are widely celebrated for their \u201crealism.\u201d NYT:\u201cWhat\u2019s moving and shocking about McCarthy\u2019s book is that it\u2019s so believable,\u201d Mr. Hillcoat said. \u201cSo what we wanted is a kind of heightened realism, as opposed to the \u2018Mad Max\u2019 thing, which is all about high concept and spectacle. We\u2019re trying to avoid the clich\u00e9s of apocalypse and make this more like a natural disaster.\u201dIn fact, regarding the author:You know that Cormac McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize for literature, but you may not know that he also has an interest in mathematics and science, which he engages as a research fellow at the Santa Fe Institute.Which stupefies me.  Does anyone ever actually think about post-apocalytic scenarios? \u00a0Sure it has good emotional and physical detail, but that near-real is detached from its far-unreal premises. Consider:1. Within a year at most wild food and human food stores would be completely gone.  Locals have a far better abilities to find remainders; no way years later travelers would find much the locals hadn\u2019t found.2. Cannibalism would be the main food source within a year, and travelers would be easy prey for locals who lie in wait.  You\u2019d have to be very desperate to even consider traveling, and then you\u2019d avoid lighting a campfire every night like these travelers.  And you wouldn\u2019t last long.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 26, 2010 11:00 am \nTitle: Cannibals Die Fast\nI just watched the movie The Road, and then skimmed the book.  The scenario is that a calamity covers the sky with ash, making things cold and dark, and basically wiping out most of the biosphere. The story is about a child born after this starts, now at least 7 (the actor who plays him was 12 when filmed).  He and his dad travel south seeking warmer climes, scavenging food along the way and avoiding \u201cbad\u201d folks who have resorted to cannibalism.Both the book and movie are widely celebrated for their \u201crealism.\u201d NYT:\u201cWhat\u2019s moving and shocking about McCarthy\u2019s book is that it\u2019s so believable,\u201d Mr. Hillcoat said. \u201cSo what we wanted is a kind of heightened realism, as opposed to the \u2018Mad Max\u2019 thing, which is all about high concept and spectacle. We\u2019re trying to avoid the clich\u00e9s of apocalypse and make this more like a natural disaster.\u201dIn fact, regarding the author:You know that Cormac McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize for literature, but you may not know that he also has an interest in mathematics and science, which he engages as a research fellow at the Santa Fe Institute.Which stupefies me.  Does anyone ever actually think about post-apocalytic scenarios? \u00a0Sure it has good emotional and physical detail, but that near-real is detached from its far-unreal premises. Consider:1. Within a year at most wild food and human food stores would be completely gone.  Locals have a far better abilities to find remainders; no way years later travelers would find much the locals hadn\u2019t found.2. Cannibalism would be the main food source within a year, and travelers would be easy prey for locals who lie in wait.  You\u2019d have to be very desperate to even consider traveling, and then you\u2019d avoid lighting a campfire every night like these travelers.  And you wouldn\u2019t last long.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " 3. Cannibalism is war, where coordination is crucial. \u00a0Yet this pair don\u2019t seem interested in joining a larger group for self-defense, and they see many other un-teamed individuals. Foragers understand that lone folks traveling in unfamiliar territories are goners.4. Even under ideal conditions, people living mainly on cannibalism just couldn\u2019t last that many years.  Quoting Zac Gochenour:The typical human body has a muscle to fat ratio similar to a bear, which is about 770 calories per pound. If the average post-apocalyptic person weighs about 130 lbs and is a bit leaner than a bear (say 600 calories per pound), throw away say 20 lbs of bones and 20 lbs of inedible organs, leaves you with about 54000 calories. Assuming 1200 calories a day for survival, that\u2019s 45 person days per human body. 1200 may be too high; I\u2019ve read concentration camp prisoners survived for months on about 300-500 calories per day, engaged in some degree of hard labor.I figure the biggest problem facing such a population would be lack of essential nutrients. Vitamin C, for instance. The way the eskimos (who traditionally ate a diet consisting almost entirely on meat and fish) dealt with this is by eating their meat raw and keeping the vitamin C in tact. The cannibals would have to do the same.\u201dEven at a rate of 100 person days per body, that would use up 1% of the population per day. \u00a0An initial population of 100 million, killed off at this rate, would have only one person left after five years.  In the novel there were many corpses around that clearly hadn\u2019t been eaten; if only half the bodies were eaten, the population would last half as long.  No way a kid lives to be seven when born into a world where the main food is cannibalism.Given how lauded and celebrated is this book, didn\u2019t anyone else has pointed these out before? (The novel\u00a0Blindness dealt with similar sort of issues, but assumed a more realistic timescale.)Added 29 May: Henry Farrell did say in \u201907:I agree on the campness of the broiled baby, and even more so of the amputees in the cellar. The latter annoyed me, in part because my sfnal instincts made me ask practical questions- how is this kind of cannibalism sustainable \u2013 presumably you\u2019ve got to feed your victims something if you want to keep them alive, which sort of defeats the purpose of the thing (far smarter, if you adopt the logic of the cannibals to just butcher em and smoke em).\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 6, 2010 3:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Capital In Conflict\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 6, 2010 3:00 pm \nTitle: Capital In Conflict\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Until a few centuries ago economic growth rates were well below feasible population growth rates.\u00a0 This gave a \u201cMalthusian\u201d state, as in most animal species, where population was near its max sustainable level.\u00a0 To learn more about our distant future, which will probably be in such a state, let us learn more about our Malthusian past.\u00a0 In particular, consider two important clues:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 22, 2019 10:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Capitalism Uses Hate; That\u2019s Good\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 22, 2019 10:00 am \nTitle: Capitalism Uses Hate; That\u2019s Good\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " \u201cGood! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny.\u201d (More)The most natural human social structure is based on prestige. People compete to look impressive, and then everyone defers to those who seem most impressive. We let them run the things they want the way they want, if only they will let us gain some prestige via association with them. Which is often a big problem, as in the modern world the way to look most impressive is often not the best way to run things.When the way to seem an impressive doctor is not the best way to heal patients. When the way to seem an impressive lawyer or judge is not the best way to win or rule on cases. When the way to seem an impressive warrior is not the way to win wars. When the way to seem an impressive cook is not to make cheap tasty nutritious food. In such cases, letting the most prestigious folks do things their way can lead to wasteful inefficient outcomes.In \u201ccapitalism\u201d, big firms are run by rich greedy bossy managers in the service of even richer and greedier owners. For many, a natural ancient human reaction to such a situation is \u201chatred.\u201d Or at least strong distrust, wariness, and suspicion. Many of us are primed to think the worst about these people and this situation.Which is great, because this enables us to hold such people and firms accountable. We are willing to switch from firms who supply us with products and services when other options look better. We are willing to quit jobs we don\u2019t like, and go home when we feel done for the day. And when firms fail to satisfy customers and employees, we are willing to let those firms die, and let their investors lose their shirts. Because we hate them.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 22, 2019 10:00 am \nTitle: Capitalism Uses Hate; That\u2019s Good\n\u201cGood! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny.\u201d (More)The most natural human social structure is based on prestige. People compete to look impressive, and then everyone defers to those who seem most impressive. We let them run the things they want the way they want, if only they will let us gain some prestige via association with them. Which is often a big problem, as in the modern world the way to look most impressive is often not the best way to run things.When the way to seem an impressive doctor is not the best way to heal patients. When the way to seem an impressive lawyer or judge is not the best way to win or rule on cases. When the way to seem an impressive warrior is not the way to win wars. When the way to seem an impressive cook is not to make cheap tasty nutritious food. In such cases, letting the most prestigious folks do things their way can lead to wasteful inefficient outcomes.In \u201ccapitalism\u201d, big firms are run by rich greedy bossy managers in the service of even richer and greedier owners. For many, a natural ancient human reaction to such a situation is \u201chatred.\u201d Or at least strong distrust, wariness, and suspicion. Many of us are primed to think the worst about these people and this situation.Which is great, because this enables us to hold such people and firms accountable. We are willing to switch from firms who supply us with products and services when other options look better. We are willing to quit jobs we don\u2019t like, and go home when we feel done for the day. And when firms fail to satisfy customers and employees, we are willing to let those firms die, and let their investors lose their shirts. Because we hate them.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Unfortunately, our hate also makes us more willing to regulate such firms, and to take from such people. Some regulation and taking may be useful, but too much can kill or at least emaciate the goose that lays the golden eggs of capitalism. Our related suspicions of big powerful politicians and their supporting organizations helps to mitigate this problem somewhat, but alas it seems we don\u2019t hate such people and orgs remotely as much as we should.Beware of love; sometimes hate is what we need.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 28, 2018 1:10 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Caplan Critiques Our Religion Chapter\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 28, 2018 1:10 pm \nTitle: Caplan Critiques Our Religion Chapter\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Bryan Caplan likes our book:My blurb calls it, \u201cDeeply important, wide-ranging, beautifully written, and fundamentally right\u201d \u2013 and I mean every word.But he also has many complaints on our religion chapter. He summarizes:[They] could have done even better. They\u2019re so excited about their own theory that they occasionally forget to be curious about the facts. And they\u2019re so eager to show that strange behavior could be functional that they frequently forget to ask, \u201cFunctional when?\u201d and \u201cFunctional for whom?\u201dAlas his specific complaints seem to me more like attempts to misread us to find things to criticize. But you be the judge. Bryan starts (he\u2019s indented once, our book twice):And yet, as we\u2019ll see, there\u2019s a self-serving logic to even the most humble and earnest of religious activities.The last sentence seems like a clear case of overstatement. What about hidden religiosity? Persecuted religiosity?If we had said \u201ckitchen tools have practical household uses\u201d, would Bryan say \u201cBut a burglar could stab you with a kitchen knife\u201d? Is is really hard to find group-conflict functions of religious persecution, or of hiding your religiosity from likely persecutors?We don\u2019t worship simply because we believe. Instead, we worship (and believe) because it helps us as social creatures.While this story is plausible, [they] don\u2019t really grapple with the strongest counter-arguments. Most obviously, arcane doctrinal disputes seem to be the sparks behind several major historical events. Take the Protestant Reformation. Yes, there\u2019s plenty of realpolitik under the surface. But it\u2019s hard to deny that Luther, Calvin, and other key figures did put beliefs in the driver\u2019s seat.\u201cThe dog ate my homework\u201d only works as an excuse because sometimes dogs do eat homework. Similarly, we say while we give too much credit to a usual motive, and too little to a more hidden one, the usual motive is part of the mix. That\u2019s why the usual motive can be an an excuse for the hidden one.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 28, 2018 1:10 pm \nTitle: Caplan Critiques Our Religion Chapter\nBryan Caplan likes our book:My blurb calls it, \u201cDeeply important, wide-ranging, beautifully written, and fundamentally right\u201d \u2013 and I mean every word.But he also has many complaints on our religion chapter. He summarizes:[They] could have done even better. They\u2019re so excited about their own theory that they occasionally forget to be curious about the facts. And they\u2019re so eager to show that strange behavior could be functional that they frequently forget to ask, \u201cFunctional when?\u201d and \u201cFunctional for whom?\u201dAlas his specific complaints seem to me more like attempts to misread us to find things to criticize. But you be the judge. Bryan starts (he\u2019s indented once, our book twice):And yet, as we\u2019ll see, there\u2019s a self-serving logic to even the most humble and earnest of religious activities.The last sentence seems like a clear case of overstatement. What about hidden religiosity? Persecuted religiosity?If we had said \u201ckitchen tools have practical household uses\u201d, would Bryan say \u201cBut a burglar could stab you with a kitchen knife\u201d? Is is really hard to find group-conflict functions of religious persecution, or of hiding your religiosity from likely persecutors?We don\u2019t worship simply because we believe. Instead, we worship (and believe) because it helps us as social creatures.While this story is plausible, [they] don\u2019t really grapple with the strongest counter-arguments. Most obviously, arcane doctrinal disputes seem to be the sparks behind several major historical events. Take the Protestant Reformation. Yes, there\u2019s plenty of realpolitik under the surface. But it\u2019s hard to deny that Luther, Calvin, and other key figures did put beliefs in the driver\u2019s seat.\u201cThe dog ate my homework\u201d only works as an excuse because sometimes dogs do eat homework. Similarly, we say while we give too much credit to a usual motive, and too little to a more hidden one, the usual motive is part of the mix. That\u2019s why the usual motive can be an an excuse for the hidden one.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " We say religious beliefs are more the excuse, and often function as sacrifices and badges to identify groups. Assuming this, I don\u2019t see how it is at all surprising that, when one religious group splits away from another, their leaders point to particular arcane doctrinal disagreements. How is this at all evidence against such beliefs serving in large part as group badges?[W]e engage in a wide variety of activities that have a religious or even cult-like feel to them, but which are entirely devoid of supernatural beliefs. \u2026 The fact that these behavioral patterns are so consistent, and thrive even in the absence of supernatural beliefs, strongly suggests that the beliefs are a secondary factor.I struggle to see the logic here. Yes, the world\u2019s leading religions have much in common with secular movements. But how does that suggest that what distinguishes these religions from secular movements is \u201csecondary\u201d? Indeed, doesn\u2019t it suggest precisely the opposite conclusion \u2013 that supernatural beliefs are what makes leading religions special?Common features suggest common structures and functions. We don\u2019t say the differences are unimportant.We think people can generally intuit what\u2019s good for them. \u2026This seems like a rash overstatement. For starters, if the religious order is stable and powerful, doubts are dangerous. [Their] own model suggests that the oppressed would develop pronounced Stockholm Syndrome. Why? To avoid social sanctions. The best way to convince your oppressor that you love him is to love him sincerely.We mean \u201cgood for them\u201d in an individual, not collective, sense. Acting religious can give a personal gain even when it is a social loss.To lock in the benefits of cooperation, then, a community also needs robust mechanisms to keep cheaters at bay.Strangely, though, many of the leading religions loudly proclaim that they welcome everyone. And they live up to this rather naive promise to an amazing degree. I was raised Catholic for my first sixteen years, and can\u2019t recall any anti-cheating mechanism more \u201crobust\u201d than collective scolding.But the key question is: was that scolding enough? Religious groups vary in their strength of bonding, and thus in their severity of punishment. Instead of\u00a0a young Caplan guessing that he could have cheated, it would have been more persuasive to hear an example of someone actually cheating and gaining without giving enough back. Yet even then we have to expect a few successful cheaters.People who believe they risk punishment for disobeying God are more likely to behave well, relative to nonbelievers. \u2026I\u2019ve often heard economists make claims like this. But when you look at the real world, it\u2019s far from clear that disobedience and belief in divine punishment are even negatively correlated. Luther and Calvin, the fathers of modern Protestantism, preached \u2026 our salvation is absolutely beyond your control. Nevertheless, fundamentalist Protestants have long been known for strict adherence to the rules.As I used to be a fundamentalist Protestant myself, it seems clear to me that most practicing fundamentalist Protestants today see a connection between their behavior and divine punishment, no matter what doctrines Luther and Calvin once endorsed.There\u2019s also a peculiar omission in this chapter. HS barely acknowledge the massive gap between how religious people say they are and how religious they actually are.Our chapter is short, and religion is vast. That topic is interesting, but not essential to our main point.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 17, 2013 11:30 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Careers Need Allies\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 17, 2013 11:30 am \nTitle: Careers Need Allies\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Orgs coordinate activity. And if coordination is hard, we should expect orgs to only barely accomplish this task. That is, we should expect org decisions to be dominated by coalition politics. Orgs that face competitive pressures, like firms, would slowly get more efficient, and thus larger, as we slowly found and spread org innovations to better channel coalition politics efforts in productive directions.If coalition politics dominates org decisions, then the obvious career strategy advice is to make good alliances. Pick allies valued by strong coalitions who are likely to stay loyal to you, and offer such allies your loyalty as well as efforts and abilities valuable to them. That is, look for pair-wise win-win gains between you and potential allies. You don\u2019t have to like them, and they don\u2019t have to like you.We often hear other advice, like: seek associates you are comfortable with, or who have things in common with you, or who can give you good advice. Or that you should focus on showing your value to your org as a whole. But these seem to me to be the usual fig leaf excuses. That is, these are things one can admit doing openly without violating the standard forager norms against overt coalition politics.What smart folks probably really mean when they suggest that you get a mentor, is that you get a powerful ally. And while allies in high places can be especially valuable to you, to make it a win-win relation you are going to have to offer them a lot of value in return. You will even have to figure out how you can help them, and help them first; they don\u2019t have the time, and don\u2019t trust you yet. And when you succeed in finding such a powerful ally, you will submit and they will dominate. That doesn\u2019t sound nearly as nice to say, however.But sometimes people do say it, out loud and everything:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 17, 2013 11:30 am \nTitle: Careers Need Allies\nOrgs coordinate activity. And if coordination is hard, we should expect orgs to only barely accomplish this task. That is, we should expect org decisions to be dominated by coalition politics. Orgs that face competitive pressures, like firms, would slowly get more efficient, and thus larger, as we slowly found and spread org innovations to better channel coalition politics efforts in productive directions.If coalition politics dominates org decisions, then the obvious career strategy advice is to make good alliances. Pick allies valued by strong coalitions who are likely to stay loyal to you, and offer such allies your loyalty as well as efforts and abilities valuable to them. That is, look for pair-wise win-win gains between you and potential allies. You don\u2019t have to like them, and they don\u2019t have to like you.We often hear other advice, like: seek associates you are comfortable with, or who have things in common with you, or who can give you good advice. Or that you should focus on showing your value to your org as a whole. But these seem to me to be the usual fig leaf excuses. That is, these are things one can admit doing openly without violating the standard forager norms against overt coalition politics.What smart folks probably really mean when they suggest that you get a mentor, is that you get a powerful ally. And while allies in high places can be especially valuable to you, to make it a win-win relation you are going to have to offer them a lot of value in return. You will even have to figure out how you can help them, and help them first; they don\u2019t have the time, and don\u2019t trust you yet. And when you succeed in finding such a powerful ally, you will submit and they will dominate. That doesn\u2019t sound nearly as nice to say, however.But sometimes people do say it, out loud and everything:\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In a new book, economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett uses data to show that mentorship, in its classic wise-elder-advises-younger-employee form, doesn\u2019t produce statistically significant career gains. What does however, her research found, is something she has termed \u201csponsorship\u201d\u2014a type of strategic workplace partnering between those with potential and those with power. \u2026Women are only half as likely as men to have a sponsor\u2014a senior champion at work who will basically take a bet on them, tap them on the shoulder, and really give them a shot at leadership.\u00a0Women have always had mentors, friendly figures who give lots of advice. They\u2019re great. They\u2019re good for your self-esteem; they\u2019re good for your personal development. But no one\u2019s ever been able to show that they do anything to help you actually move up. \u2026We find that women in particular often choose the wrong people. \u2026 They seek out a senior person they\u2019re very comfortable with. \u2026 For a sponsor, you should go after the person with power, because you need someone who has a voice at those decision-making tables. You need to respect that person, you need to believe that person is a fabulous leader and going places, but you don\u2019t need to like them. You don\u2019t need to want to emulate them. \u2026Senior leaders are looking for three things [in someone to sponsor]. They told me they\u2019re looking for someone who performs exceedingly well\u2014whether it\u2019s writing amazing legal briefs or really hitting those numbers, that\u2019s at the heart of it. Secondly, you\u2019ve got to demonstrate loyalty, because there\u2019s risk in the relationship. This person is going to take a bet on you. And then thirdly, you have to bring some special value, some currency, to the table that the leader doesn\u2019t have. \u2026The cardinal rule here is to give before you get. \u2026 Figure out how you could be valuable and then sponsorship flows. \u2026 You can\u2019t say, \u201cHow can I be valuable?\u201d\u2014unless in your mind you already know that a piece of work in your back pocket actually could fit into this person\u2019s urgent agenda. \u2026One of the tactics to get to know a senior person in your organization, and in a more peer-on-peer way to impress them, is actually to get involved in some community or professional organization which is a little outside of work. \u2026When a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 is delivering on the performance, the loyalty and the value-added front, they propel the career of the senior person. \u2026 One senior leader said to me, \u201cI don\u2019t do empathy. This is not what this is about. I make strategic investments in young people, and a whole lot has to be coming back.\u201d (more)Note that while bald statements of cynicism are usually censured in public discourse, this particular statement is accepted since it is framed as\u00a0being in the service of a noble cause: helping women to break the glass ceiling in management.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 4, 2007 8:51 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Casanova on Innocence\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 4, 2007 8:51 pm \nTitle: Casanova on Innocence\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Tyler Cowen offers a quote on innocence by Casanova:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 29, 2009 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Cash Shy\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 29, 2009 6:00 am \nTitle: Cash Shy\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " On Monday I did an interview for a TV show (to appear in 2010), and they put me up at a famous expensive hotel.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure others get extra value from this hotel, but it didn\u2019t do much for me.\u00a0 I asked the show manager about this and he said that they have ethical problems with paying cash to interviewees, but want to compensate them for their trouble.\u00a0 I sighed, thinking: what exactly could go wrong with cash that couldn\u2019t go wrong with generous travel compensation?I suppose we could make sense of this by assuming that observers can\u2019t be bothered to notice the amount of cash given or the quality of the travel provided, all they can tell is if you were given cash, travel expenses, or both.\u00a0 But I\u2019m kinda skeptical this is really what\u2019s going on.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 12, 2010 4:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Celebrating Compromise\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 12, 2010 4:00 pm \nTitle: Celebrating Compromise\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Crapgame:\u00a0 Then make a DEAL!Big Joe:\u00a0 What kind of deal?Crapgame:\u00a0 A DEAL, deal! Maybe the guy\u2019s a Republican. \u201cBusiness is business,\u201d right?\u00a0\u00a0 [Famous scene from 1970 movie Kelly\u2019s Heroes]Invictus is a decent movie \u2013 at 80 years old Clint Eastwood is still in top form.\u00a0 More interesting is that Invictus, like Kelly\u2019s Heroes, is a rare movie celebrating compromise, the key virtue of \u201cdealism,\u201d or economic efficiency.The movie shows Nelson Mandela, new black leader of previously white-run South Africa, trying to unite suspicious whites with blacks eager for revenge.\u00a0 Of course Mandela achieves this not by touting the advantages of peace and prosperity, but via pride in beating a common enemy: the South African rugby team wins the world cup.\u00a0 The title of the movie comes from a poem that inspired Mandella in prison, a poem all about defiance, self-respect, and not a whiff of compromise.All of which shows just how hard it is to inspire passion for compromise; sadly, no one goes to the barricades for efficiency.\u00a0 The best this movie can offer is that peace and compromise can help you crush your enemies into smoldering ruins.\u00a0 Whee.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 7, 2008 11:45 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: CFTC Event Market Comment\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 7, 2008 11:45 am \nTitle: CFTC Event Market Comment\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In May the US CFTC declared that it was considering offering more legal approval for \"markets commonly referred to as event,  prediction, or information markets.\"\u00a0 They requested comments, due by today.\u00a0 My comment concludes:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 25, 2016 1:35 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Chace on Age of Em\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 25, 2016 1:35 pm \nTitle: Chace on Age of Em\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Soon after I reviewed Calum Chace\u2019s book, he reviewed mine:I can\u2019t remember ever reading a book before which I liked so much, while disagreeing with so much in it. This partly because the author is such an amiable fellow. .. The writing style is direct, informal and engaging .. \u00a0And the book addresses an important subject: the future.As we disagree on much, I\u2019ll just jump in and start replying.Robin\u2019s insistence that AI is making only modest advances, and will generate nothing much of interest before uploading arrives, seems dogmatic.Given two events, my estimating that one is more likely to happen first\u00a0seems to me no more dogmatic than Chace estimating the opposite.Because of this claim, he is highly critical of the view that technological unemployment will be widespread in the next few decades. Fair enough, he might be right, but obviously I doubt it. He is also rather dismissive of major changes in society being caused by virtual reality, augmented reality, the internet of things, 3D printing, self-driving cars, and all the other astonishing technologies being developed and introduced as we speak.I don\u2019t dismiss such changes; they are welcome, and some will happen and matter. I just don\u2019t see them as sufficient reason to think \u201cthis time is different\u201d regarding massive job loss; the past saw changes of similar magnitudes.He seems to think that when the first ems are created, they will very quickly be perfect replications of the target human minds. It seems to me more likely that we will create a series of approximations of the target person.The em era starts\u00a0when ems are cheaper than humans for most jobs. Yes of course imperfect emulations come first, but they are\u00a0far less useful on most jobs. Consider that humans under the influence of recreational drugs are really quite good emulations of normal humans, yet they are much less valuable on most jobs. So emulations need to be even better than that to be very useful.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 25, 2016 1:35 pm \nTitle: Chace on Age of Em\nSoon after I reviewed Calum Chace\u2019s book, he reviewed mine:I can\u2019t remember ever reading a book before which I liked so much, while disagreeing with so much in it. This partly because the author is such an amiable fellow. .. The writing style is direct, informal and engaging .. \u00a0And the book addresses an important subject: the future.As we disagree on much, I\u2019ll just jump in and start replying.Robin\u2019s insistence that AI is making only modest advances, and will generate nothing much of interest before uploading arrives, seems dogmatic.Given two events, my estimating that one is more likely to happen first\u00a0seems to me no more dogmatic than Chace estimating the opposite.Because of this claim, he is highly critical of the view that technological unemployment will be widespread in the next few decades. Fair enough, he might be right, but obviously I doubt it. He is also rather dismissive of major changes in society being caused by virtual reality, augmented reality, the internet of things, 3D printing, self-driving cars, and all the other astonishing technologies being developed and introduced as we speak.I don\u2019t dismiss such changes; they are welcome, and some will happen and matter. I just don\u2019t see them as sufficient reason to think \u201cthis time is different\u201d regarding massive job loss; the past saw changes of similar magnitudes.He seems to think that when the first ems are created, they will very quickly be perfect replications of the target human minds. It seems to me more likely that we will create a series of approximations of the target person.The em era starts\u00a0when ems are cheaper than humans for most jobs. Yes of course imperfect emulations come first, but they are\u00a0far less useful on most jobs. Consider that humans under the influence of recreational drugs are really quite good emulations of normal humans, yet they are much less valuable on most jobs. So emulations need to be even better than that to be very useful.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The humans in this world are all happy to be retired, and have the ems create everything they need. I think the scenario of radical abundance is definitely achievable, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a slam dunk, and I would imagine much more interaction \u2013 good and bad \u2013 between ems and humans than Robin seems to expect.I don\u2019t understand what kinds of interaction Chace thinks I expect less than he does\u00a0here.A couple of smaller but important comments. Robin thinks ems will be intellectually superior to most humans, not least because they will be modelled on the best of us. He therefore thinks they will be religious. Apart from the US, always an exceptional country, the direction of travel in that regard is firmly in the other direction.In the book I gave citations on religious behavior correlating with work productivity. If someone has contrary citations, I\u2019m all ears.And space travel. Robin argues that we will keep putting off trying to colonise the stars because whenever you send a ship out there, it would always be overtaken by a later, cheaper one which benefits from better technology. This ignores one of the main reasons for doing it: to improve our chances of survival by making sure all our eggs aren\u2019t in the one basket that is this pale blue dot.I didn\u2019t say no one would go into space; I pointed out that high interest rates discourage all long term projects, all else equal, including space projects.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2018 3:15 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Challenge Coins\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2018 3:15 pm \nTitle: Challenge Coins\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Imagine you are a king of old, afraid of being assassinated. Your king\u2019s guard tells you that they\u2019ve got you covered, but too many kings have been killed in your area over the last century for you to feel that safe. How can you learn of your actual vulnerability, and of how to cut it?Yes, you might make prediction markets on if you will be killed, and make such markets conditional on various policy changes, to find out which policies cut your chance of being killed. But in this post I want to explore a different solution.I suggest that you auction off challenge coins at some set rate, say one a month. Such coins can be resold privately to others, so that you don\u2019t know who holds them. Each coin gives the holder the right to try a mock assassination. If a coin holder can get within X meters of you, with a clear sight of a vulnerable part of you, then they need only raise their coin into the air and shout \u201cChallenge Coin\u201d, and they will be given N gold coins in exchange for that challenge coin, and then set free. And if they are caught where they should not be then they can pay the challenge coin to instead be released from whatever would be the usual punishment for that intrusion. If authorities can find the challenge coin, such as on their person, this trade can be required.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 2, 2018 3:15 pm \nTitle: Challenge Coins\nImagine you are a king of old, afraid of being assassinated. Your king\u2019s guard tells you that they\u2019ve got you covered, but too many kings have been killed in your area over the last century for you to feel that safe. How can you learn of your actual vulnerability, and of how to cut it?Yes, you might make prediction markets on if you will be killed, and make such markets conditional on various policy changes, to find out which policies cut your chance of being killed. But in this post I want to explore a different solution.I suggest that you auction off challenge coins at some set rate, say one a month. Such coins can be resold privately to others, so that you don\u2019t know who holds them. Each coin gives the holder the right to try a mock assassination. If a coin holder can get within X meters of you, with a clear sight of a vulnerable part of you, then they need only raise their coin into the air and shout \u201cChallenge Coin\u201d, and they will be given N gold coins in exchange for that challenge coin, and then set free. And if they are caught where they should not be then they can pay the challenge coin to instead be released from whatever would be the usual punishment for that intrusion. If authorities can find the challenge coin, such as on their person, this trade can be required.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Now for a few subtleties. Your usual staff and people you would ordinarily meet are not eligible to redeem challenge coins. Perhaps you\u2019d also want to limit coin redeemers to people who\u2019d be able to kill someone; perhaps if requested they must kill a cute animal with their bare hands. If a successful challenger can explain well enough how they managed to evade your defenses, then they might get 2N gold coins or more. Coin redeemers may be suspected of being tied to a real assassin, and so they must agree to opening themselves to being investigated in extra depth, and if still deemed suspicious enough they might be banned from ever using a challenge coin again. But they still get their gold coins this time. Some who issue challenge coins might try to hide transmitters in them, but holders could just wrap coins in aluminum foil and dip them in plastic to limit odor emissions. I estimate that challenge coins are legal, and not prohibited by asset or gambling regulations.This same approach could be used by the TSA to show everyone how hard it is to slip unapproved items past TSA security. Just reveal your coin and your unapproved item right after you exit TSA security. You could also use this approach to convince an audience that your accounting books are clean; anyone with a coin can point to any particular item in your books, and demand an independent investigation of that item, paid for at the coin-issuer\u2019s expense. If the item is found to not be as it should, the coin holder gets the announced prize; otherwise they just lose their coin.In general, issuing challenge coins is a way to show an audience what rate of detection success (or security failure) results from what level of financial incentives. (The audience will need to see data on the rates of coin sales and successful vs. unsuccessful redemptions.) We presume that the larger the payoff to a successful challenge, the higher the fraction of coins that successfully result in a detection (or security failure).\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 20, 2007 10:46 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Challenges of Majoritarianism\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 20, 2007 10:46 am \nTitle: Challenges of Majoritarianism\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Hal Finney does us a great service by articulating \"Philosophical Majoritarianism\":\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 2, 2011 3:20 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Chalmers Reply #2\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 2, 2011 3:20 pm \nTitle: Chalmers Reply #2\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In April 2010 I commented on David Chalmers\u2019 singularity paper:The natural and common human obsession with how much [robot] values differ overall from ours distracts us from worrying effectively.  \u2026 [Instead:]1. Reduce the salience of the them-us distinction relative to other distinctions. \u20262. Have them and us use the same (or at least similar) institutions to keep peace among themselves and ourselves as we use to keep peace between them and us.I just wrote a 3000 word\u00a0new comment on this paper, for a journal. Mostly I complain Chalmers didn\u2019t say much beyond what we should have already known. But my conclusion is less meta:The most robust and promising route to low cost and mutually beneficial mitigation of these [us vs. superintelligence] conflicts is strong legal enforcement of retirement and bequest contracts. Such contracts could let older generations directly save for their later years, and cheaply pay younger generations to preserve old loyalties. Simple consistent and broad-based enforcement of these and related contracts seem our best chance to entrench the enforcement of such contracts deep in legal practice. Our descendants should be reluctant to violate deeply entrenched practices of contract law for fear that violations would lead to further unraveling of contract practice, which threatens larger social orders built on contract enforcement.As Chalmers notes in footnote 19, this approach is not guaranteed to work in all possible scenarios. Nevertheless, compare it to the ideal Chalmers favors:AI systems such that we can prove they will always have certain benign values, and such that we can prove that any systems they will create will also have those values, and so on \u2026 represents a sort of ideal that we might aim for (p.35).\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 2, 2011 3:20 pm \nTitle: Chalmers Reply #2\nIn April 2010 I commented on David Chalmers\u2019 singularity paper:The natural and common human obsession with how much [robot] values differ overall from ours distracts us from worrying effectively.  \u2026 [Instead:]1. Reduce the salience of the them-us distinction relative to other distinctions. \u20262. Have them and us use the same (or at least similar) institutions to keep peace among themselves and ourselves as we use to keep peace between them and us.I just wrote a 3000 word\u00a0new comment on this paper, for a journal. Mostly I complain Chalmers didn\u2019t say much beyond what we should have already known. But my conclusion is less meta:The most robust and promising route to low cost and mutually beneficial mitigation of these [us vs. superintelligence] conflicts is strong legal enforcement of retirement and bequest contracts. Such contracts could let older generations directly save for their later years, and cheaply pay younger generations to preserve old loyalties. Simple consistent and broad-based enforcement of these and related contracts seem our best chance to entrench the enforcement of such contracts deep in legal practice. Our descendants should be reluctant to violate deeply entrenched practices of contract law for fear that violations would lead to further unraveling of contract practice, which threatens larger social orders built on contract enforcement.As Chalmers notes in footnote 19, this approach is not guaranteed to work in all possible scenarios. Nevertheless, compare it to the ideal Chalmers favors:AI systems such that we can prove they will always have certain benign values, and such that we can prove that any systems they will create will also have those values, and so on \u2026 represents a sort of ideal that we might aim for (p.35).\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Compared to the strong and strict controls and regimentation required to even attempt to prove that values disliked by older generations could never arise in any later generations, enforcing contracts where older generations pay younger generations to preserve specific loyalties seems to me a far easier, safer and more workable approach, with many successful historical analogies on which to build.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 6, 2011 5:35 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Charity Blackmail?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 6, 2011 5:35 pm \nTitle: Charity Blackmail?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Monday Tuesday I\u2019ll be taped again for a segment of the John Stossel Show, to air [added: on some coming yet to be determined] Thursday at 10p. This time I\u2019ll be defending blackmail, a subject I\u2019ve discussed here, here, here. In preparation, I\u2019ve just reviewed twenty academic papers on the subject.Blackmail starts with a situation where A knows something embarrassing about B. \u00a0Assume A obtained this info legally, and has the legal freedom to tell or not tell this info to others, based on many noble or ignoble motivations, including rivalry and revenge.  A is guilty of illegal blackmail if he requests compensation from B in exchange for A not telling others. Such a deal is legal, however, if B suggests it. (So A should say, \u201cI happen to know this about you. And on a completely unrelated subject, I sure could use a new car.\u201d) For example, recently someone was sent to prison for trying to blackmail David Letterman on his extramarital affairs.In those twenty papers, roughly a quarter of the authors think blackmail should be legal. Others offered a wide range of arguments for illegality:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 28, 2010 10:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Chase Your Reading\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 28, 2010 10:00 am \nTitle: Chase Your Reading\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Hunting has two main modes: searching and chasing. \u00a0With searching you look for something to chase. With chasing, in contrast, you have a focus of attention that drives your actions. You may find something else worth chasing along the way, and then switch your focus to a new chase, but you\u2019ll still maintain a focus.It seems to me that while reading non-fiction, most folks are in searching mode. Most would be more intellectually productive, however, in chasing mode. It helps to have in mind a question, puzzle, or problem, and then read in order to answer your question, explain your puzzle, or solve your problem.In searching mode, readers tend to be less critical. If a source came recommended, they tend to keep reading along even if they aren\u2019t quite sure what the point is. Since authors tend to be more prestigious than readers, readers tend to feel reluctant to question or judge what they\u2019ve read. \u00a0They are more likely to talk about whether they enjoyed the read, than whether the author\u2019s argument works.In chasing mode, readers are naturally more critical. When you are looking for something particular, it feels less presumptuous to stop reading when your source comes to seem irrelevant. After all, the source might be good for some other purpose, even if not for your purpose.In chasing mode, you continually ask yourself whether what you are reading is relevant for your quest, or whether the author actually has anything new or interesting to say. You flip around seeking sections that might be more relevant, and you might even look up the references for an especially relevant section.Also, search-readers often don\u2019t have a good mental place to put each thing they learn. In which case they don\u2019t end up learning much. Chasers, in contrast, always have specific mental places they are trying to fill with what they read, so they better integrate new things they learn with old things they know.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 28, 2010 10:00 am \nTitle: Chase Your Reading\nHunting has two main modes: searching and chasing. \u00a0With searching you look for something to chase. With chasing, in contrast, you have a focus of attention that drives your actions. You may find something else worth chasing along the way, and then switch your focus to a new chase, but you\u2019ll still maintain a focus.It seems to me that while reading non-fiction, most folks are in searching mode. Most would be more intellectually productive, however, in chasing mode. It helps to have in mind a question, puzzle, or problem, and then read in order to answer your question, explain your puzzle, or solve your problem.In searching mode, readers tend to be less critical. If a source came recommended, they tend to keep reading along even if they aren\u2019t quite sure what the point is. Since authors tend to be more prestigious than readers, readers tend to feel reluctant to question or judge what they\u2019ve read. \u00a0They are more likely to talk about whether they enjoyed the read, than whether the author\u2019s argument works.In chasing mode, readers are naturally more critical. When you are looking for something particular, it feels less presumptuous to stop reading when your source comes to seem irrelevant. After all, the source might be good for some other purpose, even if not for your purpose.In chasing mode, you continually ask yourself whether what you are reading is relevant for your quest, or whether the author actually has anything new or interesting to say. You flip around seeking sections that might be more relevant, and you might even look up the references for an especially relevant section.Also, search-readers often don\u2019t have a good mental place to put each thing they learn. In which case they don\u2019t end up learning much. Chasers, in contrast, always have specific mental places they are trying to fill with what they read, so they better integrate new things they learn with old things they know.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In chasing mode, readers also tend to better interleave reading and thinking. People often hope that search-mode reading will inspire them to new thoughts, and are disappointed to find that it doesn\u2019t. Chase-mode reading, in contrast, requires constant thinking, in order to evaluate how the current source addresses your chosen focus. This tends to make it easier to notice missing holes in the literature, where your new idea can be placed.So if you read to be intellectually productive, rather than just to fill your time, consider reading while chasing something, anything. \u00a0(From a conversation with Heather Macsorley.)Added 8p: Katja and Andy comment, and dloye offers this quote from Samuel Johnson:What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 18, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Cheating as Status Symbol\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 18, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Cheating as Status Symbol\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Two years ago I posted on \"Tantrums as Status Symbols\": \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 2, 2010 11:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: China Bashing\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 2, 2010 11:00 am \nTitle: China Bashing\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " China\u2019s state-owned banks have become a main engine of the global recovery. \u2026 The surge in Chinese lending, triple the 2008 rate, has provided a lifeline to international corporations.\u00a0 PostPositive news, right?\u00a0 But I hear shades of this famous scene:POTTER:\u00a0 Take during the depression, for instance. You and I were the only ones that kept our heads. You saved the Building and Loan, and I saved all the rest.GEORGE: Yes. Well, most people say you stole all the rest.\u00a0 It\u2019s a Wonderful LifeI hear a lot of China bashing these days.\u00a0 To check, I surveyed the last ten China new articles in the Post and NYT.\u00a0 (Editorials bash even more.)\u00a0 Post:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 20, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Classic Bias Doubts\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 20, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Classic Bias Doubts\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Thomas Reid (1785):\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 22, 2012 11:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Classical Music As Tax\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 22, 2012 11:00 am \nTitle: Classical Music As Tax\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Imagine that the government required people to wear a nice suit in public spaces like sidewalks, airports, and parks. Or required a precise haircut (e.g., within the last three days). Or imagine that signs had to be most easily read in latin. Or that Mormon sermons were loudly broadcast. Such policies would reduce the rate of crime and related complaints in public spaces, by imposing higher costs on the sorts of people who commit crimes (and on many others). Is that a good enough reason to implement such policies? Now consider that some public spaces play classical music to push away undesirables:The Port Authority is one of many public spaces across the country that uses classical music to help control vagrancy: to drive the homeless away.  \u2026 [In] the mid-1980s \u2026 a 7-Eleven began playing music in the parking lot as a deterrent to the crowds of teenagers congregating there. Plenty of stores continue to use the technique. \u2026 In 2001, police in West Palm Beach, Fla., blasted Mozart and Beethoven on a crime-ridden street corner and saw incidents dwindle dramatically. In 2010, the transit authority in Portland, Ore., began playing classical music at light-rail stops, and calls to police dropped. When the London Underground started piping classical music into its stations in 2005, physical and verbal abuse by young people declined by 33 percent. \u2026 Some sources report that Barry Manilow is as effective as Mozart in driving away unwanted groups of teens. (more)The basic question: when is it ok for the government to impose costs on some subset of people in public, because that subset contains a higher fraction of those who commit crimes? Should there be any limits on the types of people a government can favor in public spaces?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 19, 2012 12:15 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Closer Horizons\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 19, 2012 12:15 am \nTitle: Closer Horizons\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A few curious folks took 250 science fiction stories across thirteen decades and looked at whether the stories were set <50 , 50 to 500, or >500 years in the future. The long term trend is that fewer stories are set in the more distant future:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 5, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: College Admission Futures\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 5, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: College Admission Futures\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Last week I posted on how decision markets might help students pick a college.\u00a0 Now consider colleges picking students.\u00a0 The obvious approach is to bet on student success given starting at a certain college in a certain season (perhaps also at a certain school of that college).\u00a0  A college could ask applicants to submit an essay, which does not identify them individually, and agree to let the college post this and other anonymized details for all bettors to see.\u00a0 \u00a0And the college could commit to later publishing success stats on these students.  Compared to students picking colleges, here success criteria are easier.\u00a0 \u00a0Whether the student graduated at all, and their GPA and eventual major if they do graduate, encompass a lot of what colleges now look at.\u00a0 If one could wait longer, colleges also care about donations students might make as alumni.\u00a0 \u00a0And if we had worked out student success measures for college choice futures, college admissions could also look at these.The main problem with this proposal, other than the many years needed to evaluate a trial, is that it seems hard to start small \u2013 one would have to get an entire school of some college to sign on to a trial, and they might reasonably fear how this would effect their reputation.\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 19, 2008 11:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Colorful Character Again\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 19, 2008 11:00 pm \nTitle: Colorful Character Again\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I just learned of a new Scientific American article on prediction markets, which is pretty positive:\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 1, 2010 9:30 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Come The Em Rev\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 1, 2010 9:30 am \nTitle: Come The Em Rev\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " China on Friday unveiled a shake-up of the way land is seized for redevelopment. \u2026 Land seizures over the past decade have been central to the rapid modernization of hundreds of Chinese cities, which in turn has been one of the main drivers of the nation\u2019s economic growth. But they also have been the source of often-violent conflicts, especially in the past year, as huge volumes of stimulus funds have gone into building projects.\u00a0 PostRich stable nations, comfortable and safe on top of the global game, feel little inclination to consider big disruptive changes.\u00a0 The price they pay for internal peace is the steady accumulation of Olsonian veto groups, who can block big changes.\u00a0 Stable inflexible institutions seem acceptable when change is slow and life seem good enough.This frustrates rich-nation would-be-rebels like me who see our business, legal, political, etc. institutions as far from optimal.\u00a0 Such rebels want to explore big changes, but must either: 1) accept only tinkering around the edges, 2) move to a place more willing to make changes, or 3) wait for crises where larger changes might fly.So what crises loom?\u00a0 In the US we can expect the long foreseen budget \u201ctrain wreck\u201d within a decade or two.\u00a0 This must be addressed by huge tax increases, spending decreases, or both.\u00a0 Foresighted politicians are positioning their blame and solutions for that crisis.\u00a0 Since we spend so much on military and medical benefits, I\u2019ve wondered if we\u2019ll consider \u201cMed is a waste, cut it way back\u201d or \u201cLet the world defend itself, cut our military.\u201d Alas, neither seems likely.In two to five decades, the US will probably start to take seriously global competition from big fast growing nations like China or India.\u00a0 The US might then consider adopting policies credited with growing those nations fast, though national pride may block that.\u00a0 Foresighted advocates will position their credit and solutions for that crisis.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 1, 2010 9:30 am \nTitle: Come The Em Rev\nChina on Friday unveiled a shake-up of the way land is seized for redevelopment. \u2026 Land seizures over the past decade have been central to the rapid modernization of hundreds of Chinese cities, which in turn has been one of the main drivers of the nation\u2019s economic growth. But they also have been the source of often-violent conflicts, especially in the past year, as huge volumes of stimulus funds have gone into building projects.\u00a0 PostRich stable nations, comfortable and safe on top of the global game, feel little inclination to consider big disruptive changes.\u00a0 The price they pay for internal peace is the steady accumulation of Olsonian veto groups, who can block big changes.\u00a0 Stable inflexible institutions seem acceptable when change is slow and life seem good enough.This frustrates rich-nation would-be-rebels like me who see our business, legal, political, etc. institutions as far from optimal.\u00a0 Such rebels want to explore big changes, but must either: 1) accept only tinkering around the edges, 2) move to a place more willing to make changes, or 3) wait for crises where larger changes might fly.So what crises loom?\u00a0 In the US we can expect the long foreseen budget \u201ctrain wreck\u201d within a decade or two.\u00a0 This must be addressed by huge tax increases, spending decreases, or both.\u00a0 Foresighted politicians are positioning their blame and solutions for that crisis.\u00a0 Since we spend so much on military and medical benefits, I\u2019ve wondered if we\u2019ll consider \u201cMed is a waste, cut it way back\u201d or \u201cLet the world defend itself, cut our military.\u201d Alas, neither seems likely.In two to five decades, the US will probably start to take seriously global competition from big fast growing nations like China or India.\u00a0 The US might then consider adopting policies credited with growing those nations fast, though national pride may block that.\u00a0 Foresighted advocates will position their credit and solutions for that crisis.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " But if you lust after huge institutional change in long-rich nations, if you long to say \u201ccome the revolution,\u201d you might wait three to fifteen decades for the \u201cem rev\u201c, the whole brain emulation revolution.\u00a0 The em rev is my best guess for the next \u201csingularity\u201d scale change, like the farming or industrial revolutions, each of which sped world growth rates by more than a factor of a hundred, within less than a previous doubling time.\u00a0 We now double in fifteen years, so within a few years an em-econ could double monthly!Achieving such rapid growth will require huge rapid changes in economic organization, and supporting changes to business, legal, and political institutions. The new em-econ will probably concentrate in a few dense locations with the most compatible capital and institutions.\u00a0 Locations vying to be one of those centers may be open to big institutional change, and the actual first centers will likely have relatively supportive institutions. So if you have a favorite radical change you\u2019d like the world to consider, you might give some thought to how your change could support a local em rev.Now an ambitious dictator, especially an em dictator, may have the power and flexibility to quickly make whatever changes the em rev needs, even if that harms other existing local interests.\u00a0 So the real question is what other institutions could also quickly discern and approve needed changes, while less harming those who happen to stand in the way.While the em-econ should have be felt most everywhere, it would concentrate at first in a few most em-dominated places.\u00a0 Those places would have a huge demand for computing hardware, for fast talk between that hardware, and for energy and cooling to support that computing and talk.\u00a0 Imagine the computing hardware now concentrated near major financial markets, but on a much larger scale.The em-econ would likely take over and dramatically reorganize some major city centers, replacing humans with increasingly human-hostile temperatures, vibrations, radiation, collision dangers, free chemical densities, etc.\u00a0 Imagine a hot bustling dangerous factory.\u00a0 Those centers would seek very rapid growth in local power and cooling, perhaps via fusion power and huge pipes pumping hot water far out to sea.\u00a0 Nearby air and water may be severely \u201cpolluted\u201d by current standards.To support an em-econ, institutions must first and foremost enable very rapid change.\u00a0 Waiting years for regulatory review or lawsuits, or even months for firm or city council negotiations, is completely unacceptable.\u00a0 If humans are to have a say in key decisions, they must make fast decisions or delegate to fast agents.To discourage grab-from-humans scenarios, human and em property, investments, etc. should ideally be protected via exactly the same institutions, so that a threat to one is plausibly a threat to the other.\u00a0 And if ems are to be treated with near human respect, we\u2019ll need huge changes in common rules like one person one vote, which em copies are responsible for which crimes, what are acceptable labor and marriage contracts, etc.Three big institution changes seem to me promising em rev candidates:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 4, 2009 11:05 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Comedy Is Cynical\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 4, 2009 11:05 pm \nTitle: Comedy Is Cynical\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Millions of consumers proceeded to their nearest commercial centers this week in hopes of acquiring the latest, and therefore most desirable, personal device. \u2026 \u201cIts higher price indicates to me that it is superior, and that not everyone will be able to afford it, which only makes me want to possess it more,\u201d said Tim Sturges, \u2026.\u201cNot only will I be able to perform tasks faster than before, but my new device will also inform those around me that I am a successful individual who is up on the latest trends,\u201d said Rebecca Hodge, whose executive job allowed her to line up for several hours in the middle of the day in order to obtain the previously unavailable item. \u201cIts attractiveness and considerable value are, by extension, my attractiveness and considerable value.\u201dConsumer Robert Larson agreed.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to take my new device wherever I go,\u201d said Larson, holding the expensive item directly in the eyeline of several reporters. \u201cThat way no one on the street, inside the elevator, or at my place of business will ever mistake me for the sort of individual who does not own the new device.\u201dMore at The Onion.\u00a0 Since it is low status to be seen naked in public, we think it funny to see high status folks naked in public.\u00a0 Similarly, while we humans seek status, it is low status to be too obviously trying to seek status.\u00a0 So we get a special thrill out of seeing high status folks shown to be directly seeking status.Comedy is full of such cynical observations like the above, far more than most other media.\u00a0 (Why?) \u00a0 Since we immediately recognize such descriptions, we must think this sort of behavior is pretty common.\u00a0 But we only rarely admit that we are at the moment motivated by such concerns. So just how much of human behavior do most people think is driven by status seeking?\u00a0 10%? 90%?\u00a0 And just how different do we each think we are relative to the average?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 31, 2020 3:50 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Common Econ Critiques\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 31, 2020 3:50 pm \nTitle: Common Econ Critiques\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Consider this critique of physics:Once upon a time the universe was full of magic, mystery, and majesty, wherein humans lived organically and intuitively with nature. But then physicists (and their engineering minions) pretended to know far more than humans can ever know in an irreducibly complex universe. And they pretended to far more objectivity and neutrality in their inquiries than is possible for humans. Using impressive math, physicists rose in status, while other less mathy but more fluid and organic ways of thinking fell in status. Physics concepts became used more widely, displacing other useful and more human but now neglected ways of thinking.Physicists are reductionist, and focus overwhelmingly on the simplest physical parameters of the smallest physical parts. So they ignore more interesting parameters and large scale organization. They study particular phenomena via vastly-over-simplified models that neglect most of the rich complexity of the real world. Worse, regarding the items that they do consider in their simple models, most of their assumptions are just wrong.For example, standard models of mechanical systems assume that they sit in a flat space-time. Most materials are uniform, isotropic, solid with sharp boundaries, and uncharged. Ground anchors do not rotate or accelerate. Perfect vacuum sits between most adjacent parts, and between the other pairs is either an absolute bond or frictionless relative motion. Yet real mechanical systems sit in rotating, accelerating environments full of corrosive fluids and cosmic rays, at temperatures and pressures that often melt materials, and amid vibrations that often break them. And estimates of all physical parameters in such models are known to be wrong, i.e., not exactly correct. Physicists claim that such deviations make for only small errors in their final analysis, but how can they know that if they don\u2019t model the full complexity?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 31, 2020 3:50 pm \nTitle: Common Econ Critiques\nConsider this critique of physics:Once upon a time the universe was full of magic, mystery, and majesty, wherein humans lived organically and intuitively with nature. But then physicists (and their engineering minions) pretended to know far more than humans can ever know in an irreducibly complex universe. And they pretended to far more objectivity and neutrality in their inquiries than is possible for humans. Using impressive math, physicists rose in status, while other less mathy but more fluid and organic ways of thinking fell in status. Physics concepts became used more widely, displacing other useful and more human but now neglected ways of thinking.Physicists are reductionist, and focus overwhelmingly on the simplest physical parameters of the smallest physical parts. So they ignore more interesting parameters and large scale organization. They study particular phenomena via vastly-over-simplified models that neglect most of the rich complexity of the real world. Worse, regarding the items that they do consider in their simple models, most of their assumptions are just wrong.For example, standard models of mechanical systems assume that they sit in a flat space-time. Most materials are uniform, isotropic, solid with sharp boundaries, and uncharged. Ground anchors do not rotate or accelerate. Perfect vacuum sits between most adjacent parts, and between the other pairs is either an absolute bond or frictionless relative motion. Yet real mechanical systems sit in rotating, accelerating environments full of corrosive fluids and cosmic rays, at temperatures and pressures that often melt materials, and amid vibrations that often break them. And estimates of all physical parameters in such models are known to be wrong, i.e., not exactly correct. Physicists claim that such deviations make for only small errors in their final analysis, but how can they know that if they don\u2019t model the full complexity?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Engineers who use physics tend to create system designs that are more like typical physics models, with a small number of simple parts having a few simple relations to one another. These systems are quite different from the fluid, complex, highly-interdependent rich-relation biological systems that we are, and once lived among. These physics-model-derived systems are harsh, ugly, fragile, uninspiring, and alienating. These systems may do well by simple physics metrics, but that neglects a vast space of better if less formal ways to evaluate systems.The dominance of physics in engineer training and related government policy has unfairly neglected intuitive, magical, arty, and literary approaches to engineering system design. Approaches that look bad by physics metrics, but not by intuitive organic human ways to evaluate. Today the fields of \u201cdesign\u201d use better approaches, and are displacing the fields of \u201cengineering\u201d. It\u2019s about time.Here\u2019s an obvious response:For most products, few customers care much about how their systems are engineered, or the parameters by which they are described. So in a free competitive world, firms are free to offer products designed and evaluated via \u201cintuitive, magical, arty, and literary approaches.\u201d But few do. Yes, firms today also commonly use design as well as engineering, but mainly for a few relatively aesthetic choices close to the user experience. For at the vast majority of other choices, out of user sight, physics-based engineering dominates.Physics winning this competition suggests that alternate approaches just aren\u2019t as productive. Yes, there is often less free competition to woo government buyers, and physics-dominated regulations often demand that physics be used to prove that products are safe and effective. But consider that the world still has many competing nations, and engineering matters greatly in war, where simple physical parameters are quite meaningful. If a nation could build more effective weapons using other approaches to weapons design, they could win wars that way. The fact that few nations try is more evidence that physics-based approaches work better.Yes, models greatly simplify. But for humans with some abstract understanding and greatly limited mental abilities of other sorts, approximation via simple modular models and designs is our main way to manage complexity. Nature faced different constraints, which is why her designs are different. Yes, simple modular designs can be harsh and alienating, but without them we could not create engineering designs nearly as capable. Humans just can\u2019t do analysis without making a mass of simplifying, and thus wrong, assumptions. But the fact that our designs tend to work shows that our approximations tend to be appropriate. Yes of courses if we approximate badly, our models and designs will go badly. Which is why physicists and engineers pay so much attention to approximating well.Now consider the many critiques of economics, which I\u2019ve just spent many hours sampling. Most econ critiques are much like the above physics critique, making a similar response appropriate. But with one key difference, to be discussed at the end.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Engineers who use physics tend to create system designs that are more like typical physics models, with a small number of simple parts having a few simple relations to one another. These systems are quite different from the fluid, complex, highly-interdependent rich-relation biological systems that we are, and once lived among. These physics-model-derived systems are harsh, ugly, fragile, uninspiring, and alienating. These systems may do well by simple physics metrics, but that neglects a vast space of better if less formal ways to evaluate systems.The dominance of physics in engineer training and related government policy has unfairly neglected intuitive, magical, arty, and literary approaches to engineering system design. Approaches that look bad by physics metrics, but not by intuitive organic human ways to evaluate. Today the fields of \u201cdesign\u201d use better approaches, and are displacing the fields of \u201cengineering\u201d. It\u2019s about time.Here\u2019s an obvious response:For most products, few customers care much about how their systems are engineered, or the parameters by which they are described. So in a free competitive world, firms are free to offer products designed and evaluated via \u201cintuitive, magical, arty, and literary approaches.\u201d But few do. Yes, firms today also commonly use design as well as engineering, but mainly for a few relatively aesthetic choices close to the user experience. For at the vast majority of other choices, out of user sight, physics-based engineering dominates.Physics winning this competition suggests that alternate approaches just aren\u2019t as productive. Yes, there is often less free competition to woo government buyers, and physics-dominated regulations often demand that physics be used to prove that products are safe and effective. But consider that the world still has many competing nations, and engineering matters greatly in war, where simple physical parameters are quite meaningful. If a nation could build more effective weapons using other approaches to weapons design, they could win wars that way. The fact that few nations try is more evidence that physics-based approaches work better.Yes, models greatly simplify. But for humans with some abstract understanding and greatly limited mental abilities of other sorts, approximation via simple modular models and designs is our main way to manage complexity. Nature faced different constraints, which is why her designs are different. Yes, simple modular designs can be harsh and alienating, but without them we could not create engineering designs nearly as capable. Humans just can\u2019t do analysis without making a mass of simplifying, and thus wrong, assumptions. But the fact that our designs tend to work shows that our approximations tend to be appropriate. Yes of courses if we approximate badly, our models and designs will go badly. Which is why physicists and engineers pay so much attention to approximating well.Now consider the many critiques of economics, which I\u2019ve just spent many hours sampling. Most econ critiques are much like the above physics critique, making a similar response appropriate. But with one key difference, to be discussed at the end.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Before going into details, let\u2019s review a few basics. Like physics, econ uses math to create a space of possible models. But instead of describing physical systems, econ models describe social systems. Economists have a standard set of assumptions that they see as most likely to be true, and other standard set of assumptions that seem easiest to analyze. Assumptions from the second set are often preferred, to allow entire models to be simple enough to analyze. Different economists explore different models, comparing them to each other and to data, and arguing about their relative accuracy as approximations. If you are arguing for different models in this topic area, but accepting that models are a reasonable way to think about social behavior, then you are doing econ. (And you might have a valid complaint re if your kind of econ gets a fair hearing.) Econ critics, in contrast, reject, or at lest minimize the value of, the whole econ approach to studying social behavior, and designing policy.That said, let us now consider some common econ criticisms.Macro Forecasting\u00a0\u2013 Economists can predict many things with high accuracy, but have low accuracy when predicting some big important aggregate changes, like the timing and size of recessions, wars, and asset price falls. Physicists are also unable to predict some large aggregates, such as the weather, and other places where turbulence dominates. In both cases our best theories go a long way to explaining why such things are generally hard to predict. Yet this lack of ability is held against economists, but not against physicists. Even though no other social analysts can predict these macro changes substantially better than do economists. Seems an unfair double standard to me.Objectivity Is A Lie \u2013 Like many other academic disciplines, such as physics and engineering, economists endorse norms of neutrality and objectivity, and adopt many social practices with an eye to encouraging such tendencies. However, some say that such attempts are mistaken; social analysis goes better when analysts announce and embrace their passions and partisan leanings. But would this really make physics or engineering go better? Should legal judges and teachers no longer aspire to treat all plaintiffs and students neutrally? If you accept that neutrality is often a useful ideal, but reject it for economic analysis, then what key difference in economics justifies this different treatment? Yes, there are many specific differences, but I can\u2019t see one that works. We should of course be honest about how much objectivity we actually achieve, which may be disappointingly small. But it still seems an ideal worth working toward.Unfair Privilege \u2013 Compared to other social scientists and analysts, those associated with economists get more respect and attention, in business, government, and the media. As a result, they tend to be paid more, and their concepts are more widely known and used. Others who do social analysis complain that this is unfair. And it would be if this dominance were caused by a cabal of powerful insiders who control social analysis in these areas of life, and favor themselves. But there is in fact a great deal of competition for social analysis in these areas. And there\u2019s no reason different kinds of social analysts should get equal attention, if there\u2019s no reason to think them equally productive.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Before going into details, let\u2019s review a few basics. Like physics, econ uses math to create a space of possible models. But instead of describing physical systems, econ models describe social systems. Economists have a standard set of assumptions that they see as most likely to be true, and other standard set of assumptions that seem easiest to analyze. Assumptions from the second set are often preferred, to allow entire models to be simple enough to analyze. Different economists explore different models, comparing them to each other and to data, and arguing about their relative accuracy as approximations. If you are arguing for different models in this topic area, but accepting that models are a reasonable way to think about social behavior, then you are doing econ. (And you might have a valid complaint re if your kind of econ gets a fair hearing.) Econ critics, in contrast, reject, or at lest minimize the value of, the whole econ approach to studying social behavior, and designing policy.That said, let us now consider some common econ criticisms.Macro Forecasting\u00a0\u2013 Economists can predict many things with high accuracy, but have low accuracy when predicting some big important aggregate changes, like the timing and size of recessions, wars, and asset price falls. Physicists are also unable to predict some large aggregates, such as the weather, and other places where turbulence dominates. In both cases our best theories go a long way to explaining why such things are generally hard to predict. Yet this lack of ability is held against economists, but not against physicists. Even though no other social analysts can predict these macro changes substantially better than do economists. Seems an unfair double standard to me.Objectivity Is A Lie \u2013 Like many other academic disciplines, such as physics and engineering, economists endorse norms of neutrality and objectivity, and adopt many social practices with an eye to encouraging such tendencies. However, some say that such attempts are mistaken; social analysis goes better when analysts announce and embrace their passions and partisan leanings. But would this really make physics or engineering go better? Should legal judges and teachers no longer aspire to treat all plaintiffs and students neutrally? If you accept that neutrality is often a useful ideal, but reject it for economic analysis, then what key difference in economics justifies this different treatment? Yes, there are many specific differences, but I can\u2019t see one that works. We should of course be honest about how much objectivity we actually achieve, which may be disappointingly small. But it still seems an ideal worth working toward.Unfair Privilege \u2013 Compared to other social scientists and analysts, those associated with economists get more respect and attention, in business, government, and the media. As a result, they tend to be paid more, and their concepts are more widely known and used. Others who do social analysis complain that this is unfair. And it would be if this dominance were caused by a cabal of powerful insiders who control social analysis in these areas of life, and favor themselves. But there is in fact a great deal of competition for social analysis in these areas. And there\u2019s no reason different kinds of social analysts should get equal attention, if there\u2019s no reason to think them equally productive.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Market Fetish \u2013 Economists\u2019 models of markets are especially simple, and also especially robust as approximations of more complex variations. This leads economists to often recommend markets. Critics call this a bias, part of a larger economists\u2019 bias toward stark, mechanistic, inhuman, inorganic social institutions. But\u00a0if so, it is the same sort of \u201cbias\u201d that makes physical engineers prefer device designs that are easier to analyze with tractable physics models. While there may well be better designs out there in the vast space of designs too complex to analyze, we just don\u2019t know which ones they are. Similarly, without a better way to evaluate the vast space of complex institution alternatives to markets, we must choose among the ones we can evaluate. (Some say to trust their intuitions about the virtues of particular complex candidates they like; economists aren\u2019t very trusting here.)Commodification \u2013 This is actually a complaint about markets, not economists. The idea is that long ago, when people lived in small communities, they each had far more negotiating power re their deals with each other, which made each person feel valued. As communities got larger, and markets got thicker, negotiating power fell, closer substitutes appeared for whatever any one person had to offer. Some say that we feel less valued as a result, more like \u201ccommodities\u201d, and they suggest banning some kinds of markets, forcing people into less formal more fragmented deal-making, where they have more negotiating power. Standard economic theory, however, suggests we are worse off with such fragmented deal-making, and the fact that people tend to choose large over small communities, when they have a choice, suggests that most people agree. When both sides get more negotiating power, that just increases variance in deal value to each side, not the average.Reductionism \u2013 Like physicists, economists build models of big worlds made out of many small parts, in their case the many particular choices of particular people. Some object that social analysis works better when it considers large aggregates, like classes, ideologies, nations, regions, and professions, as the most basic units of analysis. But economists don\u2019t object to thinking in terms of such units. It is just that, like physicists, we are much more comfortable when when know how to describe such larger in terms of many small parts. Physics concepts like pressure, temperature, entropy, and much more are useful aggregate concepts, but helpfully understood in terms of interactions between small parts.Rationality \u2013 A common econ assumption is that people act in ways that get them what they want. This turns out to be robust to noise; assuming that we only tend to act to get what we want usually gives pretty similar results. And many economists explore models where various other factors influence action choices. Even so, critics say that this usual assumption undermines economist authority, and implies that others should not listen to them. But this seems to reject the very idea of using simplifying models.Selfishness \u2013 Another common econ assumption is that people want more personal material gains for themselves. (Sometimes they even assume people want only money.) This assumption is usually robust to people merely putting more weight on themselves than on others, and to their caring a great deal about a small number of close associates. And many economists explore other alternate assumptions. Even so, critics suggest that this usual assumption undermines economist authority. Again, this seems to reject the very idea of simplifying models.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Market Fetish \u2013 Economists\u2019 models of markets are especially simple, and also especially robust as approximations of more complex variations. This leads economists to often recommend markets. Critics call this a bias, part of a larger economists\u2019 bias toward stark, mechanistic, inhuman, inorganic social institutions. But\u00a0if so, it is the same sort of \u201cbias\u201d that makes physical engineers prefer device designs that are easier to analyze with tractable physics models. While there may well be better designs out there in the vast space of designs too complex to analyze, we just don\u2019t know which ones they are. Similarly, without a better way to evaluate the vast space of complex institution alternatives to markets, we must choose among the ones we can evaluate. (Some say to trust their intuitions about the virtues of particular complex candidates they like; economists aren\u2019t very trusting here.)Commodification \u2013 This is actually a complaint about markets, not economists. The idea is that long ago, when people lived in small communities, they each had far more negotiating power re their deals with each other, which made each person feel valued. As communities got larger, and markets got thicker, negotiating power fell, closer substitutes appeared for whatever any one person had to offer. Some say that we feel less valued as a result, more like \u201ccommodities\u201d, and they suggest banning some kinds of markets, forcing people into less formal more fragmented deal-making, where they have more negotiating power. Standard economic theory, however, suggests we are worse off with such fragmented deal-making, and the fact that people tend to choose large over small communities, when they have a choice, suggests that most people agree. When both sides get more negotiating power, that just increases variance in deal value to each side, not the average.Reductionism \u2013 Like physicists, economists build models of big worlds made out of many small parts, in their case the many particular choices of particular people. Some object that social analysis works better when it considers large aggregates, like classes, ideologies, nations, regions, and professions, as the most basic units of analysis. But economists don\u2019t object to thinking in terms of such units. It is just that, like physicists, we are much more comfortable when when know how to describe such larger in terms of many small parts. Physics concepts like pressure, temperature, entropy, and much more are useful aggregate concepts, but helpfully understood in terms of interactions between small parts.Rationality \u2013 A common econ assumption is that people act in ways that get them what they want. This turns out to be robust to noise; assuming that we only tend to act to get what we want usually gives pretty similar results. And many economists explore models where various other factors influence action choices. Even so, critics say that this usual assumption undermines economist authority, and implies that others should not listen to them. But this seems to reject the very idea of using simplifying models.Selfishness \u2013 Another common econ assumption is that people want more personal material gains for themselves. (Sometimes they even assume people want only money.) This assumption is usually robust to people merely putting more weight on themselves than on others, and to their caring a great deal about a small number of close associates. And many economists explore other alternate assumptions. Even so, critics suggest that this usual assumption undermines economist authority. Again, this seems to reject the very idea of simplifying models.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Stable Preferences \u2013 Econ models of what people want usually contain a limited number of contributing factors, and limited ways in which wants change with context. Critics, however, are often impressed with how what people want seems to change over their lifetimes, and has differed across in societies in history. Critics often conclude that there\u2019s little point in analyzing how to get people what they want, as society can change what people want. However, any dependence of what people want on social choices is just another form of context dependence of wants, and fits directly into standard model frameworks. It is fine for economists to make such models and to argue for them. But that\u2019s a way of doing economics, not of rejecting it.Other Assumptions \u2013 Critics tend to complain about econ model assumption unrealism, but usually fail to mention many examples. Let\u2019s help them out. Econ models focus on \u201csmall worlds,\u201d leaving out larger outside connected world. Econ models tend to model only limited kinds of uncertainty, yet we actually can be uncertain about almost everything. Different games are analyzed separately, but in fact uncertainty about what game we play merges them into one big game. Models also usually ignore uncertainty about which computational strategies, and decision and game theories, apply. Models use finite and infinite state spaces when the other is more plausible. And econ models often make unrealistic assumptions about actor variety, action timing, action durations, action knowledge, commitments, externalities, insurance, public announcements, and motivations. We usually assume we are near an interior local maximum with concave payoffs.Wealth Maximization \u2013 This seems the most common complaint, so I\u2019ll discuss it in more detail. Economists\u2019 gold standard for evaluating social policy is \u201cPareto improvement\u201d [PI]; a policy change is good if everyone expects to get more of what they want, or at least would so expect if they fully aggregated their info. A common approximation to PI uses what people expect to gain, without info their aggregating. When transfers cancel losses that observers can estimate, a good approximation to PI is repeated application of cost-benefit analysis, which in essence seeks to max economic (not just financial) \u201cwealth.\u201d Being a net loser here requires implausibly large correlations across many errors in observer loss estimates.Some call it immoral to give people what they want; policy should instead do what is moral, about which econ knows little. But others (e.g. preference utilitarians) see big moral gains from people getting what they want. And econ using a wealth metric can suggest deals for negotiators to consider, which seems a useful social role for economists to fill; policy advice need not be about morality. Also, just as firms typically use artsy design to set a few surface features, but then use engineering to minimize costs along thousands of orthogonal design dimensions, it can make sense to set overall policy via a few key salient moral and aesthetic criteria, such as various kinds of inequality, and yet set thousands of less visible orthogonal policy parameters via wealth maximization. If a parameter doesn\u2019t much influence key overall dimensions, why not set it to minimize costs?The above are the most common econ critiques I see. This last one is what I think critics should say:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Stable Preferences \u2013 Econ models of what people want usually contain a limited number of contributing factors, and limited ways in which wants change with context. Critics, however, are often impressed with how what people want seems to change over their lifetimes, and has differed across in societies in history. Critics often conclude that there\u2019s little point in analyzing how to get people what they want, as society can change what people want. However, any dependence of what people want on social choices is just another form of context dependence of wants, and fits directly into standard model frameworks. It is fine for economists to make such models and to argue for them. But that\u2019s a way of doing economics, not of rejecting it.Other Assumptions \u2013 Critics tend to complain about econ model assumption unrealism, but usually fail to mention many examples. Let\u2019s help them out. Econ models focus on \u201csmall worlds,\u201d leaving out larger outside connected world. Econ models tend to model only limited kinds of uncertainty, yet we actually can be uncertain about almost everything. Different games are analyzed separately, but in fact uncertainty about what game we play merges them into one big game. Models also usually ignore uncertainty about which computational strategies, and decision and game theories, apply. Models use finite and infinite state spaces when the other is more plausible. And econ models often make unrealistic assumptions about actor variety, action timing, action durations, action knowledge, commitments, externalities, insurance, public announcements, and motivations. We usually assume we are near an interior local maximum with concave payoffs.Wealth Maximization \u2013 This seems the most common complaint, so I\u2019ll discuss it in more detail. Economists\u2019 gold standard for evaluating social policy is \u201cPareto improvement\u201d [PI]; a policy change is good if everyone expects to get more of what they want, or at least would so expect if they fully aggregated their info. A common approximation to PI uses what people expect to gain, without info their aggregating. When transfers cancel losses that observers can estimate, a good approximation to PI is repeated application of cost-benefit analysis, which in essence seeks to max economic (not just financial) \u201cwealth.\u201d Being a net loser here requires implausibly large correlations across many errors in observer loss estimates.Some call it immoral to give people what they want; policy should instead do what is moral, about which econ knows little. But others (e.g. preference utilitarians) see big moral gains from people getting what they want. And econ using a wealth metric can suggest deals for negotiators to consider, which seems a useful social role for economists to fill; policy advice need not be about morality. Also, just as firms typically use artsy design to set a few surface features, but then use engineering to minimize costs along thousands of orthogonal design dimensions, it can make sense to set overall policy via a few key salient moral and aesthetic criteria, such as various kinds of inequality, and yet set thousands of less visible orthogonal policy parameters via wealth maximization. If a parameter doesn\u2019t much influence key overall dimensions, why not set it to minimize costs?The above are the most common econ critiques I see. This last one is what I think critics should say:\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Little Outcome Competition \u2013 Physics-based engineers often compete to make devices that are shown to work or not relatively quickly. But the advice from economist-affiliated policy advisors is not tested as strongly, often, or directly as that of physics-based engineers. So while we might say that econ has won a competition of some sort, it is less clear that this is a competition to be useful in policy design. Perhaps economists are more often just telling customers what they want to hear, or letting them affiliate with economists\u2019 impressive analysis abilities. It is worth noting that the econ advice embodied in the most prestigious econ publications often differs substantially from the advice that the same economists give in non-economist forums. Of course if other social analysts seem similarly disconnected from real world tests, this isn\u2019t a reason to favor them over economists. Nor to favor your own intuitions, which also haven\u2019t been much tested.As an econ insider, I can see better than most outsiders how well econ models and analysis fits data on human behavior. And having once been deeply immersed in physics and engineering, I can see roughly how econ practices compare to those. I see great insight in common econ model assumptions and practices of approximation, and a substantial continuity with similar practices in physics and engineering (who also have great insight). Economists actually know a lot about the social world, and have tools that can usefully inform social policy. But I can also see how the key institutions that organize economists too often fail to induce us to tell what we know to outsiders. I know, as an outsider you might well expect me to say that about my field even if it were not true. But still, I feel that I should say it.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 13, 2017 10:20 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Compelling \u2260 Accurate\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 13, 2017 10:20 am \nTitle: Compelling \u2260 Accurate\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Bryan Caplan:As a rule, I don\u2019t care for \u201chard sci-fi.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, artistically speaking, I normally dislike true stories of any kind.\u00a0 And I barely care about continuity errors.\u00a0 When I read novels or watch movies, I crave what I call \u201cemotional truth.\u201d ..\u00a0 \u201cit\u2019s the idea of becoming someone else for a little while. Being inside another skin. Moving differently, thinking differently, feeling differently.\u201d .. When creators spend a lot of mental energy on the accuracy of their physics or the historical sequence of events, they tend to lose sight of their characters\u2019 inner lives.\u00a0 A well-told story is designed to maximize the audiences\u2019 identification with the characters .. you know a creator has succeeded when you temporarily lose yourself in the story.Many have said similar things. For example, Jerome Bruner:There are two modes of cognitive functioning, two modes of thought, each providing distinctive ways of ordering experience, of constructing reality. The two (though complementary) are irreducible to one another. .. Each .. has operating principles of its own and its own criteria of well-formedness. They differ radically in their procedures for verification. A good story and a well-formed argument are different natural kinds. Both can be used as means for convincing another. Yet what they convince of is fundamentally different: arguments convince one of their truth, stories of their lifelikeness. The one verifies by eventual appeal to procedures for establishing formal and empirical proof. The other establishes not truth but verisimilitude. ..\u201cGreat\u201d storytelling, inevitably, is about compelling human plights that are \u201caccessible\u201d to readers. But at the same time, the plights must be set forth with sufficient subjunctivity to allow them to be rewritten by the reader, rewritten so as to allow play for the reader\u2019s imagination.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 13, 2017 10:20 am \nTitle: Compelling \u2260 Accurate\nBryan Caplan:As a rule, I don\u2019t care for \u201chard sci-fi.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, artistically speaking, I normally dislike true stories of any kind.\u00a0 And I barely care about continuity errors.\u00a0 When I read novels or watch movies, I crave what I call \u201cemotional truth.\u201d ..\u00a0 \u201cit\u2019s the idea of becoming someone else for a little while. Being inside another skin. Moving differently, thinking differently, feeling differently.\u201d .. When creators spend a lot of mental energy on the accuracy of their physics or the historical sequence of events, they tend to lose sight of their characters\u2019 inner lives.\u00a0 A well-told story is designed to maximize the audiences\u2019 identification with the characters .. you know a creator has succeeded when you temporarily lose yourself in the story.Many have said similar things. For example, Jerome Bruner:There are two modes of cognitive functioning, two modes of thought, each providing distinctive ways of ordering experience, of constructing reality. The two (though complementary) are irreducible to one another. .. Each .. has operating principles of its own and its own criteria of well-formedness. They differ radically in their procedures for verification. A good story and a well-formed argument are different natural kinds. Both can be used as means for convincing another. Yet what they convince of is fundamentally different: arguments convince one of their truth, stories of their lifelikeness. The one verifies by eventual appeal to procedures for establishing formal and empirical proof. The other establishes not truth but verisimilitude. ..\u201cGreat\u201d storytelling, inevitably, is about compelling human plights that are \u201caccessible\u201d to readers. But at the same time, the plights must be set forth with sufficient subjunctivity to allow them to be rewritten by the reader, rewritten so as to allow play for the reader\u2019s imagination.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Yes, readers (or viewers) value stories where readers lose themselves, feel like they are inside character inner lives, and identify with those characters. To readers, such stories feel \u201clifelike\u201d \u2014 in some important way \u201clike\u201d real and true events. And yes, surely this is because these best stories do in fact match some template in reader minds, a template knitted in part from the many details of the world that readers\u00a0have witnessed during\u00a0their lives.But, such stories are much better described as\u00a0\u201ccompelling\u201d than \u201ctrue.\u201d As a large literature has shown, the stories that we\u00a0like differ in many big\u00a0and systematic ways from real life events. Stories differ not only in external physical and social environments, but also in the personalities and preferences of individuals. Furthermore, even\u00a0conditional on those things, stories also differ in the feelings that individuals have and the choices that they make.We understand some but not all things about why people are built to prefer unrealistic stories. But there seems little doubt that the stories we like are in fact unrealistic. Compelling but not \u201ctrue.\u201dI\u2019m not denying that\u00a0some stories are more realistic, I\u2019m doubting\u00a0that the stories that we get more lost in are in fact mainly those more realistic stories.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 22, 2010 7:45 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Concept Artists\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 22, 2010 7:45 pm \nTitle: Concept Artists\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Back in \u201994 I won an electronic arts prize, and spent a weekend in Austria with artists.  They had declared me a \u201cconcept artist\u201d and we discussed what that meant.  I felt deja vu Thursday when I presented at the Parsons New School of Design, and after talked with professors of design and architecture (audio, slides; vid). It seems to me that they are also concept artists, though they might not embrace this description, and this made me wonder again how many intellectuals are concept artists.A painter arranges paint on a canvas in a pattern that other artists judge to be pretty or provocative or intriguing, or, well anything really that they respect enough to call \u201cart.\u201d  While they have no explicit standards, they can roughly articulate many features that all-else-equal make paintings better, and communities of artists usually have enough consensus on what they like to together rate paintings as good or bad.  It is similar for sculpture, movies, novels, etc. \u2014 communities of artists develop common enough implicit standards so that they agree enough on what is good art.Similar standards of evaluation can be applied to concepts, ideas, and claims.  To the naive, \u201cconcept artists\u201d may sound like they intend mainly to make claims about reality, and to evaluate those claims in terms of how well they cohere with each other and data about reality.  But in fact concept artists evaluate claims more the way most any artists evaluates art \u2013 in terms of beauty, elegance, provocation, intrigue, etc.  This can make concept artists a bit more tolerant of ambiguity, logical gaps, etc., though the difference can be subtle \u2013 being too obviously tolerant of such things usually isn\u2019t good art.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 22, 2010 7:45 pm \nTitle: Concept Artists\nBack in \u201994 I won an electronic arts prize, and spent a weekend in Austria with artists.  They had declared me a \u201cconcept artist\u201d and we discussed what that meant.  I felt deja vu Thursday when I presented at the Parsons New School of Design, and after talked with professors of design and architecture (audio, slides; vid). It seems to me that they are also concept artists, though they might not embrace this description, and this made me wonder again how many intellectuals are concept artists.A painter arranges paint on a canvas in a pattern that other artists judge to be pretty or provocative or intriguing, or, well anything really that they respect enough to call \u201cart.\u201d  While they have no explicit standards, they can roughly articulate many features that all-else-equal make paintings better, and communities of artists usually have enough consensus on what they like to together rate paintings as good or bad.  It is similar for sculpture, movies, novels, etc. \u2014 communities of artists develop common enough implicit standards so that they agree enough on what is good art.Similar standards of evaluation can be applied to concepts, ideas, and claims.  To the naive, \u201cconcept artists\u201d may sound like they intend mainly to make claims about reality, and to evaluate those claims in terms of how well they cohere with each other and data about reality.  But in fact concept artists evaluate claims more the way most any artists evaluates art \u2013 in terms of beauty, elegance, provocation, intrigue, etc.  This can make concept artists a bit more tolerant of ambiguity, logical gaps, etc., though the difference can be subtle \u2013 being too obviously tolerant of such things usually isn\u2019t good art.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Concept artists aren\u2019t really my style of intellectual, but I must admit that the fact that conceptual artists are not primarily focused on the truth of their claims does not prevent them from achieving insight and contributing to intellectual progress. \u00a0Truth be old, most other intellectuals also are not first and foremost trying to find truth. Yet intellectual progress is often a side effect of their activities. It is much harder than you might think to say which intellectual styles best find truth in what contexts.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 16, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Conclusion-Blind Review\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 16, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Conclusion-Blind Review\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In 1977 Michael Mahoney found that journal reviewer evaluations depend on a paper\u2019s conclusion, not just its methods:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 4, 2009 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Conscious Control\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 4, 2009 6:00 am \nTitle: Conscious Control\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Our conscious minds control less than we think.\u00a0 From the latest Nature:A person's responses can often be explained by non-linguistic behaviours of other people and simple instincts for social display and response, without any recourse to conscious cognition. This `second channel' of human communication acts in parallel with that based on rational thinking and verbal communication, and it is much more important in human affairs than most people like to think. \u2026 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 30, 2011 5:30 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Consider Conspiracies\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 30, 2011 5:30 am \nTitle: Consider Conspiracies\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " New research suggests people are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories if they would be willing to personally participate in such a conspiracy. \u2026 \u201cAt least among some samples and for some conspiracy theories, the perception that \u2018they did it\u2019 is fueled by the perception that \u2018I would do it. \u2026 People who have more lax personal morality may endorse conspiracy theories to a greater extent because they are, on average, more willing to participate in the conspiracies themselves.\u201d (more; HT David Brin)All the commentary I\u2019ve found on this seems to take it as evidence against conspiracy theories, since it offers a non-evidential explanation for why people might believe in such theories.  For example, people are eager to mention birthers in the same breath, to discredit them. But in fact this result tends to support conspiracy theories.Think about it.  Why are conspiracy theories in such disrepute, given that there have in fact been many real conspiracies in the world?  One theory is that conspiracy theories just tend to be wrong \u2013 that there is some bias which makes people believe them too much, and the anti-conspiracy attitudes you see are a response to that bias. Another theory is that the people who tend to support conspiracy theories are disliked, independently of the evidence supporting their theories. The result above adds support for this disliked theory, relative to the bias theory. \u00a0And this gives you less reason to believe there is in fact a widespread bias to believe too easily in conspiracy theories. Which is evidential, if not social, support for such theories.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 15, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Conspiracy\u2019s Uncanny Valley\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 15, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: Conspiracy\u2019s Uncanny Valley\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A few weeks ago someone [added: Sun Cho] pointed me to the popular internet movie Loose Change, which casts doubts on standard 9-11 accounts.\u00a0 The movie was more persuasive than I had expected, which put me in an odd position.\u00a0  My guess is that standard stories about events like 9-11 are quite wrong about one time in a hundred or thousand, and that due to mole effects they are probably wrong more often on the very largest events.\u00a0 Loose Change being surprisingly persuasive then had me estimating about a one in ten to thirty chance standard 9-11 accounts were quite wrong on an important point.\u00a0 And this put me uncomfortably in conspiracy\u2019s \"uncanny valley\". Robots that look pretty similar, but not very similar, to humans are said to be in an \"uncanny valley\" that makes people feel weird.\u00a0 Similarly, it seems to me that, relative to intermediate confidence levels, we prefer either to be confident a conspiracy theory is false, or to think it pretty likely to be true.\u00a0 We really want to \"pick sides.\"\u00a0  I finally found some time this weekend to review the case of critics, such as the anti-movie Investigate Loose Change.\u00a0 On reflection I found the critics pretty persuasive, and so now I\u2019m comfortably back to assigning a pretty low probability (say ~1/100).\u00a0 But I worry that I have rushed this judgment, since I was so uncomfortable in conspiracy\u2019s uncanny valley.\u00a0 And I vow to be a bit less persuadable by smooth videos. Added 16Oct:  Sigh.\u00a0 I must admit that digging a bit more again finds surprisingly persuasive material, moving my estimate up to about 2%, back up into uncanny valley land. \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 11, 2012 9:50 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Consulate Care\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 11, 2012 9:50 am \nTitle: Consulate Care\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Here\u2019s another idea for medical reform: consulate care. Let countries like Sweden, France, etc. with approved national health care systems have bigger consulates, and open them up to paying customers for medical services. For example, you could sign up for Swedish Care, and when needed you\u2019d go to their consulate to get medical care as if you were living in Sweden.Now we might not approve consulate care for say North Korea or Uganda, but surely most developed nations are good enough. We don\u2019t issue travel warnings suggesting people not travel to Sweden, for fear of getting sick there. So why not let folks travel to a Sweden nearby for their medical care?Since most other nations spend far less than the US on medicine, consulate care should be a lot cheaper. And since those other nations seem to suffer no net health loss from their cheaper care, consulate care should be no less healthy.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 30, 2008 8:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Contingent Truth Value\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 30, 2008 8:00 pm \nTitle: Contingent Truth Value\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Does allowing prophets, whistle-blowers, and dissidents to tell people truths they don\u2019t want to hear help those other people or hurt them?\u00a0 Today I heard an excellent talk (see slides and paper) by Roland Benabou explaining how it can help or hurt, depending on the situation:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 21, 2006 7:22 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Contributors:  Be Half Accessible\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: December 21, 2006 7:22 pm \nTitle: Contributors:  Be Half Accessible\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " We intended this \"web forum\" to be a cross between a group blog and a conversation among experts.\u00a0 \u00a0We want to both attract readers to highlight our cause, and form a community discussing our shared interest.\u00a0 This may not turn out not to be viable, but until we give up, let me ask contributors to help in this way: make half your posts accessible to a wide audience.\u00a0 \u00a0 It is great to have formal discussion of details of epistemology or Bayesian theory, but if that is mainly what readers see, most of them will leave.\u00a0 And honestly our commitment to overcoming bias is a bit suspect if we just talk generalities and rarely grapple with specific biases and hard cases.\u00a0 \u00a0So please, I ask, let us post as often on accessible papers, news, or events that illustrate or embody important biases and corrections.\u00a0  Oh, and please, delete needless words; a screenful of text or less is ideal.\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 2, 2010 8:50 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Coordination Is Hard\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 2, 2010 8:50 am \nTitle: Coordination Is Hard\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " When we tell our limited-government friends that we have written a book \u2026 about how government can better accomplish what it sets out to do, the reaction is often horror.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t want to make government work better, I want it to go away\u201d \u2026 This way of thinking is deeply misguided. \u2026 This is not to disparage the argument that government is too large, for which the case is strong. But holding government in sneering contempt is a misinformed corruption of that sentiment.More here.\u00a0 Will Wilkinson agrees, as do I.\u00a0 Two ideological attitudes are common, but insensibly stupid:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 31, 2009 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Costumes And Identity\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 31, 2009 6:00 am \nTitle: Costumes And Identity\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " When we put on costumes at Halloween, we dress up as unusual sorts of people; they are not at all randomly selected from real folks, or even from fictional characters.\u00a0 Instead, we prefer to dress up as people whose style of dress says a lot about them, i.e., people with vivid and well-defined roles strongly indicated by the way they dress.\u00a0 Knowing that someone is a princess, athlete, fireman, doc, pirate, or prostitute says a lot about more about their personality and lifestyle than knowing that someone is an insurance adjuster, sales clerk, or network administrator.This is interestingly at odds with of our general tendency to avoid regimentation and structure, though we accept more at work than at home.\u00a0 It seems that at some level we miss and/or admire folks whose lives are tightly structured and defined by a particular strong standard identity.\u00a0\u00a0 Or at least we admire them when their role has high status, like docs, athletes, etc.\u00a0 How much have we lost by not having the better-defined social roles of our ancestors?Added 1Nov: When I started Overcoming Bias, I also sketched out this other blog concept that I never used, using me in costume in the header:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 23, 2009 9:40 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Could It Be That Easy?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 23, 2009 9:40 pm \nTitle: Could It Be That Easy?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The research found a dramatic improvement in ethical behavior with just a few spritzes of citrus-scented Windex. \u2026 [To appear in] a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science. \u2026 \u201cCould be that getting our kids to clean up their rooms might help them clean up their acts, too.\u201dThe study titled \u201cThe Smell of Virtue\u201d was unusually simple and conclusive. Participants engaged in several tasks, the only difference being that some worked in unscented rooms, while others worked in rooms freshly spritzed with Windex. \u2026Subjects in clean-scented rooms were less likely to exploit the trust of their partners, returning a significantly higher share of the money.\u00a0 The average amount of cash given back by the people in the \u201cnormal\u201d room was $2.81. But the people in the clean-scented room gave back an average of $5.33. \u2026\u00a0 Participants surveyed in a Windex-ed room were significantly more interested in volunteering (4.21 on a 7-point scale) than those in a normal room (3.29).\u00a0 22 percent of Windex-ed room participants said they\u2019d like to donate money, compared to only 6 percent of those in a normal room.Follow-up questions confirmed that participants didn\u2019t notice the scent in the room and that their mood at the time of the experiment didn\u2019t affect the outcomes. \u2026 Their 2006 paper in Science reported that transgressions activated a desire to be physically cleansed.More here and here.\u00a0 Wow \u2013 these are big effects, via such a simple and easy treatment!\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 23, 2009 9:40 pm \nTitle: Could It Be That Easy?\nThe research found a dramatic improvement in ethical behavior with just a few spritzes of citrus-scented Windex. \u2026 [To appear in] a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science. \u2026 \u201cCould be that getting our kids to clean up their rooms might help them clean up their acts, too.\u201dThe study titled \u201cThe Smell of Virtue\u201d was unusually simple and conclusive. Participants engaged in several tasks, the only difference being that some worked in unscented rooms, while others worked in rooms freshly spritzed with Windex. \u2026Subjects in clean-scented rooms were less likely to exploit the trust of their partners, returning a significantly higher share of the money.\u00a0 The average amount of cash given back by the people in the \u201cnormal\u201d room was $2.81. But the people in the clean-scented room gave back an average of $5.33. \u2026\u00a0 Participants surveyed in a Windex-ed room were significantly more interested in volunteering (4.21 on a 7-point scale) than those in a normal room (3.29).\u00a0 22 percent of Windex-ed room participants said they\u2019d like to donate money, compared to only 6 percent of those in a normal room.Follow-up questions confirmed that participants didn\u2019t notice the scent in the room and that their mood at the time of the experiment didn\u2019t affect the outcomes. \u2026 Their 2006 paper in Science reported that transgressions activated a desire to be physically cleansed.More here and here.\u00a0 Wow \u2013 these are big effects, via such a simple and easy treatment!\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In my experience, the touchy-feely folks who talk the most about wanting to encourage more trust and charity do not get along that well with the anal folks who want everything to be very clean.\u00a0 So I expect the first group will be reluctant to accept that this second group has been right all along \u2013 they want more charity their way, via folks feeling guilty, not via folks feeling clean.\u00a0 So even if this study is confirmed by further research, I expect lots of resistance to its policy implications.\u00a0 After all, politics is less about policy, and charity less about outcomes, than about who should be admired.Hat tip to Bruce Bartlett.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 3, 2021 6:55 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Counter-Signaling On Aliens\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 3, 2021 6:55 pm \nTitle: Counter-Signaling On Aliens\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " For a long time, people who wrote on U.F.O.s have faced extra hurdles. Compared to those who write on other topics, authors on this topic are scrutinized more carefully for credentials and conflicting interests. The evidence they present is scrutinized much more carefully for detail, consistency, and potential bias and contamination, and much less likely alternative explanations are considered sufficient to reject such evidence. And even when they meet these higher standards, such authors still find it hard to gain much media attention.A week ago Harvard astrophysics department chair Avi Loeb published a book wherein he argues that the object \u201cOumuamua\u201d that passed quickly through our solar system in 2017 was an artificial alien artifact. The book doesn\u2019t actually go into much detail on data about the object, certainly not enough to allow readers to apply the scrutiny usually expected of U.F.O. claims.And even though he says he\u2019s nearly alone among astrophysicists in his view, Loeb doesn\u2019t at all help readers to understand why they believe different from Loeb. His story seems to be that they are all just chicken-shit. And his story about what the aliens are doing out there seems to be that they are mostly long dead.If Loeb doesn\u2019t talk much about the technical details and evidence, what does he talk about? Mostly his childhood, philosophy, other projects, bigshots he knows, etc. (Though he does also mention me.) And the media have overall been very kind to him, giving him lots of coverage and little criticism.You might think that Loeb\u2019s claim about this space object and common U.F.O. claims would seem to support each other. But in a few places, Loeb is very dismissive of ordinary U.F.O. evidence. (here\u00a0and here). He\u2019s clearly trying to say that what he says is nothing like what they say.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 3, 2021 6:55 pm \nTitle: Counter-Signaling On Aliens\nFor a long time, people who wrote on U.F.O.s have faced extra hurdles. Compared to those who write on other topics, authors on this topic are scrutinized more carefully for credentials and conflicting interests. The evidence they present is scrutinized much more carefully for detail, consistency, and potential bias and contamination, and much less likely alternative explanations are considered sufficient to reject such evidence. And even when they meet these higher standards, such authors still find it hard to gain much media attention.A week ago Harvard astrophysics department chair Avi Loeb published a book wherein he argues that the object \u201cOumuamua\u201d that passed quickly through our solar system in 2017 was an artificial alien artifact. The book doesn\u2019t actually go into much detail on data about the object, certainly not enough to allow readers to apply the scrutiny usually expected of U.F.O. claims.And even though he says he\u2019s nearly alone among astrophysicists in his view, Loeb doesn\u2019t at all help readers to understand why they believe different from Loeb. His story seems to be that they are all just chicken-shit. And his story about what the aliens are doing out there seems to be that they are mostly long dead.If Loeb doesn\u2019t talk much about the technical details and evidence, what does he talk about? Mostly his childhood, philosophy, other projects, bigshots he knows, etc. (Though he does also mention me.) And the media have overall been very kind to him, giving him lots of coverage and little criticism.You might think that Loeb\u2019s claim about this space object and common U.F.O. claims would seem to support each other. But in a few places, Loeb is very dismissive of ordinary U.F.O. evidence. (here\u00a0and here). He\u2019s clearly trying to say that what he says is nothing like what they say.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " All of which seems to me a pretty clear example of countersignaling. Just like you are often nice to acquaintances to distinguish them from strangers, but mean to friends to distinguish them from mere acquaintances, we often do the opposite of the usual signal to show we are special. Loeb doesn\u2019t have to follow the usual rules that would apply to most folks offering data on aliens, because (as he repeatedly reminds us) he is a Harvard astrophysics department chair.All of which may help you understand why people often don\u2019t follow the usual epistemic rules. Because the usual rules are for little people, and you aren\u2019t little, are you?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 27, 2020 11:45 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Crush Contrarians Time?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 27, 2020 11:45 am \nTitle: Crush Contrarians Time?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " If you are a contrarian who sees yourself as consistently able to identify contrary but true positions, covid19 offers the exciting chance to take contrary positions and then be proven right in just a few months. As opposed to typically taking decades or more to be shown right.But, what if non-contrarian conformists know that (certain types of) contrarians can often be more right, but conformists see that they tend to win by getting more attention & affirmation in the moment by staying in the Overton window and saying stuff near what most others think at the time?In that case conformists may usually tolerate & engage contrarians exactly because they know contrarians take so long to be proven right. So if conformists see that now contrarians will be proven right fast, they may see it as in their interest to more strictly shun contrarians.Consider Europe at WWI start. Many had been anti-war for decades, but that contrarian view was suddenly suppressed much more than usual. Conformists knew that skeptical views of war might be proven right in just a few years. Contrarians lost on average, even though proven right.Humans may well have a common norm of liberally tolerating contrarians when the stakes are low and it would take decades to be proven right, but shunning and worse to contrarians when stakes are high and events are moving fast.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 12, 2010 4:45 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Cryonics As Charity\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 12, 2010 4:45 pm \nTitle: Cryonics As Charity\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Products and services (i.e., \u201cgoods\u201d) can be divided into two types: those that on net suffer from congestion effects, and those that instead benefit from scale effects.  For congestion goods, the more that one person consumes of the good, the harder it gets for others to consume it.  For scale goods, in contrast, the more that some consume, the easier it gets for others to consume.Creating a new person with a demand for some good, or raising an existing person\u2019s demand for that good, has very different effects on others, depending on whether it is a congestion or scale good.  Adding new demand for congestion goods hurts others, while adding new demand for scale goods helps others.For example, an increase in your demand for limited beachfront property, or for food prepared personally by today\u2019s most famous chef, hurts others who also demand those goods.  Your increased demand for certain computer chips could also hurt others, if such chips required a special metal in limited supply.Chips, however, are usually net scale goods: bigger chip plants make chips cheaper, and larger demand justifies higher fixed costs such as in chip design, and induces faster innovation in chip design, manufacture, use, etc.  Larger communities of users for a good can also benefit from network externalities, such as when a phone or IM system becomes more valuable because more other folks can be contacted via them.  Note, however, that apparent \u201cnetwork\u201d gains via more folks following a new fashion are  usually negated by the harm to those following older fashions.Tyler recently said the world would be better if tech nerds donated to charity instead of buying cryonics (he didn\u2019t explain why this isn\u2019t just as true for most consumption.)  But while many dislike cryonics because they see it as especially selfish, in fact cryonics has such huge scale effects that buying cryonics seems to me a pretty good charity in its own right.  Consider:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 10, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Cut Medicine In Half\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 10, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Cut Medicine In Half\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Today my medical skepticism appears as this month\u2019s lead essay, \"Cut Medicine In Half,\" at CATO Unbound. Distinguished health economists are scheduled to comment:\u00a0 Harvard\u2019s David Cutler on Wednesday, RAND\u2019s Dana Goldman on Friday, and Stanford\u2019s Alan Garber next Monday.\u00a0 Open discussion begins next Wednesday.\u00a0 Also, I just learned that next Tuesday a book with a related thesis, Overtreated, will appear.  My essay begins:\u00a0 \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 16, 2017 3:30 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Cycles of War & Empire\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 16, 2017 3:30 pm \nTitle: Cycles of War & Empire\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019ve just read five of Peter Turchin\u2019s books: Historical Dynamics (2003), War & Peace & War (2006), Secular Cycles (2009), Ultra Society (2015), and Ages of Discord (2016). Four of them in the last week. I did this because I love careful big picture thinking, and Turchin is one of the few who does this now\u00a0on the big question of historical cycles of conflict and empire. While historians today tend to dislike this sort of analysis, Turchin defies them, in part because he\u2019s officially a biologist. I bow to honor his just defiance and careful efforts.Turchin\u2019s main story is a modest variation on related farmer-era historical cycle stories, such as by Jack Goldstone in 1991, &\u00a0Ibn Khaldun in 1377 (!):Different groups have different degrees of cooperation .. cohesiveness and solidarity. .. Groups with high [cohesion] arise on .. frontier .. area where an imperial boundary coincides with a fault line between two [ethnic] communities .. places where between group competition is very intense. .. Only groups possessing high levels of [cohesion] can construct large empires. ..Stability and internal peace bring prosperity, and prosperity causes population increase .. leads to overpopulation, .. causes lower wages, higher land rents, and falling per capital incomes. At first, low wages and high rents bring unparalleled wealth to the upper class, but as their numbers and appetites grow, they also begin to suffer from falling incomes. Declining standards of life breed discontent and strife. The elites turn to the state for employment and additional income and drive up its expenditures at the same time that the tax revenue declines. .. When the state\u2019s finances collapse, it loses the control of the army and police. Freed from all restraints, strife among the elites escalates into civili war, while the discontent among the poor explodes into popular rebellions.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 16, 2017 3:30 pm \nTitle: Cycles of War & Empire\nI\u2019ve just read five of Peter Turchin\u2019s books: Historical Dynamics (2003), War & Peace & War (2006), Secular Cycles (2009), Ultra Society (2015), and Ages of Discord (2016). Four of them in the last week. I did this because I love careful big picture thinking, and Turchin is one of the few who does this now\u00a0on the big question of historical cycles of conflict and empire. While historians today tend to dislike this sort of analysis, Turchin defies them, in part because he\u2019s officially a biologist. I bow to honor his just defiance and careful efforts.Turchin\u2019s main story is a modest variation on related farmer-era historical cycle stories, such as by Jack Goldstone in 1991, &\u00a0Ibn Khaldun in 1377 (!):Different groups have different degrees of cooperation .. cohesiveness and solidarity. .. Groups with high [cohesion] arise on .. frontier .. area where an imperial boundary coincides with a fault line between two [ethnic] communities .. places where between group competition is very intense. .. Only groups possessing high levels of [cohesion] can construct large empires. ..Stability and internal peace bring prosperity, and prosperity causes population increase .. leads to overpopulation, .. causes lower wages, higher land rents, and falling per capital incomes. At first, low wages and high rents bring unparalleled wealth to the upper class, but as their numbers and appetites grow, they also begin to suffer from falling incomes. Declining standards of life breed discontent and strife. The elites turn to the state for employment and additional income and drive up its expenditures at the same time that the tax revenue declines. .. When the state\u2019s finances collapse, it loses the control of the army and police. Freed from all restraints, strife among the elites escalates into civili war, while the discontent among the poor explodes into popular rebellions.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The collapse of order brings .. famine, war, pestilence, and death. .. Population declines and wages increase, while rents decline. .. Fortunes of the upper classes hit bottom. .. Civil wars thin the ranks of the elites. .. Intra-elite competition subsides, allowing the restoration of order. Stability and internal peace bring prosperity, and another cycle begins. (pp.5-8 W&P&W)Turchin (& coauthor Nefedov) collect much data to show that this is a robust farmer-era pattern, even if there are many\u00a0deviations. For example, in Europe, 33 of 43 frontier situations\u00a0gave rise to big empires, yet only 4 of 57 of non-frontier\u00a0situations\u00a0did (p.84 HD). \u201cSecular cycles\u201d vary in duration from one to four centuries; Western Europe saw 8 cycles in 22 centuries, while China saw 8 cycles in 21 centuries (p.306,311 SC). During the low instability part of each cycle, instability shows a rough \u201calternating generations\u201d 50 year cycle of conflict.I\u2019ll grant that Turchin seems to have documented a reasonably broad pattern, containing most of his claimed elements. Yes, empires tend to start from frontier groups with high cohesion, and core cohesion changes slowly. First there\u2019s war success and a growing area and population, and bigger cities. Eventually can come crowding and falling wages. Inequality also grows, with more richer elites, and this is quite robust, continuing even after wages fall.While the amount of external war doesn\u2019t change over the cycle, success in war falls. Many signs of social cohesion decline, and eventually there\u2019s more elite infighting, with crime, duels, misspending state revenue, mistreatment of subordinates, and eventually civil war. Big wars can cut population, and also elite numbers and wealth. Eventually war abates and cohesion rises, though not to as high as when the empire started. A new cycle may begin; empires go through 1-3 cycles before being displaced by another empire.Just as science fiction is often (usually?) an allegory about issues today, I suspect\u00a0that historians who blame a particular fault for the fall of the Roman Empire tend to pick faults that they also want to warn against in their own era. Similarly, my main complain about Turchin is that he attributes falling cohesion mainly to increased inequality \u2013 an \u201coverproduction\u201d of elites who face \u201cincreased competition\u201d. Yes, inequality is much talked about among elites today, but the (less-forager-like) ancients were less focused on it.As Scheidel said in The Great Leveler, inequality doesn\u2019t seem to cause civil wars, and civil wars tend to increase inequality during and after the war (p.203). External wars reduce inequality for losers and increase it for winners, without changing it much overall. It is only big mass mobilization wars of the 1900s that seem to clearly cause big falls in inequality.In biology, over multiple generations organisms slowly accumulate genetic mutations, which reduce their fitness. But this degradation is countered by the fact that nature and mates select for better organisms, which have fewer mutations. Similarly, it seems to me that the most straightforward account of the secular cycle is to say since empire founders are selected out of a strong competition for very high cohesion, we should expect cohesion to \u201cregress to the mean\u201d as an empire evolves.That is, in order to predict most of the observed elite misdeeds later in the secular cycle, all we need to assume is a\u00a0random walk in cohesion that tends to fall back to typical levels. Yes, we might want to include other effects in our model. For example, civil war may allow a bit more selection for subgroups with more cohesion, and humans may have a psychological inclination to cohere more during and after a big war. But mostly we should just expect cohesion to decline from its initial extreme value, and that\u2019s all\u00a0a simple\u00a0model needs.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "The collapse of order brings .. famine, war, pestilence, and death. .. Population declines and wages increase, while rents decline. .. Fortunes of the upper classes hit bottom. .. Civil wars thin the ranks of the elites. .. Intra-elite competition subsides, allowing the restoration of order. Stability and internal peace bring prosperity, and another cycle begins. (pp.5-8 W&P&W)Turchin (& coauthor Nefedov) collect much data to show that this is a robust farmer-era pattern, even if there are many\u00a0deviations. For example, in Europe, 33 of 43 frontier situations\u00a0gave rise to big empires, yet only 4 of 57 of non-frontier\u00a0situations\u00a0did (p.84 HD). \u201cSecular cycles\u201d vary in duration from one to four centuries; Western Europe saw 8 cycles in 22 centuries, while China saw 8 cycles in 21 centuries (p.306,311 SC). During the low instability part of each cycle, instability shows a rough \u201calternating generations\u201d 50 year cycle of conflict.I\u2019ll grant that Turchin seems to have documented a reasonably broad pattern, containing most of his claimed elements. Yes, empires tend to start from frontier groups with high cohesion, and core cohesion changes slowly. First there\u2019s war success and a growing area and population, and bigger cities. Eventually can come crowding and falling wages. Inequality also grows, with more richer elites, and this is quite robust, continuing even after wages fall.While the amount of external war doesn\u2019t change over the cycle, success in war falls. Many signs of social cohesion decline, and eventually there\u2019s more elite infighting, with crime, duels, misspending state revenue, mistreatment of subordinates, and eventually civil war. Big wars can cut population, and also elite numbers and wealth. Eventually war abates and cohesion rises, though not to as high as when the empire started. A new cycle may begin; empires go through 1-3 cycles before being displaced by another empire.Just as science fiction is often (usually?) an allegory about issues today, I suspect\u00a0that historians who blame a particular fault for the fall of the Roman Empire tend to pick faults that they also want to warn against in their own era. Similarly, my main complain about Turchin is that he attributes falling cohesion mainly to increased inequality \u2013 an \u201coverproduction\u201d of elites who face \u201cincreased competition\u201d. Yes, inequality is much talked about among elites today, but the (less-forager-like) ancients were less focused on it.As Scheidel said in The Great Leveler, inequality doesn\u2019t seem to cause civil wars, and civil wars tend to increase inequality during and after the war (p.203). External wars reduce inequality for losers and increase it for winners, without changing it much overall. It is only big mass mobilization wars of the 1900s that seem to clearly cause big falls in inequality.In biology, over multiple generations organisms slowly accumulate genetic mutations, which reduce their fitness. But this degradation is countered by the fact that nature and mates select for better organisms, which have fewer mutations. Similarly, it seems to me that the most straightforward account of the secular cycle is to say since empire founders are selected out of a strong competition for very high cohesion, we should expect cohesion to \u201cregress to the mean\u201d as an empire evolves.That is, in order to predict most of the observed elite misdeeds later in the secular cycle, all we need to assume is a\u00a0random walk in cohesion that tends to fall back to typical levels. Yes, we might want to include other effects in our model. For example, civil war may allow a bit more selection for subgroups with more cohesion, and humans may have a psychological inclination to cohere more during and after a big war. But mostly we should just expect cohesion to decline from its initial extreme value, and that\u2019s all\u00a0a simple\u00a0model needs.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Yes, Turchin claims that we know more about what causes cohesion declines. But while he\u00a0goes to great effort to show that the data fit his story on which events happen\u00a0in what order during cycles, I didn\u2019t see him\u00a0offering evidence to support\u00a0his claim that inequality causes less\u00a0cohesion. He just repeatedly gives examples where\u00a0inequality\u00a0happened, and then instability happened, as if that proves that the one caused the other.We already have good reasons to expect new empires to start with a small area, population, and inequality. And this by itself is enough to predict growing population, which eventually crowds to cut wages, and increasing inequality, which should happen consistently in a very wide range of situations. I don\u2019t see a need for, or data support for, the additional hypothesis that inequality cuts\u00a0cohesion. We may of course discover more things that influence cohesion, and if so we can add them to\u00a0our basic secular cycle model. But we don\u2019t need\u00a0such\u00a0additions\u00a0to predict most\u00a0of the cycle features that Turchin describes.In his latest book, Turchin points out many U.S. signs today of rising inequality and\u00a0declining social cohesion, and at the end asks \u201cWill we be capable of taking collective action to avoid the worst of the impending democratic -structural crisis? I hope so.\u201d But I worry that his focus on inequality leads people to think they need to\u00a0fight harder to cut inequality. In contrast, what we mostly need is just to fight less. The main way that inequality threatens to destroy us is that we are tempted to fight over it. Instead, let us try more to see ourselves as an \u201cus\u201d contrasted with a \u201cthem\u201d, an us that needs to stick together, in part via chilling and compromising, especially regarding\u00a0divisive topics like inequality.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 25, 2011 8:50 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Cynicism Is Near And Far\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 25, 2011 8:50 am \nTitle: Cynicism Is Near And Far\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " People seem to find it easier to be idealistic about social institutions and practices in which they are not greatly involved. It seems easier for non-soldiers to be idealistic about the military, for those who do are not teachers or students to be idealistic about school, and for those who are not reporters or interviewees to be idealistic about journalism.  It also seems easier for the never-married to be idealistic about marriage.People also, however, tend to be less idealistic about social institutions very distant in time and space. They think that ancient doctors didn\u2019t help health, that ancient police mostly took bribes, that ancient marriages were raw domination, and so on. They also tend to think institutions in distant nations are similarly dysfunctional.Many folks succumb to nostalgia, but they usually celebrate moderately old institutions and practices; few are nostalgic for an era thousands of years past.  Similarly, many folks are cynical about their family, the company they work for, or the city they live in, and presume things must be better in other nearby families, firms, or cities.In all this I see an interestingly intermediate near-far effect:  We seem the least idealistic, or the most cynical, about things the most near and the most far in time, space, and social distance. We seem the most idealistic about things at intermediate distances. What other intermediate near-far effects can we see?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 1, 2014 4:08 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Cyprus Mail Profile\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: October 1, 2014 4:08 pm \nTitle: Cyprus Mail Profile\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " From a wide-ranging profile of me in the Cyprus Mail (a newspaper):I\u2019ve learned a bit about his lifestyle \u2013 [Hanson] reads widely; he goes biking; he likes movies, and peruses \u2018100 Best Films\u2019 lists to check how many he\u2019s seen \u2013 but not very much. A profile is supposed to be personal, I remind him. But he shakes his head.When interviewers talk to a musician or an athlete (or indeed a well-known academic), he points out, they\u2019re forever asking them to \u2018tell me about the rest of your life\u2019 \u2013 yet \u201cthe way people become famous musicians or athletes is to focus so much of their energy on this professional thing, [so] there usually isn\u2019t much of a \u2018rest of their life\u2019. And that\u2019s not a message people usually want to hear, so they make up silly things in order to seem personal.\u201d\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 27, 2018 2:45 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Dalio\u2019s Principles\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 27, 2018 2:45 pm \nTitle: Dalio\u2019s Principles\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " When I write and talk about hidden motives, many respond by asking how they could be more honest about their motives. I usually emphasize that we have limited budgets for honesty, and that it is much harder to be honest about yourself than others. And it is especially hard to be honest about the life areas that are the most sacred to you. But some people insist on trying to be very honest, and our book can make them unhappy when they see just how far they have to go.It is probably easier to be honest if you have community support for honesty. And that makes it interesting to study the few groups who have gone the furthest in trying to create such community support. An interesting example is the hedge fund Bridgewater, as described in Dalio\u2019s book Principles:An idea meritocracy where people can speak up and say what they really think. (more)#1 New York Times Bestseller \u2026 Ray Dalio, one of the world\u2019s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he\u2019s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business\u2014and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals. \u2026 Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States. \u2026 Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater\u2019s exceptionally effective culture. \u2026 It is these principles \u2026 that he believes are the reason behind his success. \u2026 are built around his cornerstones of \u201cradical truth\u201d and \u201cradical transparency,\u201d \u2026 \u201cbaseball cards\u201d for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. (more)\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: July 27, 2018 2:45 pm \nTitle: Dalio\u2019s Principles\nWhen I write and talk about hidden motives, many respond by asking how they could be more honest about their motives. I usually emphasize that we have limited budgets for honesty, and that it is much harder to be honest about yourself than others. And it is especially hard to be honest about the life areas that are the most sacred to you. But some people insist on trying to be very honest, and our book can make them unhappy when they see just how far they have to go.It is probably easier to be honest if you have community support for honesty. And that makes it interesting to study the few groups who have gone the furthest in trying to create such community support. An interesting example is the hedge fund Bridgewater, as described in Dalio\u2019s book Principles:An idea meritocracy where people can speak up and say what they really think. (more)#1 New York Times Bestseller \u2026 Ray Dalio, one of the world\u2019s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he\u2019s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business\u2014and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals. \u2026 Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States. \u2026 Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater\u2019s exceptionally effective culture. \u2026 It is these principles \u2026 that he believes are the reason behind his success. \u2026 are built around his cornerstones of \u201cradical truth\u201d and \u201cradical transparency,\u201d \u2026 \u201cbaseball cards\u201d for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. (more)\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " This book seems useful if you were the absolute undisputed ruler of a firm, so that you could push a culture of your choice and fire anyone who seems to resist. And were successful enough to have crowds eager to join, even after you\u2019d fired many. And didn\u2019t need to coordinate strongly with customers, suppliers, investors, and complementors. Which I guess applies to Dalio.But he has little advice to offer those who don\u2019t sit in an organization or social network that consistently rewards \u201cradical truth.\u201d He offers no help in thinking about how to trade honesty against the others things your social contexts will demand of you. Dalio repeatedly encourages honesty, but he admits that it is often painful, and that many aren\u2019t suited for it. He mainly just says to push through the pain, and get rid of people who resist it, and says that these big visible up-front costs will all be worth it in the long run.Dalio also seems to equate conflict and negative opinions with honesty. That is, he seeks a culture where people can say things that others would rather not hear, but doesn\u2019t seem to consider that such negative opinions need not be \u201chonest\u201d opinions. The book makes hundreds of claims, but doesn\u2019t cite outside sources, nor compare itself to other writings on the subject. Dalio doesn\u2019t point to particular evidence in support of particular claims, nor give them any differing degrees of confidence, nor credit particular people as the source of particular claims. It is all just stuff he\u2019s all sure of, that he endorses, all supported by the evidence of his firm\u2019s success.I can believe that the firm Bridgewater is full of open conflict, with negative opinions being frequently and directly expressed. And it would be interesting to study social behavior in such a context. I accept that this firm functions doing things this way. But I can\u2019t tell if it succeeds because of or in spite of this open conflict. Yes this firm succeeds, but then so do many others with very different cultures. The fact that the top guy seems pretty self-absorbed and not very aware of the questions others are likely to ask of his book is not a good sign.But if its a bad sign its not much of one; plenty of self-absorbed people have built many wonderful things. What he has helped to build might in fact be wonderful. Its just too bad that we can\u2019t tell much about that from his book.25May2019: Someone who wishes to remain anonymous just wrote to me saying:I just happen to read your article from last year on Dalios Principles.\u00a0I was struck by the quality of your observations. In Bridgewater terms I am \u2018believable\u2019 in assessing this as I was there for a number of years.\u00a0Your inferences are especially insightful given you did not work there.\u00a0Well done on your article.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 29, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Dangerous Species Warnings\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 29, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: Dangerous Species Warnings\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " For most species, officially declaring them \"endangered\" makes them worse off:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 23, 2022 11:20 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Dealism\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 23, 2022 11:20 am \nTitle: Dealism\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " We economists, and also other social scientists and policy specialists, are often criticized as follows:You recommend some policies over others, and thus make ethical choices. Yet your analyses are ethically naive and impoverished, including only a tiny fraction of the relevant considerations known to professional ethicists. Stop it, learn more on ethics, or admit you make only preliminary rough guesses.My response is \u201cdealism\u201d:The world is full of competent and useful advisors (doctors, lawyers, therapists, gardeners, realtors, hairstylists, etc.) similarly ignorant on ethics. Yes, much advice says \u201cgiven options O, choose X to achieve purpose P\u201d, but when they don\u2019t specify purpose P the usual default is not P = \u201cact the most ethically\u201d, but instead P = \u201cget what you want\u201d.Economists policy recommendations are usually designed to help relatively large groups make better social \u201cdeals\u201d, via identifying their \u201cPareto frontier\u201d (within option subspaces). This frontier is the set of options where some can get more of what they want only via others getting less. We infer what people want via the \u201crevealed preferences\u201d of models that fit their prior choices.As people can be expected to seek out advice they expect to help them to get what they want, we economists branding ourselves in this way can induce more to seek our advice. We can reasonably want to fill this role. Doing so does not commit us to taking on all possible clients, nor to making any ethical claims whatsoever.Yes, if people are hypocritical, and pretend to want morality more than they do, they may prefer advisors who similarly pretend. In which case we economists can also pretend that our clients want that, to help preserve their pretensions. But we wouldn\u2019t need to know more about ethics than our clients do, and beneath that veneer of morality, clients likely prefer our advice to be targeted mostly at getting them what they want.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 23, 2022 11:20 am \nTitle: Dealism\nWe economists, and also other social scientists and policy specialists, are often criticized as follows:You recommend some policies over others, and thus make ethical choices. Yet your analyses are ethically naive and impoverished, including only a tiny fraction of the relevant considerations known to professional ethicists. Stop it, learn more on ethics, or admit you make only preliminary rough guesses.My response is \u201cdealism\u201d:The world is full of competent and useful advisors (doctors, lawyers, therapists, gardeners, realtors, hairstylists, etc.) similarly ignorant on ethics. Yes, much advice says \u201cgiven options O, choose X to achieve purpose P\u201d, but when they don\u2019t specify purpose P the usual default is not P = \u201cact the most ethically\u201d, but instead P = \u201cget what you want\u201d.Economists policy recommendations are usually designed to help relatively large groups make better social \u201cdeals\u201d, via identifying their \u201cPareto frontier\u201d (within option subspaces). This frontier is the set of options where some can get more of what they want only via others getting less. We infer what people want via the \u201crevealed preferences\u201d of models that fit their prior choices.As people can be expected to seek out advice they expect to help them to get what they want, we economists branding ourselves in this way can induce more to seek our advice. We can reasonably want to fill this role. Doing so does not commit us to taking on all possible clients, nor to making any ethical claims whatsoever.Yes, if people are hypocritical, and pretend to want morality more than they do, they may prefer advisors who similarly pretend. In which case we economists can also pretend that our clients want that, to help preserve their pretensions. But we wouldn\u2019t need to know more about ethics than our clients do, and beneath that veneer of morality, clients likely prefer our advice to be targeted mostly at getting them what they want.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Yes, there are many ways one might argue that this economist\u2019 practice is ethically good. But I make no such arguments here.Yes, there are other possible ways to help people. Helping them identify deals is not the only way, and often not the best way, to help or advise people.Most people want in part to be moral, and they think that what they and others want is relevant to what acts are moral. It is just that these two concepts are not identical.\u00a0If in fact what people want is only and wholly to be ethical, then the difference between being ethical and getting what you want collapses. But even so, this econ approach remains useful, and in this case our advice now also becomes ethical.The same arguments apply if we replace \u201cbe ethical\u201d with \u201cdo what you have good reasons to do\u201d. If there is a difference, then others should seek our advice more if it is on what they want, relative to what they have reasons to do.What if the process of hearing our advice, or following it, can change what people want? (The advice might include a sermon, and doing something can change how you feel about it.) In this case, people will most seek out our advice when those changes in wants match their meta-wants regarding such changes. And those meta-wants are revealed in part via how they choose advisors.For example, when people choose advisors retrospectively, based on who seems to have been pleased with the advice that they were given, that reveals a preference for changes in wants that make them pleased after the fact. In that case, you\u2019d want to give the advice that resulted in a combination of outcomes and want changes that made them pleased later. In this case they wouldn\u2019t mind changes to their wants, as long as those resulted in their being more pleased.In contrast, when people choose advisors prospectively, based on how pleased they are now with the outcomes that they expect to result from your advice, then you would only want to offer advice which clients expect to change their wants if such clients expect to be pleased by such changes. So you\u2019d want to offer advice that seemed to promote the want changes that they aspire to, but prevent the want changes that they fear or despise.And that\u2019s it. Many presume that policy discussions are about morality. But as a policy advisor, you can reasonably take the stance that your advice is not about morality, and that economic analysis is well-suited to the advice role that you have chosen.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 5, 2012 1:50 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Dear Young Eccentric\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 5, 2012 1:50 pm \nTitle: Dear Young Eccentric\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " We humans are conformist \u2014 we typically prefer folks who fall in the middle of distributions, and avoid those from the tails. Yes, we prefer the high tail of health, beauty, intelligence, etc. But for most other traits, we prefer the ordinary.This situation can seem pretty discouraging to those who find that they are naturally weird. Weird folks are often tempted to give up on grand ambitions, thinking there is little chance the world will let them succeed. Turns out, however, it isn\u2019t as bad as all that. Especially if your main weirdness is in the realm of ideas.First, being unusual can be an advantage. Unusual tastes can often be satisfied for cheaper than common tastes. If everyone wants to go to the beach, but you just want to hike in the woods, it won\u2019t cost you as much for a nearby hotel. Unusual abilities can also be in more demand than usual abilities. And weird folks can be especially creative, a trait valued in certain occupations like marketing or research.Second, people who are weird about ideas tend to care more about ideas, and so over-estimate how much others care. You can actually get away with a lot of  weirdness in abstract ideas, if you are ordinary enough in manners and style.I\u2019ve known some very successful people with quite weird ideas. But these folks mostly keep regular schedules of sleep and bathing. Their dress and hairstyles are modest, they show up on time for meetings, and they finish assignments by deadline. They are willing to pay dues and work on what others think are important for a while, and they have many odd ideas they\u2019d pursue if given a chance, instead of just one overwhelming obsession. They are willing to keep changing fields, careers, and jobs until they find one that works for them.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 5, 2012 1:50 pm \nTitle: Dear Young Eccentric\nWe humans are conformist \u2014 we typically prefer folks who fall in the middle of distributions, and avoid those from the tails. Yes, we prefer the high tail of health, beauty, intelligence, etc. But for most other traits, we prefer the ordinary.This situation can seem pretty discouraging to those who find that they are naturally weird. Weird folks are often tempted to give up on grand ambitions, thinking there is little chance the world will let them succeed. Turns out, however, it isn\u2019t as bad as all that. Especially if your main weirdness is in the realm of ideas.First, being unusual can be an advantage. Unusual tastes can often be satisfied for cheaper than common tastes. If everyone wants to go to the beach, but you just want to hike in the woods, it won\u2019t cost you as much for a nearby hotel. Unusual abilities can also be in more demand than usual abilities. And weird folks can be especially creative, a trait valued in certain occupations like marketing or research.Second, people who are weird about ideas tend to care more about ideas, and so over-estimate how much others care. You can actually get away with a lot of  weirdness in abstract ideas, if you are ordinary enough in manners and style.I\u2019ve known some very successful people with quite weird ideas. But these folks mostly keep regular schedules of sleep and bathing. Their dress and hairstyles are modest, they show up on time for meetings, and they finish assignments by deadline. They are willing to pay dues and work on what others think are important for a while, and they have many odd ideas they\u2019d pursue if given a chance, instead of just one overwhelming obsession. They are willing to keep changing fields, careers, and jobs until they find one that works for them.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Their conversational styles are also modest and polite. While they are quite willing to talk about their weird ideas, they do not push such topics on uninterested others. They do not insult people around them, nor directly challenge local powers that be. They don\u2019t lash out randomly and scare people.Of course being modest isn\u2019t enough for great success. You\u2019ll also need some extraordinary abilities. Like being extra smart, articulate, hard-working, insightful, etc.  But having weird ideas isn\u2019t nearly as much of a liability as it may seem.Think of it this way. When some folks go out of their way to show off their defiance and rebellion, others go out of their way to publicly squash such rebellion, to assert their dominance. But if you are not overtly rebellious, you can get away with a lot of abstract idea rebellion \u2014 few folks will even notice such deviations, and fewer still will care. So, ask yourself, do you want to look like a rebel, or do you want to be a rebel?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 24, 2011 1:50 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Death Cause Correlates\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 24, 2011 1:50 pm \nTitle: Death Cause Correlates\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Over the years I\u2019ve seen many studies correlating overall death rates with other features, and also seen studies on correlates of particular causes of death, but until Ken Lee\u2019s thesis I\u2019d never seen how death correlates change with broad categories of death causes. Yesterday I pointed to one disturbing correlate: more med spending correlates with more cancer deaths, but not with more deaths from other causes.That data also found injury deaths increasing more with alcohol use, which makes sense.  While no population density estimates were significant, density\u2019s most positive correlation with death was for \u201cother\u201d deaths, which contains most known contagious conditions. This also makes sense, as density increases contagion.That was all from Lee\u2019s chapter 2, where he looks at 50 states over 28 years. In chapter 3 Lee turns to a much larger data set, 367,101 adults from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study, followed over 11 years during which 9.1% of them died. Here are a few selections from Lee\u2019s Table 14, where he breaks down deaths into cancer, heart attack, injury, and other:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 31, 2010 7:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Death Panels Add Life\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 31, 2010 7:00 pm \nTitle: Death Panels Add Life\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In the three-year study, 151 patients with fast-growing lung cancer at Massachusetts General, one of the nation\u2019s top hospitals, were randomly assigned to get either oncology [= anti-cancer] treatment alone or oncology treatment with palliative care \u2014 pain relief and other measures intended to improve a patient\u2019s quality of life. They were followed until the end of 2009, by which time about 70 percent were dead. \u2026Even though substantially fewer of them opted for aggressive chemotherapy as their illnesses worsened and many more left orders that they not be resuscitated in a crisis, they typically lived almost three months longer than the group getting standard care, who lived a median of nine months. \u2026During the debate over President Obama\u2019s 2009 health care bill, provisions to have Medicare and insurers pay for optional consultations with doctors on palliative and hospice care led to rumors \u2026 that the bill empowered \u201cdeath panels\u201d that would \u201ceuthanize\u201d elderly Americans. Legislators eventually removed the provisions. \u2026Palliative care experts now want to study patients with other cancers, heart disease, stroke, dementia and emphysema. But \u2026 the pharmaceutical industry, has little incentive to study palliative care. (more)From the paper itself:Despite receiving less aggressive end-of-life care, patients in the palliative care group had significantly longer survival than those in the standard care group (median\u00a0survival, 11.6 vs. 8.9 months; P = 0.02). \u2026 Any chemotherapy within 30 days of death \u2026 [Standard Care\u00a0N (%)] 21/50 (42.0%) [Early Palliative] 13/40 (32.5%).Note that by cleverly having their experiment combine patients informally getting less new hi-tech medicine with patients formally getting more \u201cpalliative\u201d old lo-tech medicine, docs can frame this result as supporting giving people \u201cmore\u201d medicine. \u00a0HT Carl Shulman.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 17, 2022 9:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Decision Market Math\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 17, 2022 9:00 am \nTitle: Decision Market Math\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Let me share a bit of math I recently figured out regarding decision markets. And let me illustrate it with Fire-The-CEO markets.Consider two ways that we can split $1 cash into two pieces. One way is: $1 = \u201c$1 if A\u201d + \u201c$1 if not A\u201d, where A is 1 or 0 depending on if a firm CEO stays in power til the end of the current quarter. Once we know the value of A, exactly one of these two assets can be exchanged for $1; the other is worthless. The chance a of the CEO staying is revealed by trades exchanging one unit of \u201c$1 if A\u201d for a units of $1.The other way to split is $1 = \u201c$x\u201d + \u201c$(1-x)\u201d, where x a real number in [0,1], representing the stock price of that firm at quarter end, except rescaled and clipped so that x is always in [0,1]. Once we know the value of x, then one unit of \u201c$x\u201d can be exchanged for x units of $1, while one unit of \u201c$(1-x)\u201d can be exchanged for 1-x units of $1. The expected value x of the stock is revealed by trades exchanging one unit of \u201c$x\u201d for x units of $1.We can combine this pair of two-way splits into a single four-way split:$1 = \u201c$x if A\u201d + \u201c$x if not A\u201d + \u201c$(1-x) if A\u201d + \u201c$(1-x) if not A\u201d.A simple combinatorial trading implementation would keep track of the quantities each user has of these four assets, and allow them to trade some of these assets for others, as long as none of these quantities became negative. The min of these four quantities is the cash amount that a user can walk away with at any time. And at quarter\u2019s end, the rest turn into some amount of cash, which the user can then walk away with.To advise the firm board on whether to fire the CEO, we are interested in the value that the CEO adds to the firm value. We can define this added value as x1-x2, wherex1 = E[x|A] is revealed by trades exchanging 1 unit of \u201c$x if A\u201d for x1 units of \u201c$1 if A\u201dx2 = E[x|not A] is revealed by trades exchanging 1 unit of \u201c$x if not A\u201d for x2 units of \u201c$1 if not A\u201d.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 17, 2022 9:00 am \nTitle: Decision Market Math\nLet me share a bit of math I recently figured out regarding decision markets. And let me illustrate it with Fire-The-CEO markets.Consider two ways that we can split $1 cash into two pieces. One way is: $1 = \u201c$1 if A\u201d + \u201c$1 if not A\u201d, where A is 1 or 0 depending on if a firm CEO stays in power til the end of the current quarter. Once we know the value of A, exactly one of these two assets can be exchanged for $1; the other is worthless. The chance a of the CEO staying is revealed by trades exchanging one unit of \u201c$1 if A\u201d for a units of $1.The other way to split is $1 = \u201c$x\u201d + \u201c$(1-x)\u201d, where x a real number in [0,1], representing the stock price of that firm at quarter end, except rescaled and clipped so that x is always in [0,1]. Once we know the value of x, then one unit of \u201c$x\u201d can be exchanged for x units of $1, while one unit of \u201c$(1-x)\u201d can be exchanged for 1-x units of $1. The expected value x of the stock is revealed by trades exchanging one unit of \u201c$x\u201d for x units of $1.We can combine this pair of two-way splits into a single four-way split:$1 = \u201c$x if A\u201d + \u201c$x if not A\u201d + \u201c$(1-x) if A\u201d + \u201c$(1-x) if not A\u201d.A simple combinatorial trading implementation would keep track of the quantities each user has of these four assets, and allow them to trade some of these assets for others, as long as none of these quantities became negative. The min of these four quantities is the cash amount that a user can walk away with at any time. And at quarter\u2019s end, the rest turn into some amount of cash, which the user can then walk away with.To advise the firm board on whether to fire the CEO, we are interested in the value that the CEO adds to the firm value. We can define this added value as x1-x2, wherex1 = E[x|A] is revealed by trades exchanging 1 unit of \u201c$x if A\u201d for x1 units of \u201c$1 if A\u201dx2 = E[x|not A] is revealed by trades exchanging 1 unit of \u201c$x if not A\u201d for x2 units of \u201c$1 if not A\u201d.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In principle users could trade any bundle of these four assets for any other bundle. But three kinds of trades have the special feature of supporting maximal use of user assets in the following sense: when users make trades of only that type, two of their four asset quantities will reach zero at the same time. Reaching zero sets the limit of how far a user can trade in that direction.To see this, let us define:d1 = change in quantity of \u201c$x if A\u201d,d2 = change in quantity of \u201c$x if not A\u201d,d3 = change in quantity of \u201c$(1-x) if A\u201d,d4 = change in quantity of \u201c$(1-x) if not A\u201d.Two of these special kinds of trades correspond to the simple A and x trades that we described above. One kind exchanges 1 unit of \u201c$1 if A\u201d for a units of $1, so that d1=d3, d2=d4, -d1*(1-a)=a*d2. The other kind exchanges 1 unit of \u201c$x\u201d for x units of $1, so that d1=d2, d3=d4, -d1*(1-x)=x*d3.The third special trade bundles the diagonals of our 2\u00d72 array of assets, so that d1=d4, d2=d3, -q*d1=(1-q)*d2. But what does q mean? That\u2019s the math I worked out: q = (1-a) + (2a-1)*x + 2a(1-a)*r*x, where r = (x1-x2)/x, and x = a*x1 + (1-a)*x2. So when we have market prices a,x from the other two special markets, we can describe trade ratios q in this diagonal market in terms of the more intuitive parameter r, i.e., the percent value the CEO adds to this firm.When you subsidize markets with many possible dimensions of trade, you don\u2019t have to subsidize all the dimensions equally. So in this case you could subsidize the q=r type trades much more than you do the a or x type trades. This would let you take a limited subsidy budget and direct it as much as possible toward the main dimension of interest: this CEO\u2019s added value.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 13, 2020 11:45 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Defrock Deregulation Economists?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 13, 2020 11:45 am \nTitle: Defrock Deregulation Economists?\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Recent economics Nobel prize winner Paul Romer is furious that economists have sometimes argued for deregulation; he wants them \u201cdefrocked\u201d, & cast from the profession:\u00a0New generation of economists argued that tweaks \u2026 would enable the market to regulate itself, obviating the need for stringent government oversight. \u2026 To regain the public\u2019s trust, economists should \u2026 emphasize the limits of their knowledge \u2026 even if it requires them to publicly expel from their ranks any member of the community who habitually overreaches. \u2026Consider the rapid spread of cost-benefit analysis \u2026 Lacking clear guidance from voters, legislators, regulators, and judges turned to economists, who resolved the uncertainty by [estimating] \u2026 the amount that society should spend to save a life. \u2026 [This] seems to have worked out surprisingly well \u2026 The trouble arose when the stakes were higher \u2026 it is all too easy for a firm \u2026 to arrange for a pliant pretend economist to \u2026 [defend them] with a veneer of objectivity and scientific expertise. \u2026Imagine making the following proposal in the 1950s: Give for-profit firms the freedom to develop highly addictive painkillers and to promote them via \u2026 marketing campaigns targeted at doctors. Had one made this pitch to [non-economists] back then, they would have rejected it outright. If pressed to justify their decision, they [would have said] \u2026 it is morally wrong to let a company make a profit by killing people \u2026 By the 1990s, \u2026 language and elaborate concepts of economists left no opening for more practically minded people to express their values plainly. \u2026Until the 1980s, the overarching [regulatory] trend was toward restrictions that reined in these abuses. \u2026 United States [has since been] going backward, and in many cases, economists\u2014even those acting in good faith\u2014have provided the intellectual cover for this retreat. \u2026\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 13, 2020 11:45 am \nTitle: Defrock Deregulation Economists?\nRecent economics Nobel prize winner Paul Romer is furious that economists have sometimes argued for deregulation; he wants them \u201cdefrocked\u201d, & cast from the profession:\u00a0New generation of economists argued that tweaks \u2026 would enable the market to regulate itself, obviating the need for stringent government oversight. \u2026 To regain the public\u2019s trust, economists should \u2026 emphasize the limits of their knowledge \u2026 even if it requires them to publicly expel from their ranks any member of the community who habitually overreaches. \u2026Consider the rapid spread of cost-benefit analysis \u2026 Lacking clear guidance from voters, legislators, regulators, and judges turned to economists, who resolved the uncertainty by [estimating] \u2026 the amount that society should spend to save a life. \u2026 [This] seems to have worked out surprisingly well \u2026 The trouble arose when the stakes were higher \u2026 it is all too easy for a firm \u2026 to arrange for a pliant pretend economist to \u2026 [defend them] with a veneer of objectivity and scientific expertise. \u2026Imagine making the following proposal in the 1950s: Give for-profit firms the freedom to develop highly addictive painkillers and to promote them via \u2026 marketing campaigns targeted at doctors. Had one made this pitch to [non-economists] back then, they would have rejected it outright. If pressed to justify their decision, they [would have said] \u2026 it is morally wrong to let a company make a profit by killing people \u2026 By the 1990s, \u2026 language and elaborate concepts of economists left no opening for more practically minded people to express their values plainly. \u2026Until the 1980s, the overarching [regulatory] trend was toward restrictions that reined in these abuses. \u2026 United States [has since been] going backward, and in many cases, economists\u2014even those acting in good faith\u2014have provided the intellectual cover for this retreat. \u2026\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " In their attempt to answer normative questions that the science of economics could not address, economists opened the door to economic ideologues who lacked any commitment to scientific integrity. Among these pretend economists, the ones who prized supposed freedom (especially freedom from regulation) over all other concerns proved most useful \u2026\u00a0 When the stakes were high, firms sought out these ideologues to act as their representatives and further their agenda. And just like their more reputable peers, these pretend economists used the unfamiliar language of economics to obscure the moral judgments that undergirded their advice. \u2026Throughout his entire career, Greenspan worked to give financial institutions more leeway \u2026 If economists continue to let people like him define their discipline, the public will send them back to the basement, and for good reason. \u2026The alternative is to make honesty and humility prerequisites for membership in the community of economists. The easy part is to challenge the pretenders. The hard part is to say no when government officials look to economists for an answer to a normative question. Scientific authority never conveys moral authority. No economist has a privileged insight into questions of right and wrong, and none deserves a special say in fundamental decisions about how society should operate. Economists who argue otherwise and exert undue influence in public debates about right and wrong should be exposed for what they are: frauds. (more)Oddly, Romer is famous for advocating \u201ccharter city\u201d experiments, which can be seen as a big way to escape from the usual regulations.So how does Romer suggest we identify \u201cpretend\u201d economists who are to be \u201cexposed as frauds\u201d and \u201cpublicly expelled from economists\u2019 ranks\u201d? He seems to say they are problematic on big but not small issues because firms bribe them, but he admits some are well-meaning, and doesn\u2019t accuse Greenspan of taking bribes. So I doubt he\u2019d settle for expelling only those who are clearly bribed.\u00a0That seems to leave only the fact that they argue for less regulation when common moral intuitions call for more. (Especially when they mention \u201cfreedom\u201d.) Perhaps he wants economists to be expelled when they argue for deregulation, or perhaps when they offer economic analysis contrary to moral intuitions. Both sound terrible to me as intellectual standards.Look, people quite often express \u201cmoral\u201d opinions that are combinations of simple moral intuitions together with intuitions about how social systems work. If they are mistaken about that second part, and if we can gain separate estimates on their moral intuitions, then economic analysis has the potential to produce superior combinations.This is exactly what economists try to do when applying value of life estimates, and this can also be done regarding deregulation. The key point is that when people act on their moral intuitions, then we can use their actions to estimate their morals, and thus include their moral weights in our analysis.In particular, I don\u2019t find it obviously wrong to let for-profit firms market drugs to doctors, nor do I think it remotely obvious that this is the main cause of a consistent four-decade rise in drug deaths.Yes of course, it is a problem if professionals can be bribed to give particular recommendations. But in most of these disputes parties on many sides are willing to offer such distorting rewards. My long-standing recommendation is to use conditional betting markets to induce more honest advice from such professionals, but so far few support that.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 5, 2013 4:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Delay Cosmology\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 5, 2013 4:00 am \nTitle: Delay Cosmology\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " We live in an age of unusually rapid fundamental discovery. This age cannot last long; it must soon slow down as we run out of basic things to discover. We may never run out of small things to discover, but there can be only so many big things.Such discovery brings status. Many are proud to live in the schools, disciplines, cities, or nations from which discovery is seen to originate. We are also proud to live in this age of discovery. While this discovery divides us to some extent, making us jealous of top discoverers, it unites us more I think, in pride as part of this age of discovery.This ability to unite via our discoveries is a scarce resource that we now greedily consume, at the cost of future generations to whom they will no longer be available. Some of these discoveries will give practical help, and aid our ability to grow our economy, and thereby help future generations. For those sorts of discoveries the future may on net benefit because we discover them now, rather than later.But many other sorts of discoveries are pretty unlikely to give practical help. By choosing to discover these today, we on average hurt future eras, depriving them of the joy and pride of discovery, and its ability to unite them around their shared status. This seems inefficient, because many kinds of discovery should get cheaper over time, because there are probably diminishing returns to the joy of more discoveries in the same generation, and because the future may have stronger needs for ways to unite them.This all suggests that we consider delaying some sorts of discovery. The best candidates are those that produce great pride, are pretty unlikely to lead to any practical help, and for which the costs of discovery seem to be falling. The best candidate to satisfy these criteria is, as far as I can tell, cosmology.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: May 5, 2013 4:00 am \nTitle: Delay Cosmology\nWe live in an age of unusually rapid fundamental discovery. This age cannot last long; it must soon slow down as we run out of basic things to discover. We may never run out of small things to discover, but there can be only so many big things.Such discovery brings status. Many are proud to live in the schools, disciplines, cities, or nations from which discovery is seen to originate. We are also proud to live in this age of discovery. While this discovery divides us to some extent, making us jealous of top discoverers, it unites us more I think, in pride as part of this age of discovery.This ability to unite via our discoveries is a scarce resource that we now greedily consume, at the cost of future generations to whom they will no longer be available. Some of these discoveries will give practical help, and aid our ability to grow our economy, and thereby help future generations. For those sorts of discoveries the future may on net benefit because we discover them now, rather than later.But many other sorts of discoveries are pretty unlikely to give practical help. By choosing to discover these today, we on average hurt future eras, depriving them of the joy and pride of discovery, and its ability to unite them around their shared status. This seems inefficient, because many kinds of discovery should get cheaper over time, because there are probably diminishing returns to the joy of more discoveries in the same generation, and because the future may have stronger needs for ways to unite them.This all suggests that we consider delaying some sorts of discovery. The best candidates are those that produce great pride, are pretty unlikely to lead to any practical help, and for which the costs of discovery seem to be falling. The best candidate to satisfy these criteria is, as far as I can tell, cosmology.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " While once upon a time advances in cosmology aided advances in basic physics, which lead to practical help, over time such connections have gotten much weaker. Today, the kinds of basic physics that cosmology is likely to help is very far from the sort that has much hope to give practical aid anytime soon. Such basic physics is thus also a sort of discovery we should consider delaying.I\u2019m not saying we create strong international law to prohibit such discovery. Much could go wrong with that to turn net gains into net losses. But we might at least locally offer more social disapproval and less status to such discoveries, in recognition of their greedy grab from future generations. Why praise the discoverers of today, who help little else and take glory and unity away from the future?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 30, 2008 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Deliberation in Prediction Markets\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 30, 2008 6:00 am \nTitle: Deliberation in Prediction Markets\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Monday I wrote:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 9, 2009 9:30 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Democracy Failings\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 9, 2009 9:30 pm \nTitle: Democracy Failings\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Data on 786 elections in 155 countries from 1974 to 2004 \u2026 [finds] that fraud may have affected the results in 41 percent of them. Perhaps that shouldn\u2019t be surprising, since incumbent politicians who cheat to get reelected stay in office 2.5 times longer than they would have playing it fair and square. \u2026Above $2,700 per capita, democracies are less prone to violence than are autocracies. But most political violence happens in countries where income is far below that threshold; there, democracy is associated with a greater risk of bloodshed. \u2026 Although the risk of violence falls in the year before an election, it rises in the year after. \u2026 Election misconduct tends to be concentrated in countries that have low per capita incomes, small populations, rich natural resources and a lack of institutional checks and balances. Eastern Europe didn\u2019t fit this picture. \u2026 Most of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, however, have all the characteristics that undermine elections, giving them a mere 3 percent chance of an honest vote \u2026 Afghanistan is not exceptional; in fact, electoral misconduct there was almost inevitable. \u2026Populist pressure does cause policies to deteriorate somewhat in the year before an election. \u2026 But governments that face frequent elections have significantly better economic policies when they are averaged over the political cycle, and governments that become subject to elections improve their policies. \u2026 [However] elections in which there is misconduct have, at best, no effect on economic policy because governments are off the hook of accountability. \u2026 One of the main ways incumbents steal elections is through patronage financed by looting the public purse.More here.\u00a0 Why again do we focus so much on \u201cbringing democracy\u201d to poor nations?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 22, 2010 11:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Democracy In Action\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 22, 2010 11:00 am \nTitle: Democracy In Action\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A Senate committee  dealt a big blow to the plans of two trading firms looking to create a  box-office futures exchange that would allow the movie industry as well  as investors to wager on movie ticket sales. \u2026 Federal regulators  only in the last week had given the first stage of approval to the  exchanges. \u2026Included in the Wall Street Transparency and  Accountability Act financial reform package, passed Wednesday by the  Senate Agriculture Committee, is a provision banning futures trading on  box office. \u2026. [Many are] scheduled to testify along with other motion picture  industry leaders before the House Subcommittee on General Farm  Commodities and Risk Management, which is also investigating the  proposed exchanges. \u2026 The next step in the Senate is for the Transparency and Accountability  Act to be merged with similar legislation proposed by the Senate Banking  Committee. (more; HT Midas Oracle)This is sad hour for prediction markets.\u00a0 Movie markets seem a near best case, where the public would:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 29, 2019 7:15 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Designing Crime Bounties\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: November 29, 2019 7:15 pm \nTitle: Designing Crime Bounties\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019ve been thinking about how to design a bounty system for enforcing criminal law. It is turning out to be a bit more complex than I\u2019d anticipated, so I thought I\u2019d try to open up this design process, by telling you of key design considerations, and inviting your suggestions.The basic idea is to post bounties, paid to the first hunter to convince a court that a particular party is guilty of a particular crime. In general that bounty might be paid by many parties, including the government, though I have in mind a vouching system, wherein the criminal\u2019s voucher pays a fine, and part of that goes to pay a bounty.\u00a0Here are some key concerns:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 10, 2010 10:30 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Detail Is Near\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: August 10, 2010 10:30 am \nTitle: Detail Is Near\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A pilot tells me that we naturally tend to judge how far away things are by how much detail we can see on them. He says that this leads to a bias whereby pilots overestimate how far away is the ground at night, and when water is flat and calm. \u00a0Experienced pilots know to correct for this. More examples where this detail heuristic leads to bias:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 24, 2013 10:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Diagnosis Futures\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 24, 2013 10:00 am \nTitle: Diagnosis Futures\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " From \u201997 to \u201999 I was a RWJF Health Policy Scholar (at UC Berkeley), and my final project and presentation was on what I called \u201ctreatment futures\u201d, i.e., the idea of using decision markets to forecast treatment-conditional health outcomes for individual patients. I proposed:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 23, 2010 6:00 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Difference Wisdom\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 23, 2010 6:00 pm \nTitle: Difference Wisdom\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Seek serenity to accept what you cannot change, courage to change what you can, and wisdom to know the difference.Imagine that you were thinking of buying or building a house.  Now consider various possible hypothesis you might have about your degree of influence over this resulting house.At one extreme, you might fatalistically assume you had no influence.  For example, you might think your spouse will pick the neighborhood, house, and all later home improvements, and that you\u2019d have zero input.  If this assumption were mistaken, you might later regret that you\u2019d invested little effort in thinking about what you wanted, or what was feasible.At the other extreme, you might assume you had budget and approval for a huge estate and mansion anywhere you wanted. \u00a0 So you might sketch out elaborate designs \u2013 the bowling alley goes here, ballroom to the south, the helipad over there, and so on.  If your budget was actually far smaller, however, most of this effort might be wasted.Yes, it can be good to spend a bit of time considering a wide range of influence levels.  Sure, sometimes you might think about what you\u2019d do if you won the lottery, or if you were locked in jail for decades.  But surely most of your planning should be done matched to the scale of your actual degree of influence.  Not much point in shopping for the best private jet if you can barely afford a car.The same principle applies to our strongest relations, such as romance and friendship.  These matter greatly deal to us, and so we\u2019d very much like to control them.  We make lists of what we want in our mates and allies, we rehearse what we will and won\u2019t accept from partners, and we analyze our interactions to assure ourselves we understand what is happening.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 23, 2010 6:00 pm \nTitle: Difference Wisdom\nSeek serenity to accept what you cannot change, courage to change what you can, and wisdom to know the difference.Imagine that you were thinking of buying or building a house.  Now consider various possible hypothesis you might have about your degree of influence over this resulting house.At one extreme, you might fatalistically assume you had no influence.  For example, you might think your spouse will pick the neighborhood, house, and all later home improvements, and that you\u2019d have zero input.  If this assumption were mistaken, you might later regret that you\u2019d invested little effort in thinking about what you wanted, or what was feasible.At the other extreme, you might assume you had budget and approval for a huge estate and mansion anywhere you wanted. \u00a0 So you might sketch out elaborate designs \u2013 the bowling alley goes here, ballroom to the south, the helipad over there, and so on.  If your budget was actually far smaller, however, most of this effort might be wasted.Yes, it can be good to spend a bit of time considering a wide range of influence levels.  Sure, sometimes you might think about what you\u2019d do if you won the lottery, or if you were locked in jail for decades.  But surely most of your planning should be done matched to the scale of your actual degree of influence.  Not much point in shopping for the best private jet if you can barely afford a car.The same principle applies to our strongest relations, such as romance and friendship.  These matter greatly deal to us, and so we\u2019d very much like to control them.  We make lists of what we want in our mates and allies, we rehearse what we will and won\u2019t accept from partners, and we analyze our interactions to assure ourselves we understand what is happening.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " But much of this is illusory overconfidence and over-reach; we usually have far less control over and understanding of our relations than we think.  Sure we can list features we like and dislike, all else equal.  And we might be mostly correct about which way those features influence our attraction.  Even so, we mostly just don\u2019t know why we like some and dislike others.  Sometimes we don\u2019t even realize who it is we like and dislike.If we calculate that it would be in our interest to like or dislike someone more, we have only a very limited ability to actually make ourselves do this.  Even when we decide we\u2019d be better off breaking it off a relation, we can find that quite hard to actually do so.  More likely we\u2019ll break something off and then make up reasons about why that was a good idea.I\u2019m not saying to never think about your relations; I\u2019m saying such thinking is more useful when you are more realistic about your influence.  Of course if others get wind of your realism they may respect you less, or think they can walk all over you. So in that way it might be in your interest to be somewhat deluded about your influence. And you won\u2019t get to be a famous inspirational speaker on relationships by speaking honestly about them. \u00a0But be careful to not take your confident image too seriously.The same principle also applies in futurism.  It is tempting to think we can remake the universe to be anything we now collectively want, and so to spend great efforts wondering how exactly we would want the universe to be if we had our druthers.  But if we are actually very constrained in our influence, most of this effort will be wasted.  Oh it might be a helpful exercise in far-mode thinking, to affirm far values and assert confidence in our abilities. \u00a0But it might not do much for the future.When our ability to influence the future is quite limited, then our first priority must be to make a best guess of what the future will actually be like, if we exert no influence.  This best guess should not be a wishful assertion of our far values, it should be a near-real description of how we would actually bet, if the asset at risk in the bet wer something we really cared about strongly.  And yes, that description may well be \u201ccynical.\u201dWith such a cynical would-bet best guess, one should then spend most of one\u2019s efforts asking which small variations on this scenario one would most prefer, and what kinds of actions could most usefully and reliably move the future toward these preferred scenarios. (Econ marginal analysis can help here.) \u00a0And then one should start doing such things. \u00a0Yes this approach seems less noble, fun, and optimistic, and talking this way won\u2019t make you an\u00a0inspirational\u00a0futurist, speaking at all the hip conferences. Even so, those small shifts are what would actually most help the future.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 15, 2010 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Diffusion By Learning\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 15, 2010 6:00 am \nTitle: Diffusion By Learning\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Innovation is terribly important; it is why we are rich.\u00a0 But how exactly does innovation happen?\u00a0 An awful lot of innovation seems to happen via diffusion, i.e., spreading one at a time via a network of who knows who.\u00a0 A recent AER paper considers three possible diffusion processes:[Consider] situations where the [innovation diffusion] dynamics are driven from within; that is, there are internal feedback effects from prior to future adopters.\u00a0 \u20261. Contagion. People adopt when they come in contact with others who have already adopted; that is, innovations spread much like epidemics.2. Social influence. People adopt when enough other people in the group have adopted; that is, innovations spread by a conformity motive.3. Social learning. People adopt once they see enough empirical evidence to convince them that the innovation is worth adopting, where the evidence is generated by the outcomes among prior adopters. Individuals may adopt at different times due to differences in their prior beliefs, amount of information gathered, and idiosyncratic costs.Social learning is consistent with the observed pattern of diffusion of hybrid corn, although we cannot say that it was the sole explanatory factor. We can also say with some confidence, however, that inertia and contagion were probably not the sole explanatory factors, and given Griliches\u2019s findings neither was social influence.I\u2019ve been watching this innovation process up close for several years, as prediction markets slowly spread through the corporate world.\u00a0 One might hope that we had central technology experts, and once they approved a new tech, everyone would adopt it.\u00a0 No way.\u00a0 People don\u2019t believe something works until they\u2019ve seen it work in something pretty close to their situation.\u00a0 A media story about something far away just doesn\u2019t say much.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 1, 2009 10:15 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Disagreeing About Doubt\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 1, 2009 10:15 pm \nTitle: Disagreeing About Doubt\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " The movie Doubt, now in theaters, offers an interesting chance for a disagreement case study.\u00a0 In the movie, Sister Beauvier accuses Father Flynn of a particular act, and viewers wonder: did he actually do it, and was she justified in her response?\u00a0 My wife and I disagreed quite a lot on Flynn's guilt \u2013 she's about at 95% confidence and I'm about at 40%. Apparently other viewers similarly diverge:Those I spoke to after the movie were quite sure, maybe even certain, that Father Flynn was either guilty or innocent. So what say the rest of you?\u00a0 And what is it about this situation that causes so much disagreement anyway?\u00a0 Don't read comments here unless you don't mind spoilers, which are fair game there.\u00a0 (If needed, let's ground this in terms of what is reasonable to estimate given everything the screenwriter knows.)Added: It helps to show a base rate and then corrections for each new factor.\u00a0 For example, on average 5%\u00a0 are guilty, and someone with a shameful past is twice as likely to be guilty, for a final estimate of 10%.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 14, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Disagreement Case Study \u2013 Balan and I\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 14, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Disagreement Case Study \u2013 Balan and I\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " David Balan and I exchanged a few posts here over the last few weeks on paternalism, and we had a one hour debate a week ago (audio here).\u00a0 \u00a0David and I are similarly expert by conventional measures, so this is more disagreeing with an equal than disagreeing with a superior.\u00a0 And being active contributors of Overcoming Bias, we are both well aware of many signs of bias.\u00a0 \u00a0David is employed by a U.S. agency much of whose policies are justified via paternalism, while I am employed in part because of an academic publication that leaned against paternalism.\u00a0 So we have similar potential for self-interest biases.\u00a0   David seems to disapprove of most policies in most societies today and through history that have been justified on paternalistic grounds.\u00a0 These include parents choosing kids\u2019 careers and spouses, bans on alternative religions, political groups and sexual orientations, rules about who can practice what professions, and limits on the freedoms of women, ethnic minorities, and lower classes.\u00a0 So if he could only choose in general between paternalism or not, I think David would choose not.\u00a0 \u00a0  But David considers the rulers of our society, our democratic majority and the opinion elites they follow, to be much better paternalists than the rulers of all those other societies.\u00a0 \u00a0By \"our society\" David means the United States and nations with similar paternalism policies.\u00a0 The main evidence David cites for the superiority of our ruling class is that we are the most prosperous society in human history.  \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 14, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Disagreement Case Study \u2013 Balan and I\nDavid Balan and I exchanged a few posts here over the last few weeks on paternalism, and we had a one hour debate a week ago (audio here).\u00a0 \u00a0David and I are similarly expert by conventional measures, so this is more disagreeing with an equal than disagreeing with a superior.\u00a0 And being active contributors of Overcoming Bias, we are both well aware of many signs of bias.\u00a0 \u00a0David is employed by a U.S. agency much of whose policies are justified via paternalism, while I am employed in part because of an academic publication that leaned against paternalism.\u00a0 So we have similar potential for self-interest biases.\u00a0   David seems to disapprove of most policies in most societies today and through history that have been justified on paternalistic grounds.\u00a0 These include parents choosing kids\u2019 careers and spouses, bans on alternative religions, political groups and sexual orientations, rules about who can practice what professions, and limits on the freedoms of women, ethnic minorities, and lower classes.\u00a0 So if he could only choose in general between paternalism or not, I think David would choose not.\u00a0 \u00a0  But David considers the rulers of our society, our democratic majority and the opinion elites they follow, to be much better paternalists than the rulers of all those other societies.\u00a0 \u00a0By \"our society\" David means the United States and nations with similar paternalism policies.\u00a0 The main evidence David cites for the superiority of our ruling class is that we are the most prosperous society in human history.  \n\n###\n\n", "completion": "  Paternalism is a disagreement between a group with power and a group without.\u00a0 The group without power will not take advice from the group with power, so the group with power forces their advice.\u00a0 Now I could be tempted by arguments that ask me to believe that groups with power tend in general to be correct in their paternalism.\u00a0 For example, one might argue that most societies have correctly limited the choices of children, because children are objectively more irrational than adults.\u00a0  But David asks much more of me.\u00a0 Since the rulers of all those other societies would be unlikely to grant our superiority as paternalists, to agree with David I must take his side in disagreeing with all those other rulers, in addition to taking his side in disagreeing with the people whose choices our paternalism limits.\u00a0 And David asks me to believe the happy coincidence that even though in most of history paternalism was on net bad for the society that was the most prosperous up to then, we just happen to live in the age where the paternalism of the richest society (but only them) is finally on net good.\u00a0 \u00a0 Since others disagree here, I must disagree with someone.\u00a0 \u00a0I can agree with David to doubt most paternalism in history, but I am wary of the standard bias to favor one\u2019s own society in evaluations.\u00a0 Our wealth doesn\u2019t seem to depend clearly enough on our paternalism for me to conclude much about our paternalism from our wealth.\u00a0 I am thus reluctant to empower one side in our paternalism disputes to force its view on the other side.\u00a0 So I tentatively side with those without power in all societies, including our own, and reject the claim that the powerful of our society are an unusually superior \"master class.\"\u00a0  \n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 5, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Disagreement Case Study: Hanson and Cutler\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: June 5, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Disagreement Case Study: Hanson and Cutler\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at CATO, took my health economics course in spring 2006, wherein I elaborated my story that we see little correlation between variations in medicine and health.\u00a0 \u00a0Like most students he didn\u2019t really believe me, and so last November Michael arranged to check on me by setting up a half hour group discussion between myself, star Harvard health economist David Cutler, Michael, and a few other CATO health folks.\u00a0  David Cutler is very pro-medicine.\u00a0 For example, last August his New England Journal of Medicine article assumed half of lifespan gains have been due to medicine, and then concluded:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 12, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Disagreement Case Study \u2013 Hawk Bias\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: March 12, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Disagreement Case Study \u2013 Hawk Bias\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Two weeks ago I asked for posts \"describing disagreement case studies;\" here is my first such post.\u00a0 In January I posted on Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon\u2019s Foreign Policy article claiming all known cognitive biases favor hawks over doves.\u00a0 Foreign Policy then invited me to write this letter:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 18, 2007 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Disagreement on Inflation\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: February 18, 2007 6:00 am \nTitle: Disagreement on Inflation\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Bryan Caplan points us to a paper by Mankiw, Reis, and Wolfers on disagreement about inflation:\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 1, 2015 8:25 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Disciplines As Contrarian Correlators\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 1, 2015 8:25 am \nTitle: Disciplines As Contrarian Correlators\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " I\u2019m often interested in subjects that fall between disciplines, or more accurately that intersect multiple disciplines. I\u2019ve noticed that it tends to be harder to persuade people of claims in these areas, even when one is similarly conservative in basing arguments on standard accepted claims from relevant fields.One explanation is that people realize that they can\u2019t gain as much prestige from thinking about claims outside their main discipline, so they just don\u2019t bother to think much about such claims. Instead they default to rejecting claims if they see any reason whatsoever to doubt them.Another explanation is that people in field X more often accept the standard claims from field X than they accept the standard claims from any other field Y. And the further away in disciplinary space is Y, or the further down in the academic status hierarchy is Y, the less likely they are to accept a standard Y claim. So an argument based on claims from both X and Y is less likely to be accepted by X folks than a claim based only on claims from X.A third explanation is that people in field X tend to learn and believe a newspaper version of field Y that differs from the expert version of field Y. So X folks tend to reject claims that are based on expert versions of Y claims, since they instead believe the differing newspaper versions. Thus a claim based on expert versions of both X and Y claims will be rejected by both X and Y folks.These explanations all have a place. But a fourth explanation just occurred to me. Imagine that smart people who are interested in many topics tend to be contrarian. If they hear a standard claim of any sort, perhaps 1/8 to 1/3 of the time they will think of a reason why that claim might not be true, and decide to\u00a0disagree with this standard claim.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: April 1, 2015 8:25 am \nTitle: Disciplines As Contrarian Correlators\nI\u2019m often interested in subjects that fall between disciplines, or more accurately that intersect multiple disciplines. I\u2019ve noticed that it tends to be harder to persuade people of claims in these areas, even when one is similarly conservative in basing arguments on standard accepted claims from relevant fields.One explanation is that people realize that they can\u2019t gain as much prestige from thinking about claims outside their main discipline, so they just don\u2019t bother to think much about such claims. Instead they default to rejecting claims if they see any reason whatsoever to doubt them.Another explanation is that people in field X more often accept the standard claims from field X than they accept the standard claims from any other field Y. And the further away in disciplinary space is Y, or the further down in the academic status hierarchy is Y, the less likely they are to accept a standard Y claim. So an argument based on claims from both X and Y is less likely to be accepted by X folks than a claim based only on claims from X.A third explanation is that people in field X tend to learn and believe a newspaper version of field Y that differs from the expert version of field Y. So X folks tend to reject claims that are based on expert versions of Y claims, since they instead believe the differing newspaper versions. Thus a claim based on expert versions of both X and Y claims will be rejected by both X and Y folks.These explanations all have a place. But a fourth explanation just occurred to me. Imagine that smart people who are interested in many topics tend to be contrarian. If they hear a standard claim of any sort, perhaps 1/8 to 1/3 of the time they will think of a reason why that claim might not be true, and decide to\u00a0disagree with this standard claim.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " So far, this contrarianism is a barrier to getting people to accept any claims based on more than a handful of other claims. If you present an argument based on five claims, and your audience tends to randomly reject more than one fifth of claims, then most of your audience will reject your claim. But let\u2019s add one more element: correlations within disciplines.Assume that the process of educating someone to become a member of discipline X tends to induce a correlation in contrarian tendencies. Instead of independently accepting or rejecting the claims that they hear, they see claims in their discipline X as coming in packages to be accepted or rejected together. Some of them reject those packages and leave X for other places. But the ones who haven\u2019t rejected them accept them as packages, and so are open to arguments that depend on many parts of those packages.If people who learn area X accept X claims as packages, but evaluate Y claims individually, then they will be less willing to accept claims based on many Y claims. To a lesser extent, they also reject claims based on some Y claims and some X claims.Note that none of these explanations suggest that\u00a0these claims are actually false more often; they are just rejected more.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 24, 2022 9:25 pm\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Discussion Contests\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 24, 2022 9:25 pm \nTitle: Discussion Contests\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " My last post outlined how to make a better \u201csport\u201d wherein people compete on, and are ranked by, their ability to persuade audiences of claims. Which might be a nice way to find/make sales-folk.But what I\u2019d really like is to find/make people good at informative discussion. That is, we the audience want to listen to people who are good at taking the floor of our attention and talking so as to more rapidly move our estimates toward higher-confidence values. And we want this more for the case where we are a reasonable rational audience, relative to our being easily swayed by demagoguery. We want to listen to people who will more rapidly change our reasonable minds.Here\u2019s an idea using betting markets. Imagine a topic for which we will later have some ex post objective measure of truth. We can thus create (possibly subsidized) betting markets over this space of outcomes. Also imagine having some info weights regarding different possible probability distribution over outcomes. Using these weights, we can create a single number saying how informative are any given set of prices. Thus we can say how much info was added (or subtracted) to those prices during any given time period.So if we have a center of attention \u201cstage\u201d wherein one speaker talks at a time, and if the audience participates in a betting market while they listen, then we can get a measure of the info added by each speaker while they spoke. So we can score each speaker on their info given per second of talking.Okay, yes, there may be a delay between when a speaker says something and when a listener comes to realize its implications and then makes a resulting market trade. This is a reason to have speakers talk for longer durations, so that their score over this duration can include this delayed realization effect.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 24, 2022 9:25 pm \nTitle: Discussion Contests\nMy last post outlined how to make a better \u201csport\u201d wherein people compete on, and are ranked by, their ability to persuade audiences of claims. Which might be a nice way to find/make sales-folk.But what I\u2019d really like is to find/make people good at informative discussion. That is, we the audience want to listen to people who are good at taking the floor of our attention and talking so as to more rapidly move our estimates toward higher-confidence values. And we want this more for the case where we are a reasonable rational audience, relative to our being easily swayed by demagoguery. We want to listen to people who will more rapidly change our reasonable minds.Here\u2019s an idea using betting markets. Imagine a topic for which we will later have some ex post objective measure of truth. We can thus create (possibly subsidized) betting markets over this space of outcomes. Also imagine having some info weights regarding different possible probability distribution over outcomes. Using these weights, we can create a single number saying how informative are any given set of prices. Thus we can say how much info was added (or subtracted) to those prices during any given time period.So if we have a center of attention \u201cstage\u201d wherein one speaker talks at a time, and if the audience participates in a betting market while they listen, then we can get a measure of the info added by each speaker while they spoke. So we can score each speaker on their info given per second of talking.Okay, yes, there may be a delay between when a speaker says something and when a listener comes to realize its implications and then makes a resulting market trade. This is a reason to have speakers talk for longer durations, so that their score over this duration can include this delayed realization effect.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Now one way to use this is debate style. Give each speaker the same amount of total time, in the same-length time blocks, and see which one added the most info by the end. Repeat in many pairwise contests. But another approach is to instead just pay to try to get the most info out of any given set of potential speakers.Imagine an auction for each short period of speaking. If you bid the most per second, you get to the center stage to talk, and then you will be paid in proportion to the info you end up contributing, according to market price changes. Speakers could bid on themselves, or investors might pay for speaker bids. (Let speakers bid for future time periods long enough to include the delayed realization effect.)Even if there were other sources of info possible, besides this center stage, this auction would still give a credible reason for most of the audience to pay some attention to the center stage. After all, the auction would have selected for the one person expected to be most worth listening to, at least on average.So now, to induce an informative discussion on a topic, one both subsidizes prediction markets on that topic, and commits to pay each person who wins an auction to speak from a center stage a reward proportional to the info added to those prediction markets while they speak.What if different time periods are expected to add different amounts of info to the market prices through channels other than the center stage speaker? This could bias the debate structure, but isn\u2019t a problem for the auction structure. Auction bidders would bid more for those extra info time periods, but the winner would still be the speaker expected to add the most info.This should be pretty easy to test in lab experiments. Who wants to help set them up?\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 1, 2009 6:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Disgust Works\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: September 1, 2009 6:00 am \nTitle: Disgust Works\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " A feeling of disgust re contamination keeps people well:Both disgust and contamination sensitivity likely evolved to protect us from infectious disease. Paradoxically, disgust may be reduced by frequent exposure to disgust-inducing cues \u2014 cues most likely to occur in disease-rich environments. In this study, we examined whether more frequent or recent illness might act to reverse this process. To test this, we surveyed 616 adults, obtaining illness frequency and recency data, disgust and contamination sensitivity, and a variety of control measures. Heightened contamination sensitivity was associated with more frequent infectious illness, but not with recency of infection. We also found that participants who had heightened contamination sensitivity and who were also more disgust sensitive had significantly fewer recent infections. These findings suggest that frequent illness may up-regulate contamination sensitivity potentially counteracting the effects of exposure on disgust. More importantly, these data provide the first direct evidence of a protective effect of contamination and disgust, against infectious disease.People may over apply their disgust at times, but they probably also under apply it at other times.\u00a0 Given what they know about what can infect them, they may well get their disgust level about right.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 24, 2010 10:00 am\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Title: Dissing Citizens\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 24, 2010 10:00 am \nTitle: Dissing Citizens\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Imagine a \u201cdemocracy\u201d where citizens could technically vote for anyone, but where authorities strongly recommended particular candidates for each office, and those who voted for others were given extensive psychiatric treatment, out of concern for their welfare, and taken away from their jobs and families, out of concern for the welfare of others.\u00a0 Technically, this could make sense \u2014 maybe there really is always a clear best candidate, and only crazy folks would think otherwise.But this situation could also easily describe strong repression, and it seems to dis voters by restricting their control.\u00a0 People like democracy in part because it raises their status, by making them seem in control.\u00a0 But if so, voter status must fall as that appearance of control is restricted by law \u2014 there is an essential tension between democracy and regulation that overrules voter beliefs.While we have many kinds of regulations supported by many kinds of rationales, one very common rationale is bias, that people make bad choices, bad not just for society as a whole, but bad for each particular choosing person according to their own preferences, holding constant all other decisions.\u00a0 Such rationales are commonly offered regarding product safety, professional licensing, and financial regulations, and in legal and election procedures.It may well be that many people do often make such mistakes, and that they are furthermore stubborn enough not to listen to advice telling them about their mistakes.\u00a0 So it might well require government force to keep folks from hurting themselves via unwise choices.\u00a0 But there is a real conflict between telling voters they are wise enough to run the government, and using force to keep them from acting on many of their beliefs.\n\n@@@\n\n"}
{"prompt": "Date: January 24, 2010 10:00 am \nTitle: Dissing Citizens\nImagine a \u201cdemocracy\u201d where citizens could technically vote for anyone, but where authorities strongly recommended particular candidates for each office, and those who voted for others were given extensive psychiatric treatment, out of concern for their welfare, and taken away from their jobs and families, out of concern for the welfare of others.\u00a0 Technically, this could make sense \u2014 maybe there really is always a clear best candidate, and only crazy folks would think otherwise.But this situation could also easily describe strong repression, and it seems to dis voters by restricting their control.\u00a0 People like democracy in part because it raises their status, by making them seem in control.\u00a0 But if so, voter status must fall as that appearance of control is restricted by law \u2014 there is an essential tension between democracy and regulation that overrules voter beliefs.While we have many kinds of regulations supported by many kinds of rationales, one very common rationale is bias, that people make bad choices, bad not just for society as a whole, but bad for each particular choosing person according to their own preferences, holding constant all other decisions.\u00a0 Such rationales are commonly offered regarding product safety, professional licensing, and financial regulations, and in legal and election procedures.It may well be that many people do often make such mistakes, and that they are furthermore stubborn enough not to listen to advice telling them about their mistakes.\u00a0 So it might well require government force to keep folks from hurting themselves via unwise choices.\u00a0 But there is a real conflict between telling voters they are wise enough to run the government, and using force to keep them from acting on many of their beliefs.\n\n###\n\n", "completion": " Consider: which voters are in charge of the policies that keep voters from acting on their beliefs \u2013 can these two groups of voters really be the same?\u00a0 Yes, citizens may realize they are error-prone and intend to use government to keep them from making mistakes.\u00a0 But then voters would only need to be advised by the government of their mistakes, not forced to follow government advice.\u00a0 And voluntary deals with private orgs could achieve the same outcome.\u00a0 Yes perhaps a majority of voters tries to keep a minority of voters from their mistakes, but if so why is such force applied to all voters?This tension becomes especially strong when voters are prevented by force from acting on their political beliefs.\u00a0 Consider legal limits on which candidates voters may elect to public office, limits on policies candidates may advocate, or limits on advisors voters may hear on candidates and policies.\u00a0 Such limits should detract from the status of being a voter in control of government \u2013 these limits seem to publicly declare that voters cannot be trusted on certain of their beliefs, and that the elites who set and maintain such limits (e.g., court judges) are the rightful higher-status rulers over such foolish lower-status voting rabble.But what is clear to me may well not be clear to most voters.\u00a0 Voting is done in an especially thoughtless sort of far mode, where a great many contradictions remain unnoticed.\u00a0 But with time, this conflict may become more obvious \u2013 how then will voters resolve it, by demanding fewer limits on their actions, or by limiting the vote to a smaller subset of less obviously foolish citizens?\n\n@@@\n\n"}