Barbara Ehrenreich had an excellent article in yesterday’s New York Times on the many ways that being poor can land you in trouble with the law. One striking example:
Posts Tagged ‘Society’
The Criminalization of Poverty
Posted in Government, Homelessness, Society, tagged Government, Homelessness, Society on August 9, 2009| 3 Comments »
Must Read Article on Farming
Posted in Scarcity / Abundance, Society, Technology, tagged Scarcity / Abundance, Society, Technology on August 4, 2009| 2 Comments »
Some of you may recall my post Organic Farming Harms the Environment. As I wrote, one of the things that bugs me about organic proponents is that they act as if there are no tradeoffs. I don’t understand much about farming, but I do understand something about how economic activity works. I presume that modern farming has responded to market pressure and evolved to optimize along many different dimensions. I’m pretty sure you can’t magically improve along one dimension without sacrificing along another dimension.
Thus, I was not surprised to read this article (hat tip to Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution) on modern farming by an honest to goodness family farmer. It is full of good examples of the tradeoffs I suspected were lurking. For instance, by using herbicides, farmers reduce the need to till, which is a major source of soil erosion. Hog crates and turkey cages may seem inhumane, but they prevent sows from killing piglets and turkeys dying from drowning. Crop rotations that decrease the need for synthetic fertilizer increase the amount of water needed to produce the desired crop.
Read the whole thing. It reinforced my confidence in the general rule of trying to avoid legislating solutions. Send pricing signals by allocating resource rights and taxing negative externalities. Then let the market do its optimization.
Violence on the Decline
Posted in Culture, Epidemiology, Happiness, Interventions, Invisible Etiology, Self-Fullfilling Prophecy, Society, tagged Culture, Epidemiology, Happiness, Interventions, Invisible Etiology, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Society on July 25, 2009| 1 Comment »
From Monday’s Washington Post:
The District, New York and Los Angeles are on track for fewer killings this year than in any other year in at least four decades. Boston, San Francisco, Minneapolis and other cities are also seeing notable reductions in homicides.
Full article is here, in which more sensible police approaches are given credit for the decline.
The Diamond Rule
Posted in Cooperation, Invisible Etiology, Memes, Society, tagged Cooperation, Invisible Etiology, Memes, Society on July 14, 2009| 11 Comments »
We all know the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. TED Prize Wish winner, Karen Armstrong, even laudably proposed that a Charter for Compassion based on the observation that all three Abrahamic traditions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) have the Golden Rule at their core.
I do believe that if we all followed the Golden Rule as the basis for how we treat one another the world would be a better place. But I also think there is a a more fundamental rule, call it the Diamond Rule, which is even better:
Treat others as you believe they would want you to treat them, if they knew everything that you did.
The difference is subtle, and may not practically speaking yield different action that often. But when it does, the difference can be significant.
Paying Women to Not Get Pregnant
Posted in Government, Incentives, Interventions, Poverty, Psychology, Society, tagged Government, Incentives, Interventions, Poverty, Psychology, Society on June 9, 2009| 9 Comments »
What’s fascinating to me about this is not that it works so well and or that there might actually be support in the Obama administration for doing it on a national scale, but rather that there has not been a backlash against it yet. What are the odds that something like this will actually get implemented? Is it actually a good thing?
hat tip: Annie Duke’s mom
Is the ‘War on Drugs’ Ending?
Posted in Education, Government, Language, Society, tagged Education, Government, Language, Society on May 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »
A few short months ago, Hillary Clinton declared an end to the “war on terror.” Now, it appears as though the “war on drugs” is ending as well, or is it?
If Rafe Were In Charge: Major Medical Edition
Posted in Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Economics, Government, Health, Interventions, Society, tagged Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Economics, Government, Health, Interventions, Society on April 16, 2009| 3 Comments »
Kevin started an interesting discussion that included a thoughtful proposal for the problem of major medical care costs risk mitigation. You should read that here before reading my proposal below.
Part 1: Major Medical Annuities. Federally mandated/funded (similar to SSI/Medicare), with a specific initial lifetime value that is the same for everyone. The concept is that you pick a number slightly bigger than the average expected lifetime major medical bill and set aside that pot of money for everyone individually. At some point (e.g. 65) you can choose to start drawing down from your pot as taxable income. Prior to then, the only way the fund can be used is for major medical expenses not covered by other insurance you may have. Such payments go directly to providers and are tax-exempt. When you die, any leftover amount gets transferred to the MMA accounts of your heirs (per your desired breakdown, or according to probate law in the absence of a will).
Leveraging Taxes for Civil Engagement
Posted in Alternative Institutions, Economics, Government, Incentives, Society, tagged Alternative Institutions, Economics, Government, Incentives, Society on April 14, 2009| 1 Comment »
Dan Ariely had an interesting idea on NPR’s Marketplace today. Here’s the audio of the segment. The idea is to get tax payers thinking about how their tax dollars should be spent, thus getting them more civilly engaged. His research and that of others suggests that such activity would reduce the propensity to cheat on one’s taxes, and may even get people to pay more than they would otherwise.
Is the Party Over?
Posted in Emergence, Government, Incentives, Politics, Society, tagged Emergence, Government, Politics, Society on April 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I don’t like the Republican or Libertarian parties. But I’m also no fan of the Democratic party. In fact, I dislike all political parties and think they should be done away with. And while I’m not naive enough to think that this will happen, it makes me glad to see that the “post partisan” utopia is closer today than it was a year ago.
Another Must Read on the Origins of the Crisis
Posted in Economics, Interconnectedness, Society, Stability, tagged Economics, Interconnectedness, Society, Stability on April 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Steven Gjerstad and Vernon Smith have published a really nice article that starts out with bubbles in general and goes on to explain why the bursting of this particular bubble hurt the economy so much. It echoes a lot of themes that I’ve covered before, but is obviously much more soundly though out.
The short version is that the effect of a bubble on the economy is determined by its effect on consumer spending. The Dot Com Bubble didn’t have much of an effect because it primarily affected institutions and already relatively wealthy consumers. However, the Fed’s attempt to shorten the resulting recession created a loose monetary policy which forced dollars into the most attractive asset class: homes. This attractiveness stemmed from relaxed lending standards and tax-free capital gains on homes, which created more buyers. But asset appreciation in this class is fundamentally limited by the ability of consumers to repay loans from income, which was not growing fast enough. As the institutions insuring mortgages reached their limits, they slowed the issuing of policies, which dried up the market for new mortgages, which dried up the ability of people to buy, which decreased prices, which sent home equity under water, which further decreased the flow of insurance policies.
Because home equity and home ownership help drive consumer spending, this burst bubble then affected the real economy. Cool. Fortuitously, Vernon Smith’s Rationality in Economics is the next book in my pile.
Organic Farming Harms the Environment
Posted in Scarcity / Abundance, Society, Technology, tagged Scarcity / Abundance, Society, Technology on March 26, 2009| 22 Comments »
One of things I object to about mainstream environmentalists is that they act as if there are no tradeoffs. For example, they simultaneously promote organic farming, argue for biodiversity , and lobby for more open space. Personally, I think the second and third are very important. In my value system, they are are very close to terminal goals. Which is why I avoid organic foods.
Reason has a short interview with Norman Borlaug that nicely sums up the tradeoffs required by organic farming. There is literally nobody who understands modern agriculture better. The bottom line is that if the US tried to produce today’s agriculture output with 1960s era technology, we would need on the order of 1 million square miles of additional farmland (assuming that the marginal productivity of the land decreases somewhat as you bring less productive ares into play). That’s a swath 1000 miles by 1000 miles. That’s about 1/3 the land area of the contiguous 48 states.
Replicate this calculation all over the world and you’d have massive deforestation and habitat destruction. Remember the unintended slashing and burning rainforests to plant oil palms for subsidized biodiesel? Now multiply that by 10. No thanks.
Tribes
Posted in Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Crowdsourcing, Culture, Invisible Etiology, Language, Society, tagged Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Crowdsourcing, Culture, Invisible Etiology, Language, Society on March 24, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Tribes are hot.
Kevin has referred more than once to the famous Dunbar number for limits on optimal human tribe size.
One of my favorite books recently is Seth Godin’s book on leadership, called — you guessed it — Tribes.
Yesterday I heard a great talk by David Logan, co-author of Tribal Leadership.
Two Books On Cognitive Science You Should Read
Posted in Cognition, Psychology, Science, Society, tagged Cognition, Psychology, Science, Society on March 17, 2009| 9 Comments »
As I mentioned in this post, one of the three primary planks of my worldview is that, “…the human brain is a woefully inadequate decision making substrate.” I started adopting this posture in graduate school and have refined it with constant input from the cognitive psychology and neurobiology literature over the years. Luckily, you don’t have to put in that kind of time. Simply go out and read Rational Choice in an Uncertain Worlds by Hastie and Dawes and The Accidental Mind by Linden.
Two Sociology Books You Should Read
Posted in Culture, Government, Poverty, Society, tagged Culture, Government, Poverty, Society on March 10, 2009| 1 Comment »
As you’ve probably figured out by now, I prefer to base decisions on statistically significant evidence. However, in order to gather such evidence, you must have hypotheses in the form of testable models. If the models you try to test are divorced from reality on the ground, your results will be useless no matter how statistically significant.
Therefore, if you’re interested in issues of poverty and race in the US, here are two ethnographies you should read. Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh and Cop in the Hood by Peter Moskos. As sociology PhD candidates, both went out and actually became actors in poor black neighborhoods. Venkatesh hung out with a crack gang in a Chicago housing project and Moskos became a police officer in Baltimore’s roughest neighborhood.
I May Have Been Wrong About Macroeconomics
Posted in Education, Government, Society, tagged Education, Government, Society on January 29, 2009| 3 Comments »
When I was an undergraduate studying macroeconomics, I came to the conclusion that it was pretty much total bullshit. Because I was in a co-terminal masters program, I was also studying graduate level decision theory, game theory, microeconomics, behavioral economics, and dynamic systems. In comparison, it seemed clear to me that macroeconomics was not a coherent study of a complex system.
Lately, Arnold Kling’s blog posts have been reinforcing this belief. However, we may both be wrong. Arnold studied and practiced macroeconomics in the late 1970s. Given the delay in propagating knowledge to the undergraduate level, that’s probably also what was taught in my late 1980s undergraduate textbook. However, Will Ambrosini observes that Arnold’s views are outdated and this is a problem with non-macro economists in general. He points to this essay and I find myself convinced that modern macroeconomics is a coherent study of a complex system.
I thought this might provide you some measure of comfort. If anyone wants me to summarize the particulars of why I changed my mind, let me know.
Powerful Images
Posted in Government, Media, Politics, Society, tagged Government, Media, Politics, Society on January 28, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Why It’s Important to be an Optimist
Posted in Cognition, Epistemology, Limits of Knowledge, Psychology, Self-Fullfilling Prophecy, Society, tagged Cognition, Epistemology, Limits of Knowledge, Psychology, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Society on January 20, 2009| 2 Comments »
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. (James Branch Cabell)
I am currently reading What Are You Optimistic About?, a collection of short essays by thought leaders in many different disciplines on the eponymous subject. I’m also reading True Enough, a compelling argument by Farhad Manjoo for how despite — nay, because of — the fire hose of information that permeates modern society and is available for the asking, the schism between what’s true and what we believe is widening; a polemic on polemics if you will. Taken together, these two books suggest to me that there is a case, not for being optimistic per se, but for why you should consciously, actively try hard to become an optimist if you aren’t already.
Society According to Kevin: Part 1
Posted in Incentives, Markets, Models, Society, tagged Incentives, Markets, Models, Society on January 15, 2009| 7 Comments »
How Our Moral Compasses Fail Us
From the comments on my Introduction to this series, it appears I have discovered a controversial topic. Good. My first objective will be to illustrate why we cannot rely on moral compasses to guide society. After some thought, I have decided to break the topic of moral compasses into two posts: how they fail and why they fail.
Society According to Kevin: Introduction
Posted in Incentives, Markets, Models, Society, tagged Incentives, Markets, Models, Society on January 2, 2009| 11 Comments »
I was recently having a conversation with a mutual friend of Rafe’s and mine. Like the two of us, he’s quite smart, well educated, and socially aware. I respect his thinking a lot. However, during the course of this conversation, it became clear to me that he holds what I think of as an overly moralistic view of human behavior.
From my perspective, it seemed like he thinks that people’s behavior is governed primarily by an internal moral compass rather than incentives. So if you want to change their behavior, you should redirect their moral compass rather than adjust their incentives. People who don’t adjust their behavior are defecting from society and should be sanctioned.
I encounter this view quite often in my social circle and this instance inspired me to write a series of posts to explain how I think things actually work. You’re free to disagree with me, of course. In fact, I expect most people to disagree with me. But I’ve thought rather hard about this issue and I’ll put my model up against the moralistic view when it comes to predicting a population’s average behavior or choosing an effective policy prescription.
Homelessness
Posted in Culture, Health, Homelessness, Interventions, Scarcity / Abundance, Society, tagged Culture, Health, Homelessness, Interventions, Scarcity / Abundance, Society on December 25, 2008| 1 Comment »
Should We Hold the Bush Administration Accountable?
Posted in Government, Society, tagged Ethics, Government, Society on December 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Paul Phillips’s blog entry quoting Greenwald on Bill Moyers sums up it up pretty well. And I’ve wondered what the Obama administration is going to do about this and what they should do. The arguments for not pursuing the Bush administration’s crimes are good ones. We have such big fish to fry with the economy, climate and wars that it would be a huge distraction right now. And secondarily, it would come off as divisiveness in a time when we need it least, not to mention that it was one of Obama’s main campaign promises change the culture of partisan politics that has plagued us for so long.
Obama’s Must Do List
Posted in Government, Interventions, Society, tagged Government, Interventions, Society on November 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Everybody has their wishlist and “must do” lists for the new President. Back in March of 2007, the NY Times published this Op Ed piece that I personally believe is critical and outlines what needs to be done above all else. The article goes into much more detail about specifics, but the overall thrust is threefold:
- Restore Habeas Corpus
- Stop Illegal Spying
- Ban Torture, Really
I’m curious to know though, what do you think the priorities should be for Obama’s presidency?
Historical Inflection Point
Posted in Politics, Society, Voting, tagged Politics, Society, Voting on November 16, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I May Be a Credit Crunch “Denier” Too
Posted in Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems, tagged Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems on October 23, 2008| 10 Comments »
As most of you already know, I am an anthropogenic global warming skeptic, aka “denier”. Well, a new paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has turned me into a credit crunch skeptic too.
The maintstream narrative on why we need a bailout is that credit is “frozen”. We can’t just let the financial sector sort itself out because it provides the credit “grease” that lubricates the rest of the economy. The graphs in this paper make it pretty clear that the wheels of Main Street have plenty of grease. So it looks to me like the bailout is corporate welfare plain and simple. It also means that Paulson and Bernanke talking about how bad things are to justify the bailout may have actually exacerbated any real recession by magnifying the psychological salience of the crisis.
Two Paths to Empathy
Posted in Psychology, Society, tagged Psychology, Society on October 21, 2008| 1 Comment »
By all accounts, the ability to empathize with others is the hallmark of social behavior. Indeed, when we come across those rare individuals whom we view as anti-social, or those even more rare individuals that we label as sociopaths, the diminished or missing feature of their personality is empathy.
There are two paths to empathetic behavior, one innate, and one constructed. (more…)
Financial Crisis Act III: The Flailing Response
Posted in Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems, tagged Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems on October 15, 2008| 6 Comments »
As we saw in Act I and Act II, the current financial crisis was enabled by government interference in the housing and mortgage markets, then initiated by Wall Street’s willful blindness to systematic risk in the MBS market. Now we are observing the government’s flailing response.
First they bail out Bear Stearns. Then they let Lehman go bankrupt. But AIG gets a lifeline. On to a $700B bailout intended to purchase toxic MBSs. And most recently forcing several probably healthy banks to absorb $250B in government investment. Along the way, there were a bunch of changes to FDIC regulations and a see-sawing stock market.
You might be asking yourself, what the heck is going on here? The reason for all the flailing is that the government is attempting to implement a command and control solution to an extremely distributed problem.
Financial Crisis Act II: Wall Street Sharks
Posted in Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems, tagged Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems on October 3, 2008| 3 Comments »
When the bailout passed, I first thought this post was moot. But then I reconsidered. There’s still plenty of time to affect the implementation and several lessons to be learned. Also, when I’m pissed off, it’s nice to know that I have a good reason.
In Act I, we saw how government meddling overheated the housing and mortgage markets. Now we’ll see how Wall Street took advantage of this opportunity and also apportion some blame to ourselves.
Financial Crisis Act I: Government Meddling
Posted in Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems, tagged Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems on October 1, 2008| 6 Comments »
Let me start by saying that the financial crisis is a very complex situation. I read several economics blogs every day and quite a few academic papers every month. My semi-professional opinion is that no economist even comes close to fully understanding the financial system, let alone the complete macroeconomy. Luckily, I haven’t seen any of them delusional enough to assert that they do in a professional forum. So when you hear a talking head spouting off about the crisis, take what he says with a grain of salt (this includes me, of course). At best, he only sort of knows what he’s talking about.
Because of the complexity, I think we should be very careful to take baby steps. Going off half-cocked is much more likely to make things worse than better. I think we need to do three things. First, we need to understand the underlying causes of the mortgage meltdown that kicked off the cascade (not because I think fixing the cause will solve the problem, but because it will help us avoid making things worse). Second, we need to examine how the cascade was magnified so we can hopefully install some breaks going forward. Third, we need to agree on the outcomes we most want to prevent as a society (as individuals, I’m sure we all want to keep our houses, jobs, and savings).
Who’s Curious About the Financial Crisis?
Posted in Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems, tagged Government, Politics, Society, Socio-technical systems on September 29, 2008| 1 Comment »
So as not to waste my expensive schooling, I still keep up with economics as a hobby. I don’t expect other people to generally share this interest, but it occurred to me that the current financial crisis is an excellent example of what happens when a complex adaptive system experiences a shock. Is anybody curious to have us discuss this topic? If so, what is specifically interesting to you? My short answer is to read everything by Arnold Kling at EconLog. Of course, I have a lot more thoughts if anyone wants to hear them.
Follow Up on the Ascetic Meme
Posted in Climate, Cooperation, Society, tagged Climate, Cooperation, Society on September 6, 2008| 2 Comments »
Jay makes a thoughtful comment to my last post on the Ascetic Meme. While I’m pleased that I was able to affect Jay enough to write such a comment, I’m dismayed that the effect was not the one I intended. I don’t mean to be either insulting or hostile to the vast majority of regular people that are concerned about the environment. Heck, I’m one of them.
Policy Implications of the Ascetic Meme
Posted in Climate, Cooperation, Evolution, Memes, Society, tagged Climate, Cooperation, Evolution, Memes, Society on August 18, 2008| 5 Comments »
The Insidious Ascetic Meme
Posted in Climate, Cooperation, Genetics, Society, tagged Climate, Cooperation, Genetics, Society on July 24, 2008| 8 Comments »
As I discussed in Environmental Ideology and the Ascetic Meme, the Ascetic Meme is a severe form of the Frugality Meme. In this post, I’ll explore how I think it arises and the social interactions that emerge when the Ascetic Meme takes hold.
Environmental Ideology and The Ascetic Meme
Posted in Climate, Cooperation, Evolution, Genetics, Society, tagged Climate, Cooperation, Evolution, Genetics, Society on June 30, 2008| 14 Comments »
I’ve always been ambivalent about environmentalism. On the one hand, my gut instinct is usually to conserve and preserve as a default policy. On the other hand, a lot of environmentalists seem to adopt an absolutist posture. Any harm to the environment is bad. No tradeoffs. No cost-benefit analysis. No looking at the big picture. I’ve become more concerned with this tension as the need for practical environmental policy has become more imminent. I think I’ve managed to tease out some of the underlying causes of this tension and I believe it boils down to what Rafe and I have started calling the Ascetic Meme. (more…)
Stray Thought About the Singularity
Posted in Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Government, Singularity, Society, Socio-technical systems, tagged Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Government, Singularity, Society, Socio-technical systems on June 3, 2008| 1 Comment »
Rafe’s post on complex systems defending themselves randomly collided in my mind with this post and paper by Robin Hanson on the Singularity to spur a stray thought. What if the Singularity were catalyzed by changes in organizations rather than intelligence or manufacturing?
The Socioeconomics of Cancer
Posted in Cancer, Epidemiology, Poverty, Society, tagged Cancer, Epidemiology, Poverty, Society on May 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Pop Quiz: Which is a bigger determinant of cancer mortality in America, being poor or being black?
According to Dr. Harold Freeman of the National Cancer Institute, poverty is the bigger factor today, but it hasn’t always been so:
Global Warming
Posted in Alternative Institutions, Limits of Knowledge, Markets, Models, Society, tagged Alternative Institutions, Limits of Knowledge, Markets, Models, Society on May 6, 2008| 11 Comments »
A few months ago a friend of mine engaged me in a discussion about the controversy surrounding global warming. If you are surprised to hear that there is still controversy, read on; I was equally surprised.
Dangerous Media, part 2
Posted in Culture, Education, Government, Media, Society, tagged Culture, Education, Government, Media, Society on May 1, 2008| 2 Comments »
I have talked about some of the dangerous aspects of main stream media in the past. Recently I was reading The Black Swan, in which the author argues that watching TV news, listening to news on the radio, and even reading newspapers actually makes you less informed (and dangerously so) than if you were to tune out completely.
TED Talks: Iqbal Quadir
Posted in Alternative Institutions, Poverty, Society, TED, tagged Alternative Institutions, Poverty, Society, TED on April 8, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Complex Links: TED
Posted in Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Crowdsourcing, Emergence, Limits of Knowledge, Society, TED, tagged Alternative Institutions, Cooperation, Crowdsourcing, Emergence, Limits of Knowledge, Society, TED on March 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I attended the TED Conference this year for the first time. It was a transformative experience, one that I hope everyone can have in some form or another before too long. One way to simulate being there is watch as many of these incredible talks from past TED conferences as you can in a short period of time. If you are inspired, check out the TED Prize and how you can be a part of a growing global meta-movement for positive change in the world.
I will be blogging about things that piqued my interest at TED, but below are some cool links that I came away with:
Coherence
Posted in Agency, Autocatalysis, Causality, Cooperation, Emergence, Society, tagged Agency, Autocatalysis, Causality, Cooperation, Emergence, Society on December 31, 2007| Leave a Comment »
I posted earlier on emergent causality. One aspect that needs to be elaborated on is the concurrent, self-interdependent nature of emergence, or in other words the chicken and egg problem. (more…)
The Secret
Posted in Autocatalysis, Causality, Self-Fullfilling Prophecy, Society, tagged Autocatalysis, Causality, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Society on November 2, 2007| 1 Comment »
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, you know about the self-help phenomenon called The Secret. Perhaps you even bought the DVD or book or had (multiple) friends tell you about it, or even buy it for you as a gift. The Secret is not without its critics, of course. And the real question in my mind is, if it’s so widely watched/read and if so many people are attempting to put its principles into practice, why haven’t we noticed the positive effects on large swaths of society (at least American society where it’s been marketed the most)? There are countless answers to this question, including, “it takes time,” “the effects are mostly internal,” and “it doesn’t work.” I have a different take on it. (more…)
Dangerous Ideas
Posted in Agency, Common Knowledge, Cooperation, Limits of Knowledge, Mutual Knowledge, Society, tagged Agency, Common Knowledge, Cooperation, Limits of Knowledge, Mutual Knowledge, Society on July 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Daniel Horowitz just forwarded me an interesting article in which Steve Pinker is debating and defending the merits of exploring dangerous ideas even though they may threaten our core values and deeply offend our sensibilities. What struck me most interesting (and laudable) was Pinker’s willingness to play devil’s advocate to his own argument and suggest that maybe exploring dangerous ideas is too dangerous an idea itself and thus should not be adopted as a practice:
But don’t the demands of rationality always compel us to seek the complete truth? Not necessarily. Rational agents often choose to be ignorant. They may decide not to be in a position where they can receive a threat or be exposed to a sensitive secret. They may choose to avoid being asked an incriminating question, where one answer is damaging, another is dishonest and a failure to answer is grounds for the questioner to assume the worst (hence the Fifth Amendment protection against being forced to testify against oneself). Scientists test drugs in double-blind studies in which they keep themselves from knowing who got the drug and who got the placebo, and they referee manuscripts anonymously for the same reason. Many people rationally choose not to know the gender of their unborn child, or whether they carry a gene for Huntington’s disease, or whether their nominal father is genetically related to them. Perhaps a similar logic would call for keeping socially harmful information out of the public sphere.
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The Emergent Fool 
Response to “Thoughts on Ants, Altruism and the Future of Humanity”
Posted in Blog Comment, Cooperation, Culture, Emergence, Levels, Singularity, Society, tagged Blog Comment, Cooperation, Culture, Emergence, Levels, Singularity, Society on July 21, 2008| 2 Comments »
[ This is an edited version of a blog comment on Brandon Kein’s Wired Science post here ]
The question of whether we will “break through” to a superorganism or collapse through any number of spiraling cascades or catastrophic events is the subject of Ervin Laszlo’s book, The Chaos Point, which I highly recommend. In it, he gives a sweeping view of the complex evolutionary dynamic (focusing on human society), and makes a solid argument that we are at an inflection point in history right now, similar to the “saltation” that begat multicellularity.
(more…)
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