Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

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George the original one
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by George the original one »

Riggerjack wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:55 pm
Honestly, I don't see why this is so hard to communicate.
State it as you do in this post and I believe you will have widespread agreement.

Hobbes
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Hobbes »

George the original one wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 2:53 pm
State it as you do in this post and I believe you will have widespread agreement.
Seconded.

BRUTE
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by BRUTE »

Riggerjack wrote:
Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:55 pm
When the laws are incompatible with society's needs, society turns a blind eye to violations.
this is maybe THE central insight of libertarianism. everything is like prohibition: humans speed because the speed limits are too low, humans take drugs because they like drugs.

brute is in complete agreement with the alignment of laws and society's needs.

it undermines the status of laws and law enforcement when all humans are used to ignoring the laws because they are nonsensical. enforcement becomes arbitrary and subjective.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Merry Christmas! This is the time for all good men to join together and celebrate, and all that. I have never been in that crowd, so instead, I will use some of this holiday to try to clarify some of my thoughts. Be warned, they are unlikely to be centered on peace and joy.


I just loved this post, and thought I would preserve it here:
ZAFCorrection wrote: ↑ nowhere else do I recall seeing you indicate it is an issue to be considered or dealt with in any way.
exactly. because sometimes, doing nothing is the best answer.

Murphy's article about the IPCC's own numbers shows this - the medicine hurts more than the disease. this is not denialist, it's simply the right thing to do nothing drastic.


the reason brute is so disappointed with humans here on this topic is that, usually humans on this forum are pretty open-minded, reasonable, at least entertain the ideas of other sides, and lay low with the character assassination.

just in this post, ZAFCorrection is comparing brute to "one of those Republicans", an attack that lost its effectiveness a long time ago. in a previous post, somebody is openly saying brute is a denialist, even when brute has not denied anything.

on this topic, humans on this forum seem more concerned with fawning over who "cares" the most, virtue signaling. maybe it is because DLj really cares about this topic.

even DLj is pretty disappointing on this, his first reaction being that he can't read brute's links, and the second a character assassination of the author. brute gets that DLj is tired of explaining climate physics to Republicans, but that's not what brute's criticism is at all. if "98% of scientists agree" and "science denier!" is supposed to have any meaning, then the numbers have to be at least entertained when they point to the other side's argument.

there has not been a single argument against the case presented by Murphy. attacking Murphy's character does not work either, brute has known Murphy longer than he has known about ERE, and the man is honest in his mistakes, takes caution to be careful with his statements, and is just simply not an "evildoer", as humans are trying to paint him.

if humans want to take the high road on this, they have to refrain from character attacks, and actually argue the issues.

DLj has once said to brute that brute is doing the right things on climate change, but for the wrong reasons. brute does not own a car, does not use AC or heating, leads a pretty minimalist life, and probably has a relatively low carbon footprint in comparison with many humans, even here. yet brute does not share the same fawning attitude of "the government should do something!".

brute really respects Riggerjack on this, even though Riggerjack has almost the opposite position - he seems to be an old-school conservative who actually wants to conserve the environment. but Riggerjack refrains from attacking brute's character, the character of authors brute cites, and seems less concerned with his own perception than most humans here.

as some would say, most humans in this thread are all hat and no cattle on climate change.
CC debate is mainly just virtue signalling. Most people with something to say on the subject, really just want to state their agreement or disagreement with the common narrative.

Having said that, let me lay out my own opinion.

AGW is real. We are adding pollutants to our environment, and enough to see significant changes come up in the future. A future full of pollutants is worth avoiding, independent of CC. Factoring CC in, just makes this more important and appropriate.

Where I diverge from the common positions, is I don't think politics as usual is remotely appropriate to address this. I would have to write for days to clarify this point, and don't want to go down that road today.

Suffice it to say that if we want a society with employment, and taxes, and pollution, maybe we could align those for better results. I would love to see a carbon tax replace payroll taxes. Cheaper labor, more expensive pollution, and fully funded Social Security/Medicaid, what's not to like?

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

The Coronavirus outbreak has me thinking about quarantines. How we do them, (very poorly) and what we could do better.

The problems are based around a solid interruption in processes that are by default not intended to be interrupted. I think we could do better.

I think I would start with a quarantine bill. I know, I usually deny that government can solve problems. This is a case where they can, and it would be in their interests, they just won't.

Start with a quarantine bill. The CDC is already authorized to declare a quarantine. And to work with local and state authorities to set it up, and enforce it. But that's about it. 1940's level command and control approach that will fail in spectacular and predictable ways.

But what if we were try to actually make a quarantine work? If we planned for minimizing the damage, and hardship?

The quarantined area is still going to use resources, but provide far fewer. We want everyone to stay home, but we want everything to work, as well. And there will be lots of people without a week's worth of X, let alone food water, etc.

So I propose that a quarantine impose not just restrictions on movement, but releases from obligations.

From the day the quarantine is declared, taxes, rent, mortgages and interest, are suspended for the duration. Release the citizenry from as many obligations as possible.

Schools close. Public gatherings of all types are cancelled. Businesses not vital to local quality of life, close. Those businesses that are vital, trash collection, utilities, health care etc, go on hazard pay, and get priority for equipment and supply.

Ports, train stations, airports, all close, and are used as staging areas for national guard.

Grocery stores will not be restocked, and will close shortly after the quarantine is declared.

Amazon, UPS, USPS, and other delivery services get designated as vital infrastructure. They will get transfer stations at the quarantine border, to move supplies in. Decontamination stations can be set up to deal with any equipment that has to come out. They will be authorized to charge an extra fee for delivery into a quarantine zone, to cover their increased costs, and the hazard pay for drivers. No outbound shipments of any kind, without authorization.

Deliveries can be coordinated so one section of the zone is handled at a time, so Amazon, UPS, USPS, and the national guard (delivering sundries) are all hitting the same area, at the same time. No need to encourage criminal behavior...

In short, incentivizing individual citizens to stay home, and stop spreading disease, comfortably.

Of course there will be hardship and clusterfux, it's a quarantine. But it would be a much less destructive disruption that would be over, sooner. Turn quarantines from a holocaust to an awkward staycation.

Now about that "in their own interests" line above. If I were a strategist for one of the Democratic presidential candidates, I would put a bill like this together, right now. Use the media hysteria about Coronavirus to highlight any opposition or delay in moving forward. Use this as a tangible way to demonstrate "leadership in crisis", even though it's too late to prepare for the current virus.

Unfortunately, I think that if one is capable of thinking beyond command and control, one is probably not in governance. And this would require working with corporations, who tend to be less agreeable with governmental command. This kind of coordination is best worked out beforehand, rather than by authorities in crisis mode.

Rereading that, all I'm suggesting is using existing delivery services in a crisis mode, and suspending mortgages/rent/taxes. Just these two changes would allow the closing of businesses and schools to be far less disruptive, and allow for an easier quarantine.

As 2008 showed us, bondholder's interests are dependent upon property values. Not having a decimated population is a great way to keep property values up. Everyone's long term interests are served by minimizing the damage. But coordination issues and short term interests run counter to this.

Working out the coordination beforehand is theoretically what we pay our government for. It would be nice to think they could do it for a small area, for a few months, in a pinch.

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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by jacob »

Not sure why this was posted here ... but here goes.

1) While changing a complex system is not necessarily a zero-sum game, it's bound to cause more pain to some than to others. For example, delaying financial obligations will put the cost on lenders who have a net-long position. It will benefit borrowers who have a net-short position. Meanwhile equity (risk-on) holders will pay nothing. Ditto ... should salaried people still get their full paycheck (employers take the hit) while hourly waged workers get nothing (employees take the hit). The inherent inequity in any proposal will create huge [political] arguments. Writ large, it is the difficulty in resolving the who-pays issue that causes immense inertia in fixing complex systems issues.

2) If the Dems propose this they will shoot themselves in the foot with voters who care more about their personal freedom than [their] private or public health. "Government-overreach wah wah wah". Anti-vaxxers are a good example of how difficult to is to fix a simple problem like permanently eradicating measles (it has no animal host/reservoir so once it's gone from humans, it's gone from the planet) that should be "trivial" to fix if public health took priority over individual freedom for everybody. But obviously it doesn't. OTOH, this actually happened with smallpox. Mass vaccinations followed by contact tracing whenever the few remaining cases popped up until it was fully eradicated.

3) "Heroic family father driving his truck over land and fields to break the Feds quarantine in order to save himself and his family" is practically a Hollywood movie theme. In the Wuhan thread, people were already suggesting @slowtraveler to leave before any possible official quarantine. This is of course detrimental to prioritizing public health. Public health officials face similar cultural problems when trying to vaccinate against Ebola in west Africa... it's a long road towards convincing the locals that the vaccine/aid is not some secret plot. Flouridated drinking water anyone?

4) General human incompetence and intransigence. The average human can't even figure out how to evacuate from a hurricane path given one weeks notice. The governmental aid response is not much better once shit happens at scale, see e.g. Puerto Rico. Bottled water famously sitting on the air field. Indeed, the NSC shut down it's global public health security program (which was intended to deal with problems exactly like this) two years ago because Trump had a spat with the guy in charge of it.

5) You'd basically have to enforce a quarantine on the pain of heavy fines (or quarantine in the "camps" when caught) by e.g. taping over windows and doors on each and every residence. Then be prepared for a bunch of dead people when you open up again two weeks later because people ran out of milk and toast bread or insulin. In the interim you'd be dealing with people sneaking out because "they didn't realize it was important" or "little Johnny ran out of Swedish Fish" or just some insistence that the Constitution doesn't say anything about quarantines.

It boils down to the multi-dimensional cost of changing the system. Actuaries calculate a human "first world life" to be worth $1M. IOW, shutting down the country for two weeks is only economically justified if it saves 800 people. As long that the personal benefits are not obvious to even the dumbest person, it will not happen.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

For example, delaying financial obligations will put the cost on lenders who have a net-long position. It will benefit borrowers who have a net-short position.
No, it would benefit net long position, in that underlying assets don't devalue in the aftermath. Lower population density+drop in human capital will result in property value loss, that extends to bondholders, see 2008. The diversified portfolio of MBS takes a tiny, short term hit, and returns to normal, rather than a long term drop caused by defaults.

Landlords without mortgages take the real hit, but they also benefit, for the same reasons.

The rest of your post seems to be variations on people are stupid, and hard to control.

I agree. People are stupid, and hard to control. The natural human reaction to try for more control. That never works.

There is a huge difference between getting people out of the path of a hurricane (requires action on the part of all humans, regardless of intellect, or capabilities) and getting people to stay home by simply removing incentives to leave. Getting people to actively do anything is difficult. Allowing them to get away with NOT doing anything is much easier. Most people have a home, and that's where they keep all those things they need. Allowing for home delivery, while also closing the supplying businesses removes many of those incentives to wander.

As I said, there will be clusterfux. Tommy is going to sneak out to go see Jennifer, regardless of repercussions. There is no stopping this. Concentrating on more control is the default thought process.

But from a pandemic perspective, individuals moving sereptitiously, is far less of a concern than grocery shopping in public, taking public transportation, etc. How many people are in contact is where the problems begin and end.

If Tommy gives the plague to Jennifer and her family, that's just more fodder for the public shaming of Tommy, and Jennifer. Shaming is easier to apply than control.

In the meantime, simply letting Facebook shite all over Tommy, Jennifer, and their families is both the most human of solutions, and a good distraction for people tired of Netflix.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Amazon could credit each address in the quarantine zone $100 per week, and recapture the cost in tax incentives/goodwill/delivery fees/donations. Again, small short term loss balanced by long term gains.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Not sure why this was posted here ...
Well, in an effort to still talk about ideas outside of the overton window, yet still keep the site friendly for folks similar to Scott 2, (who seem ashamed of being caught at a site discussing unsanctioned ideas) and not distract from the main theme of the place, I try to hide my more bizarre ideas here.

Being autistic, it's sometimes hard to relate to the reactions of the neurotyptical. I know that talking about quarantines in general triggers some folks, and most folks can't fathom how incentives put the dilemma in the prisoner's dilemma.

So when I start thinking about an idea, and peel it back to the incentives, and start thinking about how to rebalance them, I post them here. Sometimes people point out thinking that I am missing, and that is both very rare, and very valuable to me.

For instance, I don't understand how supporting our current US policy of abusing illegal immigrants is compassionate, as I think I made very clear above. But when another member described his views that way, I don't need to point out the discrepancy. I explored other incentives here. If he comes across it, he can reexamine the issue at his convenience. Maybe there is something I missed.

And that would be nice.

Sometimes, I get caught up in the idea, and threads like Piracy are the result. But in an effort to not abuse your hospitality, I try to move ideas that I think could trigger people, here.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

From the covid thread #2
Not that Riggerjack is in anyway cynical about everything
:lol: 8-) :lol:

I can see how it may seem that I am cynical. There have been times when cynical would be my default position on any topic. But I don't feel cynical, anymore. I have more hope and see more opportunities to improve than ever in the past.

But I don't see any way of doing the same thing, using the same tools, in the same ways, and getting significantly better results.

2020 was not a sign that the world was going great, then a once a century "unforeseeable event" made things all work wrong.

Things had been cobbled, bodged, and bailing wire repaired, to kinda keep chugging along, and they hit a bump, and some things fell apart.

Not as many as I expected. The reaction was faster than I expected. I really didn't expect a lockdown in the states until people were dying in the streets.

Not because Americans are uncaring or stupid, but because we have illusions of how things work, that are obviously untrue, but still quite comforting. And Americans are very difficult to pry away from our comforts...

So I try to point out where systemic outputs wildly vary from the expected values. Not as an attempt to villify some system, but to question if we understand what that system in fact is.

For instance, if one believes that journalism is about informing the public about current events, to create a more informed population, then actual journalism is messed up, scary and dysfunctional. But if one believes that journalism is about selling soap, and this is done by selling the target on a "feeling of being informed", rather than wasting the effort of actually informing people, then journalism seems to be working as desired.

Neither view will make for a better way to disseminate current events information. But one view gives a surprise output, the other doesn't. I don't like being surprised by current events. It makes me question my models. So regular, predictable surprise is a failure in my way of thinking.

To avoid this, I look very closely at all the outputs of a system, and consider all the outputs to be valid. Even the negatives. Especially the negatives.

This isn't because I am attracted to the negatives, but because we have a system that produces both positives and negatives.

Only looking at the positive, gives one a distorted idea of what one is looking at. We are taught this distortion. Some of us amplify this distortion. Some of us downplay this distortion. And some of us fit our lives to make sense only when seen through this distortion.

Recognizing and eliminating this distortion has relieved me of a lot of cognitive dissonance. And that has allowed me to release the poorly directed anger this dissonance causes in me.

But it seems like when I describe the world the way I see it, I sound cynical. Still, that isn't how I feel...

Miss Lonelyhearts
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Miss Lonelyhearts »

What I would locate as cynicism is assertion along the lines of journalism is designed to sell soap by generating feeling of being informed, when enterprise of journalism is multifarious enough to sell soap, create “mood affiliation” (Tyler Cowen’s term), inform, misinform, amuse, persuade, warm heart, etc etc.

Right and left rejection of media both tend to come when media points out things that disturb their preconceptions and preferred explanations for why things are the way they are, regardless of subject. Dismissing media as propagandists or corporate shills is easier than reconciling dissonance in one’s world view, and acknowledging that the modal journalist is making reasonable effort to explain things as they understand them.

There was a viral tweet a few months ago that went something like, “People who say ‘All politicians are corrupt’ are the easiest marks, because they’ve given up on recognizing corruption. Some are totally corrupt, some are somewhat, and some are squeaky clean.” One cigar at Christmas != pack of cigarettes per day. Being able to recognize negatives that others don’t is important, but the fairy tale explanation may exist not because people like fairy tales, but because it’s explains 80% of the phenomenon in 20% of the time.

chenda
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by chenda »

I started to write a reply but @miss lonelyhearts wrote what I was thinking much better than I could write.

Fwiw @Riggerjack, I genuinely find a lot of what you write well informed and interesting. But sometimes it lacks any sense of nuance, like your apparent dismissal of the WHO as completely useless (maybe it is, but I expect it's a much more complex and mixed story)

Though maybe it's unintentional or I just misunderstand what you are saying...

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

I was unclear.

The WHO is not useless.

It is a political system.

Political systems work in certain ways. Those ways make them superior to other systems, like trial by combat, or deciding who has the divine right to rule. But, they also come with certain limitations.

One of those limitations is incentive. Political systems tend to divide incentive, so that it is balanced. This can be a feature, or a bug.

It's a feature, if one is trying to balance opposing forces.

It is a bug, if one is trying to get something done.

This doesn't make political systems good or bad. But it makes the outcome of political systems predictable.

Put another way, internal combustion engines turn air and fuel into kinetic energy and heat. The amount of "waste heat" produced by internal combustion engines far exceeds the amount of kinetic energy harnessed.

Both heat and kinetic energy are equally valid outputs of the engine. We then make a value judgement that the kinetic energy is good, and the heat is waste.

But nobody looks at an engine as being corrupt for making heat.

Back to political systems. What happens when an official produces unpopular outcomes? We look at his incentives, and call him corrupt.

Of course he seems corrupt. He has been financially rewarded by the system. He has acted in the way the system incentivized him to act. He has weighed the options and chosen accordingly.

How is that a corrupt human? He is doing the human thing, in a human system, in the same way the guy before him did, and the same as the guy after him. (Or gal)

Corruption is a word that seems to break people's minds. We use it to look at systemic failures, and ascribe the fault to a person.

That could be a feature or a bug. I'll let you think though who benefits from this feature.

.......

Myself, the reason I don't feel cynical, saying these things, is I accept them for what they are. I have let go of the idea that we can use our existing systems, and tune them to get better results. Once I did that, the cognitive dissonance of trying to get a different output than the system produces just went away.

Now, I put the energy I used to waste on those systems to better use. Some of it goes to my own life. Some of it goes to looking at different systems, and studying their inputs and outputs. But none of it is wasted hoping the systems in place will produce different results this time.
.....

Miss LH, I hope that clears up my point.

Corruption is irrelevant. If the ecology will support a niche that we call corruption, that is a problem within that ecology, not the person occupying the niche. Clear one out, and there is competition to fill that niche.

Now I am not saying that prying corrupt people out of their niches is wasted energy. Rather I think of it as a maintenance task. Necessary, like an oil change, or the system fails.

But my attention is focused on finding better ways to accomplish the positive aspects of our current systems, with less maintenance, and fewer negatives.

This is not political thinking. I have no desire to replace any of our current systems.

Rather, I am focused on creating new systems. That can be operated on much smaller, more human scales. I don't want to balance incentives, I want to align them.

But that's where I start having real problems describing my thoughts...

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

I read this, and was impressed:

https://www.robrhinehart.com/the-new-york-times/

I'm not as worked up about the NYT specifically.

I just think that when I know something about a subject in an article, stories in media are generally so far off, they aren't even wrong. Mere noise.

Sophisticated murmurings designed to make people feel informed. Because that is easier to do and sell than actually informing people. Journalism is the junk food of information.

And just like real junk food, I feel better after I quit it for a while. And occasionally indulging in either leaves me feeling greasy and a little unclean, afterwards.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

I was posting recently about Stupid, in the Cipolla model.
http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-l ... stupidity/

I thought I would continue my thoughts here.

The key thing about the model, is the harms others line. Where is that line, the stupid/bandit combination?

However you choose to measure it, there is a ratio of (actions/effects/people) that harm others, to those that don't.

What do you think that ratio is for the US? 1st world countries? 3rd world countries? When you include "unforeseen consequences " and "market externalities" and such terms? When you include crime at all levels?

How much of a society's productivity is offset by these harms?

I think of that as something like a cultural drag ratio. The amount of harm in total that a culture (allows/cultivates/fails to prevent) compared to its overall production.

Now think about what that ratio would look like in a tight knit tribal culture. With high information/low defection/rapid feedback societies, the incentives favor "not harming others" at a much higher value.

The difference between the "harms others" levels of that tribal society, and our current society is a direct result of our culture and institutions.

It is our institutions that have (created/enabled/failed to prevent) this increased level of harm to other. Our churches, schools, laws, and cultural norms naturalize the behaviors that harm others at a much higher rate than we know to be possible.

We haven't hosted a war in over 150 years. The 20th century was about the ascendancy of Pax America. Our institutions are not failing for lack of resources. This is just the best we can expect out of the institutions we have. This level of harm is our baseline. Our institutions are at their current point in each's glidepath of institutional decline. Based on previous attempts, I don't think much more can be squeezed out of these institutions in the way of better results.

Going back to the institutions that (brought/brings) us this increased level of stupid/bandits, seems unlikely to get a decrease in social harm...

But, on the good news side, we now have an idea of just how revolutionary it would be, to move that line.

A culture that could better align the incentive structure to discourage "harms others behavior" would not have that drag.

But wait, there's more good news! We know current practices get harmful results, but current practices are nowhere near the frontier of what we know about how to coordinate.

Take a moment, and think about the last team (15 or fewer) effort you participated in. How it went, how decisions were made, how much success was achieved, at what cost? How much of your effort was aligned with the project goal?

Now watch:
https://www.jimruttshow.com/forrest-landry-3/ (transcripts are available)

How would your last team effort have gone if the small group method had been used to (create/navigate) the team?

How big a competitive advantage would a SGM small business have over traditional similar sized small business? If one were investing, how would SGM affect one's valuation of a small company? If one were looking to join a small company, would SGM make you more interested, or less?

SGM is just one example of the many, many models for aligning incentives. There are multiple fields of study, and the state of adoption of these models is very limited.

Partially this poor rate of adoption is because the good designs tend toward egalitarianism, in a way that is a poor match for corporate culture, capital venture, and traditional financing models.

Partially, it's because a lot of the work is being done as thought experiments in the rationalist community. Thought experiments never get any funding...

So we know from the perceived level of Stupidity and Banditry, that there are huge potential gains in productivity in solving the cultural incentive problem. And we know that there is enormous difference between current practice, and current publicly available information. And we know that our current institutions are poorly suited to exploit the difference, to harvest those gains.

So how would we go about harvesting those gains? We would need a lab space, where we could test different group structures and incentives, to find the best combinations for different scenarios.

What would that lab look like?

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Ownership.

It is the basis of our societal framework, so it is probably worth investigation.

https://www.amazon.com/Mine-Hidden-Rule ... 0385544723

from the reviews:
"The key thesis of this book is that our core ownership stories are wrong. They contend the each of us uses some version of six ownership stories:
1. First come, first served;
2. Possession is nine-tenths of the law;
3. You reap what you sow—we own the fruits of our labors;
4. My home is my castle—I own what is attached to me;
5. Our bodies, our selves, and
6. The meek shall inherit the earth—family property stays in the family.

The authors are law professors, and they use a series of engaging real-life legal disputes to demonstrate that each of these rules are open to broad and conflicting interpretations. One key flaw in our simplistic ownership stories is that they are based on a binary view of ownership—either my story is correct, and I deserve full ownership of the property, or yours is correct and you deserve full ownership. The authors advocate thinking in terms of gradations of ownership (which they model with a light dimmer) rather than full ownership models (which they model with an on/off switch).

They offer a few broad principles that can be used to reduce conflict and resolve ownership disputes. These include considering:
• What ownership decision serves to best advance the collective well-being,
• Reframing the problem using design tool alternatives including
o ex post or ex ante considerations,
o rules or standards,
o exclusion or governance,
o setting baselines, and
o liberal commons.

They end with the statement “If there is one lesson from this book, it’s that mine reflects a choice among competing stories.”"

The authors bring up an important concept, "ownership design". I didn't like the book, but this concept is worth the price paid.

But the authors are Legal Professors. They approach the concept from the limp, legal version.

The real, potent form of ownership design happens at the owners' sale decision. An owner can't sell what he doesn't own, but he doesn't have to sell all ownership claims, either.

I few simple examples: Buying ranchland, it is relatively common to find land for sale, without mineral rights. This happens because at some point the owner sold the land, but kept the mineral rights (in a few states, this happened at the governmental level). The first purchaser presumably paid a lower price for land w/o mineral rights. All following purchasers only have the land as a purchase option, they would have to go to the mineral rights owner if they wanted to purchase them.

A suburban home purchaser buys a home, in its existing condition, and the land it is on. But he doesn't own the utilities that connect to his property. He may not own the appearance of his home (that belongs to the HOA). Or the right to dispose of his own refuse (that belongs to the garbage utility, though for a fee {zero-can rate} they may allow the homeowner to service his own account.) He may not have property alteration rights (although they can often be leased from the planning dept.)

When the homeowner sells, he can't include property rights he doesn't have, so ownership design happened before he bought the property, and continues unchanged until the owner or the planning department changes them.

But when the larger lot was subdivided, it was done in accordance with rules laid out to ensure the result is lots that will support that suburban homeowner's use. Access/utilities/HOA/CC&R's/property definition is all handled at the platting, in accordance with regulations, for the highest potential profit of the current landowner.

If one's goal was community design/functionality, this really isn't a very good approach. But we shouldn't expect one. Remember, we already know our systems have a "harm others" allowance. In this case, the harm is focused on homeowners not 100% compliant to the idealized homeowner envisioned during the platting of the land.

If we acknowledge that there is room to improve our culture at the coordination level, I would consider ownership design to be a tool with a great deal of potential for resolving coordination problems.

So we know we have gains available in coordination, and ownership design.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3180
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

I recently watched "Don't look up". (SPOILER ALERT- watch the movie, it's great, and nothing you are about to read will improve the experience. Go on, this post will be here when you have watched it.)

What a triggering movie that was for me. Let me see if I can sum up the plot:

Act I:
2 Certified Very Very Smart people (CVVS) looked into their Sciencey Stuff, and saw a Cataclysmic and nearly certain future. They then freak out, and proceed with the greatest urgency up through a bureaucracy not intended to help them.

Act II:
Our 2 plucky CVVS protagonists find that at the highest levels of political life, different selection processes have resulted in a leadership completely incapable of understanding, let alone preventing this cataclysm. It seems nobody remembered to leave the levers of power vacant, in case CVVS people needed them. Yet, somehow our 2 plucky CVVS protagonists continue to help, knowing nothing they do or say is helping anyone. In comes the alternate Tech-bro solution. Hope swells, then reality shows its disappointing head.

Act III:
Our 2 plucky CVVS protagonists get depressed, act in self destructive ways, get laid, and get comfortable with the end of all they know. Then they reconnect, hold hands at the dining room table as everyone dies and everything anyone cared about is erased.

THE END.


It's Act III that sticks with me. When all the symbols of power combined were shown to be clearly not up for the task, our 2 plucky CVVS protagonists, stop being so plucky. Having exhausted BOTH possible solutions, they resign themselves and all they know to destruction.

It seems so true to life. I have watched this pattern over and over again. It is discussed in the Deep Adaptation thread. Very few people can think of more than 2 approaches, and depression seems common among those whose primary choice is shown not to have much potential.

I think there is a fundamental difference between me, and the well socialized population.

When I looked into the abyss, and saw that the sum all of human knowledge is inadequate to the challenges facing us, my own emotion was was akin to rage. Rage, that the bonds of civilization (which had not been applied to me with anything like kindness; or to support me in anyway) was for THIS. That every time I had been forced to submit/comply by some petty authority who understood far less of the situation than I did, was in service to This. The metacrisis is my own confirmation, that "They" really are deeply wrong, in ways beyond their own comprehension.

And I find that freeing.

That may take some unpacking.

Every arbitrary rule, every bureaucratic system, every well meaning teacher/social worker/boss trying to force compliance to petty authority was doing so in the name of a system that will produce the death of all I hold dear. And they will be replaced with other people who will endeavor to do the same. They aren't out to destroy all that is good in the world. But that IS a potential side effect. "can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs..."

In the words of Daniel Quinn, they know the 1st law of our civilization, "If you don't find your place, you will not be fed." In their own deeply @!## up ways, they were trying to help me find my place, so I could be fed. And it worked, I am fed, and I AM contributing to the death of all that is good.

But I can see the damage. I can look at both the causes and effects, without flinching. I didn't create this system. I don't own it, it was imposed upon me, with all its arbitrariness.

When I accepted this, I found a new freedom. A freedom to map out our systems, and see where they could be reassembled with output that is more closely aligned with human rewards. I am free to play in this space few people dare look at.

And when I concentrate on this new freedom, the rage subsides.

I want this sense of freedom for other people, but I am also aware that I am miswired. The solutions that work for me, are very unlikely to have replicable results in the rest of the population.

For some people, knowing that the world is doomed by default, and that we can't just expect the experts to save it, is motivating.

For most people, when they are forced to confront the inevitable failure of all that they know, rage is not the response. Most people try really hard to Not See It, and manage. But of the ones who stick it out, look out into the abyss, most get broken. They go into existential dread, and fall over, useless and damaged.

I think maybe the metacrisis is functioning as some kind of twisted INTJ joke on the world. "Look at the world, as I see it, stripped of the protective layers. Isn't it a beautiful, intricate puzzle?" soon followed by "Uhh, Why are you moaning and rolling around on the ground? You can't even see it very well from there."

Maybe, presenting a beautiful puzzle in a way that breaks people's souls isn't the best way to frame it. :?

.........................

So, if you feel damaged by your encounter with the metacrisis, and for some masochistic reason you are still reading this journal, let's go over some other ways to frame this.

I think the first question is "Don't you have something to protect?"
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SGR4GxF ... to-protect
My point is not to suggest that one person's life is more valuable than 499 people. What I am trying to say is that more than your own life has to be at stake, before a person becomes desperate enough to resort to math.
Then, "Have you tried?"
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/3szfzHZr7EY ... uGPA5Qphbp
But when we deal with humans, being satisfied with having a plan is not at all like being satisfied with success. The part where the plan has to maximize your probability of succeeding, gets lost along the way. It's far easier to convince ourselves that we are "maximizing our probability of succeeding", than it is to convince ourselves that we will succeed.

Almost any effort will serve to convince us that we have "tried our hardest", if trying our hardest is all we are trying to do.

"You have been asking what you could do in the great events that are now stirring, and have found that you could do nothing. But that is because your suffering has caused you to phrase the question in the wrong way... Instead of asking what you could do, you ought to have been asking what needs to be done."
—Steven Brust, The Paths of the Dead


"Have you tried harder?"
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/3szfzHZr7EY ... Fhb9tmd7Pe
They're going to sit there and nod along and not notice anything out of the ordinary. Look, you don't understand human nature. People wouldn't try for five minutes before giving up if the fate of humanity were at stake.
Give some thought to what it takes to do the impossible:
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/3szfzHZr7EY ... G9czABgCe9
When you're confused about a domain, problems in it will feel very intimidating and mysterious, and a query to your brain will produce a count of zero solutions. But you don't know how much work will be left when the confusion clears. Dissolving the confusion may itself be a very difficult challenge, of course. But the word "impossible" should hardly be used in that connection. Confusion exists in the map, not in the territory.

So if you spend a few years working on an impossible problem, and you manage to avoid or climb out of blind alleys, and your native ability is high enough to make progress, then, by golly, after a few years it may not seem so impossible after all.

But if something seems impossible, you won't try.

Now that's a vicious cycle.
and
To do things that are very difficult or "impossible",

First you have to not run away. That takes seconds.

Then you have to work. That takes hours.

Then you have to stick at it. That takes years.

Of these, I had to learn to do the first reliably instead of sporadically; the second is still a constant struggle for me; and the third comes naturally.

Here is the rest of the Challenging the Difficult series:
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/3szfzHZr7EYGSWt92

I should note that I am not a Rationalist. I don't think rationality necessarily results in better decisions. However, they do have some excellent ways of thinking about difficult abstract concepts. And they don't ignore the emotional workload difficult mental work can create.

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