Deep Thoughts

Important Reading

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Sarah Hoyt:  The Totalitarian Train in Rolling Down the Tracks

If I could communicate just one thing, across the increasing divide of language and thought to the left it would be this: that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you’re running someone down is not righteousness.  It’s just the feeling apes get when they run off another ape.

If you’re part of a band and all of you were piling on an outsider — or an insider who was just declared an outsider and run off — you’ll also feel very connected to your band, and a feeling of being loved and belonging.  It’s not real. It’s the result of a “reward” rush of endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine that flood your body after stress and a perceived “victory.”   Oxytocin, particularly, promotes a feeling of bonding with those around you.

Just remember, as you’re high fiving each other and believing that something that feels so good has to be good and morally “just” you could be the victim tomorrow.   Because the feelings don’t last, and that rush of “righteousness and victory” is addictive. Those who are your comrades today will be looking for someone to kick in the face tomorrow. And it really could be you.

I’m reminded again of a passage in Goethe’s Faust. After finding that she is pregnant–which meant big trouble for a single woman in that time and place–Gretchen is talking with her awful friend Lieschen, who (still unaware of Gretchen’s situation) is licking her chops about the prospect of humiliating another girl (Barbara) who has also become pregnant outside of marriage. Here’s Gretchen, reflecting on her own past complicity in such viciousness:

How readily I used to blame
Some poor young soul that came to shame!
Never found sharp enough words like pins
To stick into other people’s sins
Black as it seemed, I tarred it to boot
And never black enough to suit
Would cross myself, exclaim and preen
Now I myself am bared to sin!
Yet all of it that drove me here
God! ws so innocent, was so dear!

Doesn’t this describe a lot of today’s SJW behavior and other political behavior?  “Never found sharp enough words like pins To stick in other people’s sins…Would cross myself, exclaim, and preen”

Lots of exclaiming and preening going on these days..quite likely, even, in certain churches, some crossing of themselves by activists as part of the denunciation of the “others.”   The extent of the pleasure gained by many from group cruelty toward approved targets is pretty clear and is a major factor in today’s social and political toxicity.

Well, This is a Cheerful Thought

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…not.

Twitter’s Takeover of Politics is Just Getting Started.

Summary at Tyler Cowen’s blog:

But what does this new, more intense celebrity culture mean for actual outcomes? The more power and influence that individual communicators wield over public opinion, the harder it will be for a sitting president to get things done. (The best option, see above, will be to make your case and engage your adversaries on social media.) The harder it will be for an aspirant party to put forward a coherent, predictable and actionable political program.

Finally, the issues that are easier to express on social media will become the more important ones. Technocratic dreams  will fade, and fiery rhetoric and identity politics will rule the day. And if you think this is the political world we’re already living in, rest assured: It’s just barely gotten started.

See also my post freedom, the village, and social media.

Belated New Year’s Notes To Self

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Minimize paper, phone calls, driving, errands, quarrels, litigation, surgery.

Maximize time with loved ones and time alone.

Nobody’s that good.

Most things aren’t your problem.

Most predictions are wrong. Arguing about predictions is usually a waste of time.

Arguing about anything, unless you are paid to do it, is usually a waste of time. An exception to this generalization is when you have a chance to make a principled case about an important issue in front of an audience with many uncommitted members.

Most advice is worthless and should be taken with a grain or twenty of salt. However, an unexpected gentle suggestion from someone who knows you well should be treated seriously.

Most loose ends should be left alone.

Silence is often the best reply.

Embrace the power of “I don’t know”.

If it’s stupid and it works it isn’t stupid.

Risk is everywhere and many endeavors are riskier than they initially appear to be. Complacency, especially in groups and institutions – “That’s never happened” – is a warning to watch out for icebergs.

In business, look for patterns of events that contradict an opinion consensus.

The period of chaos following a disruptive event can be a good time to take bold action.

Everyone thinks his way is the only way. Try to learn from other people while keeping an open mind.
 

Sneaky Robots and Robotic Bureaucrats

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An artificial intelligence program was assigned the task of turning satellite images into street maps.  It was graded by comparing reconstructed images (reconstructed from the map) and comparing them with the original; also, by the clarity of the street map.  The grades were used by the program to continually improved its performance.

But what the program sneakily learned to do was to encode details of the original image into the street map, in a manner invisible to humans, thereby optimizing its grade on the reconstructed image…independently of how well the street map…which was the actual desired product…actually reflected the original image.

Humans, also, often respond to incentives in ways very different from those expected by the designers of those incentives…as many creators of sales commission plans and manufacturing bonus plans have discovered.  Bureaucracies, especially, tend to respond to the measurements placed on them in ways that are not consistent with the interests of the larger organization or society that they are supposed to be serving.  See Stupidity, Communist-Style and Capitalist-Style and The Reductio ad Absurdum of Bureaucratic Liberalism.