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anonymous

We Are All Hayekians Now: The Internet Generation and Knowledge Problems - 1 views

www.petervv.com/...we-are-all-hayekians-now

shared by anonymous on 18 Apr 13 - Cached
  • Primarily in his The Use of Knowledge in Society but also in his other contributions to the socialist calculation debate, Hayek crafted a brilliant statement of a perennial problem.
  • In the world of human endeavor, we have two types of problems: economic and technological.
  • Technological problems involve effectively allocating given resources to accomplish a single valuable goal.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • The choice to build the bridge is a choice between this bridge or that skyscraper as well as any other alternative use of those resources. Each alternative use would have different benefits (and unseen costs).
  • This is not a mere question of engineering the strongest or even the most cost-effective structure to get across the Hudson, this is a question of what is the strongest or most cost-effective possible future version of New York City.
  • “We are building the world’s 20th search engine at a time when most of the others have been abandoned as being commoditized money losers. We’ll strip out all of the ad-supported news and portal features so you won’t be distracted from using the free search stuff.”
  • But, of course, Google survived, prospered, and continues towards its apparent goal of eating the entire internet (while also making cars drive themselves, putting cameras on everyone’s heads, and generally making Steve Ballmer very very angry). So, why did Google win? The answer is, perhaps surprisingly, in Hayek’s theory.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 18 Apr 13
       
      Very embarassing videos.
  • “Our goal always has been to index all the world’s data.” Talk about anemic goals, come on Google, show some ambition!
  • So, is this one of Hayek’s technical problems or is this an economic one?
  • Our gut might first tell us that it is technical.
  • Sure, all this data is now hanging out in one place for free, but to make a useful index you need to determine how much people value different data. We need data about the data.
  • In Soviet Russia, failed attempts at arranging resources destroyed the information about the resources. The free market is the best way to figure out how individual people value individual resources. When left to trade voluntarily, people reveal their preferences with their willingness to pay. By arranging resources through coercion you’ve blinded yourself to the emergent value of the resources because you’ve forbidden voluntary arrangement in the economy.
  • This is different on the internet.
  • The data resources are not rivalrous
  • Search used to be really bad. Why? Because search companies were using either (a) content-producer willingness to pay for indexing, (b) mere keyword search or (c) some combination of editorial centralized decision-making to organize lists of sites.
  • These methods only work if you think that the best site about ducks is either (a) the site that has the most money to pay Altavista for prime “duck” listing, (b) the site that has the most “ducks” in its text, or (c) the site that was most appealing to your employees tasked with finding duck sites.
  • If 999 other websites linked to one website about ducks, you can bet that most people think that this site is better at explaining ducks than a site with only one link to it (even if that link was horse-sized).
  • So Google uses the decentralized Hayekian knowledge of the masses to function. Why does this mean we’re all Hayekians?
  • All of the questions of organizing activity on the internet are solved (when they are, in fact, solved successfully) using Hayekian decentralized knowledge.
  • Amazon customer reviews are how we find good products. Ebay feedback is how we find good individual sellers. And, moreover, whole brick and mortar services are moving to a crowd-sourced model, with sites like AirBnB for lodging and RelayRides for car rental.
  • the giant firms of tomorrow will be those that empower people to freely share their knowledge and resources in a vibrant marketplace.
  • Today, the central challenge for a firm is not to develop careful internal management but rather the non-trivial task of building marketplaces and forums to encourage decentralized knowledge production and cooperation.
  • Our generation already understands this on a gut level. We Google everything.  We defend freedom on the internet as if it was our own personal real-world liberty at stake. We mock the antiquated central planners of the early web, looking at you AOL, Prodigy, for their ineffectual obviousness and denial of crowd-sourced knowledge.
  • We all know where the best economic knowledge lies, in the many and never the few.
  • anonymous on 18 Apr 13
     
    "We are all Hayekians now. Specifically, the "we all" is not quite everyone. The "all" to which I'm referring is people of the internet-people who've grown up with the net and use it for a majority of their day-to-day activities. And, the "Hayekian" to which I'm referring is not his theories on capital, or the rule of law, but, specifically his vision of knowledge."
anonymous

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 18 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...ivism-metaphysics-part-18.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 05 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Rand’s version of foundationalism is particularly virulent, because of her obsession with “validating” knowledge. She even went so far as to suggest, at least implicitly, that the fate of civilization itself rested on “validating” knowledge.
  • Peikoff contends that his claims are “now evident throughout the world.” Really? If so, why doesn’t he give any specific examples? How many people, in point of fact, are bothered one jot by their inability to answer the charge that their mental content is “detached from reality”? Has Peikoff or any of his Objectivist cohorts ever thought to put this contention to the test? Where, exactly, are all these people “paralyzed by doubt”?
  • As Santayana noted, the problem with skepticism is not that it is illogical or inconsistent, but that its difficult to maintain in the face of the natural demands of the psyche. Hunger, thirst, fear, love, vanity all conspire against maintaining an unbreached skepticism (and remaining "paralyzed by doubt").
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Foundationalism rests on the assumption that knowledge can ultimately be justified based on certain “self-evident” beliefs (e.g., like the Objectivist axioms). But, as I have explained in an earlier post in this series, “nothing is self-evident,” not even the Objectivist axioms.
  • The notion of existence only becomes coherent and meaningful within the context of animal sense and memory, neither of which are self-evident or given. You cast doubt on those, and the axiom “existence exists” becomes a meaningless, raving tautology.
  • Two main points in all of this.
  • The first involves Rand’s contention that everything has an identity. In the sense of self-evidence, of what is given in consciousness, identity holds no warrant of truth and therefore is irrelevant.
  • The second point Santayana makes is easily misunderstood. The skeptic, Santayana contends, is false to assert that nothing exists, since the very act of asserting suggests that the skeptic exists.
  • “Tenable intuitively” means within the context of an ulimate skepticism, wherein no gratuitous (i.e., non self-evident) assumptions are allowed.
  • anonymous on 05 Nov 10
     
    "Foundationalism 101. Foundationalism, in the words of philosopher Rob Bass, is "one of a number of views that holds that knowledge has foundations, that there are privileged starting points for knowledge, that justification runs uni-directionally from foundations to superstructure, that nothing is justified unless it is connected in the right way to the foundations…. I consider [foundationalism] deeply confused and, though most foundationalists did not so intend, an invitation to skepticism."" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on November 4, 2010.
anonymous

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 19 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...ivism-metaphysics-part-19.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 14 Nov 10 - Cached
  • If the skeptic is not refuted, how can he be prevented from wreaking havoc within society, and sending civilization over the brink?
  • this challenge was laid to rest over two centuries ago by the philosopher often most associated with extreme skepticism, David Hume
  • All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches?
  • He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer.
  • When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess, that all his objections are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to show the whimsical condition of mankind, who must act and reason and believe;
  • though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections, which may be raised against them
  • Pursing doubt to its ultimate end, Santayana challenges self-consciousness, discourse, logic, change, memory and time. In doing so, he goes well beyond Descartes’ doubts to discover the ultimate certainty, the perusal of a passing datum, a mere instance of awareness.
  • This “solipsism of the present moment,” Santayana concludes, cannot possibly be a bedrock of certainty, because it does not constitute knowledge.
  • Knowledge does not arise until intelligence arrives on the scene and connects these instances of awareness into larger, meaningful wholes, which can then be interpreted as symbols of a posited, external reality existing in time and space.
  • this animal faith is by no means an entirely groundless or “arbitrary” inclination, but one which is tested and corroborated during every moment when intelligence holds dominion over our lives.
  • Critical to Santayana’s view is the notion that some views are biologically inevitable, so that philosophers who deny them are not being altogether sincere.
  • Some beliefs are inevitable because they have been bred in us by evolution (or by “nature,” if you prefer).
  • the nature of truth is correspondence, the test of truth is pragmatic
  • in relation to these issues, often equivocates between rationalistic speculation (e.g., the Objectivist axioms) and an extreme empiricism (e.g., basing all knowledge on the “evidence” of the senses)
  • the ultimate raison d’être of knowledge is to cope with animal needs; and so whatever knowledge best satisfies these needs, which leads to successful action and solves the most problems in the real world, is that knowledge which most likely has the stamp of truth about it.
  • In rising out of passive intuition, I pass, by a vital constitutional necessity, to belief in discourse, in experience, in substance, in truth, and in spirit. All these objects may conceivably be illusory. Belief in them, however, is not grounded on a prior probability, but all judgements of probability are grounded on them. They express a rational instinct or instinctive reason, the waxing faith of an animal living in a world which he can observe and sometimes remodel.
  • anonymous on 14 Nov 10
     
    "Whenever the Objectivist mania for "validating" such things as "reality," "causality," "man's mind," "the senses," "reason," "concepts," and "morality" is subjected to criticism, sooner or later somebody will come forward and suggest that without such validation, how can we know anything? If the skeptic is not refuted, how can he be prevented from wreaking havoc within society, and sending civilization over the brink?" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on November 13, 2010.
anonymous

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 9 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...ns-only-means-of-grasping.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 10 Jan 11 - Cached
  • The first difficulty we must confront is trying to entangle what is meant by "reason."
  • Rand claims that "The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification." This description entails the additional difficulties involved in trying to figure out what on earth Rand could possibly mean by suggesting that logic is the "art of non-contradictory identification."
  • When examined more closely, Rand appears to have confused "classification" with "identification."
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • So having unravelled these tangles as best we can, we may safely assume that (1) reason involves creating a logically consistent body of knowledge, and (2) reason involves concept-formation.
  • Reason, Rand claims, is man's only means of both grasping reality and acquiring knowledge. What evidence did she present for this view? Unfortunately, none at all.
  • Let me just note that, in the light of evidence brought to light by exponents of Wittgenstien's Family Resemblance theory of concepts and discoveries about the large role played in concept-formation by the cognitive unconscious, Rand's theory appears rather implausible.
  • If "reason" involves forming concepts in accordance to Rand's theory, then we can safely assume that "reason" is entirely mythical faculty that has nothing to do with real cognition.
  • Logic enables us to judge the validity of our own deductive reasoning, but much of the time we need to reason non-deductively — either inductively, or in terms of likelihoods, or of causes and effects, none of which fits within the rules of formal logic.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 10 Jan 11
       
      i.e. - how we function from day to day.
  • The only way to make this true is to define mysticism and skepticism analytically -- i.e., as the only alternatives to "reason."
  • this natural reasoning is precisely the method which has allowed the species to reproduce and survive for hundreds of thousands of years
  • anonymous on 10 Jan 11
     
    ""Reason is man's only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge." The first difficulty we must confront is trying to entangle what is meant by "reason." As far as I can make out, "reason," for Rand, means creating a logically consistent body of knowledge based on the evidence of the senses. Rand is fond of describing "reason" in terms of "integration," which seems to assume is a kind of "whole" made up of indivdual parts that have been logically conjoined together. Rand claims that "The method which reason employs in this process is logic-and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification." This description entails the additional difficulties involved in trying to figure out what on earth Rand could possibly mean by suggesting that logic is the "art of non-contradictory identification." Logic involves the study of arguments. But here Rand is suggesting that logic has a much larger range, that it involves "identification."" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on January 10, 2011
anonymous

Theory of Knowledge (rationality outreach) - 0 views

lesswrong.com/...knowledge_rationality_outreach

knowledge rationality lesswrong criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 09 Aug 11 - Cached
  • It's called Theory of Knowledge, and it's offered at 2,307 schools worldwide as part of the IB Diploma Program.
  • For the record, I'm not convinced the IB Diploma Program is a good thing. It doesn't really solve any of the problems with public schools, it shares the frustrating focus on standardized testing and password-guessing instead of real learning, etc. But I think Theory of Knowledge is a huge opportunity to spread the ideas of rationality.
  • There isn't much in the way of standards for a curriculum, and in the entire last semester we covered less content than I learn from any given top-level LessWrong post.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In retrospect, I think the best thing that could have been added would have been a discussion up front about how not to be confused about words. Some combo of the material in Disputing Definitions and Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory. After that, something to undermine reliance on introspection and intuition more generally, perhaps in the context of presenting basic cognitive biases.
  • There are a lot of ways to make ToK good, and some of them don't look like LessWrong.
  • anonymous on 09 Aug 11
     
    "The consensus seems to be that a class teaching the basic principles of thinking would be a huge step towards raising the sanity waterline, but that it will never happen. Well, my school has one. It's called Theory of Knowledge, and it's offered at 2,307 schools worldwide as part of the IB Diploma Program."
anonymous

Right by Accident: Science and Rational Ignorance - 0 views

theumlaut.com/...science-and-rational-ignorance

shared by anonymous on 15 Mar 13 - Cached
  • That is because most Americans are not scientists or specialists in evolution, climatology, or any other scientific field. And if we treat scientific knowledge like any other area of specialized knowledge (politics, for example), then we know that the average person is likely to be rationally ignorant of science. As in politics, the average person will use ideology and rules-of-thumb, rather than the expert knowledge that they do not possess, to guide their behavior.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 15 Mar 13
       
      No kidding. *What* in our evolutionary past could have prepared us for pondering the global moral consequences of a particular kind of genetic engineering of food while also considering its relation to intellectual property and unknown long-term affects. Talk about the limitations of the monkey mind...
  • anonymous on 15 Mar 13
     
    "Conservatives have a bad reputation when it comes to science. Their case was not helped when Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican and member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, told a church group that he believes that, "evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell." And then there was the news that educated conservatives have lost trust in science over the last 40 years. However, the debate on whether conservatives are better or worse than liberals on science obscures the fact that most people, liberal or conservative, tend to believe the science that suits their ideology. This means that either side being right or wrong on questions of science has more to do with chance than with actual scientific knowledge."
anonymous

U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life - 0 views

pewforum.org/...eligious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx

religion society

shared by anonymous on 13 Oct 10 - Cached
  • Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.
  • anonymous on 13 Oct 10
     
    "Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions." At The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
anonymous

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 11 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...pirical-responsibility-11.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 25 Jan 11 - Cached
  • What Rand seems to have in mind (although she's none too clear about it) is the ideal of knowledge as a complete "logical" structure (logical in this sense meaning: integrated without contradiction). In this, Rand is mirroring Aristotle's ideal of knowledge as (in the words of Karl Popper) "an encyclopaedia containing the intuitive definitions of all essences, that is to say, their names together with their defining formulae."
  • there is a great deal of evidence that formal definitions are of little importance to understanding the meaning of words. Most words are learned unconsciously, without the aid of formal definitions or dictionaries.
  • she is not distinguishing whether those definitions are consciously formalized or are merely implicit and tacit. Yet if this is so, Rand needs to explain (1) how she knows this to be true; and (2) provide compelling evidence for her view.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • What would make a lot more sense would be Words without meanings are not language but inarticulate sounds.
  • The meaning of a term can be understood without defining it, because knowledge is largely tacit and intuitive, rather than formalized and logical, as Rand seems to assume.
  • I suspect it never occured to her that she needed to provide evidence, because empirical responsibility was not part of her basic MO.
  • An animal cannot perform a process of abstraction. Really? How on earth did Rand know this? For it's not clear at all that this is true.
  • anonymous on 25 Jan 11
     
    ""Definitions preserve ... the logical order of their hierarchical interdependence." This touches on the Objectivist contention that knowledge is hierarchical. The concept animal is a step higher in the conceptual hierarchy than mammal, for example. Is it true, as Rand asserts, that definitions "preserve" the "logical order" of this hierarchy?" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on January 25, 2011
anonymous

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 5 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...tivism-metaphysics-part-5.html

criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 23 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Rand defined in axiom as “a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not.”
  • The big three axioms in Objectivism are those of existence, consciousness, and identity.
  • Yet, irreducible and primary as they may be, they do rest on something else which Rand somehow fails to identify: namely, memory.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Any sort of analysis, including the analysis that yields the Objectivist axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity, presupposes the reliability of memory.
  • People tend to accept any argument, no matter how suspect, when it is used to defend core beliefs. To argue that a principle is “self-evident” and “axiomatic” because it cannot be “denied” without first assuming it involves presuppositions that can easily be doubted and challenged.
  • Knowledge neither requires, nor can be justified, in logic or “self-evidence.” Foundationalism is as unnecessary as it is false and empty. Knowledge can only be justified (provisionally) either in daily practice or (better yet) through rigorous empirical (i.e., scientific) tests.
  • anonymous on 23 Aug 10
     
    By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on August 22, 2010.
anonymous

America's "Natural Aristocracy" and the Triumph of Elite Reason - 0 views

www.3quarksdaily.com/...e-triumph-of-elite-reason.html

politics criticalthinking history

shared by anonymous on 20 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Who should rule America, the revolutionary and Constitution-writing generations of American leaders asked? Should it be an aristocratic elite bred to rule by the best families of the land? Or should it be direct representatives of the people whose knowledge of statecraft might be slight but who were reflective of the popular will?
  • America needed an aristocracy, they reasoned, but let it be a natural one drawn from the ranks of people like them, those whom in their conceit they decided were the best and the brightest. And so the concept of a “natural aristocracy” was born.
  • to the Federalists matters of government were quite different: government was a ‘complicated science, and requires abilities and knowledge, of a variety of subjects, to understand it.’ Only if the respected and worthy lent their natural intellectual abilities and their natural social influence to political authority could governmental order be maintained.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • That they worship in the temple of merit only obscures the fact that they are an elite convinced of their divinity like every other.
  • Forty years have passed since I was told to pay attention to early American history, and I finally understand why, petticoats and Pilgrims aside, it was such good advice. For it was their great concern about who should rule America that should now become ours.
  • anonymous on 20 Sep 10
     
    "Who should rule America, the revolutionary and Constitution-writing generations of American leaders asked? Should it be an aristocratic elite bred to rule by the best families of the land? Or should it be direct representatives of the people whose knowledge of statecraft might be slight but who were reflective of the popular will?" By Michael Blim at 3 Quarks Daily on September 20, 2010.
anonymous

The Dangers Of Externalizing Knowledge - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...ers-of-externalizing-knowledge

technology

shared by anonymous on 20 Dec 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 20 Dec 10
     
    "Contemplating the shortcomings of the younger generation has ever been a hobby of the elder. As I start to transition to the latter population (perhaps a bit early for my age), I've found myself worrying more and more about the kids, and how little they seem to appreciate things. That kind of complaint is neither constructive or original. But the fact is that the kids are growing up pretty weird these days, because of the way technology has outpaced our institutions of learning and standards of knowledge."
anonymous

5 Reasons Humanity Is Terrible at Democracy | Cracked.com - 0 views

www.cracked.com/-terrible-at-democracy_p2.html

shared by anonymous on 24 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Polls consistently show that we think those who disagree with us politically are simply bad people, on a personal level.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Mar 11
       
      What's fascinating is how irrelevant our partisan political affiliations are, on a day to day basis, but oh how we imagine them to be the center of our being.
  • Now take a look at this study, which compared a person's average political knowledge with their primary source of news. The results were surprising: The most knowledgeable groups were viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Hot on their heels? Fans of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.
  • Never mind the fact that it's a pretty bad sign when the most politically educated people in the country are relying on either comedy shows or political pundits for their news. The key is that these outlets are primarily about ruthlessly mocking and dismissing the other side. Yet they attract more knowledgeable voters, not less.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • In the world of psychology, they call this attitude polarization; the more times the average person spends thinking about a subject, the more extreme his position becomes -- even if he doesn't run across any new information.
  • once you get to the point where you're rooting so hard for one side of an issue that you're just short of painting your chest in team colors, then all that time spent reading up on the issues stops being about becoming an informed citizen and becomes more about accumulating ammunition for the next argument.
  • #1. We Hate Each Other Over Imaginary Differences
  • For example, a study asked Americans of various demographics and political stances about the ideal way they feel wealth should be distributed across the country. Young or old, male or female, Republican or Democrat, the answers they provided were almost identical.
  • Don't get us wrong; it's not that there are no disagreements, it's just that we vastly overestimate the degree to which we disagree, because the differences are all we focus on.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Mar 11
       
      For instance: During the Obama-McCain debates, their stated foreign policy stance was virtually identical. It was only on matters of how quickly a withdrawal would occur, not whether, if and how. This was almost completely glossed over by the left. In fact, the broad continuance of foreign policy is evidence of a geopolitical 'pull' that exists beyond partisanship and personalities.
  • We don't want the news to just give us information -- we want a story, and every story needs a villain, a battle between good and evil.
  • Knowing this, the news media decades ago started covering politics like a war, or a sport (in the biz, they call it "horse race coverage") where the reporting is entirely about which side is winning -- at the expense of figuring out the actual impact the resulting election or legislation will have on you as a human being. We tune in for "Us vs. Them," so that's what they give us.
anonymous

'Fake Geek Girls' Paranoia Is About Male Insecurity, Not Female Duplicity - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...267402

shared by anonymous on 23 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • I wonder if the identity-policing and insularity is simply a caducous part of geek culture, or whether it's not a more integral organ. As long as geek identity is constructed through knowledge—as long as it is essentially defined by who knows the most about a particular collection of purchaseable cultural commodities—then it seems to me that its borders are always going to demand policing. Which means that, given geekdoms' relationship to masculinity and femininity, a lot of that policing is going to be gendered and misogynist.
  • anonymous on 23 Jan 13
     
    "I'm not saying that people shouldn't love the art they love. But I am suggesting that the mean-spiritedness of geek culture-a mean-spiritedness that is often, but by no means always, directed at women-is not an accident. A culture that values knowledge and access above all things is going to be a culture dedicated to hierarchy and to power-to defining who is in and who is out. Such defining involves, and is meant to involve, a good deal of antagonism, score-settling, back-biting, and cruelty. There's not much point in defining yourself as the knower if you cannot define others as those who do not know."
anonymous

Rational ignorance - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Rational_ignorance

criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 13 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide.
  • Much of the empirical support for the idea of rational ignorance was drawn from studies of voter apathy, which reached particularly strong conclusions in the 1950s.[2] However, apathy appeared to decline sharply in the 1960s as concern about issues such as the Vietnam War mounted , and political polarization increased [3]. This suggests that voters' interest in political information increases with the importance of political choices. Additionally, rational ignorance is scrutinized for its broadening effect on the decisions that individuals make in different matters. The investment of time and energy on the specified subject has ramifications on other decision areas. Individuals sometimes forget to take this into account when unconsciously assessing the investment cost versus payout. The external benefits are therefore not adequately taken into account.
  • anonymous on 13 Jul 10
     
    Definition: "Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide." I got a great pointer by Adam Gurri about this Wikipedia page.
anonymous

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 8 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...tivism-metaphysics-part-8.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 08 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Rand’s axioms: Consciousness and the discovery of other minds
  • Even if I were to wave my previous objections to Rand's "axiomatic knowledge" and her foundationalist pretensions, I still don't see how Rand can justify the belief that other people's consciousness is axiomatic. Even if it were so for each individual, this knowledge would remain exclusively personal.
  • Each individual might regard his own consciousness as "axiomatic," but he could only accept the consciousness of others on purely non-foundationalist grounds. Such knowledge remains conjectural, even on Objectivist premises.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The testimony of others is like memory: although often reliable, it can hardly be regarded as infallible or as the foundation of "self-evidence."
  • Contrary to Rand's ex cathedra assertions, the mind is not a blank slate.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 08 Sep 10
       
      Thank you. Rand's acceptance of the blank slate is unfathomable given her surface-level worship of science.
  • anonymous on 08 Sep 10
     
    "By saying "one exists possessing consciousness," she is making the tacit assumption that everyone exists possessing conscious. But how does she know (in the axiomatic sense of the term) that other people are conscious?" By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on September 3, 2010.
anonymous

Socratic Electronics - 0 views

www.openbookproject.net/...socratic

education technology

shared by anonymous on 01 Oct 10 - Cached
  • The most important thing any educator can impart to a student, in any context, is the ability to teach themselves. When teachers dispense knowledge to students in the traditional lecture format -- where students passively watch and listen -- they deny students deep interaction with the subject matter. Furthermore, instructor-centered pedagogy assumes and reinforces the debilitating notion that education can only happen in the presence of a superior: You (the student) need me (the teacher) in order to learn.
  • anonymous on 01 Oct 10
     
    "What is Socratic Electronics? We live in a world where the accumulation of knowledge is exponential over time, and where the ability to continuously learn and make sound judgments is essential to survival. Formal education ought to play an important role in preparing individuals to succeed in this environment, but many traditional modes of education actually discourage development of independent thinking skills necessary for success."
anonymous

Objectivism & "Metaphysics," Part 15 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...ivism-metaphysics-part-15.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 12 Oct 10 - Cached
  • You the reader can perceive every potentiality I have been discussing simply by observing your own consciousness. The extent of your knowledge or intelligence is not relevant here, because the issue is whether you use whatever knowledge and intelligence you do possess.
  • Behind Peikoff’s argument is an important but unstated assumption. Peikoff is assuming that acts of introspection yield self-evident truth.
  • Does introspection really yield self-evident facts? No, of course not. Nor is it an assumption that any Objectivist, from Rand down, would ever consistently adhere to.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • As even Objectivism concedes, human beings do not have direct control over emotions. They experience, introspectively, emotions rising up within them, irrespective of any volition.
  • When it comes to emotions, Rand took an entirely different approach: “In the field of introspection,” she declared, “the two guiding questions are: ‘What do I feel?’ and ‘Why do I feel it?’” But wait a minute! Whatever happened to direct contact with the facts assumed by Peikoff in his argument about volition? By implication, Objectivism rejects the notion that emotions are beyond volitional control, even though this is how we experience them in introspection.
  • Let’s examine each of these claims.
  • (1) free will is self-evident.
  • (2) Determinism is self-refuting.
  • If a determinist tried to assess his viewpoint as knowledge, he would have to say, in effect: “I am in control of my mind. I do have the power to decide to focus on reality. I do not merely submit spinelessly to whatever distortions happen to be decreed by some chain of forces stretching back to infinity. I am free, free to be objective, free to conclude — that I am not free.
  • This argument gratuitously assumes that the individual must be able to control his own mind in order to know anything. Yet what is the rationale for such an assumption? Why can’t the mind, operating on its own principles, gather in data from external existence, analyze it, and reach conclusions?
  • One could believe, for example, that while the intellect may be volitional, the will (i.e., Rand’s emotional mechanism) is determined, so that a man may control his mind but not his temper. All kinds of variants and mixtures are possible, most of which are not even broached by Peikoff’s argument.
  • The bottom line is this: the arguments essayed by Peikoff for free will and against determinism are both grossly inadequate and hardly rise to the level required by “self-evidence.”
  • anonymous on 12 Oct 10
     
    "Objectivist argument for free will. According to Objectivism, free will is "axiomatic," which means (1) it's "self-evident," "fundamentally given and directly perceived"; and (2) the denial of free will is self-refuting. Let's examine each of these claims." By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on October 11, 2010.
anonymous

Science 2.0 Pioneers - 0 views

seedmagazine.com/...science_2.0_pioneers

layscience

shared by anonymous on 21 May 10 - Cached
  • From open-access journals to research-review blogs, from collaboration by wiki to epidemiology by Blackberry, networked knowledge has made more science more accessible more quickly and to more people around the globe than could have been imagined 20 years ago.
  • Varmus is among a cadre of iconoclasts calling for immediate open access to scientific papers. They’re impatient for colleagues to give up their allegiance to the conventional process that they say keeps new research under wraps for too long. And they’re eager for publishers to break out of business models that require a paid subscription to read the most current publications.
  • anonymous on 21 May 10
     
    "From open-access journals to research-review blogs, networked knowledge has made science more accessible to more people around the globe than we could have imagined 20 years ago." By Adrienne J. Burke in Seed on May 20, 2010
anonymous

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 12 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...pirical-responsibility-12.html

criticalthinking objectivism

shared by anonymous on 03 Feb 11 - Cached
  • Rand was always mistrustful of anything that smacked of "just knowing." She shared the rationalist's contempt for non-explicated knowledge.
  • In the first place, hardly anyone outside of Objectivism regards Rand's view of Kant as fair or accurate.
  • anonymous on 03 Feb 11
     
    ""The process of forming a concept is not complete until its constituent units have been integrated into a single mental unit by means of a specific word." This assertion reflects Rand's bias against tacit knowledge."
anonymous

Why Free Markets? - 2 views

bleedingheartlibertarians.com/...why-free-markets

shared by anonymous on 30 Jun 11 - Cached
  • The short answer, which I will assert here and defend below, is that whatever the intent behind government regulation of markets, it almost always ends up working in the interest of the rich and powerful and does little to protect the interest of those with modest means and little access to power.  If a commitment to social justice demands that we care first and foremost about the least well off among us, supporting government regulation may well violate that commitment.
  • why might libertarians, and bleeding heart ones at that, argue that markets should be free of government regulations?
  • As Hayek made clear 66 years ago, the problem we face when try to “construct” an economic order is how to best make use of all of this knowledge, which is dispersed, contextual, and often tacit. 
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Mises and Hayek also argued that because this knowledge is structurally dispersed, contextual and tacit, it cannot be aggregated by government planners and regulators (nor, it’s worth noting, by private actors).
  • So one problem facing regulators is that they lack the knowledge necessary to know what people value and how much, so in deciding what to regulate and how, they are acting on incomplete and often erroneous information.  By trying to override the market, they are substituting a less informationally-rich system for a more rich one.
  • In the face of these repeated failures, it’s very easy to imagine, and there’s plenty of evidence to support it, that regulators and the politicians who oversee them will start to act in their own political self-interest.  Without the ability to make reliable decisions on the objective merits, self-interest will slowly dominate.  Regulators will try to serve the needs of those who will keep them in power and supply them with healthy budgets.  So-called “Capture Theory” explains that it then becomes easy for regulators to be “captured” by the industries they regulate and then regulate in ways that favor the industry.
  • about 75% of antitrust cases are initiated not by the government but by private firms unhappy with how their competition has behaved.  Private actors constantly engage in lobbying and rent-seeking for regulations that will benefit them and/or harm their competition.
  • For me, as an economist, the argument against a great deal of regulation is precisely that it harms the least well off it is trying to help and provides unwarranted privileges for those who need them least. 
  •  Economic systems are inherent unstable, dynamically evolving things.   In studying them, we are always studying a moving target.  To my mind, that makes equilibrium models less generally applicable than is often held to be the case.
  • I have great sympathy for this line of argument, but write to make two points.
  • First, I think the danger of governmental regulation goes beyond the mere possibility of "capture" of the regulatory apparatus by the powerful. The threat is not just this, but that once the authority to regulate is well-established, the state can use this and other economic tools to "buy off" various constitutencies until the opposition to state authority becomes too weak to prevent a very dangerous concentration of power.
  • Second, there is also a purely moral, but non-consequentialist, argument against regulation.
  • That suggests that human institutions - complexity of parts notwithstanding - often exhibit various aggregate patterns of behavior that correlate with measurable variables, and that can be understood and predicted with reasonable degrees of confidence, and thus that the outcomes of various kinds of higher-level global interventions can similarly be predicted with some accuracy.
  • There is no fundamental theoretical difference between states and other large human organizations that would for some reason result in the inability of states to successfully regulate significant fields of aggregate economic behavior as a result of micro-level calculation problems.
  • This is not an argument for any particular regulatory action.  It is an argument that whether these treatments work is an empirical question that cannot be deduced a priori from the kinds of simplified toy models that are wheeled out in an Economics 101 classes or from the armchairs of either libertarian or socialist philosophers.
  • Philosophers are good at the logical and conceptual analysis of conundrums that occur in the theoretical levels of a science.   But when they venture too far into the way the actual world works, they easily lose their bearings due to their surfeit of rationalistic mental habits and intolerance of detail.
  • Property rights are not actualized in the real human world by philosophical ruminations on the state of nature.  They are actualized by courts, and lawmakers, and executives backed up by police and security services - people with guns and other means of enforcing the laws.  There has never been a durable form of human social life where the power to regulate was not "granted."
  • anonymous on 30 Jun 11
     
    "My first post this week led to some interesting discussion in the comments, which has in turn led me to this post. One issue that came up there was, and I paraphrase: "Okay, fine, markets really do benefit the poor, but the dispute between modern liberals and libertarians is not over 'markets' but over 'free markets.' Libertarians don't want the regulations that liberals do and saying that 'markets' help the poor doesn't help us resolve this issue." Fair enough. So why might libertarians, and bleeding heart ones at that, argue that markets should be free of government regulations?"
  • Erik Hanson on 02 Jul 11
     
    I don't know that free markets help the poor so much as they allow more opportunity to the poor. And where free markets lack is in actually funding the poor, where there's a presumption that they deserve poverty.
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