My new article on the Behavioral Design Hub: The Science of Context
"Applied Behavioral Science is the science where we build models of a context with enough detail that it illuminates how small changes (e.g., nudges) will affect behavior."
https://medium.com/behavior-design-hub/the-science-of-context-e6cc50252709
The Science of Context - Behavioral Design Hub - Medium
I still cringe at my first attempts to design a behavior change intervention. It was like I had looked at a Behavioral Science textbook and thrown all my ideas at the problem, hoping something might…
@Alon never read MacAskill, never seen a white supremacist tolerated in the movement, and never heard of Timnit. EA is a big movement with people from many countries, and all kind of views (some of which I find very wrong). If you think something is wrong, I recommend making an argument for why it is wrong
@ironick17 some random terms I associate with complexity; Embodied psych, enactivism, information theory, process physics, Markov blankets, emergence, butterfly effect, teleology, agency...not sure if any of these deserve to go on the graph, but these are definitely important concepts that get mentioned quite often
RT @HirokiSayama
#ComplexSystems folks:
After more than a decade, I am planning to update this diagram. What kind of keywords, concepts, topics, and/or research areas should be added? Let me know
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Complex_systems_organizational_map.jpg
File:Complex systems organizational map.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
So please everyone, I ask of you to contribute to EA! Contribute to population growth! Contribute to our markets! And contribute to EvoPsych! The world will be better off as you engage in these ways
4. EvoPsych has some bad apples, bad assumptions, and bad methodologies. And I could focus on that, but to honor my trolls I will only offer defences of the field. And here's my defence of EvoPsych; I'm glad somebody is doing it. I am glad that someone is taking the current paradigm seriously and seeing where it leads. If you disagree, you should develop the new paradigm and challenge them. I will even read your paper.
3. Neoliberalism is ill defined because it was originally meant as an insult. But when my trolls accused me of being a neoliberal apologist, I can only assume they meant "capitalism", so here's my defence of capitalism: it's good actually. You need strong markets if you are going to fund a welfare state. That's what Denmark has done, and we should follow their example. Yay for markets!
So if you are concerned about population growth but want kids, then have kids and offset the extra amount of land and resources they need by eating more GMOs. GMOs have repeatedly shown to be safe, and no different than natural breeding techniques, and they are better for the environment.
2. Population ethics is generally an area of philosophy I stay away from. Where else does logic and intuition so differ? But heres my thought on population growth; Mathus was right until he wasn't. He saw the trends and realized the trends were bad and rightfully sounded the alarm. But then we got synthetic manure and GMOs which greatly reduced how much land we need, and are likely the two inventions which have saved more lives than any other.
1. I think of Effective Altruism as "Altruism studies" - a discipline that exists largely outside of academia. The dominant paradigm within this discipline involves utilitarianism, RCTs, rationalism, longtermism, concerns about AGI, etc. However, many reject part or all of these elements. If you have good arguments against any element, I invite you to contribute by posting your criticism on the EA forum. EA is so young and is in desperate need of good compelling critiques.
Contingently i-RON-ick