📚 Quinn's Highlights

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The Problem of Scale Clash in Human Collaboration Summary: The problem goes beyond ideal scale of humanity. Different things we want involve different scales. Science works on a huge scale for problems like climate change while other things work on medium or small scales. There is a clash of different scales and no optimal scale. The big scales tend to win and squash out the small scales. However, over long time scales, these complex systems tend to implode. It's about a dynamic balance where different forces coexist. How do we handle this in light of global coordination, bioregional organization, and personal relationships at the neighborhood level? Transcript: Speaker 2 I think the problem is even worse than what you're describing I'm going to try to pessimize what you said I mean when you ask me a question like have we gone past the ideal scale of humanity That implies that there is an ideal scale that we could plausibly hit if we could somehow convince people to scale back. For me the real worry is there's no ideal scale of humanity because different things we want to be involved in demand different scales science works really big good on a huge scale solving Problems like climate change our massive scale problems that everyone has to get together on and then there are other things that work at medium or small scales and there's just this Unsolvable scale clash my real worry is that different parts of us and our needs call us to different scales and there is not an optimal scale and so I have to participate in these different Scales or in tension with each other and also the big scales tend to win because they get really powerful and so they squash out the small scales. Speaker 3 Over short time scales though right because over long time scales those like you know this is the Bob May will a complex system large complex system be stable question it's like at some Point those things tend to implode so it's not about like an equilibrium so much as it is about a a dynamic balance or a zone at which these different forces are able to coexist how do you Deal with all of this in light of both the need for global coordination and bioregional organization and neighborhood level personal relationships etc.

Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems With Value Metrics & Governance at Scale

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

Adversarial instead of truth-seeking engagement is baked into so many aspects of our society Summary: Our society often relies on adversarial advocates for decision-making, but this approach doesn't lead to the truth. We need a cooperative effort where people are open to changing their minds and acknowledging different perspectives. This applies to civic organizations, legal systems, political systems, and even neighborhood associations. We tend to punish those who disagree with the established opinion, leading to a lack of pluralism. We should strive for diverse viewpoints and a cooperative search for the truth. Transcript: Speaker 1 There's a thing wrong with our society which is we have even the institutions that work reasonably well in our society are still often built around adversarial advocates in which the Idea is i will argue as passionately as possible for one side you will argue as passionately as possible for the other side we will deploy whatever resources we can rhetoric money etc And somehow we like to think that by i don't know interpolation that will arrive at the truth and that's totally not true right i mean i we know that there are lots of types of decision-making Where that's a disaster where what you need is not these two sides each of which are deliberately undercutting the other as effectively and including viciously as they can but you want Everybody to be willing to change their mind openly publicly to be willing to publicly acknowledge the point that the other person is making and you want to sense that people are cooperatively Working together toward the truth but that's not how most civic organizations work it's not how our legal system works it's not our political system works nowadays maybe there was Some golden age in the past but it did probably not it's not even how neighborhood associations work right i mean there may be some diversity in how homeowners associations work internally Although i regret to say i don't think that's usually true because they're usually very self-selected groups of people who are quite vocal but once they arrive at a decision they're Like good old-fashioned Maoist democratic centralists you know like well we represent the neighborhood and this is our monolithic opinion and if somebody shows up and says well i Live in that neighborhood but i i actually don't agree then they they get piled on and punished and if somebody says i'm an environmentalist but this environmental organization doesn't Speak for me or i belong to this racial or ethnic group but i don't necessarily agree with what the claimed representatives of that group say that group wants they get punished again A lack of pluralism but i think it's not just a lack of diversity it's this notion that the way to get make decisions is for everybody to hammer their stake as firmly into the ground as they Can

Glen Weyl & Cris Moore on Plurality, Governance, and Decentralized Society

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

The Expert Identification Problem and the Challenges of Democratic Decision-Making Key takeaways: • The expert identification problem is a major concern when it comes to trusting experts in a democracy. • Democracies aim to harness the intellectual power of diversity for better solutions. • The challenge lies in recognizing the best solutions when they require expertise that the democratic entity may not possess. • There is no clear solution to this problem, and democracy remains the best way to organize society according to the speaker. Transcript: Speaker 2 So for a long time I would say that the problem I've been most obsessed with is something I call the expert identification problem it's like how does the non-expert figure out which expert To trust if they don't have the expertise and one of the worries about a democracy is that it runs straight into the expert identification problem right like if we're democratically Voting on what to do we are aggregate non-experts I mean I'm not talking here about like oh we are the experts and you all are not even if you are the world expert in X you're a non-expert In a million other fields right so as an aggregate we are non-expert so here's the real worry for me if you have the right solution how would that get democratically approved Helen Landemore Is this a political theorist I really like she's part of a movement who are epistemic democrats and they think that democracies are the best way to harness the intellectual power of Diversity and the basic model is something like diverse people will come up with a better set of solutions and when you put them together the best solutions will rise to the top and my Worry is how will the democratic entity recognize which are the best solutions because if the best solution requires expertise to recognize and the democratic entity as an aggregate Is not an expert how will they figure it out and that's a problem I'm not sure there's a solution to and I also can't think of a better way to organize the world than democratically

Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems With Value Metrics & Governance at Scale

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

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