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Cynics are those who actively oppose change. NOBL recognizes that “cynics’ negativity can be annoying,” but engaging with them and trying to convince them can often be a huge time suck when it comes to leading change. Here’s the magic: “cynics are just disappointed idealists.” Perhaps they have gotten their hopes up about change only to be let down. Unlike a fence-sitter, a cynic is at least actively engaged with the change effort so spend your time delivering “something that matters” to your cynics, because actions will speak much louder than words. And if you are successful, your greatest cynics, once won over, will often become your greatest advocates.
Becoming a Changemaker
Alex Budak
Perverse Incentives Select for People Who Are the Best at Exploiting a Given System
Summary:
The original deans and administrators burn out due to their dislike of the US News and World Report rankings and are replaced by individuals driven by ranking success.
This shift reflects a difference in mentality between valuing money as a means of support versus valuing money as the sole purpose of life. Similarly, pursuing publications and citations for a job versus making them the ultimate goal shows a significant distinction.
However, these differences are connected through a temporal dynamic where initially people adapt their behavior to succeed in a flawed system.
The system then filters out those who can best exploit it, resulting in the selection of individuals with specific values.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
What happens later on, the original deans and administrators burn out because of how much they hate the US news and rule report rankings, and they get replaced by people who are all it. They think the only point is to rise in the rankings. And those people don't hold back. They only have one target. I think something similar is the difference between so realizing I need a lot of money in order to a decent amount of money to support my family, but not thinking money is the point of life. And similarly, realizing that getting a decent number of publications and citations is necessary for a job versus thinking the goal of my life is to max out citations. And for me, there's a huge gulf between those things.
Speaker 1
Well, here's where I think they're connected because I see the difference and I understand the difference you're talking about. But I think the difference is that is this temporal dynamic, right, where you start out with, let's say, perverse incentives and people saying, well, I don't necessarily value these Things, but I have to shape my behavior in order to succeed in this system. But the thing is, the system being the way it is creates a filter. And the people who are the best at figuring out how to operate in that are the ones that then end up being successful. And they're the ones that teach the next generation or emulated by the next generation. And over time, the people for whatever reasons, psychologically or behaviorally or ever their path is, are best able to exploit the system are going to be able to thrive in it. And I think that because of that, you end up selecting for people with certain kinds of values, because they're going to be the people who there's always exceptions, but are going to Be best able to thrive in this kind of thing.
Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems With Value Metrics & Governance at Scale
COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life
The people with the most accurate models of others tend to have diverse social networks
Summary:
To correct for this handicap, we need to listen to the oppressed in the population.
This includes laborers, students, and others who are usually not given a political voice. By expanding our social networks to include more diverse perspectives, policymakers can make better decisions based on a deeper understanding of societal trends and people's desires.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
But it sounds like this gives us a really clear pointer on how to correct for this handicap. And that we really ought to be like, perhaps when it comes time to make decisions on behalf of everyone, we should really be listening to whomever the oppressed are in that population. We should be really paying attention, for example, to laborers and students and people that are ordinarily not historically, not given a lot of political voice. And what you're saying, yeah, it's in other words, what we need to do is broader our social networks include in our social networks, those people who are typically not there. So if the policymakers who are making these important decisions should know as many different people as possible. And we show in related studies that people who have most diverse social circles are also best able to predict societal trends and to understand how the overall population lives and What people want.
Mirta Galesic on Social Learning & Decision-Making
COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life
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