📚 Quinn's Highlights

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A batch of the best highlights from what Quinn's read, .

"What Information Consumes Is Attention" and The Thermodynamics of Communication Summary: Herbert Simon's quote about information consuming attention is a crucial point to consider. Emails can be overwhelming, as there is a limit to the amount of time and attention we have. It is important not to solely rely on the internet as a copying machine, but to acknowledge the real material scarcities and limitations. While there is room for improvement, there are still real world limits to communication effectiveness. Transcript: Speaker 3 Herbert Simon's famous 1971 quote that what information consumes is attention feels like such a crucial point that I made it my email signature you know because like you said earlier Glenn that you know the value is really in in the relationships and there are differentially scalable qualities here I think a lot about the way and Doug Rushkoff and others have pointed Out that you can have at least you know indefinitely many emails a day but you only have so much time and attention to read them and that this is part of the argument for the importance of Not just following the sort of logic of the internet as a great copying machine off a cliff right where we're imagining an abundance that is nonetheless still founded in real material Scarcities you know like David Wolpert talks about you know the thermodynamics of communication and there being a theoretical limit to how effective that can be and while we still Have plenty of room you know orders of magnitude to improve on that you know that there are these real world limits that we're eventually going to bump up into

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

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

The Map is not the Territory Summary: Humans often confuse maps with territories, despite evidence from various disciplines. We wrongly assume that what we measure is what matters, but our values may not have quantifiable metrics. Biometric data can oversimplify complex discussions on health. This conundrum becomes more significant when considering governance on a larger scale. How do we count and operate a nation state wisely? Can social science inform smarter political economies? We must escape the false clarity of information systems that lack collective wisdom. Transcript: Speaker 3 There are maps and there are territories and humans frequently confuse the two. No matter how insistently this point has been made by cognitive neuroscience, epistemology, economics, and a score of other disciplines, one common human error is to act as if we know What we should measure and that what we measure is what matters. But what we value doesn't even always have a metric and even reasonable proxies can distort our understanding of and behavior in the world we want to navigate. Even carefully collected biometric data can include the other factors that determine health or can oversimplify a nuanced conversation on the plural and contextual dimensions Of health, transforming goals like functional fitness into something easier to quantify but far less useful. This philosophical conundrum magnifies when we consider governance at scales beyond those at which homo sapiens evolved to grasp intuitively. What should we count to wisely operate a nation state? How do we practice social science in a way that can inform new, smarter species of political economy? And how can we escape this seductive but false clarity of systems that reign information but do not enhance collective wisdom?

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

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

One of the most effective tools for building a culture of trust is simply saying, “I trust you to do the right thing.” Backing those words with action shows people that you’re serious. Larry once had about 40 people reporting to him in a research unit of a major consulting firm. As a manager, he was expected to read and approve all travel and expense forms. Since many of these consultants traveled extensively, this would have meant spending a half-day or more on paperwork each week. This struck him as a tremendous waste of time and energy that did not add any value to his unit. At a group meeting, he told the team that he trusted them to stay at a Marriott rather than a Four Seasons hotel, and that he wasn’t going to dive into their expense reports. He realized that the cost of not trusting the group would be far greater than an infrequent upgrade from coach to business class. This not only gave Larry time to do more worthwhile work, but it added to the group’s social capital.11 They knew they were trusted and proved to be trustworthy over the years.

The Smart Mission

Edward J. Hoffman, Matthew Kohut, and Laurence Prusak

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