📚 Quinn's Highlights

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

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

Pol.is: An Example of Tools for Facilitating Non-Adverserial Debate at Scale Summary: A twitter-like system in Taiwan guides conversations towards consensual outcomes by using k-means clustering. It's a simple proof of concept for fact checking and has been effective in large-scale conversations. The science of plurality can advance to help navigate complexity in diverse opinions. Transcript: Speaker 2 Pol.is i don't know if you guys are familiar with that but it's a system used in Taiwan it's a twitter like format but it deliberately guides conversations towards consensual or partially Consensual outcomes while highlighting the differences that exist in the conversations in a non-judgmental way and it's just a wonderful system and at the same time it's like the Most simplistic proof of concept of the general direction it uses k-means clustering of stated opinions it doesn't use any natural language processing it's like the bargain basement Version of what it's trying to achieve but it still has been transformatively effective for these types of conversations at scale in Taiwan and is being adopted if it survives by the Twitter bird watch folks as the foundations of what they're trying to do for fact checking so i do believe that there is a science here that can advance dramatically i think that we have Not chosen to apply ourselves to it because we've been seduced by oh we're going to do the unbiased algorithm that's going to predict the truth the right way rather than saying no people Are diverse you have a lot of different opinions how do we actually help people navigate that complexity so i really am hopeful that this science what i would call plurality really can Advance and and help us do these things much better and again i'll put in the plug if you're a researcher interested in these things we're trying to build an academic community that really Wants to work on them right to me at when at pluralitynetwork.org

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

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

Ambiguity in Communication is Both a Feature and a Bug Summary: In 1984, Eisenberg proposed that ambiguity in communication is important and influential. This idea suggests that being too clear can limit interpretation and hinder coalition-building. Ambiguity can be used to evade accountability, but it is also a general principle of communication. Transcript: Speaker 1 It's Eisenberg in 1984 in communication monographs or something. It's this great rambling paper and this idea has been massively influential to me, but he's basically arguing that it would seem like the point of communication should be clarity, To be as clear as possible. For me to say, I mean this and you do know exactly what I mean and that's the goal and ambiguity is therefore a bad thing. He argues that actually no ambiguity is a really important thing and other people have expanded on this. Now the way I think about this is like a blend of Eisenberg and then other people who've come a bit later, but that in a lot of ways if you're trying to get let's say a coalition, you don't Want to say this is exactly what our goal is and this is what we're trying to do. You want to use vague terms so that a bunch of people can sort of map whatever they think that the goal is onto and say that's consistent. It also leads to a reduction in accountability because after you do something and someone says, you said you were going to do this and you say, nah-ah listen to what I said, it's consistent With what I did because what I said was ambiguous. So it's pernicious in a way too. It's used nefariously in a lot of ways by let's say politicians and other kinds of leaders to avoid accountability, but it's also just a general principle of communication I think.

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

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

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