I like the dichotomy between the optimists and the disaffected better than the concept that confidence/trust is necessary for cultural transmission. As I tried to argue w.r.t. empathy (and Marcus' story about his accident), I suspect one can mimic another without an ontological commitment to the other's credibility/fidelity. Like the mistaken attribution of authoritarian control in teleonomic systems, it feels like Crawford is simply projecting his concept of how cultural transmission works, without the data to back it up.
As long as we're swinging our [euphemism redacted] around with no data to back them up, I'll say that most apprentices I've had the luxury of long conversations with, express continual skepticism about the mastery of their master. That includes relatively long relationships with carpenters and plumbers as well as PhD students w.r.t. to their advisors. Even in the best cases, where the student admits they're standing on their masters' shoulders, they maintain that they've put at least a spin on their methods that their former master wouldn't tolerate. And there are plenty of worse cases, where the student splits away entirely, often feeling like they had to deconstruct themselves out of the cult. So I'm not buying Crawford's "Confidence or trust is the key idea here. And this remains the case in adult society: Without such confidence, the transmission of culture comes to a halt." I'd lean more towards something like prediction coding, where you're continually generating predictive estimators and you select for performance as you go forward, no trust required. On 10/20/24 14:29, Jochen Fromm wrote:
Wonderful essay. Hannah Arendt wrote in the 1951 preface to her book "The Origins of Totalitarianism": "It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives". https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/why-free-minds-are-our-best-defence-against-the-rise-of-totalitarianism Trump and Musk clearly belong to the former, his MAGA followers to the latter class. If MAGA followers are similar to the people who vote for the far right AfD here in Germany, then they probably indulge in resentments against immigrants and refugees, because they feel powerless and generally unable to achieve the life they long for. -J. -------- Original message -------- From: Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org> Date: 10/20/24 9:30 PM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism My video watching has just started season 3 of His Dark Materials, Phillip Pullman's epic fantasy, which has a lot to say about Authority, its excesses, and the necessity to overthrow it. Then there was this essay, https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/why-individualism-fails-to-create-individuals?ref=upstract.com <https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/why-individualism-fails-to-create-individuals?ref=upstract.com>, which definitely had a conservative axe to grind, but said some interesting things about authority in the context of learning. Trump and Musk seem to be playing argument from authority to death, that is, demonstrating how far you can get on bs alone in this age. -- rec -- On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 3:32 AM Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net <mailto:j...@cas-group.net>> wrote: I agree that the hype in conservative news sources about great CEOs is an example of the Great Man theory. The hype about AI godfathers is an example too. Nevertheless I still believe that authoritarian organization is the rule in social systems. In almost all companies and corporations the CEO has the last word, in armies the general at the top, in families traditionally the father. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory> In hierarchies there are two ends of a spectrum: at the one end we have an authoritarian system and a top-down hierarchy where people at the bottom are doing what the leader at the top wants. At the other end we have a democratic system and a bottom-up hierarchy where elected people at the top are doing what the people at the bottom want. In between are authoritarian systems that pretend to democratic, and democratic system that have authoritarian tendencies. An example of the spectrum would be a Navy vessel vs a pirate ship in the 18th century. Mutiny is one form of transition between the two types. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_in_18th-century_piracy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_in_18th-century_piracy> Another example is the Catholic church vs protestantism. In the Catholic church officials are appointed from the top, in protestant culture they are elected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism> The question why people are shifting from one form of organization to another is intriguing. I am not sure if we have clear answers to this interesting question. Nick argued that "groups capable of shifting to an authoritarian organization in response to a perceived existential threat survived in greater numbers than those that didn't" but this argument alone is not fully convincing, or is it? -J. -------- Original message -------- From: glen <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> Date: 10/18/24 9:47 PM (GMT+01:00) To: friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism I can't help but feel that the sentiment that authoritarian organization is the rule is an example of (or sibling to) the Great Man theory. Ultimately, it's something akin to a psychological investment in teleology - which I'm using to mean when the appearance of purposeful behavior is often treated as an indicator that processes do have purpose (as opposed to teleonomy - where processes merely seem to have purpose, behave as if they have purpose, or perhaps purpose is emergent). But it's not merely the attribution of purpose, but also the attribution of unity or fusion into a bounded whole. I'd challenge anyone to present an organized system that is *actually* unified in this way. Even political systems we name and accept as authoritarian, are not completely fused, atomic, centralized. The extent to which the nominal leader is actually the leader is a graded extent, never perfect. Each particular authoritarian system will be more or less authoritarian than another. And, worse, each particular system will be more authoritarian in some dimensions and less in others. So if I read this generously, what I hear is that we're very used to ... comfortable with ... the attribution of leader-controlled organization, as in corporations with chief executives, etc. And we're less used to ... facile with ... comfortable with ... distributed organization and quantifying the extent to which organization is centralized or distributed. If I read it less generously, it sounds like reification - pretending like some illusory property is actual. On 10/17/24 10:21, Jochen Fromm wrote: > Interesting thoughts. The use of "atavism" in the context of social systems is interesting, but it is not new. Joseph Schumpeter has used the term atavism to explain the outbreak of World War I > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism> > > > I believe authoritarian organization is not the exception, it is the rule. A pecking order or "dominance hierarchy" is the most common order in social groups and almost all organizations, corporations and companies. Even among chickens in farms or apes in zoos. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy> > > > The opposite of authoritarian organization is an egalitarian society where everybody is equal. In his book "Warlike and Peaceful Societies", Agner Fogar agues that people tend to prefer one of these two types depending on the situation. His regality theory says "people will show a psychological preference for a strong leader and strict discipline if they live in a society full of conflict and danger, while people in a peaceful and safe environment will prefer an egalitarian and tolerant culture" > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regality_theory <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regality_theory> > > > -J. > > > > Inters-------- Original message -------- > From: thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > Date: 10/17/24 12:08 AM (GMT+01:00) > To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>> > Subject: [FRIAM] On Evolutionary Atavism > > On Evolutionary Atavism > > My so-called mind is still churning from our conversation about evolutionary atavism, the idea that current behavioral systems may be ill-suited to contemporary circumstances. As an evolutionary psychologist I should be for it; however, as a survivor of the instinct wars of the 1950’s, I should be against it. Where am I? > > The problem with evolutionary atavism arises when people start attributing any necessity to it. Natural selection would not be possible if organisms did not offer up structures and behaviors that are maladapted. Evolution could not have occurred if organisms did not respond to these maladaptations with adaptive changes. Evolution is a dynamic between change and stability and the interesting question is why some things change while others don’t, and why some changes occur more rapidly than others. Asserting that some things are the same as they were a million years ago because they didn’t happen to change is just silly. > > Still, evolutionary atavism does play a role in my thinking. Let’s work an example together and see what that role is and whether it is justified. I listened with guilty pleasure to Obama’s address ridiculing MAGA thinking. My pleasure was guilty because I thought his speech would make Trump more likely to win the election. This conclusion arose from an evolutionary hypothesis about the origins of charisma. The logic, such as it is, goes like this. > > 1. *The modern human species arose 160kyrs ago from a very small number of small groups. *That the human species passed through a severe bottleneck at it inception is probably true; that it was composed of small group at that time is a plausible surmise.** > 2. *Those groups were engaged in intense competition at the bottleneck. *This statement is reasonable but not supported by any data I can think of. ** > 3. *Therefore, they survived or failed as groups. *Again, merely plausible.** > 4. *Those /groups/ survived that were capable of rapid concerted action. *This is based on the idea that in emergencies it is most important for every to do some thing, rather than for them to wait and work out the best thing to do.**Barely plausible. Not even clear how one would go about researching it. ** > 5. *Groups capable of shifting to an authoritarian organization in response to a perceived existential threat survived in greater numbers than those that didn’t.* > 6. *Humans, therefore, are inclined to put their faith in a single person when they perceive an existential threat. *Let’s call this the “Charismer Response”** > 7. *The person most likely to be selected for this role is apparently single-minded and decisive. *This gives us the characteristics of a *Charismer*, ** > 8. *Charismees relinquish their capacity for independent rational thought in favor of the Charismer’s decision-making. * > 9. *Charismees receive benefits from the group in proportion to their demonstrations of surrender of rationality.* > 10. *Charismees demostrate their surrender by the repetition of o or more flagrantly irrational beliefs. (virgi birth, stole election , etc.)* > 11. *Challenges to these beliefs only increase charismees allegiance to the group* > 12. *Therefore, Obama should have kept his smarty-pants mouth shut. * > > You all ca*n* evaluate the heuristic, rationality, a*n*d probability of this argument. I am going to stop *n*ow because my keyboard has stopped reliably producing “*n’s” * ad is drivig me uts. At best, I think evolutionary atavism is a source of plausible hypotheses about why organisms are not adapted to their current circumstances. See some of you tomorrow. > > Sicerely, >
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