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Second, you see a tradeoff where there isn't any. Of course there is a tradeoff. If you ever have the opportunity to make more money/enjoy your job more/invest

• pron 11y ago
  > Is this really your belief? No. > Very easy: https://xkcd.com/895/ https://xkcd.com/895/ So if a system is too complex for us to discover its equations (so far) that means that we don't know anything about it? Let me tell you that in grad school I studied applied math, and we had those very, very simple non-linear ODEs, yet the best we could do with them was simulate them numerically and make general statements about their behavior from observation. Every person is probably governed many non-linear equations, much more complicated than the simple ones people usually study, and they all interact in a complex system. So, for now, I guess we have to settle to many years of observational research. That doesn't mean we haven't learned anything. > Feel free to provide equations, or even just clear and unambiguous statements. My statements are very clear (I think; I'm not a native English speaker). I still don't understand how you manage to misinterpret them or think they're vague. My guess is that you're not trying to understand what it is that I'm saying. > You are ignoring the collective action problem here. No, I'm not. You are ignoring both the state and the dynamics of the system. Groups that have little power have little means of increasing it (basically, it takes money to make money) other than through collective action. Some forms of power can't be obtained alone. If you want to be elected to office, you have to have a base and form alliances. The only reason I used your terminology of money (You will turn down exactly the amount you think you're expected to gain) is because you keep reducing a complex system to simple scenarios, and when I say that the system is complex you say I'm evading your question (which is about an irrelevant model), so this time I tried to answer using your model, and now you've expanded it -- ambiguously, because you didn't explain how white power can win without your cooperation if every player behaves like you do. Your model invariably leads to local-minimum Nash equilibria, yet history has shown over and over how Nash equilibria are overcome; ergo -- your model is very, very wrong. But I'll tell you what. If you're willing to explain what your entire model for society is, I'll gladly point out the mistakes. > For much the same reason, I don't vote You don't vote or participate in demonstrations or other collective actions because you feel that your position is not in any imminent danger. Alternatively, you might feel that you won't make a difference anyway. Yet another possibility is that your empathy is low, so you gain little emotional reward by helping people in need. Or, your empathy is high, but not applied to faceless strangers. We are all different. > Since you seem to think the laws of arithmetic don't apply to counting humans It's not the laws of arithmetic, it's their applicability to reality. C+C=2C, but that doesn't mean that that's the speed you'd observe. > I promise I can follow along. Perhaps, if you were really interested in understanding how society works, but even though I'm sure I'd enjoy it -- and so will you -- it would take too much time. My professional training is in history (and math) but I am not expert enough to reduce the important parts to something manageable in HN comments. > I repeat my prediction: "more wordplay that ignores the simple arithmetic and uncomfortable question." I add a new prediction: "no equations or unambiguous statements shall be forthcoming. At first I thought I'd write simply "kick those Asians out", but then I thought I'd better make a prediction of my own: you'll go on insisting on not learning how social systems work and how people behave, but keep on believing that smart people who spend their lives studying such systems get it wrong. The capability of people to convince themselves that what they don't know is not worth knowing -- or that people who know it are wrong -- is not only very powerful, but a well-known psychological coping mechanism. Otherwise, we'd all be in constant dread of what we don't know.
  • yummyfajitas 11y ago
    So if a system is too complex for us to discover its equations (so far) that means that we don't know anything about it? I'd say if you can't express your beliefs as equations, code, or similar unambiguous form, then you don't understand your own beliefs. (Or alternately, you don't want others to have the ability to unambiguously debunk them.) ...when I say that the system is complex you say I'm evading your question...It's not the laws of arithmetic, it's their applicability to reality. This is a perfect example of evading the question. You make some weird analogy to special relativity, but refuse to actually state why simple arithmetic doesn't apply to counting humans. ...ambiguously, because you didn't explain how white power can win without your cooperation if every player behaves like you do. It can't. But since changing my behavior won't change theirs, I still have no incentive to cooperate. This is why collective action problems usually require enforcement mechanisms (men with guns threatening me if I refuse to pay taxes, Jim Crow laws forcing me to serve white power, that type of thing). Except yours, apparently.
    • pron 11y ago
      > then you don't understand your own beliefs. Then most human knowledge is not understood, yet a lot of progress has been made without equations. Sometimes, the model is too approximate and statistical, that putting it in an equation is useless; that's just not an appropriate representation. That doesn't mean that general qualitative observations are wrong. Even behavior of non-linear ODEs is sometimes described in prose because we can only describe it in very broad strokes. I mentioned elsewhere that 19th-century-style hyper-optimism regarding technology in some groups (esp. in SV), which is based not on some deep philosophy but on utility. Namely, they believe that if it works and has utility that means we know it. If that's the case, the same logic should apply to social events. We have made progress; we made revolutions, therefore we know enough about society to change it (and please don't ask me to define progress. For whatever definition you choose, a social movement has made it happen someplace on Earth). > but refuse to actually state why simple arithmetic doesn't apply to counting humans. I did not evade the question. I specifically said there are feedback loops. Linear extrapolations are a terrible approximations of ODEs, and this is much more complicated than that. Maybe the economy will grow, maybe new fields will be opened up. We can hardly predict the weather for more than a few days; it stands to reason that trying to predict a much more complex system decades into the future is futile. > This is why collective action problems usually require enforcement mechanisms Enforcement mechanism arise naturally through a process that starts with self-reinforcement. Modern democracy was started in the American and French revolutions. Those are just two examples. In fact, most big social changes started this way. This is again an opinion which stands in complete opposition to historical facts. You are not motivated to action because your position is not threatened enough. If it were, you would be and others too, and then you'd see how changes are made. This happens all the time. In about any given moment, there is at least one such major change happening somewhere in the world, and many more gradual ones. It is the rule rather than the exception.