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Understanding power law distributions is a real eye opener. They're everywhere in nature. I don't know about how other people feel, but after learning about po

Understanding power law distributions is a real eye opener. They're everywhere in nature. I don't know about how other people feel, but after learning about power law distributions and then seeing them everywhere I now just think "well, thats just how nature works." That and the normal distribution. I often meditate on people's obsession over fairness. The best I can come up with is that it is a hardball negotiating tactic to get more than you otherwise would through creating leverage by making others feeling uncomfortable and betting that they're not going to be able to tolerate the uncomfortable state. That comes from watching both Frans De Waal's Capuchin monkey experiment below and from observing my toddler. https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg Then you consider all of the power Laws in the universe. Almost nothing is fair. Unfairness seems to be the default. Consider the animal kingdom is full of homicidal behavior. Life is very rough. Yet we expect "everything should be fair and everyone should be nice." At some level that just isn't commensurate with reality. I also find there is an extreme intolerance, at least if feels that way to me, maybe it's just an extreme frustration, of inefficiencies in nature. An article pointing out that some talent is being underutilized and this is a travesty! Ok, I'm in agreement it would be nice if it could be maximized, I guess. But I think it's ludicrous to expect a system that has optimize for the whole to optimize for local cases too. Imagine you have to design a system that can handle anything and work well enough under almost any circumstance. That necessarily requires some trade-offs that have kind of crappy results in a variety of conditions. The best way I have come up with describing it is "constraint-based optimization is the root of all evil"

skybrian 8y ago
If we expect "everything should be fair and everyone should be nice," it's because parents and schools teach this. It doesn't happen by accident. Then when people discover ways that our society doesn't live up to that, they try to fix it.
- james_s_tayler 8y ago
  Partly. Though where did the parents and schools learn it from? Arguably Marxist and Postmodern philosophy. But where did those philosophers get it from? We know from Frans De Waal's research (original paper linked below) that the concept of fairness is present in non-human primates. He mentions in his TED talk that the experiment has also been replicated in other animals, though I haven't confirmed that. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01963 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01963
  - skybrian 8y ago
    Well, yes, and to go further, most of the famous philosophers had things to say about justice, and so do most religions. (So why single out Marxism and and Postmodernism?) Do any of them say "power laws, what can you do?" That seems like confusing what is and what ought to be.
    - james_s_tayler 8y ago
      Only because they're some of the most recent philosophies that have had a very widespread impact and also due to them emphasizing Collectivism as opposed to Individualism. Postmodernism is born out of Marxism and Marxism pushes the equality theme hence fairness. I'd say that's a fairly valid reason to cite them? Matthew 13:12 "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." One could take that to be in reference to the general dynamics of power laws. But, to reiterate my actual point, you find the same behavior related to 'fairness' in the animal kingdom, so it's not a uniquely human thing. That also makes Marx and Postmodernism irrelevant. They're almost a natural consequence that arises from some deeper, pre-existing thing. The Is-Ought problem is relevant. If we accept that the distribution of power in society and the distribution of individual contribution follow power laws (they certainly seem to) then in response to "what is" as a society we have to make a decision about "what ought to be" in terms of how we run our society. You have to make that choice but the David Hume points out with his Is-Ought problem that you cannot link the morality of what you think "ought to be" with what is. This means that whether Marx is saying well it seems that Capitalism has some problems that eventually result in it eating itself with all this power and wealth going to the top, the middle being stripped out and the rest winding up dirt poor on the bottom, so we "ought" not to do things that way OR You say something along the lines of supporting the current capatilist paradigm, you can't compute whether or not you are making the "right" choice from a moral standpoint in either case. My line of thinking for what "ought" to be is that if nature really does seem hell bent on organizing things a certain way, how likely is it we can do anything about that? And if going against the grain seems to produce perverse results without much benefit, than why not just go with the grain and take the good with the bad?
JauntTrooper 8y ago
Unfairness is everywhere in the natural world, but cooperative structures exists throughout nature too when they provide a competitive evolutionary advantage. Humans are deeply social animals. Fairness, altruism, and morality have allowed us to thrive as a species.
- james_s_tayler 8y ago
  Absolutely. I wish my mental models in Ecology were a bit more fleshed out. It's on the list of things to dive into. Regardless, it seems that things that cooperate often cooperate in order to compete against other things and that competion is often life and death in nature hence my nature is pretty brutal comment. Though I fundamentally agree with you. I think really tricky part is that people view things as zero-sum competion with regards to human competion. And it sort of is. But if you zoom way out you realize it's actually non-zero-sum. So, my view on things is human competion is zero-sum in the short-term and non-zero sum in the long-term under a system that permits it. The deeper idea is "what's the maximum viable amount of fairness?" We know from medieval times and before that that most people as powerless serfs and an absolute ruler at the top isn't the optimal distribution. We're on pretty solid ground saying that. We know, though sadly it's contested by some, that the communist model pushes the lever too far in the other direction and that winds up pretty suboptimal too. So the maximum viable amount of fairness lies somewhere in the middle... and what if that is where the lever is set to right now or shortly in the future? That's problematic because it leaves you with a lot of disaffected people and a "sorry, this is as good as it gets" which doesn't feel good. So it's like... what do you do? Well what can you do? But things aren't static. We are on a trajectory. The last couple of hundred years have seen massive improvements globally, at least according to the late Dr Hans Rosling's book Factfulness. So, it seems to me there isn't something you can do today or tomorrow to "fix" everything. It's not even obvious the system goes into the shape that some people want to see it squished into, but it does seem that if we let the current machine run its course then eventually everyone has drinking water, electricity, schooling, health care and improving opportunities. I guess my point is... maybe the system is in the right configuration to maximize the outcome for everyone but the timescale that plays out on is another 200 ~ 300 years? Could be. Also side-note: anyone who wants to support Charity Water they do pretty rad work helping chip away at the problem of getting drinkable water to the remaining ~600m that dont have it.

skybrian 8y ago

If we expect "everything should be fair and everyone should be nice," it's because parents and schools teach this. It doesn't happen by accident. Then when people discover ways that our society doesn't live up to that, they try to fix it.

james_s_tayler 8y ago
Partly. Though where did the parents and schools learn it from? Arguably Marxist and Postmodern philosophy. But where did those philosophers get it from? We know from Frans De Waal's research (original paper linked below) that the concept of fairness is present in non-human primates. He mentions in his TED talk that the experiment has also been replicated in other animals, though I haven't confirmed that. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01963 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01963
- skybrian 8y ago
  Well, yes, and to go further, most of the famous philosophers had things to say about justice, and so do most religions. (So why single out Marxism and and Postmodernism?) Do any of them say "power laws, what can you do?" That seems like confusing what is and what ought to be.
  - james_s_tayler 8y ago
    Only because they're some of the most recent philosophies that have had a very widespread impact and also due to them emphasizing Collectivism as opposed to Individualism. Postmodernism is born out of Marxism and Marxism pushes the equality theme hence fairness. I'd say that's a fairly valid reason to cite them? Matthew 13:12 "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." One could take that to be in reference to the general dynamics of power laws. But, to reiterate my actual point, you find the same behavior related to 'fairness' in the animal kingdom, so it's not a uniquely human thing. That also makes Marx and Postmodernism irrelevant. They're almost a natural consequence that arises from some deeper, pre-existing thing. The Is-Ought problem is relevant. If we accept that the distribution of power in society and the distribution of individual contribution follow power laws (they certainly seem to) then in response to "what is" as a society we have to make a decision about "what ought to be" in terms of how we run our society. You have to make that choice but the David Hume points out with his Is-Ought problem that you cannot link the morality of what you think "ought to be" with what is. This means that whether Marx is saying well it seems that Capitalism has some problems that eventually result in it eating itself with all this power and wealth going to the top, the middle being stripped out and the rest winding up dirt poor on the bottom, so we "ought" not to do things that way OR You say something along the lines of supporting the current capatilist paradigm, you can't compute whether or not you are making the "right" choice from a moral standpoint in either case. My line of thinking for what "ought" to be is that if nature really does seem hell bent on organizing things a certain way, how likely is it we can do anything about that? And if going against the grain seems to produce perverse results without much benefit, than why not just go with the grain and take the good with the bad?

JauntTrooper 8y ago

Unfairness is everywhere in the natural world, but cooperative structures exists throughout nature too when they provide a competitive evolutionary advantage. Humans are deeply social animals. Fairness, altruism, and morality have allowed us to thrive as a species.

james_s_tayler 8y ago
Absolutely. I wish my mental models in Ecology were a bit more fleshed out. It's on the list of things to dive into. Regardless, it seems that things that cooperate often cooperate in order to compete against other things and that competion is often life and death in nature hence my nature is pretty brutal comment. Though I fundamentally agree with you. I think really tricky part is that people view things as zero-sum competion with regards to human competion. And it sort of is. But if you zoom way out you realize it's actually non-zero-sum. So, my view on things is human competion is zero-sum in the short-term and non-zero sum in the long-term under a system that permits it. The deeper idea is "what's the maximum viable amount of fairness?" We know from medieval times and before that that most people as powerless serfs and an absolute ruler at the top isn't the optimal distribution. We're on pretty solid ground saying that. We know, though sadly it's contested by some, that the communist model pushes the lever too far in the other direction and that winds up pretty suboptimal too. So the maximum viable amount of fairness lies somewhere in the middle... and what if that is where the lever is set to right now or shortly in the future? That's problematic because it leaves you with a lot of disaffected people and a "sorry, this is as good as it gets" which doesn't feel good. So it's like... what do you do? Well what can you do? But things aren't static. We are on a trajectory. The last couple of hundred years have seen massive improvements globally, at least according to the late Dr Hans Rosling's book Factfulness. So, it seems to me there isn't something you can do today or tomorrow to "fix" everything. It's not even obvious the system goes into the shape that some people want to see it squished into, but it does seem that if we let the current machine run its course then eventually everyone has drinking water, electricity, schooling, health care and improving opportunities. I guess my point is... maybe the system is in the right configuration to maximize the outcome for everyone but the timescale that plays out on is another 200 ~ 300 years? Could be. Also side-note: anyone who wants to support Charity Water they do pretty rad work helping chip away at the problem of getting drinkable water to the remaining ~600m that dont have it.