4 ms·

I am talking about broad foundational results. Of course stuff like "we asked two teams of people to tug on a rope, the first had a prime number of members and

I am talking about broad foundational results. Of course stuff like "we asked two teams of people to tug on a rope, the first had a prime number of members and had been told their pet dog died last night whereas the other followed a keto diet" don't really matter in the real world. If an analysis on 6 billion phone interactions tells us people don't meaningfully deal with more than 150 other humans then it's something you should actually take into consideration when designing social stuff

mjburgess 5y ago
I dont think there are any broad foundational results, nor do I think there is a social science possible. Social systems are chaotic, and extremely multi-casual, and extremely uncontrollable (in the sense of being able to isolate one cause). Under these conditions there is no scientific method. Anything called a science is just a ritualized imitation. The world does not owe us it being intelligible to us; the success of science in being able to engineer trinkets has fooled us for the past 300 years -- the vast majority of the whole of reality is unknowable -- as in, there is no method which could produce a theory of it (in the strong sense). I think apparently quantitative or "theoretical" results from social sciences are more like curios which could inspire some speculative designs for social institutions. They arent theories (as in science) by which we can engineer institutions. Treating anything in social science as more than some ancient form of zoology, that is, some local observations jotted down by an aristocrat -- is a recipe for disaster. Outside the physics lab, the entire world is an infinite zoo with no grand discernable patterns.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pawelmurias 5y ago
How do you imagine this bit of research to be be taken into account? I would be shocked if facebook didn't have specific research on how people interact on facebook rather than having to depend on some vague general observation.

mjburgess 5y ago

I dont think there are any broad foundational results, nor do I think there is a social science possible. Social systems are chaotic, and extremely multi-casual, and extremely uncontrollable (in the sense of being able to isolate one cause). Under these conditions there is no scientific method. Anything called a science is just a ritualized imitation. The world does not owe us it being intelligible to us; the success of science in being able to engineer trinkets has fooled us for the past 300 years -- the vast majority of the whole of reality is unknowable -- as in, there is no method which could produce a theory of it (in the strong sense). I think apparently quantitative or "theoretical" results from social sciences are more like curios which could inspire some speculative designs for social institutions. They arent theories (as in science) by which we can engineer institutions. Treating anything in social science as more than some ancient form of zoology, that is, some local observations jotted down by an aristocrat -- is a recipe for disaster. Outside the physics lab, the entire world is an infinite zoo with no grand discernable patterns.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pawelmurias 5y ago

How do you imagine this bit of research to be be taken into account? I would be shocked if facebook didn't have specific research on how people interact on facebook rather than having to depend on some vague general observation.