Overconfidence From Moral Signaling
Tyler Cowen in Stubborn Attachments: The real issue is that we don’t know whether our actions today will in fact give rise to a better future, even when it appears that they will. If you ponder these...
View ArticleLong Legacies And Fights In A Competitive Universe
My last post discussed how to influence the distant future, using a framework focused on a random uncaring universe. This is, for example, the usual framework of most who see themselves as...
View ArticleLong Legacies And Fights In An Uncaring Universe
What can one do today to have a big predictable influence on the long-term future? In this post I’ll use a simple decision framework, wherein there is no game or competition, one is just trying to...
View ArticleIntellectual Status Isn’t That Different
In our world, we use many standard markers of status. These include personal connections with high status people and institutions, power, wealth, popularity, charisma, intelligence, eloquence, courage,...
View ArticleThe Master and His Emissary
I had many reasons to want to read Iain McGilchrist’s 2009 book The Master and His Emissary. Its an ambitious big-picture book, by a smart knowledgeable polymath. I love that sort of book. I’ve been...
View ArticleHow Big Future Change?
The world has seen a lot of very big changes over the last few centuries. Many of these changes seem so large, in fact, that it is hard to see how changes over the next few centuries could be remotely...
View ArticleThe Great Cycle Rule
History contains a lot of data, but when it comes to the largest scale patterns, our data is very limited. Even so, I think we’d be crazy not to notice whatever patterns we can find at those largest...
View ArticleCowen On Complacency
A week ago I summarized and critiqued five books wherein Peter Turchin tries to document and explain two key historical cycles: a several century cycle of empires rising and falling, and a fifty year...
View ArticleCycles of War & Empire
I’ve just read five of Peter Turchin’s books: Historical Dynamics (2003), War & Peace & War (2006), Secular Cycles (2009), Ultra Society (2015), and Ages of Discord (2016). Four of them in the...
View ArticleGet A Grip; There’s A Much Bigger Picture
Many seem to think the apocalypse is upon us – I hear oh so much much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But if you compare the policies, attitudes, and life histories of the US as it will be under Trump,...
View ArticleCities As Harems
Many animal species are organized into harems, wherein a single male dominates a group of females and their children. When males become adult, they must leave home and wander singly or in small male...
View ArticleTesting Moral Progress
Mike Huemer just published his version of the familiar argument that changing moral views is evidence for moral realism. Here is the progress datum he seeks to explain: Mainstream illiberal views of...
View ArticleDoes Decadence Cause Decay?
Noble gentlemen and ladies in [Japan’s] Heian period (794-1185) were often remarkably promiscuous. … “Heian society was on the whole governed by style rather than by any moral principles, and good...
View ArticleGrowth Could Slow
Human history has seen accelerating growth, via a sequence of faster growth modes. First humans grew faster than other primates, then farmers grew faster than foragers, and recently industry has grown...
View ArticleIndustry-Era Action Stories
This semester I teach graduate industrial organization. And while preparing, it occurred to me that if our stories adapted fast to our changing world, many and perhaps most action stories today would...
View ArticlePhilosophy Between The Lines
Seven years ago I raved about a Journal of Politics article by Arthur Melzer that persuaded me that ancient thinkers often wrote “esoterically,” e.g., praising their local religions and rulers on the...
View ArticleBest Combos Are Robust
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what a future world of ems would be like, and in doing so I’ve been naturally drawn to a simple common intuitive way to deal with complexity: form best estimates...
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The Poor Wore Color
A year ago I posted on how ancient buildings are usually depicted as colorless, even though they were brightly colored, and suggested this is because we think about the distant past in far mode. I’ve...
View ArticleFrench Fertility Fall
Why do we have fewer kids today, even though we are rich? In ancient societies, richer folks usually had more kids than poorer folks. Important clues should be found in the first place where fertility...
View ArticleImagining Futures Past
Our past can be summarized as a sequence of increasingly fast eras: animals, foragers, farmers, industry. Foragers grew by a factor of about four hundred over two million years, farmers grew by a...
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