I read this post with a lot of interest; it has started to seem more likely to me lately that spreading productive, resilient norms about decision-making and altruism is a more effective means of improving decisions in the long run than any set of particular institutional structures. The knock-on effects of such a phenomenon would, on a long time scale, seem to dwarf the effects of many other ostensibly effective interventions.
So I get excited about this idea. It seems promising.
But some reflection about what is commonly considered precedent for something like this makes me a little bit more skeptical.
I think we see another kind of self-correction mechanism in the belief system of science. It provides tools for recognising truth and discarding falsehood, as well as cultural impetus to do so; this leads not just to the propagation of existing scientific beliefs, but to the systematic upgrading of those beliefs; this isn’t drift, but going deeper into the well of truth.
I have a sense that a large part of the success of scientific norms comes down to their utility being immediately visible. Children can conduct and repeat simple experiments (e.g. baking soda volcano); undergraduates can repeat famous projects with the same results (e.g. the double slit experiment), and even non-experimentalists can see the logic at the core of contemporary theory (e.g. in middle school geometry, or at the upper level in real analysis). What’s more, the norms seem to be cemented most effectively by precisely this kind of training, and not to spread freely without direct inculcation: scientific thinking is widespread among the trained, and (anecdotally) not so common among the untrained. For many Western non-scientists, science is just another source of formal authority, not a process that derives legitimacy from its robust efficacy.
I can see a way clear to a broadening of scientific norms to include what you’ve characterized as “truth-seeking self-aware altruistic decision-making.” But I’m having trouble imaging how it could be self-propagating. It would seem, at the very least, to require active cultivation in exactly the way that scientific norms do—in other words, that it would require a lot of infrastructure and investment so that proto-truth-seeking-altruists can see the value of the norms. Or perhaps I am having a semantic confusion: is science self-propagating in that scientists, once cultivated, go on to cultivate others?
I have a sense that a large part of the success of scientific norms comes down to their utility being immediately visible.
I agree with this. I don’t think science has the attractor property I was discussing, but it has this other attraction of being visibly useful (which is even better). I was trying to use science as an example of the self-correction mechanism.
Or perhaps I am having a semantic confusion: is science self-propagating in that scientists, once cultivated, go on to cultivate others?
Yes, this is the sense of self-propagating that I intended.
I read this post with a lot of interest; it has started to seem more likely to me lately that spreading productive, resilient norms about decision-making and altruism is a more effective means of improving decisions in the long run than any set of particular institutional structures. The knock-on effects of such a phenomenon would, on a long time scale, seem to dwarf the effects of many other ostensibly effective interventions.
So I get excited about this idea. It seems promising.
But some reflection about what is commonly considered precedent for something like this makes me a little bit more skeptical.
I have a sense that a large part of the success of scientific norms comes down to their utility being immediately visible. Children can conduct and repeat simple experiments (e.g. baking soda volcano); undergraduates can repeat famous projects with the same results (e.g. the double slit experiment), and even non-experimentalists can see the logic at the core of contemporary theory (e.g. in middle school geometry, or at the upper level in real analysis). What’s more, the norms seem to be cemented most effectively by precisely this kind of training, and not to spread freely without direct inculcation: scientific thinking is widespread among the trained, and (anecdotally) not so common among the untrained. For many Western non-scientists, science is just another source of formal authority, not a process that derives legitimacy from its robust efficacy.
I can see a way clear to a broadening of scientific norms to include what you’ve characterized as “truth-seeking self-aware altruistic decision-making.” But I’m having trouble imaging how it could be self-propagating. It would seem, at the very least, to require active cultivation in exactly the way that scientific norms do—in other words, that it would require a lot of infrastructure and investment so that proto-truth-seeking-altruists can see the value of the norms. Or perhaps I am having a semantic confusion: is science self-propagating in that scientists, once cultivated, go on to cultivate others?
I agree with this. I don’t think science has the attractor property I was discussing, but it has this other attraction of being visibly useful (which is even better). I was trying to use science as an example of the self-correction mechanism.
Yes, this is the sense of self-propagating that I intended.