“If we want to rebuild a shared public trust in expertise, we will need a more realistic and humane language to talk about scientific expertise and its place in our political life—an account of expertise that is worthy of the public’s trust. Such an account would affirm scientific expertise as a praiseworthy human achievement, indispensable to understanding the world around us and valuable for making political decisions. But it would also recognize the role of uncertainty and judgment in science, and thus the possibility of error and disagreement, including value disagreements, when using science for public policy. Reestablishing an appropriate role for science in our politics, in other words, requires restoring the central role of politics itself in making policy decisions.” - Unmasking Scientific Expertise, by M. Anthony Mills/Issues in Science and Technology
Intuitions about right and wrong clash in moral dilemmas. These dilemmas activate a moral trade-off system designed for resolving conflicts among moral values. Examples of moral values include fairness, reciprocity, responsibility, care, entitlement, merit, loyalty, and honesty. When asked to resolve moral dilemmas, many people made compromise judgments, which strike a balance between conflicting moral values by partially satisfying at least some of them. The moral tradeoff system delivers that solution as an intuitive moral judgment. (paraphrasing Guzman et al, 2022)
Why do some people seem more deserving of government assistance than others?
Social scientists have been exploring this question for decades. Much of the research has focused on the criteria people use to judge the “deservingness” of the vulnerable and poor.
In other words, if carrots and sticks change the behavior, then the person has at least some control over the behavior, which is another way of saying: if one is able to engage in goal-directed behavior (e.g. approach carrot, avoid stick), one is responsible to some degree for one’s actions and the outcomes of those actions…That’s where “stigma” comes in. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “stigma in the context of health is the negative association between a person or group of people who share certain characteristics and a specific disease, including mental illness”. And per the voluminous literature on stigma, a common stigmatizing stereotype associated with mental health disorders such as drug addiction is that people are responsible for their condition.
Moral hazard is a situation where individuals have an incentive to increase their exposure to risk because they do not bear the full costs of that risk. I’m guessing a possible moral hazard associated with needle exchange programs is that these programs would lead to greater drug abuse by reducing the perceived risks of needles. And with opioids, more drug abuse would mean a higher likelihood of death by overdose.
President Clinton eventually signed the the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, but he never submitted it to the Senate for ratification. That’s because the Senate had already made it crystal clear that the vote would not go well: just two years before the Senate has passed a resolution 95-0 telling Mr. Clinton not to sign any treaty that committed the US to cut emissions without also requiring undeveloped countries to do so.
“Accepted theories are the best explanations available so far for how the world works. They have been thoroughly tested, are supported by multiple lines of evidence, and have proved useful in generating explanations and opening up new areas for research. However, science is always a work in progress, and even theories change.” - How Science Works.
“The simplified, linear description of the scientific method implies that science concludes … but in reality, scientific conclusions are always revisable if warranted by the evidence. Scientific investigations are often ongoing, raising new questions even as old ones are answered.” — Excerpt from How Science Works (my italics).
Perceived control also influences how people feel when exposed to others who are "higher" than them on some metric. Studies on social comparison have found that "upward comparison" (comparing oneself to "higher" others) was "debilitating only when accompanied by low perceived control".
“When inequality loses its association with hope and instead becomes interpreted as a signal of a rigged society, higher inequality relates to lower well-being.” - Buttrick, N. R., S. J. Heintzelman, et al. (2017). Inequality and well-being.
The California legislature recently passed Assembly Bill (AB) 2098, which would “designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19’ as unprofessional conduct”. AB2098 has been signed by the governor and is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2023. Here are some excerpts from the new law…
Of course, with additional tinkering Optimus may eventually be able to handle office plants, assuming their watering needs are predictable and programmable. But why must a plant-watering robot look humanoid? Ideally, form follows function and it’s hard to see what function is served by making a robot cute. Except to get people to fork out $20,000 because they just must have one.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.”
- Carl Sagan (Quote from 1996 interview with Charlie Rose
Effects alter the causal chain through feedback and feedforward mechanisms. Outputs generate data that become inputs for further causal processes and interactions. Causal links may be neutralized, reinforced or weakened by ongoing inputs and outputs.
If I had to choose, I’d go with a meaningful life over a happy one. But that’s a false choice based on an idealized concept of happiness as pure lightness, unburdened by cares or worries. Not what I’m looking for. Wellbeing is more like it, at least wellbeing as the feeling that swells with autonomy (sense of agency, the ability to act on goals and values), competence (feeling able and effective), and relatedness (a sense of belonging and being connected to others). A feeling that grows stronger by overcoming challenge.
So we’ve got high crime, lots of police department staff, and low crime clearance rates. First thought: what’s wrong with the cops in San Francisco? Maybe nothing. Let me explain, starting with some relevant context…
Since would-be burglars typically prefer unoccupied buildings, San Francisco’s steep rise in burglaries in 2020 is not all that surprising. And the large rise in auto thefts can be at least partly explained by supply issues, which increased the market for stolen cars. Larceny and robbery are still down from the pre-pandemic baseline, which makes sense since these crimes are often committed in commercial establishments, parking lots, garages, parks, fields, and areas near public transportation - in other words, the type of places that have closed in great numbers or become sparsely peopled since the pandemic began, thanks to remote work, the decline of tourism, and widespread avoidance of public spaces.
Crime rates based on residential population are a poor indicator of victimization risk in cities that attract a large daily population from outside the city limits. In these cities, the population at risk of crime includes tourists and inbound commuters to work. Tourists and commuters are typically victims of crimes committed by strangers, such as robbery or car theft, while residents are more likely to be victims of crimes committed by family and friends, such as homicide, rape and aggravated assault.
It might be tempting to dismiss housing preferences as merely a matter of taste or culture, which can evolve with the proper incentives or education. However, global studies have consistently found that high-rise apartment living is a net negative for most people, especially families and children, and regardless of culture, nationality, or aesthetic traditions. Here’s a smattering of what researchers have found…
Specifically, the average homicide rate in the Most Restrictive states over the period of 2010-2020 was 4.6 homicide per 100,000 population. For the Least Restrictive non-southern states, the average homicide rate for 2010-2020 was 3.8 per 100,000, and for the Least Restrictive southern states it was 7.3 per 100,000. What’s going on here?