
The Bugs in Our Mindware (2016) - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/32/space/the-bugs-in-our-mindware-rp
======
s-shellfish
> We live in a three-dimensional world and we don’t have to worry about the
> fact that the mind makes mistakes when it’s forced to deal with an
> unnatural, two-dimensional world.

This is amusing. To a mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, logician,
2 dimensions are often easier to reason about than 3.

> Honesty in the future is best predicted by honesty in the past, not by
> whether a person looks you steadily in the eye or claims a recent religious
> conversion.

This doesn't give people the chance to change if the whole system is based on
everyone retaining an internal consistency in inferencing that is checked
against reality by testing it.

> The conjunction of two events can’t be more likely than just one event by
> itself.

This is mathematically incorrect. If two events are mutually dependent on the
other to occur then two events are more likely to occur together than either
or independently.

> The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Apply this reasoning to yourself before you expect it from others. Apply it to
the things about you that are the hardest to change, that you actually want to
change. Shortest path to compassion, and one of the hardest lessons to learn.

~~~
iamthepieman
>This doesn't give people the chance to change if the whole system is based on
everyone retaining an internal consistency in inferencing that is checked
against reality by testing it.

Yes it does, start being honest and eventually people's most recent memories
or interactions with you will be ones of honesty. This is different, of
course, than the one strike and your out criminal offense system in the U.S.

~~~
s-shellfish
I'm speaking hypothetically, first.

Secondly, that assumes way too much about how people think.

------
DoreenMichele
I have more usually seen the term Wetware, not Mindware.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetware_(brain)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetware_\(brain\))

(Not a criticism. Just an observation.)

------
laretluval
Which is more likely to contain bugs? The part of us we call "rational", which
seems to be evolutionarily late, or our highly-evolved instincts, which served
us for millions of years?

~~~
incompatible
Living in a developed city today is a kind of virtual reality. It is different
in many ways from the kind of existence that created those instincts.

~~~
laretluval
Yeah, the raw sensory input is pretty different. But how different are the
basic incentives?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Not just raw sensory inputs are different, the probability distributions
behind those inputs are all different.

Consider sugars in food. Our taste buds, and instincts behind them, are
totally not handling the amount of signals modern processed foods send. What
used to be a proxy for quality is now usually a good proxy for lack of it.

Consider availability heuristic. In the ancient past, all events you've
learned about from someone else were involving your local community. The
frequency of those "news" were related to how important those events are to
you personally. Today, it's the inverse - the more something is in the news,
the more it's utterly irrelevant to you personally. The real dangers don't
have novelty factor, so they aren't talked about. The result is people afraid
of terrorists - with all the disastrous consequences when that fear is
expressed as public policy - instead of car accidents. The result is FOMO. The
result is people feeling inadequate because world's top 1% of celebrities is
more familiar to them than their neighbours, so they've lost the perception of
_actual_ distribution of wealth and beauty in a population.

~~~
andai
How do I subscribe to a user on HN?

~~~
TeMPOraL
You don't? But you can review their comments through the "Threads" link in
their profile, like this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=andai](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=andai).

(It probably wouldn't be hard to whip out a script that would periodically
fetch this URL and turn it into RSS feed.)

------
MrLeap
As long as we don't blow ourselves up first, these tend to be cognitively self
correcting when exploited at scale.

Would something like the hysteria caused by the "war of the worlds" radio
broadcast be possible to reproduce today? Yeah, absolutely. The bar's a little
higher though, you'd need multiple organizations corroborating the story over
multiple mediums.

Enough people on twitter would say things like "Uh, I'm standing around where
the aliens are supposed to be and I don't see shit" to arrest some of the
contagion.

I have a theory that new modes of communication automatically seem more
trustworthy at first, because most of the time the liars don't move in until
adoption reaches a certain level to make it profitable. The problem is that
transition. We're late in the cycle right now for the internet. People are
slowly learning to take extraordinary claims on the internet less seriously by
default.

I like to think about the impact of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats.
Most of America tuned in, captivated. The things he said calmed people down,
reduced national anxiety and assuaged their fears. The default mode was to
trust him, and that made a historic impact. It felt nationally like the
president could finally talk to people on a personal level.

Then a few years passed, and the national trust was taken advantage of.
Despite Tuskegee, MKUltra, The Bay of Pigs, Watergate -- pretty much
everything about Nixon, and a hundred other events, it took a long time to
make the majority of us into the politically disillusioned wrecks we've
become.

It's easy to imagine how seductive messages like "the elite are all lying to
you" are when that's become the safest default position for a while. The
vulnerability we've found ourselves in now is lies bolted on to truths. I'm
hoping that we'll all inoculate ourselves with some kind of generalized agenda
aversion next.

A man running for state representative came to my door a few weeks ago. He
wanted to know if he could place a sign in my yard. To be honest, my default
position would have been to say "Go for it homie". Any candidate making door
calls is atleast trying to put in effort. Especially since political
candidates basically spout vague platitudes that turn into nebulous nonsense.

Fortunately for me, he seemed adamant he wanted to show me the key thesis in
his pamphlet before I made my decision, he opened it up and tapped on the
header. "Muslims are a problem for America."

"Ohhh you're a racist!" I said politely. "Thanks for letting me know, I have
literally no interest in that being in my yard. Have a nice day!"

We don't even have symbols for the bugs in our brain that allow history to
repeat itself like it does.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Your mention about Roosevelt's fireside chats reminded me of this post by
'idlewords that covered similar topics:

[http://idlewords.com/talks/ancient_web.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/ancient_web.htm)

> _I 'm hoping that we'll all inoculate ourselves with some kind of
> generalized agenda aversion next._

I'm hoping people will inoculate themselves with the following meme: "Almost
everyone has an agenda. All those agendas mostly cancel out."

The way I see it, people these days are (still) quick to blame individuals
(usually "evil wealthy elites") for what really are systemic problems, out of
anyone's direct control.

~~~
andai
_This message has been approved by the Council._

------
aaaaaardvark
Great article! Although it's definitely more likely (6 times) to have two
investments fail and two succeed than all four succeed. Of course his point
still stands that there's luck involved in investing.

------
jwilk
Criticism of the hungry judges study:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14701328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14701328)

