People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard • Hacker News Board

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#81

Post by lisper » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #48

arturh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gene is the unit of selection.

No, the collection of genes is. There are exactly zero individual genes roaming around replicating in isolation.

This is a common misconception. The collection is the unit of replication, but the gene is nonetheless the unit of selection. This argument was laid out in excruciating detail by Dawkins, but the TL;DR is that reproductive fitness can only ever be measured relative to some environment, and all the other genes in a replicative unit are (part of) the environment for a gene and its alleles.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#82

Post by peacetreefrog » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

WilliamEdward wrote: post #75

gbacon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians and civil servants are subject to behavioral concerns too. Who will watch the watchmen?

it doesn't have to be an endless hierarchy of people looking over one another. For example, we could watch the people that watch us.

Even if we're all watching each other, we still all have our own incentives and not so obvious irrationalities.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#83

Post by sametmax » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

The word being hard does not justify the success of reality tv, tabloids, lotery, music that is forgotten the next year or smoking.

Who do you think has the most chance to buy a lotery ticket. Somebody with 130 or 90 IQ ?

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#84

Post by Nursie » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #68

sandworm101 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also means laws/regulations to just plain ban harmful behaviors. Collectivization to alter market forces cannot fix everything. Some things need to just stop. Selling CFCs needs to stop. That won't happen by naming and shaming involved companies. It won't happen by people gathering on facebook to organize a boycott. It happens by people in uniforms enforcing the law, with violence when necessary. Sometimes that is…

Thank you for this lucid description of the authoritarian position.

In the case of individual or small group actions that have the capability to seriously fuck things up for everyone else, what other position is rational?

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#85

Post by ink_13 » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

jrs235 wrote: post #76

Spooky23 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is asking an infant who is incapable of speech whether he understands legal rights. That’s an insult to the concept of justice.

>That’s an insult to the concept of justice. Agreed. Unfortunately our justice system has been turned into a legal system. Legalities are more important than justice and it's sickening.

What?

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#86

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #52

athenot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an intersting point. Perhaps things would be more level if a conflict between an individual would be settled by selecting one RANDOM employee from that company (not the super ninja expert in the narrow field at hand), and have them battle it out in a lower court / arbitration.

No, just do like you do with children who sign contracts, invalidate any obligations the child has to the adult, but the adult is still bound to any obligations they have, and punish the adult for trying to take advantage of the child. Ideally, the ability for individuals to sign contracts with corporations should be forbidden. Maybe a single 1 person corporation that doesn't involve a lawyer either direct or as a co…

I don't think the world could function without contracts.

I get into a restaurant, I order some food. That's a contract where I get into the obligation of paying, and they get into the obligation of serving the food.

It's much more likely that the justice system needs a complete rework.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#87

Post by mattnewport » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

jcutrell wrote: post #67

B.E. is a subject I'm incredibly excited about. I'm glad to see this at the top of YC today. Every (somewhat major) decision I'm making now, I'm constantly reminding myself of various biases and silliness that I participate in unwillingly (or even sometimes willingly). I would say this study has been immensely helpful, and Thaler is a huge contributor to this for me. (Freakonomics, also, has been a great learning res…

Behavioral Economics falls prey to the same kinds of over simplifications it was a reaction to in regular economics. There are useful insights to be gained from both over simplifications but it's also good to remain aware of their flaws. To over simplify myself, traditional economics starts from the assumption that people are rational and then tends to over simplify the way they reason and the models of the world they reason about; behavioral economics questions whether people are rational and 'demonstrates' they are not compared to over simplified models of the world they reason about.

A simple example is the "default choice" effect. The standard explanation is that people are too lazy to check a box. A more sophisticated explanation would be that people infer information from the default they are presented with and allow it to influence their decision based on their assumption that the form creator is well informed and looking out for their interests. There is in general an under appreciation in behavioral economics that people are likely being more rational than the over simplified models they are benchmarking them against. There are lots of examples of this in the most widely known results.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#88

Post by darkmighty » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

Radim wrote: post #32

danharaj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

# of copies of DNA is just a proxy for probability of propagation.

Probability of propagation is just a proxy for consuming energy gradients more efficiently.

Life can be material-constrained instead of energy-constrained (I know there's E=mc^2, but this may not be technologically feasible hence irrelevant). Environmental domination is more fundamental than energy source tapping imo (you can imagine life in systems that don't even have precise energy analogues, like conway's game of life) -- that is, dominating whatever the basic resources are (space, materials, energy, etc).

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#89

Post by fucking_tragedy » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #68

sandworm101 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also means laws/regulations to just plain ban harmful behaviors. Collectivization to alter market forces cannot fix everything. Some things need to just stop. Selling CFCs needs to stop. That won't happen by naming and shaming involved companies. It won't happen by people gathering on facebook to organize a boycott. It happens by people in uniforms enforcing the law, with violence when necessary. Sometimes that is…

Thank you for this lucid description of the authoritarian position.

Viewing regulation as authoritarianism is an extremist position.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#90

Post by rjbwork » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #48

arturh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gene is the unit of selection.

No, the collection of genes is. There are exactly zero individual genes roaming around replicating in isolation.

Not according to modern understandings of gene theory. The Selfish Gene by Dawkins is perhaps the seminal work on this topic for the popular audience.