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Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

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Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#451

Post by shiandow »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #299
solatic wrote: post #155

Author posits a causal relationship in a zero-sum game that he provides no evidence for. Paraphrasing, that uncontrollable intangibles like technology gave slightly more power to individuals and much more power to large organizations at the expense of small organizations. Since when do these uncontrollable intangibles exhibit a genuine agency of their own? Is there some zero-sum pie of power to be distributed? So if…

>Is there some zero-sum pie of power Yes, that's exactly how power works. You can dilute power (in non-hierarchical organizations) or you can concentrate it (in rigidly hierarchical societies), but there's a finite amount of it and it's deeply coveted by all

That is a symplistic view, two people can achieve a lot more together than individually and today's society can achieve a lot more than prehistoric humanity.

I can get fruit and spices delivered to me that a Roman emperor would barely be aware of, and I can do so without leaving my bed.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#452

Post by AppleBananaPie »

simpaticoder wrote: post #283
nostrademons wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game theory is exactly it. A bunch of simulations have shown that in a repeated prisoner's dilemma, the optimal strategy is tit-for-tat, sometimes adding forgiveness. The fact that you will play again incentivizes players to cooperate. But as soon as the game becomes finite (i.e. you can see the end in sight), the optimal strategy becomes "defect", because your opponent also has the same incentives and whoever defect…

It's interesting to wonder about why norms degrade at scale. Intuition tells me it's because stink-eye doesn't scale. Defectors in a small org pay a price external to the game, aka "reputational damage". But members of large organizations rarely suffer this, because they are strangers, and because "they are just doing their job". A half-formed thought, but perhaps it's half-useful.

I think this is what you're saying but in different words - larger scale makes people more anonymous which purely benefits selfish behavior (or specifically those who naturally employ it whenever possible).

And by stink-eye people who did this a long time ago I'm sure were just gotten rid of because there are many types of people (though individually rare) the only way to deal with them is to not deal with them.

My personal belief is society is far too naive of extreme selfish personalities and they have infested every aspect of modern society and are actively making others more selfish.

Thank you for your half formed thought :)

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#453

Post by AppleBananaPie »

grues-dinner wrote: post #328
CalRobert wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d imagine the death of volunteering and civic life has a lot to do with two income households becoming the default. A family that works forty or fifty hours a week has a lot more time to give than one that works eighty to one hundred (don’t forget commuting!)

Additionally, children are expected and virtually required to be supervised 24/7 for the first 14-ish years. Kicking kids out to play like Just William while Mrs Brown goes to the Women's Institute all afternoon is now called neglect and child abuse.

Part of it was older kids looking after younger ones which just isn't a thing anymore as far as I can tell.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#454

Post by dm270 »

FloorEgg wrote: post #34

It seems to me that: - on average, complexity is increasing. - most patterns in how civilization is arranged oscilate over time - what's happening right now is most likely an artifact of right now (economics, power structure, culture, politics, etc). - it seems that a shift back to smaller groups is likely in the future - what I'm not sure about is whether the larger groups need to dissolve or stabilize in order for…

The last point assumes that there is such a thing as sufficient abundance. I wish there was. My experience with human nature tells me there might not be, though.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#455

Post by Micanthus »

grogenaut wrote: post #308
nostrademons wrote: post #28

Matches my experience. Our kids' co-op preschool went out of business last year; their actual preschool got bought by private equity and is struggling to survive. Longtime neighbors say the spirit of volunteerism in the upper schools is suffering. And institutions that were big civic centers when I grew up - freemasons, Boy/Girl/Cub/Brownie Scouts, 4-H, YMCA/YWCA, local bowling/skating rinks, etc - are now shadows of…

I spent 4 years during and after covid looking for volunteer opportunities. People just weren't using anything. I'll agree with you that many of these groups may be dysfunctional. They seemed to want money (the ones I talked to) not actual people. Freemasons: what do they even do? I just know a few secretive fat white guys who belong. They're serious about it. They don't talk about it. Why would I join? I have no ide…

I used to work for the YMCA as a camp counselor, and also volunteered a few weeks of my time before every summer to get the camp ready. Every volunteer I met was either an employee or former employee, very ocassionally someone who was a camper when they were a kid or a parent of a current camper. The trick is that many of us actually believed in the mission and so were willing to do that, and regarding the camp in particular it came with a community that everyone who stayed loved and wanted to contribute to.

Of course there's a fine line between this attitude and being exploited by your employer for free labor. In this case I think it helped that everyone knew it wasn't a career for most of us. You work for a few summers in college and then you graduate and if you want to stay a part of the community you continue volunteering from time to time.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#456

Post by seu »

> An individual human without any of the support provided by larger organized groups is only able to exist at quite primitive levels, as any number of pieces of post-apocalyptic fiction can portray.

This guy may be a math genius, but he should at least pay minimal respect to the thousands of people who have studied human cultures, societies and civilizations, and to their findings, before coming up with a post about groups of people based on what "post-apocaliptic fiction" has portrayed. As an anthropologist, I just stopped taking his ideas seriously at that point.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#457

Post by antonvs »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #260
paddleon wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, could you remind me what war was going on when NASA took us to the moon? Could you remind me what war was going on when the CDC eradicated malaria from the United States? Could you remind me what war was going on when FDR build our basic social safety nets? Broadly speaking, people have 3 ways to organize large groups: business, government, and (organized) religion. Each has strengths and weakness. To say that…

> war, moon You cannot be serious, the whole thing was called the space race for a reason. Space tech has always always been primarily a military venture, and it remains so to this day. > Malaria Glad you asked, chloroquine was developed during WW2 for soldiers, and chloroquine resistance of soldiers in Vietnam drove the creation of mefloquine and artemisinin. > Social safety nets Not a science breakthrough > To say…

To add to your examples, Neil Tyson wrote a book entitled “Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_to_War)

> The book chronicles war and the use of space as a weapon going as far back as before the Ancient Greeks. [It] includes examples such as Christopher Columbus' use of his knowledge of a lunar eclipse, and the use of satellite intelligence by the United States during the Gulf War.

Much more science than people tend to realize is military-funded.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#458

Post by karel-3d »

grogenaut wrote: post #308
nostrademons wrote: post #28

Matches my experience. Our kids' co-op preschool went out of business last year; their actual preschool got bought by private equity and is struggling to survive. Longtime neighbors say the spirit of volunteerism in the upper schools is suffering. And institutions that were big civic centers when I grew up - freemasons, Boy/Girl/Cub/Brownie Scouts, 4-H, YMCA/YWCA, local bowling/skating rinks, etc - are now shadows of…

I spent 4 years during and after covid looking for volunteer opportunities. People just weren't using anything. I'll agree with you that many of these groups may be dysfunctional. They seemed to want money (the ones I talked to) not actual people. Freemasons: what do they even do? I just know a few secretive fat white guys who belong. They're serious about it. They don't talk about it. Why would I join? I have no ide…

I am a Catholic, there are lots of Catholic charities around me that offer volunteering; but; the OP talks about big organisations and you cannot really go bigger than Catholic Church so, eh maybe they are right

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#459

Post by defrost »

seu wrote: post #456

> An individual human without any of the support provided by larger organized groups is only able to exist at quite primitive levels, as any number of pieces of post-apocalyptic fiction can portray. This guy may be a math genius, but he should at least pay minimal respect to the thousands of people who have studied human cultures, societies and civilizations, and to their findings, before coming up with a post about…

As an anthropologist can you sketch out, for us not so blessed, an example of the higher or highest levels of existence an individual lacking any support from any larger organized groups has actually obtained?

Thanks.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#460

Post by latexr »

rangestransform wrote: post #388
latexr wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the things you mentioned serve the primary purpose of making the rich and powerful more rich and powerful, not improving the lives of the majority. We could live without self-driving cars, and most of the world still does; faster chips are nice but not revolutionary when we’re using them to waste away watching six hours of ten seconds disinformation videos a day; LLMs are literally telling people to eat glue,…

They all fulfill individual desires better than the next best alternative, and that's reason enough to have anything

> and that's reason enough to have anything

I very much is not. That logic could be used to justify just about anything, from slavery to littering.

You don’t live in a world populated by just yourself, there are people around you affected by your actions. Be respectful and mindful that what you do affects others. And yourself as well, even if you don’t immediately see it.

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