Results for “mood affiliation” 149 found
If UFOs are alien beings, are they just doing mood affiliation in visiting us?
Robin Hanson has a long and very interesting blog post on that question. The point is not to argue that the UFOS are alien beings of some kind, but rather if they were which kinds of theories might help us understand them? Here is just part of Robin’s much longer take:
If the main block to believing in UFOs as aliens is a lack of a plausible enough social theory of aliens, then it seems a shame that almost no one who studies UFOs is a social science theorist. So as such a person, why don’t I step in and try to help? If we can find a more plausible social theory, we could become more willing to believe that UFOs are aliens…
Stylized fact #2: Aliens are rare and self-limited, and yet are here now.
Indirection – We can think of a number of plausible motives for rare limited aliens to make an exception to visit us. First, they may fear us as rivals, and so want to track us and stand ready to defend against us. Second, if their limitation policies are intentional, then they’d anticipate our possibly violating them, and so want to stand ready nearby to enforce their limitation policies on us.
In either of these two cases, aliens might want to show us their power, and even make explicit threats, to deter us from causing problems. And there’s the question of why they don’t just destroy us, instead of waiting around. Third, independent alien origins could be a rare valuable datapoint about far-more-capable aliens who they may fear eventually meeting. In this case they’d probably want to stay hidden longer.
My best bet is this. The vehicles would be “unmanned” drone probes, if only because the stresses of long trips through space would keep the actual alien beings close to home. So the relevant social science question is what kind of highly generalized software instructions you would give such drones. “Seek out major power sources, including nuclear, and seek out rapid flying objects, and then send information back home” would be one such set of instructions roughly compatible with the stylized facts on the ground (or in the air). Of course the information sent back to alien worlds will not be arriving for a very, very long time, so long that the concrete motives of the aliens may not be the major consideration. Collecting the information about other planets across some very long time frame might simply seem worthwhile, relative to the cheap cost of the drone probes. It reminds me a bit of that “put the DNA of all the species on the moon” project we have started, or those seed banks up in the Arctic. Why exactly did we do it? Why not I say!? And yet most humans do not even know those projects are going on.
A further generalized software instruction would be “if approached or confronted, run away fast.” Indeed that is what those flying vehicles seem to do.
The drone probes do not destroy us, because of Star Trek-like reasons: highly destructive species already have blown themselves up, leaving the relatively peaceful ones to send drones around. The drones probably are everywhere, in the galactic sense that is. Yet given the constraints imposed by the speed of light, it is difficult to do much with them that is very useful to the decision-makers that send (sent?) them out. So the relevant theory is one of how advanced civilizations allocate their surplus when there is a lot of discretion and not much in the way of within-lifetime costs and benefits to determine a very particular set of plans and goals. Not even for the grandkids.
In this hypothesis, of course, you have to be short immortality. And short usable wormholes.
By the way, don’t those photos of the drone probes make them look a bit like cheap crap? No tail fins, no “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” music signature, no 3-D holograms, just a superfast vehicle. Like something a second-rate alien non-profit picked up at the local Walmart and sent off into space en masse with solar-powered self-replication. Which is consistent with the view of them being a discretionary resource allocation stemming from projects with fairly fuzzy goals.
A problematic question for any theory is whether competing drone navies have come to visit us, and if so are they fighting over the spoils? Colluding? Hiding from each other? Or what? If aliens are afoot, why should it be only one group of them? That would seem strange, as in most things there are multitudes, at least speaking in Bayesian terms. Aren’t there at least both Klingon probes and Romulan probes, maybe Federation probes too.
Robin’s hypothesis, that they are elatively local panspermiacs, who feel some stake in us, appeals to me. Bayesian logic suggests in any case that the chance of us having resulted from panspermia is pretty high; there are lots of baby civilizations for each parent, so why deny you are probably a baby?
Perhaps our visitors are exercising some “mood affiliation” in wishing to visit and record us! They could be the parents, or perhaps another baby civilization.
Of course since the photos are of such poor quality, and since there is no corroborating evidence of any kind, these UFO sightings probably are not of alien creations, so all of this is pure fantasy anyway.
Mood affiliation, the police, and rising crime rates
Had a thought on the discussion of rising crime over the last few months inspired by your MR posts on mood affiliation that I wanted to pass along:
There’s been a bit of discussion lately about increased shootings in major cities in the wake of the George Floyd protests, and the two main narratives trying to explain them have been “protests fueling higher tensions” and “cops backing off and not patrolling as much or doing their jobs”. Interestingly, the latter seems to be based on a model where fewer cops and patrols results in more crime, so you might naively expect people who hold that belief would be more likely to believe that simple defunding and reduction of police presence would lead to more crime generally.
But if you believe that mood affiliation predicts opinions better than factual consistency, then it matters more that the former position sounds like “cops to blame, cops bad”, while the second sounds more like “cops are important, cops good”. And most commentators care more about the correct affect towards the police, rather than consistent models of reality, so you largely have commentators that are pro-defund police, but blame their lack of presence for crime increases, or commentators that are pro-police, think defunding would lead to increases in crime, but are less willing to entertain the idea that recent increases in crime are caused by the choices of officers.
That is from an email by Benjamin Hawley.
Uber and Lyft drivers as employees: check your mood affiliation at the door
A reminder that if drivers become employees and so no longer can be on both Uber and Lyft, welfare will be lower with higher prices and higher wait times. See this paper. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf In Australia, driver multihoming is baked in.
That is a tweet from Joshua Gans. Keep in mind Uber or Lyft could simply insist on “unihoming” as a condition of employment, as indeed George Mason will not let me take a part- or full-time job teaching at another university.
Mood affiliation in everything should America give up the nuclear first strike option?
No, that is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. Yet there is now a Democratic, Elizabeth Warren-sponsored bill to do just that.
U.S.A. mood affiliation fact of the day
Democrats’ trust in government data has shrunk over time; Republicans’ trust has grown. Today, with their party in unified control of government, Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to believe official government economic stats; 58 percent of Republicans completely or somewhat trust these numbers, compared with 52 percent of Democrats.
That is from Catherine Rampell.
Mood affiliation isn’t always bad
That was my response to reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me. We all overinvest in non-diversified mood affiliation portfolios, so why not read someone else’s non-diversified mood affiliation portfolio from a less common point of view?
The writing I thought was superb and also original, so I agree with the take of Christopher Hayes on Twitter:
Read
@tanehisicoates book because the writing itself is in many ways more important and essential than the *argument* it’s making.
Many of you will object to this book, and not entirely for incorrect reasons. This is a fire hose but there is not much if any engagement with potentially contradictory facts. And if you read only this book, and otherwise would know nothing of America, you would not come close to guessing national black per capita income.
Still, if you’re wondering whether or not you should pick it up, I will nudge you in the direction of “yes.”
Here is a good article on the author.
Guns, race, and the civil rights movement…what a crosshatch of mood affiliation…
This passage shook me up, bravo to the author:
…although nonviolence was crucial to the gains made by the freedom struggle of the 1950s and 1960s, those gains could not have been achieved without the complementary and still underappreciated practice of armed self-defense. The claim that armed self-defense was a necessary aspect of the civil rights movement is still controversial. However, wielding weapons, especially firearms, let both participants in nonviolent struggle and their sympathizers protect themselves and others under terrorist attack for their civil rights activities. This willingness to use deadly force ensured the survival not only of countless brave men and women but also of the freedom struggle itself.
That is from the recent book This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Also related is the 1962 book Negroes with Guns, by Robert F. Williams, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Truman Nelson, about the use of guns for protection against the Ku Klux Klan. Martin Luther King of course did keep a gun in the house, and he relied on neighbors who, at times, protected his house by carrying guns.
Mood affiliation tweets to ponder
The Greek People Have Punctured the Smugness of the “Moneymen” – hope is replacing despair
That is from a Dr. Adnan Al-Daini. He links to this piece of his on the same theme. It is noted that the Dr. used to teach at a British university. Behind the first link, there are several comments on the tweet.
Yet, in reality, the ECB and the EU seem to be holding all of the cards. I do not expect that to change. Here is “Emergency Liquidity Assistance for Greek Banks: An Explainer.”
Simon Blackburn suffers from mood affiliation
Via Ross Douthat, here is the close of Blackburn’s review of the new Thomas Nagel book:
There is charm to reading a philosopher who confesses to finding things bewildering. But I regret the appearance of this book. It will only bring comfort to creationists and fans of “intelligent design”, who will not be too bothered about the difference between their divine architect and Nagel’s natural providence. It will give ammunition to those triumphalist scientists who pronounce that philosophy is best pensioned off. If there were a philosophical Vatican, the book would be a good candidate for going on to the Index.
The Nagel book continues to go up in my eyes.
The fallacy of mood affiliation
Recently I wrote:
It seems to me that people are first choosing a mood or attitude, and then finding the disparate views which match to that mood and, to themselves, justifying those views by the mood. I call this the “fallacy of mood affiliation,” and it is one of the most underreported fallacies in human reasoning. (In the context of economic growth debates, the underlying mood is often “optimism” or “pessimism” per se and then a bunch of ought-to-be-independent views fall out from the chosen mood.)
Here are some further examples:
1. People who strongly desire to refute those who predicted the world would run out of innovations in 1899 and thus who associate proponents of a growth slowdown with that far more extreme view. There’s simply an urgent feeling that any “pessimistic” view needs to be countered.
2. People who see a lot of net environmental progress (air and water are cleaner, for instance) and thus dismiss or downgrade well-grounded accounts of particular environmental problems. There’s simply an urgent feeling that any “pessimistic” view needs to be countered.
3. People who see a political war against the interests of the poor and thus who are reluctant to present or digest analyses which blame some of the problems of the poor on…the poor themselves. (Try bringing up “predatory borrowing” in any discussion of “predatory lending” and see what happens.) There’s simply an urgent feeling that any negative or pessimistic or undeserving view of the poor needs to be countered.
4. People who see raising or lowering the relative status of Republicans (or some other group) as the main purpose of analysis, and thus who judge the dispassionate analysis of others, or for that matter the partisan analysis of others, by this standard. There’s simply an urgent feeling that any positive or optimistic or deserving view of the Republicans needs to be countered.
In the blogosphere, the fallacy of mood affiliation is common.
Trump’s threat to let Putin invade NATO countries
I don’t usually blog on “candidate topics,”or “Trump topics,” but a friend of mine asked me to cover this. As you probably know, Trump threatened to let NATO countries that failed to meet the two percent of gdp defense budget obligation fend for themselves against Putin (video here, with Canadian commentary). Trump even said he would encourage the attacker.
Long-time MR readers will know I am not fond of Trump, either as a president or otherwise. (And I am very fond of NATO.) But on this issue I think he is basically correct. Yes, I know all about backlash effects. But so many NATO members do not keep up serious defense capabilities. And for decades none of our jawboning has worked.
Personally, I would not have proceeded or spoken as Trump did, and I do not address the collective action problems in my own sphere of work and life in a comparable manner (“if you’re not ready with enough publications for tenure, we’ll let Bukele take you!” or “Spinoza, if you don’t stop scratching the couch, I won’t protect you against the coyotes!”). So if you wish to take that as a condemnation of Trump, so be it. Nonetheless, I cannot help but feel there is some room for an “unreasonable” approach on this issue, whether or not I am the one to carry that ball.
Even spending two percent of gdp would not get many NATO allies close to what they need to do (and yes I do understand the difference between defense spending and payments to NATO, in any case many other countries are falling down on the job). I strongly suspect that many of those nations just don’t have effective fighting forces at all, and in essence they are standing at zero percent of gdp, even if their nominal expenditures say hit 1.7 percent. Remember the report that the German Army trained with broomsticks because they didn’t have enough machine guns? How many of those forces are actually ready to fire and fight in a combat situation? It is far from obvious that the Ukraine war — a remarkably grave and destructive event — has fixed that situation.
The nations that see no need to have workable martial capabilities at all are a real threat to NATO, and yes this includes Canada, which shares a very large de facto Arctic border with Putin, full of valuable natural resources. Even a United States led by Nikki Haley cannot do all the heavy lifting here. What if the U.S. is tied down in Asia and/or the Middle East when further trouble strikes? That no longer seems like such a distant possibility. And should Western Europe, over time, really become “foreign policy irrelevant,” relative to the more easternmost parts of NATO? That too is not good for anybody.
With or without Trump’s remarks, we are likely on a path of nuclear proliferation, starting in Poland.
People talk about threats to democracy in Poland, and I am not happy they have restricted the power of their judiciary. But consider Germany. The country has given up its energy independence, it may lose a significant portion of its manufacturing base, its earlier economic strategy was to cast its lot with Russia and China, AfD is the #2 party there and growing, and the former east is politically polarized and illiberal, among other problems. Most of all, the country has lost its will to defend itself. That is in spite of a well-educated population and a deliberative political systems that in the more distant past worked well. You can criticize Trump’s stupid provocations all you want, but unless you have a better idea for waking Germany (and other countries) up, you are probably just engaging in your own mood affiliation. On this issue, “argument by adjective” ain’t gonna’ cut it.
The best scenario is that Trump raises these issues, everyone in Canada and Western Europe screams, they clutch their pearls and are horrified for months, but over time the topic becomes more focal and more ensconced in their consciousness. Eventually more Democrats may pick up the Trump talking points, as they have done with China. Perhaps three to five years from now that can lead to some positive action. And if they are calling his words “appalling and unhinged,” as indeed they are, well that is going to drive more page views.
The odds may be against policy improvement in any case, but by this point it seems pretty clear standard diplomacy isn’t going to work. I am just not that opposed to a “Hail Mary, why not speak some truth here?” approach to the problem. Again, I wouldn’t do it, but at the margin it deserves more support than it is getting. Of course it is hard for the MSM American intelligentsia to show any sympathy for Trump’s remarks, because his words carry the implication that spending more on social welfare has an unacceptably high opportunity cost. So you just won’t find much objective debate of the issues at stake.
If you’re worried about Trump encouraging Putin, that is a real concern but the nations on the eastern flank of NATO are all above two percent, Bulgaria excepted. Maybe this raises the chance that Putin is emboldened to blow up some Western European infrastructure? Make a move against Canada in the Arctic? I still could see that risk as panning out into greater preparedness, greater deterrence, and a better outcome overall. Western Europe of course has a gdp far greater than that of Putin’s Russia. they just don’t have the right values, in addition to not spending enough on defense.
So on this one Trump is indeed the Shakespearean truth-teller, and (I hope) for the better.
Nicholas Kristof on good things in 2023
Just about the worst calamity that can befall a human is to lose a child, and historically, almost half of children worldwide died before they reached the age of 15. That share has declined steadily since the 19th century, and the United Nations Population Division projects that in 2023 a record low was reached in global child mortality, with just 3.6 percent of newborns dying by the age of 5.
That’s the lowest such figure in human history. It still means that about 4.9 million children died this year — but that’s a million fewer than died as recently as 2016…
Or consider extreme poverty. It too has reached a record low, affecting a bit more than 8 percent of humans worldwide, according to United Nations projections.
All these figures are rough, but it seems that about 100,000 people are now emerging from extreme poverty each day — so they are better able to access clean water, to feed and educate their children, to buy medicines.
Here is the full NYT column, and no he doesn’t deny the bad things that are going on, please don’t engage in the usual mood affiliation people…
Happy New Year to come!
*The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights*
That is the new book by David Beito, and the subtitle is The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance. Here is the closing passage:
If Roosevelt’s civil-liberties reputation meant anything to mainstream Americans at the end of the 1950s, it was not for witch hunts against gays in the navy, mass surveillance of private telegrams, crackdowns on free speech, inquisitorial investigations, sedition prosecutions, or the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps. Far more central in the memories of most was his authorship of the four freedoms and the Fair Employment Practices Committee and the appointment of Black and Douglas to the Supreme Court. But that was not the whole truth, or even the beginning of the whole truth.
There you go. I don’t think these facts are much contested, though the accompanying mood affiliation hasn’t changed very much.
Some observations on universities and recent outrages
1. I feel stupid and unnecessary simply piling on with the usual observations and criticisms. Nonetheless they are mostly deserved, for a varying mix of administrators, faculty, and students.
2. The real black-pill is to realize that the structural equilibria behind the outrages also play a role in more usual affairs. Ultimately these cannot be entirely “segregated” incidents. Through invisible hand mechanisms, there is too much bias and too much groupthink conformity, even in the evaluation of ordinary scientific propositions.
3. This is true for the economics profession as well, though few will tell you this. They won’t tell you because they are the ones doing it, though often unintentionally or with genuine motives. They are laying bricks in the edifice of intellectual conformity, if only through what they do not talk about.
3b. I don’t think GMU economics differs in kind here, so politically speaking the situation is symmetric with respect to bias. Nonetheless mainstream policy views are far more prevalent than GMU-type policy views, so the actual net bias in practice is very much in the [fill in the blank ] direction. (What should I call it? The “Democratic Party direction”? That doesn’t seem quite right, but it is the closest descriptor I have found. Perhaps “the Democratic Party direction but passed through some intellectualizing filters”?) If you really think there are enough checks and balances in place to prevent this bias and conformity and lack of self-awareness from arising, I hope the recent outrages have black-pilled you just a bit.
4. Those who perform the outrageous acts of commission or omission are not usually evil people, just as most Irish-American IRA supporters in America were not evil people. Very often their failings stem from a mix of narcissism, mood affiliation, and fail to think through their professed views (perhaps they are indeed evil from a Randian point of view?). They frame political issues in personal, emotional terms, namely which values ought to be elevated (e.g., “sympathy for victimhood”), and that framing determines their response to daily events. Since their views on the personal and emotional side are held so strongly, it simply feels to them that they are right, even when they are glorifying groups and cultures that currently are failing badly and also performing some very bad and evil acts. They get caught up in such glorifications, including through the medium of apologetics, and through the other twists and turns they need to make to sustain their intellectual positions, even if they are not fundamentally malevolent as human beings.
I think about twenty percent of “the outrageous ones in academia” genuinely have evil, malevolent views, the rest are victims of their narcissistic mood affiliation.
4b. Keep in mind the eighty percent often have a deeper sense than you do of the humanity and vividness of the groups and cultures that currently are failing badly. That makes them all the more convinced that they are right and you are wrong. They can indeed feel that you do not “know what is going on.” In the meantime, you should try to acquire that deeper sense. As it stands, there is a pretty good chance you don’t have it, and that means you are deficient too. That is your own brand of narcissistic mood affiliation.
5. If you hear someone proclaiming a strong distinction between their “scientific views” and their “personal views,” usually they are in effect saying they don’t want their underlying “actual views on net” much challenged. It is fine to proclaim agnosticism about areas you don’t do research in, but then you should actually be agnostic about the areas you don’t do research in. I have never met such a person. Unwillingness to recognize these bad practices is a fundamental problem in academic economics discourse today. It cloaks so many of the current vices under the ostensible mantle of science.
6. The current backlash against academia is likely to remove or dampen the most egregious commissions and omissions on display, as we recently have been witnessing them, but without improving the underlying incentive structure more generally. Academics will more likely put on a better face, but without much reducing their biases on net. It might end up that such biases become more invisible and harder to detect and root out.
Have a nice day!
Wednesday assorted links
1. How should prestige TV treat fascism?
2. The pushback against Melissa Kearney is an object lesson in mood affiliation.
3. New science writing fellowship. And Stigler Center journalists in residence program.
4. The Longevity Fund, from Laura Deming.
5. Foiled Danish art markets in everything.
6. New results on animals talking (NYT).