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Category: sociology

Book: Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

Book: Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

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Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff investigates the impacts of current and emerging technologies and digital culture on individuals and groups and seeks ways to evade or extract ourselves from their corrosive effects. After you read the book, please post your thoughts as comments to this post or, if you prefer, as new posts. There are interviews and other resources about the book online. Feel free to recommend in the comments those you find meaningful. Also, the audiobook is available through…

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Running on escalators

Running on escalators

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Ideally, automation would yield a Star Trek reality of increasing leisure and quality of choice and experience. Why isn’t this our experience? An article on Medium offers insight into why this is not occurring on any significant scale. Evolved behavioral strategies explained by the prisoner’s dilemma damn the majority of humans to a constant doubling down. We exchange the ‘leisure dividend’ (free time) granted by automation for opportunities to outcompete others. Apparently, the sort of reciprocal social learning that could…

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Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning

Neural Correlates of Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning

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The abstract from this article: “Going back to Kohlberg, moral development research affirms that people progress through different stages of moral reasoning as cognitive abilities mature. Individuals at a lower level of moral reasoning judge moral issues mainly based on self-interest (personal interests schema) or based on adherence to laws and rules (maintaining norms schema), whereas individuals at the post-conventional level judge moral issues based on deeper principles and shared ideals. However, the extent to which moral development is reflected…

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The death of the invisible hand (job)

The death of the invisible hand (job)

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Speaking of metaphors, article by David Sloan Wilson. Some excerpts: “[Adam] Smith was critical of Mandeville and presented a more nuanced view of human nature in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), but modern economic and political discourse is not about nuance. Rational choice theory takes the invisible hand metaphor literally by trying to explain the length and breadth of human behavior on the basis of individual utility maximization, which is fancy talk for the narrow pursuit of self-interest.” “The…

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Gibbs on Haidt’s righteous mind

Gibbs on Haidt’s righteous mind

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From Gibbs’ Moral Development and Reality: “Haidt’s new synthesis leads to recognition of at least three serious limitations: descriptive inadequacy or negative skew; unwarranted exclusion or studied avoidance of prescriptive implications; and moral relativism” (33). He then goes into detail on those inadequacies. From the section on moral relativism: “Haidt’s (2012) sentiment that liberals and conservatives should share meals and narratives and ‘get along’ is helpful, but missing is any call for rational dialogue or moral progress. Nor did Haidt…

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How many does it take to tip the scales?

How many does it take to tip the scales?

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25% of a group according to this study published in Science journal. “A new study finds that when 25 percent of people in a group adopt a new social norm, it creates a tipping point where the entire group follows suit. This shows the direct causal effect of the size of a committed minority on its capacity to create social change.” And this is encouraging and a key reason I do my blog: “While shifting people’s underlying beliefs can be…

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Homo deus

Homo deus

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Power Valued Over Truth Dear Ed and All, “We are the ones that create human nature by inculcating cooperation and care over selfishness and power.” The view you express, Ed, contesting Harari’s claim in Homo deus, seems to edge up closely to the “pre-modern” standard social science of model of human nature, i.e., that it is almost solely a product of culture, with no or minimal influence of naturally selected genes and very fancy naturally selected epigenetic mechanisms for gene…

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The evolutionary and present significance of reading

The evolutionary and present significance of reading

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In her new book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, author Maryanne Wolf explores how reading affects the brain and mind. What different effects result from consuming digital media rather than print media and long forms rather than tweets, posts, and other microcontent? In her excellent recent article, she says, Will new readers develop the more time-demanding cognitive processes nurtured by print-based mediums as they absorb and acquire new cognitive capacities emphasized by digital media? For example, will…

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Fluid dynamics key in cooperative evolution

Fluid dynamics key in cooperative evolution

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According to this recent physics study, cooperative behavior is stimulated by literal fluid flow. “In a new study, physicists at the University of Notre Dame examined how the mechanical properties of an environment may shape the social evolution of microbial populations. Through computer simulations and analytical calculations, they determined the necessary properties of diffusion and flow that allow microbes to evolve stable social behavior. Their findings also allow for speculation that the evolution of single-cell organisms to multicellular organisms may…

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