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Destroying credibility for good
In Australia many states and cities have issued a limited number of taxi licenses. Without such a license you cannot legally transport people for money in cars. Due to their artificially manufactured...
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Just how many people are you, anyway?
There's a lot going on in your brain that you aren't aware of. Enough thinking to accomodate a second 'person'? Psychology experiments give us a good reason to think that there are multiple streams of...
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Do we give because we care for others or for our image?
Sorting in Experiments with Application to Social Preferences provides some insight into our giving motivations: “We conduct an experiment to demonstrate the importance of sorting in the context of...
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Choosing the best status games for society
Fortuantely we now have more welfare enhancing status competitions than jousting. How much better might we do? Humans have a natural impulse to compete amongst themselves for the esteem of those around...
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Is politics a productive activity for the truly compassionate? Usually not.
Would we collectively be better off with a lot less of this? Related to: Why politics is inefficient compared to institutional and technological innovation. Arepo over at Felicifia does a cost-benefit...
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Why do we want the illusion that others already trust us?
Katja Grace observes that in certain personal relationships it is not acceptable to actively seek out people’s reputations in order to decide whether to trust them or not. Why do good businesses...
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To truly know yourself, watch your actions not your feelings
Related to: Murder (Meteuphoric), Just how many people are you, anyway?, Do we give because we care for others or for our image? When I propose cynical explanations for human altruism towards anyone...
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Bad but stable equilibrium in graduate education
Andrew Norton on the inefficiency of PhDs: “To start with, it’s not clear that the PhD is fit for purpose. It can’t be a qualification for university teaching, since most PhD students are already...
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Art as signalling
“In 1957, after being rejected by several other firms, On the Road was finally purchased by Viking Press, which demanded major revisions prior to publication.[25] Many of the more sexually explicit...
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We may never civilise the wilderness, but we are on track to destroy it
Wild animals can count on human avarice, but not compassion, to end their suffering. David Pearce endorses reprogramming nature to reduce wild animal suffering: “A biosphere without suffering is...
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Spend status well
Related to: Choosing the best status games for society Reijo Laukkanen explains the remarkably successful Finnish education system: PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: What do you think are some of the major...
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Why seek sex in the dark?
A bunch of people not looking for a light switch. A major function of a dance floor is to facilitate finding and attracting partners. When we meet new potential friends and lovers we usually want to...
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Why cut off a hydra’s head?
Near the end of the affecting documentary The Cove, the activists campaigning to stop the slaughter of dolphins and whales by the Japanese suggest that it is impossible to explain the ongoing slaughter...
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Is a world without nuclear weapons a safer world?
All the recent talk about nuclear disarmament reminded me of a paper by Tom Schelling. As described by Dan Cole: “In the Fall 2009 issue of Daedalus, Tom Schelling explains cogently why a world without...
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Is it bad to discriminate against fertile women in employment?
Carl Zimmerman forwarded me an interesting article challenging the value of maternity leave in breaking through the glass ceiling: Harriet Harman’s push for longer maternity leave is undeniably...
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Thresholds in signalling
Most traits we signal are continuous variables: attractiveness, diligence, intelligence, loyalty etc. However, often the signals onlookers receive about our traits are binary, as are the rewards: did...
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Should Australia punish Israel even if we agree with their actions?
Israel recently forged Australian passports to perform an assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai. Australia has expelled an Israeli embassy official in protest. If Australia thought assassinating...
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Why shouldn’t we ration things with queues?
When resources are scarce they must be rationed somehow. Most frequently today resources are rationed by price. But some services, most noticeably subsidised public services like healthcare and (at my...
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Why stories celebrate conflict rather than compromise
I wrote this for the Alternative Law Journal some time ago: As I was watching the film Avatar and the cinemagoers around me were cheering on the Na’vi heroes in their fight against human invaders, I...
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Beeminding your way to greatness
Ever had a long term goal you wanted to achieve, like publishing a paper, getting fit or maintaining a blog, that you always put off and never actually got done? You and me both! I’m not sure whether...
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