koenfucius
@koenfucius.bsky.social
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Accidental behavioural economist koenfucius.substack.com
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Blogged: The Moralization Gambit Weighing up means and ends is really hard. We want to see ourselves (and come across!) as principled, but all too often it's the ends, rather than the means, that drive our judgment. No worries - there is a quick fix:
buff.ly/tyrdEA5
4 days ago
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Doelen en middelen tegen elkaar afwegen is niet zo simpelâwe zien (en tonen) onszelf graag als principieel, maar ja, we willen ook onze doelen bereiken. Geen nood! Er bestaat een handig kneepjeâde moralisatietruc. Mijn
@apache.be
stukje:
buff.ly/C6rxWJl
about 1 hour ago
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âWhat makes a choice difficult?â This is the central question for Behavioural Economics, argues
@aleximas.bsky.social
, coauthor of âThe Winnerâs Curseâ with Richard Thalerâan interdisciplinary search for the cognitive foundations for behavioural anomalies:
buff.ly/HUit8K8
about 5 hours ago
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âThe more challenging it is to figure out whatâs true, the easier people will find it to lie to themselves.â
@danwphilosophy.bsky.social
in search of the true(!) reasons why so many are holding false beliefs (TL;DR: itâs not motivated cognition):
buff.ly/Gn9Wc45
about 6 hours ago
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Principled behaviourâunconditionally obeying maxims without tradeoffs or compromise, even at personal costâis puzzling. Singh & Hoffman explain it through â˘âcommitted agentsâ (itâs ârightâ), and â˘impersonators (strategic, to gain trustworthiness)
osf.io/preprints/ps...
HT
@a-marie-sci.bsky.social
about 8 hours ago
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Culture manifestly evolves, but tempting as it is to repurpose Darwinian natural selection as a model, that would be mistaken, argues Liane Gaboraâwe donât *inherit* culture, we *acquire* it:
buff.ly/5sxpmha
about 11 hours ago
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Scientists have developed an artificial tongue that can identify flavours entirely in liquid environments. It identified four basic tastesâsweet, sour, salty and bitterâwith 72.5%- 87.5% accuracy, and drinks like coffee and Coca-Cola with 96% accuracy:
www.livescience.com/technology/w...
about 11 hours ago
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Moderation in persuasion! New research suggests that there is such a thing as too many compelling arguments. Presenting many argumentsâeven cogent onesâoften yields no benefit or can even reduce one's persuasiveness:
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about 20 hours ago
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Do we *have* to lie? Bryan Caplan has his doubts. Not only is it perfectly (well almost) possible to avoid lying by keeping silent, changing the subject, or avoiding certain people. Life without lies would be a big improvement:
buff.ly/tl5Uba8
about 22 hours ago
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Hegelâs elitism gets challengedâalongside *reason* as the force to lift humanity out of the dark ages into civilization, we must recognize *stupidity*. A good argument is made for elevating it above reason, even:
buff.ly/kPkZnI3
about 23 hours ago
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Repeating the same ad over and over is âefficientâ use of the budget. But is it effective? How effective would Dave Trottâs blogging be if he posted the same text over and over? (Coincidentally, thatâs this weekâs topic.) Then why do companies do it?
buff.ly/w12RnEJ
about 24 hours ago
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Students are more likely to contest a grade if the grader has a female-sounding name than a similar grade provided by a male-sounding evaluator, research by
@perisaygin.bsky.social
et al suggests:
buff.ly/g64Hepn
1 day ago
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What if the end does not really justify the means? If your goals do not justify the action needed, you can still safeguard your conscience and deflect any criticism from opponents by playing the Moralization Gambit:
buff.ly/VST8vMB
1 day ago
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Economics is not about numbers or theoretical modelsâit is at play in many everyday decisions as context-dependent *principles*, not formulas, argues Ram Shivakumar:
buff.ly/KIN9m2g
1 day ago
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How appealing an explanation is, is only in part down to how well it actually *explains*, research by
klopfenstein.bsky.social
&
@hugoreasoning.bsky.social
suggests. Usefulness and surprisingness matter too, the latter especially explaining why poor explanations become popular:
buff.ly/NaSAlaJ
1 day ago
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Intuition and instinct are not the same. When instinctâa reflexive survival responseâdisguises itself as intuitionâdrawing from body cues, cognition, emotion and moreâwe can misread situations, and cause more harm than good:
buff.ly/v33EpWF
1 day ago
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People who are averse to antidepressants like Prozac are often drawn to St Johnâs wortâa ânatural remedy.â But there are doubts over both its effectiveness and its safety, and because it is unregulated, dosing varies widely:
buff.ly/igBZ6R0
1 day ago
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Walter/Wendy Carlos is perhaps the best known artist making synthesizer arrangements of classicalâmostly Bachâmusic. But letâs not forget Isao Tomita, who pushed the boundaries even furtherâas here in Debussyâs Des Pas sur la Neige (with bespoke video):
youtu.be/Im_N8qD4Yws
2 days ago
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If youâre not a dualist, memory, meaning and indeed consciousness are rooted in our anatomy. That is indeed what neurons reveal,
@niko-kukushkin.bsky.social
arguesâwhether in humans or in sea slugs. Can we humans really be the same as sea slugsâonly more complex?
buff.ly/a74Rwo6
2 days ago
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Is there a tradeoff between what is intrinsically enjoyable, and what confers status? Not necessarily, this post by
@stefanschubert.bsky.social
suggestsâmany things are both. But that can have the unexpected consequence of increasing welfare inequality:
buff.ly/DANq1nD
2 days ago
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Can it be both morally right to speak the truth and *not* to speak the truth? Of course! Lying and truth-telling can both be the appropriate reaction to the question âdo you think my bum looks big in this?â Thatâs the power of the Moralization Gambit:
buff.ly/ly8rfFc
2 days ago
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Study by Castillo suggests Uber surge pricing substantially benefits all riders regardless of incomeâcomplainers appear unaware theyâd wait longer for less reliable trips, without. Some drivers lose out.
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TL;DR:đ§ľby @captgouda24
buff.ly/60RHaXh
2 days ago
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Researchers find thatâlike Hercule Poirot forms a composite picture from five differing accounts of a dayâthey can extract valuable signals from the differing outputs of an AI fed with real-world data, and use them to give statistical models a head start:
buff.ly/nAGyyR7
2 days ago
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Een (kerst-)anekdote illustreert hoe het niet zozeer de regels zijn, volgens dewelke we handelen en oordelen over de handelingen van anderen, die onze ware aard tonen, maar de *uitzonderingen* die we erop maken. ICYMI, mijn @apache_be stukje:
buff.ly/pTxD76a
2 days ago
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Research by Sevincer & Stoet reveals a pluralistic illusion around gender equality in Germanyâcontrary to their own experiences people believe they and others perceive high inequality, and both women and men wrongly believe men generally oppose equality:
bit.ly/3YVedC7
2 days ago
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ADHD is not a new conditionâcould it have been an evolutionary adaptation? Some of the traits associated with it may have been widespread in to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, 50,000 years ago, suggesting it was advantageous to them:
buff.ly/0SfwYmf
2 days ago
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But for one bacteria that discovered how to produce abundant energy from water and sunlight aloneâunleashing a new gas to Earth, oxygen, complex life might never have been possible.
@drkazzie.bsky.social
tells the fascinating story of the Great Oxidation Event:
buff.ly/9wTESkI
2 days ago
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If you often feel tired, the problem may not be the quantity of sleep you get, but the qualityâand there are quite a few ways in which you may well be interfering with it. Check out this TED-ed video to see if you recognize any:
youtu.be/nn42RC1zT_A
3 days ago
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âWhat gets measured gets doneââtrue, but incomplete. Eventually *only* what gets measured gets done. And if what gets measured does not quite align with your actual goal, trouble looms.
@add-hawk.bsky.social
âs The Score cautions about gamifying everything:
bit.ly/44SCGvy
3 days ago
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Biases can be seen as errors that hamper cognition, or as functional tendencies that are necessary for cognition. Gigerenzer offers a perspective of this apparent contradiction, arguing biases are functional in large worlds with substantial uncertainty:
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3 days ago
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Finding weighing up whether the end justifies the means for one of your endeavours (or to judge someone elseâs action)? No worriesâif youâre not too bothered with being consistent, thereâs a quick way to a convincing answer: the Moralization Gambit.
buff.ly/MowJEnK
3 days ago
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is there a biological reproduction/longevity trade-offâie do mothers die earlier the more offspring theyâve had? In animals this seems so, but in humans, genetics, environment and societal factors complicate matters. New historic research sheds light:
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3 days ago
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Ananas als topping voor een pizza? Voor sommigen prima, voor anderen een gruwelâeen voorbeeld van de regels die onze keuzes en ons oordeel over anderen bepalen. Toch zijn het de uitzonderingen die we erop maken die ons kenmerken. Mijn
@apache.be
stukje:
buff.ly/pTxD76a
3 days ago
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Our propensity to anthropomorphize AI chatbots is nothing newâwe seem to be wired to humanize animals, vegetables and objects based on the presence of one or more of three factors: eyes, movement and language:
buff.ly/AV8Al1s
3 days ago
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Always wanted to know what itâs *really* like to be on board the ISSâthe home in space for a select bunch of humans for over 25 years? Tour the International Space Station in this fascinating new NASA walkthrough video:
www.popsci.com/science/iss-...
3 days ago
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How do ordinary peopleâin the Czech republicâsee Philosophy? A couple ofâCzechâphilosophers conducted a survey:
buff.ly/BuaYlMW
via @dailynouseditor
4 days ago
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If youâre anything like 99%+ of people, you suffer from awkwardnessâinitiating and sustaining a rewarding conversation at a social event is the one thing everyone believes theyâre *worse* at than average.
@mastroianni.bsky.social
offers some really useful help:
buff.ly/nfHw5jw
4 days ago
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Give me the chemical definition of âorganicâ any dayâan undergraduate course in organic chemistry left its stamp. Unfortunately the term has been appropriated by other interests and is being misused accordingly, writes Josh Bloom:
buff.ly/gRxeEY7
4 days ago
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Paternalism determines the divisions among different behavioural science perspectives. @casssunsteinâwho arguably has a horse in this race đâjuxtaposes â˘coercive paternalism (mandating) â˘libertarian paternalism (nudging) â˘antipaternalism (boosting)
buff.ly/nZ2QU64
4 days ago
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Humans playâand not just little humans. Play shapes the social brain, and is likely rooted deep in our human neurobiology, explains Cas Holmanâand neuroscience research shows it helps construct and refine many of the higher regions of the social brain:
buff.ly/5XTSsg5
4 days ago
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Blogged: The Moralization Gambit Weighing up means and ends is really hard. We want to see ourselves (and come across!) as principled, but all too often it's the ends, rather than the means, that drive our judgment. No worries - there is a quick fix:
buff.ly/tyrdEA5
4 days ago
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Our personality influences how long we live, systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal data by McGeehan et al suggests: â˘Neuroticism â increased risk of premature death â˘Extraversion and Conscientiousness â reduced mortality risk
buff.ly/id08Zvt
4 days ago
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Folk wisdom urges us ânot to scratch that itchâit will only make it worseâ. But as so often, it is bad adviceâ@neuroquest reports on neuroscience research that concludes the opposite is true. Scratching an itch and holding an injury do provide relief:
buff.ly/liDWNSu
4 days ago
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The sound of underground When scientists put sound sensors into the ground, they couldnât believe their ears. Life in the soil was thought to be silent, but it is anything but. Soil bioacoustics offers new ways to study life underground:
buff.ly/VBePQCT
4 days ago
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A Christmassy library anecdote illustrates how overruling late return penalty rules reveals a librarianâs kind nature. Other, less noble, exceptions to the rules we follow reflex our values too, though. ICYMI, last call for my post, Overruling rules:
buff.ly/F5CkUtJ
5 days ago
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Demanding perfection from algorithms is perhaps too much, but accuracy sounds a reasonable expectation. But what do we mean by thatâalways approximately right, or usually very close, but occasionally wide of the mark? Laypeople and experts differ:
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5 days ago
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Are our beliefs the result of gullibility or of skepticism, or perhaps of Bayesian reasoning? None of them, argues Rob Kurzban. âWeâre all thugs, just waiting for the chance to attack whoever or whatever gets painted with an accusation.â
buff.ly/MaMTERr
5 days ago
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Contrary to earlier findings that levels of intolerance toward ideologically dissimilar and threatening groups are generally higher among conservatives, research by Brandt et al suggests that liberals and conservatives are equally intolerant:
buff.ly/AOCOx2u
5 days ago
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âWhat are you thinking about?â âNothing.â Could be we donât want to share our thoughtsâbut maybe that is exactly what we felt. Such mind blanking is genuine and puzzling, and challenges our understanding of consciousness, writes
@thomasandrillon.bsky.social
:
buff.ly/37aSPDO
5 days ago
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âI thought we were just friends!?â A sadly common instance of confusing friendliness and romantic interestâwith a clear gender bias: male overestimation and female underestimation of the other partyâs keenness. How does this bias emerge and evolve?
buff.ly/Y0pFgXL
5 days ago
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Longitudinal research by Leal et al suggests participation in collective action moralizes individualsâ attitudes by politicizing their identity and enraging them towards the (immoral) outgroup, which in turn predicts sustained movement participation:
buff.ly/8ev5HiC
5 days ago
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