A point in defence of George Washington and literature: having a shared culture, with a common background knowledge of legends and sacred texts, is extremely important for maintaining high trust and coordination. These stories have an enormous utility as such, even if the information is not directly useful. The reason why we teach children about George Washington is not because the historical facts about him are directly, instrumentally important, but because we want to maintain the mythopoetic commons by ensuring that everyone has a common grounding in the founding myths and sacred values of the civic religion.
The same is doubtlessly true of Dath Ilan, unless part of the fiction is that humans there are psychologically very different from our own humans.
The important distinction here is between “does this provide any value” and “does this provide the most value it could, per learning-hour”.
A piece of literature, or a founding myth, can in principle provide shared cultural context, which makes interfacing with other people easier. But, first, the fact that it could provide cultural context doesn’t mean that it is doing that. And, second, being-shared-culture is a property that anything can have, by being common enough, including things that already provided value in a different way. And third—things that are independently valuable tend to do a better job of being-shared-context.
My school made everyone read The Great Gatsby. Never once in my life did I ever encounter a reference to it, or make a reference to it, or even remember that it existed at all until I just now queried my memory for “books that seemed kinda pointless to have read”.
By contrast, I’ve heard and made a fair number of references to HPMoR—because the people around me have read it, and because it is actually optimized for having lessons and analogies worth referring to.
George Washington and the American Civic Religion falls somewhere in between. It’s not Great Gatsby-level pointless, but it’s still conspicuously unoptimized.
Part of teaching people about George Washington is teaching people that the US consitution is more then a piece of paper but sacred. Shared understanding of the US constitution as sacred does help with coordination.
The problem with optimizing teaching sacredness is that it in itself makes the teaching less sacred.
The problem with optimizing teaching sacredness is that it in itself makes the teaching less sacred.
No, perceived sacredness isn’t only a byproduct; it’s something that’s actually pretty easy to optimize for directly. See for example Petrov Day or Winter Solstice.
I take your points but your arguments are in the form of:
a. “this knowledge is clearly worth it because of what it is”
Instead of showing a mathematical estimate of rent paid you argue that “having a shared culture is required for high trust and coordination and mythopoetic commons”. But you don’t have a measurement of this. (and one may not exist yet I am just explaining the flaw in your argument)
b. Similarly by saying “reason why we teach children” you are implicitly just saying “tradition says we have to keep teaching it” by referring to something that has been taught over and over.
One note is there are highly successful individuals and entire nations who know absolutely none of any of these specific bits of knowledge regarding American civics. That is a pretty strong argument for it being non-essential, and possibly not paying any rent.
Note that knowledge of the characters and superpowers of the MCU is also a way to gain access to a “mythopoetic commons”. Yet I think we can both agree that knowing about the MCU, no matter how cool, doesn’t pay rent for almost all of us.
One note is there are highly successful individuals and entire nations who know absolutely none of any of these specific bits of knowledge regarding American civics. That is a pretty strong argument for it being non-essential, and possibly not paying any rent.
No, it’s a week argument. A nation benefits from common knowledge of it’s own history to have a sense of patriotism and sacredness of the shared societal order. Knowing about civics of other countries has much less value to society.
The fact that you can be successful by defecting in prisoner dilema also suggests that while individuals who don’t focus on coordinating well might be successful their society is still worse off for it.
How do you propose that one could measure this? Do you have a counter-example of a highly coordinated society that DOESN’T have a shared mythic/legendary/literary canon? I reject the implication that I have to have a quantitative measure on hand in order to suggest that something is valuable.
One note is there are highly successful individuals and entire nations who know absolutely none of any of these specific bits of knowledge regarding American civics
Irrelevant. I am not suggesting that American civics are important to every society ever, but that they’re important to American society, precisely because these legends are part of what give American society its American character. (If you aren’t American, feel free to substitute the founding legends of your own country.)
knowledge of the characters and superpowers of the MCU is also a way to gain access to a “mythopoetic commons”
I agree, but I don’t see how this is a counter-argument. The exact content of your society’s legendarium is always to some degree arbitrary (though it certainly has downstream effects), but its arbitrariness doesn’t prevent it from functioning as cultural glue.
knowing about the MCU, no matter how cool, doesn’t pay rent
For the first paragraph, I acknowledge that measurement is difficult.
For the second bit: my definition of “pays rent”: a fact or algorithm that enables a human being to make a decision that has a higher expected value. Information that doesn’t pay rent is by definition worthless. (as an aside in most contexts, “trivia” knowledge doesn’t pay any rent)
For the third bit: you haven’t taken it far enough. If a living being needs to ‘socialize’ to survive, the facts/technique that give them the greatest chance of socializing successfully with the subgroup of humans who are most valuable is the highest paying rent item. All knowledge even for the purpose of a shared “mythopoetic” base is not equal.
While I acknowledge that I don’t have a way to directly measure this, likely knowledge of popular TV shows or bands is more useful to most humans than knowledge of civics.
Which is rather interesting, because this actually has some explaining power.
> knowing about the MCU, no matter how cool, doesn’t pay rent
Is not “enables socialization” a form of rent?
In favor of this particular point, I know about the MCU despite disliking superhero movies and comics (except Watchmen) precisely because it is helpful in my social circles.
Regarding @jaspax’s main point, it is not obvious that formal education is necessary to generate a shared mythopoetic structure. OTOH I can’t think of an example of a long-lasting one that does not have a group actively involved in educating people about it. So, it is not obvious that it is a poor candidate for formal education either.
A point in defence of George Washington and literature: having a shared culture, with a common background knowledge of legends and sacred texts, is extremely important for maintaining high trust and coordination. These stories have an enormous utility as such, even if the information is not directly useful. The reason why we teach children about George Washington is not because the historical facts about him are directly, instrumentally important, but because we want to maintain the mythopoetic commons by ensuring that everyone has a common grounding in the founding myths and sacred values of the civic religion.
The same is doubtlessly true of Dath Ilan, unless part of the fiction is that humans there are psychologically very different from our own humans.
The important distinction here is between “does this provide any value” and “does this provide the most value it could, per learning-hour”.
A piece of literature, or a founding myth, can in principle provide shared cultural context, which makes interfacing with other people easier. But, first, the fact that it could provide cultural context doesn’t mean that it is doing that. And, second, being-shared-culture is a property that anything can have, by being common enough, including things that already provided value in a different way. And third—things that are independently valuable tend to do a better job of being-shared-context.
My school made everyone read The Great Gatsby. Never once in my life did I ever encounter a reference to it, or make a reference to it, or even remember that it existed at all until I just now queried my memory for “books that seemed kinda pointless to have read”.
By contrast, I’ve heard and made a fair number of references to HPMoR—because the people around me have read it, and because it is actually optimized for having lessons and analogies worth referring to.
George Washington and the American Civic Religion falls somewhere in between. It’s not Great Gatsby-level pointless, but it’s still conspicuously unoptimized.
Part of teaching people about George Washington is teaching people that the US consitution is more then a piece of paper but sacred. Shared understanding of the US constitution as sacred does help with coordination.
The problem with optimizing teaching sacredness is that it in itself makes the teaching less sacred.
No, perceived sacredness isn’t only a byproduct; it’s something that’s actually pretty easy to optimize for directly. See for example Petrov Day or Winter Solstice.
I take your points but your arguments are in the form of:
a. “this knowledge is clearly worth it because of what it is”
Instead of showing a mathematical estimate of rent paid you argue that “having a shared culture is required for high trust and coordination and mythopoetic commons”. But you don’t have a measurement of this. (and one may not exist yet I am just explaining the flaw in your argument)
b. Similarly by saying “reason why we teach children” you are implicitly just saying “tradition says we have to keep teaching it” by referring to something that has been taught over and over.
One note is there are highly successful individuals and entire nations who know absolutely none of any of these specific bits of knowledge regarding American civics. That is a pretty strong argument for it being non-essential, and possibly not paying any rent.
Note that knowledge of the characters and superpowers of the MCU is also a way to gain access to a “mythopoetic commons”. Yet I think we can both agree that knowing about the MCU, no matter how cool, doesn’t pay rent for almost all of us.
No, it’s a week argument. A nation benefits from common knowledge of it’s own history to have a sense of patriotism and sacredness of the shared societal order. Knowing about civics of other countries has much less value to society.
The fact that you can be successful by defecting in prisoner dilema also suggests that while individuals who don’t focus on coordinating well might be successful their society is still worse off for it.
How do you propose that one could measure this? Do you have a counter-example of a highly coordinated society that DOESN’T have a shared mythic/legendary/literary canon? I reject the implication that I have to have a quantitative measure on hand in order to suggest that something is valuable.
Irrelevant. I am not suggesting that American civics are important to every society ever, but that they’re important to American society, precisely because these legends are part of what give American society its American character. (If you aren’t American, feel free to substitute the founding legends of your own country.)
I agree, but I don’t see how this is a counter-argument. The exact content of your society’s legendarium is always to some degree arbitrary (though it certainly has downstream effects), but its arbitrariness doesn’t prevent it from functioning as cultural glue.
Is not “enables socialization” a form of rent?
For the first paragraph, I acknowledge that measurement is difficult.
For the second bit: my definition of “pays rent”: a fact or algorithm that enables a human being to make a decision that has a higher expected value. Information that doesn’t pay rent is by definition worthless. (as an aside in most contexts, “trivia” knowledge doesn’t pay any rent)
For the third bit: you haven’t taken it far enough. If a living being needs to ‘socialize’ to survive, the facts/technique that give them the greatest chance of socializing successfully with the subgroup of humans who are most valuable is the highest paying rent item. All knowledge even for the purpose of a shared “mythopoetic” base is not equal.
While I acknowledge that I don’t have a way to directly measure this, likely knowledge of popular TV shows or bands is more useful to most humans than knowledge of civics.
Which is rather interesting, because this actually has some explaining power.
In favor of this particular point, I know about the MCU despite disliking superhero movies and comics (except Watchmen) precisely because it is helpful in my social circles.
Regarding @jaspax’s main point, it is not obvious that formal education is necessary to generate a shared mythopoetic structure. OTOH I can’t think of an example of a long-lasting one that does not have a group actively involved in educating people about it. So, it is not obvious that it is a poor candidate for formal education either.