Cecie’s model seems like it would have difficulty explaining things like the replication crisis, in which a large group of scientists coordinated to mount a massive challenge to bad norms, on their own time, before a major funder stepped in.
But a more charitably portrayed Simplicio would have no trouble explaining it. These scientists were educated to believe in the idea of collaborative knowledge creation through experimental testing, had the courage of their convictions, were willing to talk to each other about problems, were willing to follow virtuous leadership, and finally had enough people willing to serve as such leaders to initiate a response.
In other words, they are neither hypocrites, nor cowards, nor psychopaths, nor sheep, but free people. As free citizens of the republic of science, they don’t have to mindlessly do whatever their incentives tell them to.
Understanding where and how this happens, and what things make it more or less likely, seems to me like the single most important social science question right now. To see what the grand obstacle is to people solving these problems by, you know, coordinating.
Sure, there exist local incentives to participate in these unfortunate situations. But, the existence of a bad rather than a good equilibrium is itself something that needs to be explained. In particular, it seems like in a lot of situations, people who break with the system are viewed as fools who don’t know how to play the game, where at other times and places they’d have been viewed as heroes displaying good citizenship and leading by example. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to describe this as people being bad (because we’ve been taught to be). There has been a massive campaign to train people to behave as price-takers rather than as free citizens.
The incentives model doesn’t do well on how children learn, how hoplite phalanxes fight, how primitive communism works, how righteousness works, how conspiracies and governments and law enforcement work, and in general how there come to be the background social structures in which microeconomic incentives can play out.
Primitive communism isn’t people nobly resisting the impulse to hoard or shirk—it’s just, people doing the sensible thing, since everyone depends on the shared project, so you’d like to see it succeed, so if something needs doing, you do it.
Children don’t do as little learning as they can get away with, at least until school trains them to. They make strenuous, spontaneous, persistent efforts to learn. And not just things for calculated personal advantage—they work hard to learn the customs of their family, tribe, and nation, and how to contribute.
Simplicio is a weak man.
Cecie’s model seems like it would have difficulty explaining things like the replication crisis, in which a large group of scientists coordinated to mount a massive challenge to bad norms, on their own time, before a major funder stepped in.
But a more charitably portrayed Simplicio would have no trouble explaining it. These scientists were educated to believe in the idea of collaborative knowledge creation through experimental testing, had the courage of their convictions, were willing to talk to each other about problems, were willing to follow virtuous leadership, and finally had enough people willing to serve as such leaders to initiate a response.
In other words, they are neither hypocrites, nor cowards, nor psychopaths, nor sheep, but free people. As free citizens of the republic of science, they don’t have to mindlessly do whatever their incentives tell them to.
Understanding where and how this happens, and what things make it more or less likely, seems to me like the single most important social science question right now. To see what the grand obstacle is to people solving these problems by, you know, coordinating.
Sure, there exist local incentives to participate in these unfortunate situations. But, the existence of a bad rather than a good equilibrium is itself something that needs to be explained. In particular, it seems like in a lot of situations, people who break with the system are viewed as fools who don’t know how to play the game, where at other times and places they’d have been viewed as heroes displaying good citizenship and leading by example. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to describe this as people being bad (because we’ve been taught to be). There has been a massive campaign to train people to behave as price-takers rather than as free citizens.
The incentives model doesn’t do well on how children learn, how hoplite phalanxes fight, how primitive communism works, how righteousness works, how conspiracies and governments and law enforcement work, and in general how there come to be the background social structures in which microeconomic incentives can play out.
Primitive communism isn’t people nobly resisting the impulse to hoard or shirk—it’s just, people doing the sensible thing, since everyone depends on the shared project, so you’d like to see it succeed, so if something needs doing, you do it.
Children don’t do as little learning as they can get away with, at least until school trains them to. They make strenuous, spontaneous, persistent efforts to learn. And not just things for calculated personal advantage—they work hard to learn the customs of their family, tribe, and nation, and how to contribute.
And so on.