Wisdom and Humility

From "The Overstory: A Novel"

...real joy consists of knowing that human wisdom counts less than the shimmer of beeches in a breeze. As certain as weather coming from the west, the things people know for sure will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.

And Yeats "The Second Coming"

...The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Knowledge Requires Testing

The idea of knowing what is true is closely related to the idea of being able to make accurate predictions. This is a topic Nate Silver discusses at length in "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't"

One of the points he makes is that while some predictive sciences get better over time, others don't. He concludes that to get better at prediction, we need to make lots of predictions that we then test against what actually happens.

In my own life, I started writing computer code about 40 years ago, and I notice that I still make the same mistakes and typos I did when I was in high school. What saves me now is that we have much better testing facilities and I've been able to discipline myself to use them. I still make mistakes, but I design processes specifically to expose the weaknesses in my code.

If we want to have an accurate picture of the world -- a shared view of reality that we can use to make decisions about society -- we have to get used to asking those questions and seeking answers that are based on something other than depth of feeling.

Being a Level 2 Skeptic

Yesterday I noted that I have two rules of thumb for accepting something as true. The first is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The second is a milder form of "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

In fact, whenever a belief confirms my priors or just happens to come out the way I want it to, I try to raise my skepticism shields. It can be hard to notice when I am tempted to accept a belief too quickly because I already agree with its implications, but I try.

I find this sort of skepticism really hard to maintain. When I notice I'm accepting an idea without proper reflection I do okay, but I suspect a lot of things slip by my defenses. This is just one of the reasons I value having reasonable friends with divergent political beliefs -- even if we'll never agree, they often form a bulwark against brainwashing myself.

Being a skeptic

On Facebook, a friend posed the question "how do I know my information is correct...?" This is a crucial question, one that deserves careful thought. Without downplaying the role of careful research and formal skills in evaluating arguments and fallacies, I have a couple of rules of thumb. The first of these is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

For instance, the claims of quantum mechanics are quite extraordinary. If it were not for the fact that its predictions are so precise and reproducible, I'm confident we'd see greater scepticism among physicists. On the other hand, most of us have been tempted at one point or another by some sort of conspiracy theory. I certainly have. How should we proceed?

Of course, conspiracies do happen. But we should require extraordinary evidence before we grant creedence to their sensational claims. Today's allegations of massively rigged elections or human-trafficking pedophile rings among the Democratic political elite simply do not have that sort of extraordinary evidence. Unless such irrefutable evidence emerges, we should reject them and move on.

Ranked Choice Voting

 WBUR or WGBH radio ran a good segment on ranked choice voting yesterday. I was disappointed when the MA ballot initiative to implement RCV failed in November, so I'll spend a minute or two today on the topic.

In RCV, the goal is to find a candidate that is supported by a majority of voters, meaning more than 50%, not simply a plurality. The way it does this is to allow each voter to rank their choices. If a majority is reached on the first count, then the vote is done. If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped and those votes are reassigned to their second choice. This continues until a candidate with majority support is found.

In practice, this has two effects. First, since it increases the reward for speaking to a broad audience, incivility and extremism are punished. Second, if the two-party system is putting up candidates that do not represent their constituencies well, it gives a potential 3rd party viable access to the electorate. Hopefully we'll get another chance - both those outcomes seem worthwhile to me.

What is Ranked Choice Voting?

Ranked Choice Voting vs The Establishment

The Battle for Free Speech

I get frustrated by persistent complaints about so-called "cancel culture."

Not that I think it's entirely non-existent. I'm sure it does exist in places.

Not because it tends to be an accusation made by people who generally lean right against people who generally lean left, when it seems clear that left-leaning voices are excluding from conservative media just just as effectively as right-leaning voices are excluded from progressive media.

Not even because it is old news. Censorship, boycotts, tarring and feathering (both literal and figurative) have been part of our political discourse since before the revolutions.

What really irks me, what makes me nuts, is that the real issue has always been having the bravery to speak out in the first place.

We are promised the right to speak and print your views by the constitution, short of directly inciting violence. We are not promised it will be easy, or that we can escape the consequences of our speech. Nor are we promised that public or private resources (e.g., lecture halls in institutions of higher learning) will be allocated to us to speak abhorrent or hateful views. Which of course sets up a very thorny -- but equally valid -- political discussion about what views are deserving of society's support. But just having an idea does not automatically entitle me to public support in broadcasting it.

Of course, to have an effect on public thought requires speaking in a way that others can engage with. Some people go with rage, spite, and condemnation -- these things will get people engaged, but probably just the people who already see things the same way. Some go with deception, exaggeration, and hyperbole -- these things have worked well in Russian, Soviet, and Stasi disinformation campaigns in European experience, and seem to be pretty effective in US social media too.

To me, the battle for free speech is an internal battle for the courage to speak. And the best way to be heard is to speak with all the rationally and courtesy I can muster.

Something Like Normalcy

I was so excited to have something like a normal weekend for like the first time since covid-19 initially surged in Massachusetts.

Went hiking in the blue hills on Saturday, got good and lost on the way back with no map and a stubborn refusal to use my cell phone...but after bushwacking off Hancock Hill found my trail again and all was good.

Ran rock climbing and a bit of high ropes for a patrol of 5 scouts at New England Base Camp on Sunday. I had not realized how much I missed that whole experience - spending time with fellow instructors and seeing young folk try something new and succeed at something they initially thought was impossible.

Due to covid-19, we have to keep to the same small groups throughout the day -- to limit potential for spread, we can't have drop-ins and random intermixing -- which means a lot more time to have meaningful program and see a bit more of the scouts than the weekend programs usually offer. I liked it.

Cats

(Yesterday, I said I was going to talk about kittens today. In fact, I want to talk about grown-up kittens.)

A few days ago, we dropped our youngest son off at college. He's in a small dorm (probably less than 50 people) and they have a cat! That made me happy. We had cats in my dorm during college, and they really helped me deal with the stresses of a challenging academic environment.

Good architecture matters. Dormitories based on long rows of cramped apartments are absurd. We can do better. Living in small settings with other folks who who've just become adults, learning how to cook for yourself and share responsibilities for keeping the kitchen clean, these things just feel so much more healthy. Having pets (and caring for them) seems like part of the same package.

We don't help our youth become adults by continuing to treat them as if they are children.