“(In fact, the first time it happened, I assumed the subscriber must have made a mistake and accidentally clicked the wrong button. I still assign some probability to this being the case…).” No accident.
Great post Dan! You have managed to simultaneously encourage me to start blogging too, and discourage me because you (as well as other substack writers) set the bar so high.
PS Could you enlighten us some day about why evolutionary psychology has a bad rep with so many readers? What is the most common “beef” people have with it?
Re. evolutionary psychology: I will write about this in greater depth at some point. Very briefly, there are several reasons: lots of evo psych (as with psych research more broadly) is bad; evo psych tends to imply a more cynical picture of human motivation than most people are comfortable with; evo psych tends to be in tension with preferred left-wing conclusions on certain topics (e.g., human malleability and perfectibility, sex differences); and (for complex reasons) many scholars love “culture” and cultural explanations, which are seen to be in tension with evo psych.
Looking forward to reading some of your links in this post. Especially - as a cynic myself - your "cynical analyses of human nature" link. Confirmation bias!
Although I realize optimism is a motivational tool to seek answers that effect (cynical smirk: alleged) progress. For example, much of human "progress" includes significant environmental damage.
I appreciate your insight that there are negatives to academics blogging--I did not realize that. And although it was likely implicit in one of Orwell's reasons for writing, one specific reason TO blog, is to order and improve one's thinking, including from research preparation for writing.
Additionally, blogging qualifies as important public outreach: being a science educator and communicator for the largely non-academic public. E.g.: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye The Science Guy, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Hidden Brain podcast, etc.
There is a strong tendency among you academics to engage largely with only other academics. E.g.: (plural) your social media interactions. This incestuous custom is likely justified, but there are also great reasons to reach out to the general public--your blog here qualifies.
I am on a small budget, so I prefer a very small annual contribution to each of the various causes I support. But as I did not notice that option for this blog, I signed up for monthly, which I may cancel after a few months to achieve the specific annual amount I prefer. Then renew for a few months each year. Or if I come into a bit of cash, just plop down the full annual subscription, as I would like to be able to do. Apparently payment cards take about 3%, and Substack takes 10% of what little you receive?
And please allow me to explain the unusual reason I enjoy donating to various social science explorers and communicators?
In the distant past I have contributed to political campaigns here in The United States. But I now prefer to channel that funding to campaigns promoting understanding of - and thus attempt to remediate - the unnecessary and tragic flaws in our politics. Such as to various social science researchers and communicators; like your blog and upcoming books.
Humanity would likely greatly benefit if donors spending hundreds of millions of dollars on U.S. political campaigns every election cycle were to follow higher order thinking such as this. But alas, human nature is such that too often only a single digit percentage of very large groups are magnetized by reason. And sometimes that percentage is, rounded to the nearest whole number, zero. We are, as individuals and as a species, often VERY slow learners on things that challenge us. Things that appease us? We're right on top of those!
Just one of multiple dynamics of politics I have gradually discovered, which has led me to challenge politicians and politics (rather than support them with campaign cash), is that large groups, such as religions, nations, political parties - and even very large informal groups with say, similar societal moral/sexual beliefs/panics - is that large groups tend to appeal to (polite phrasing incoming) 'low information individuals'. Very large groups typically become that way by appealing to a low common denominator. And that is all too often quite destructive.
Even when there are multiple large groups in opposition to each other, e.g.: Republicans and Democrats, both worsen - for example - our sovereign debt crisis. So both very large groups appeal to destructive mass ignorance. And that's merely one example.
Another example is (not naming names here), one major superstition with literally billions of followers around the world. Another major superstition also currently has billions of worldwide adherents. Both are superstition, yet often claim the other superstitious faction is immoral or wrong.
Popular mass movements are typically destructive and lazy minded substitutes for intellect. Such as (often unrecognized as) superstitions, (often unrecognized as) moral / sexual panics, and political factions.
Why contribute tithing or campaign cash to ignorant mass movements, unless you are destructive and self-deluding? We are already forced to pay taxes for that. Funding various social science promoters and communicators - as well as other causes - are my tithing and political campaign contributions.
Channel some of that massive political and superstition funding instead to the indigent, with the rest going toward social scientists who expose our wayward thinking. Far more resources to uncovering our errors, far less to committing them. I dare you to tell me I am wrong.
Careful what you wish for, social scientists are already inclined to tell EVERYBODY they are wrong.😉
Thanks for this, Billy, and for the donation - it’s greatly appreciated. I completely agree about the importance of “public outreach” and more generally of introducing rigorous social science into public discourse (and not just talking with fellow academics), where it is generally lacking. I try to do this with my blog.
I became a paid subscriber b/c I thought that it was necessary if I wanted to comment. Maybe I was wrong ... but I would feel guilty to cancel after reading this post.
Two thoughts on it. 1. I think you convinced me to start my own Substack. I am at a stage in my career/life where my opportunity costs for for participating in the third culture are lower than yours. I don't expect to get readers, but a potentially public diary might be a good way to organize my thoughts.
2. Your book sounds interesting, but I will probably disagree with the title. You have several interesting insights and I appreciate the evolutionary biology, but I suspect that "cynicism" is the wrong label/frame.
I think a couple of posts required paid subscriptions to participate in the comments. I might do that more in the future but I’m not sure. In any case, you absolutely shouldn’t feel guilty to cancel paid subscription for whatever reason at all!
Great - go for it. The trick with Substack is to write consistently, even if you don’t get much attention at first. (I’ve seen great writers start here and then become demotivated quickly because their initial posts didn’t get the readership they thought).
Yes - the name is not ideal in some ways. The informal subtitle will be: “But not too cynical”.
Who am I to say? I don't know anything about your book, but my intuition -- based on reading the substack -- is that "It's OK to be cynical, but not too cynical" is 100% better ...
I'm not going to cancel the paid subscription. I can afford it. I have a particular interest in the misinfo discourse, and, so far, your analysis has been the most helpful thing I've read to try to get a handle on it.
There seem to be three broad narratives about misinfo -- 1 The "sincere and valid" school. These are the true believers, and I can read lots of their stuff. 2. The "sinister and invalid" school. This is Matt Taibbi and his friends. They think that misinfo discourse is a thinly veiled strategy for controlling public discourse like Big Brother in 1984, and the academic pretensions of disinfo researchers are nothing but a fig leaf to disguise their political goals. 3. The "sincere and invalid" school. That's you and maybe some others. You think that those in school 1 are really trying to do what they say they are doing, but their efforts are fundamentally flawed due to faulty theoretical assumptions and a lack of empirical evidence to support their (strong ) conclusions.
Another thought. Like you, I read Mercier's Not Born Yesterday about a year ago. It was a revelation, and I've been trying to figure out how it applies to the misinfo discussion. So, I've been kind of looking for someone to scope out school 3 for a while.
“(In fact, the first time it happened, I assumed the subscriber must have made a mistake and accidentally clicked the wrong button. I still assign some probability to this being the case…).” No accident.
Thanks Scott! greatly appreciated.
Great post Dan! You have managed to simultaneously encourage me to start blogging too, and discourage me because you (as well as other substack writers) set the bar so high.
PS Could you enlighten us some day about why evolutionary psychology has a bad rep with so many readers? What is the most common “beef” people have with it?
You should go for it! Blogging is a lot of fun.
Re. evolutionary psychology: I will write about this in greater depth at some point. Very briefly, there are several reasons: lots of evo psych (as with psych research more broadly) is bad; evo psych tends to imply a more cynical picture of human motivation than most people are comfortable with; evo psych tends to be in tension with preferred left-wing conclusions on certain topics (e.g., human malleability and perfectibility, sex differences); and (for complex reasons) many scholars love “culture” and cultural explanations, which are seen to be in tension with evo psych.
Ditto:
"...enlighten us some day about why evolutionary psychology has a bad rep with so many..."
Looking forward to reading some of your links in this post. Especially - as a cynic myself - your "cynical analyses of human nature" link. Confirmation bias!
Although I realize optimism is a motivational tool to seek answers that effect (cynical smirk: alleged) progress. For example, much of human "progress" includes significant environmental damage.
I appreciate your insight that there are negatives to academics blogging--I did not realize that. And although it was likely implicit in one of Orwell's reasons for writing, one specific reason TO blog, is to order and improve one's thinking, including from research preparation for writing.
Additionally, blogging qualifies as important public outreach: being a science educator and communicator for the largely non-academic public. E.g.: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye The Science Guy, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Hidden Brain podcast, etc.
There is a strong tendency among you academics to engage largely with only other academics. E.g.: (plural) your social media interactions. This incestuous custom is likely justified, but there are also great reasons to reach out to the general public--your blog here qualifies.
I am on a small budget, so I prefer a very small annual contribution to each of the various causes I support. But as I did not notice that option for this blog, I signed up for monthly, which I may cancel after a few months to achieve the specific annual amount I prefer. Then renew for a few months each year. Or if I come into a bit of cash, just plop down the full annual subscription, as I would like to be able to do. Apparently payment cards take about 3%, and Substack takes 10% of what little you receive?
And please allow me to explain the unusual reason I enjoy donating to various social science explorers and communicators?
In the distant past I have contributed to political campaigns here in The United States. But I now prefer to channel that funding to campaigns promoting understanding of - and thus attempt to remediate - the unnecessary and tragic flaws in our politics. Such as to various social science researchers and communicators; like your blog and upcoming books.
Humanity would likely greatly benefit if donors spending hundreds of millions of dollars on U.S. political campaigns every election cycle were to follow higher order thinking such as this. But alas, human nature is such that too often only a single digit percentage of very large groups are magnetized by reason. And sometimes that percentage is, rounded to the nearest whole number, zero. We are, as individuals and as a species, often VERY slow learners on things that challenge us. Things that appease us? We're right on top of those!
Just one of multiple dynamics of politics I have gradually discovered, which has led me to challenge politicians and politics (rather than support them with campaign cash), is that large groups, such as religions, nations, political parties - and even very large informal groups with say, similar societal moral/sexual beliefs/panics - is that large groups tend to appeal to (polite phrasing incoming) 'low information individuals'. Very large groups typically become that way by appealing to a low common denominator. And that is all too often quite destructive.
Even when there are multiple large groups in opposition to each other, e.g.: Republicans and Democrats, both worsen - for example - our sovereign debt crisis. So both very large groups appeal to destructive mass ignorance. And that's merely one example.
Another example is (not naming names here), one major superstition with literally billions of followers around the world. Another major superstition also currently has billions of worldwide adherents. Both are superstition, yet often claim the other superstitious faction is immoral or wrong.
Popular mass movements are typically destructive and lazy minded substitutes for intellect. Such as (often unrecognized as) superstitions, (often unrecognized as) moral / sexual panics, and political factions.
Why contribute tithing or campaign cash to ignorant mass movements, unless you are destructive and self-deluding? We are already forced to pay taxes for that. Funding various social science promoters and communicators - as well as other causes - are my tithing and political campaign contributions.
Channel some of that massive political and superstition funding instead to the indigent, with the rest going toward social scientists who expose our wayward thinking. Far more resources to uncovering our errors, far less to committing them. I dare you to tell me I am wrong.
Careful what you wish for, social scientists are already inclined to tell EVERYBODY they are wrong.😉
Thanks for this, Billy, and for the donation - it’s greatly appreciated. I completely agree about the importance of “public outreach” and more generally of introducing rigorous social science into public discourse (and not just talking with fellow academics), where it is generally lacking. I try to do this with my blog.
I became a paid subscriber b/c I thought that it was necessary if I wanted to comment. Maybe I was wrong ... but I would feel guilty to cancel after reading this post.
Two thoughts on it. 1. I think you convinced me to start my own Substack. I am at a stage in my career/life where my opportunity costs for for participating in the third culture are lower than yours. I don't expect to get readers, but a potentially public diary might be a good way to organize my thoughts.
2. Your book sounds interesting, but I will probably disagree with the title. You have several interesting insights and I appreciate the evolutionary biology, but I suspect that "cynicism" is the wrong label/frame.
I think a couple of posts required paid subscriptions to participate in the comments. I might do that more in the future but I’m not sure. In any case, you absolutely shouldn’t feel guilty to cancel paid subscription for whatever reason at all!
Great - go for it. The trick with Substack is to write consistently, even if you don’t get much attention at first. (I’ve seen great writers start here and then become demotivated quickly because their initial posts didn’t get the readership they thought).
Yes - the name is not ideal in some ways. The informal subtitle will be: “But not too cynical”.
Who am I to say? I don't know anything about your book, but my intuition -- based on reading the substack -- is that "It's OK to be cynical, but not too cynical" is 100% better ...
I'm not going to cancel the paid subscription. I can afford it. I have a particular interest in the misinfo discourse, and, so far, your analysis has been the most helpful thing I've read to try to get a handle on it.
There seem to be three broad narratives about misinfo -- 1 The "sincere and valid" school. These are the true believers, and I can read lots of their stuff. 2. The "sinister and invalid" school. This is Matt Taibbi and his friends. They think that misinfo discourse is a thinly veiled strategy for controlling public discourse like Big Brother in 1984, and the academic pretensions of disinfo researchers are nothing but a fig leaf to disguise their political goals. 3. The "sincere and invalid" school. That's you and maybe some others. You think that those in school 1 are really trying to do what they say they are doing, but their efforts are fundamentally flawed due to faulty theoretical assumptions and a lack of empirical evidence to support their (strong ) conclusions.
Another thought. Like you, I read Mercier's Not Born Yesterday about a year ago. It was a revelation, and I've been trying to figure out how it applies to the misinfo discussion. So, I've been kind of looking for someone to scope out school 3 for a while.