Tags for this video have been changed from 'adam curtis, freedom, liberty, control' to 'adam curtis, freedom, liberty, control, game theory, rand corporation' - edited by xxovercastxx

@RedSky

There is an old legend about a Sensei who provides instruction to his students for free. As the months go by, the students start to feel guilty for not compensating their instructor, so they offer to pay him. When approached, the Sensei replies, "If I were to charge you, you couldn't afford me".

Teaching is a calling. No one goes into teaching to become rich, they do it because they believe it provides a valuable social service. When you throw 'merit pay' into the equation, it changes this dynamic. It cheapens the interaction. Whatever pittance that would be offered would be insulting compared to the amount of time and effort teachers spend on and off campus.

If you are doing it right, there should be a sense among schools, teachers and students that they are all in it together as a team, all striving to be the best they can be and cheering their peers to do the same. There would be nothing worse for this kind of camaraderie than to throw a roll of quarters on the ground and ask them to fight over it. In the private sector, where value is measured in dollars, fighting over loose change is part of the game, but to introduce this kind of game theory into what should be a supportive and nurturing environment couldn't be more wrong headed. When Coke and Pepsi fight, the consumer wins; when students, teachers, schools and districts start duking it out, we all lose (and corporations win says issy astutely). You can't solve social problems with market solutions.

Competition is not part of the soul of education. Sure, you find competitive elements in sports, arts competitions, science team, etc., but the point of education is not to 'win'. The point of education is to learn, and more specifically, to 'learn how to learn'. Tests are about winning and losing and do nothing to promote critical thinking or a greater understanding of the world we live in. Sure, you need tests to gauge progress, but when you make testing the center piece of the educational experience, you fail in the bigger picture.

Education should be about critical thinking, about asking questions and about preparing students to be intelligent and thoughtful adults, who will hopefully one day make this world a better place. To fill their heads (or their teacher's heads) with the motivating factors of greed, selfishness and fear is no way to make this world a better place.

berticus turned me on to a great book that is helping me to understand this debate better (among other things). It's not a book about education or politics per se. It's about the psychology that governs our decisions and interactions. The book is called 'Predictably Irrational' by Dan Ariely. You'd like it.

I've done a lot of teaching in many different contexts; one-on-one instruction, coaching small groups and directing big ones. When you do a good job, it is its own rewards, when you do a bad job, it is its own punishment. No amount of money in the world can give you the feeling of changing someones life for the better, and no amount of salary in the world can spare you the shame of failing a student.

It frustrates me that people want to force education into the shallow mold of markets. We've been at it for a decade now and our educational system is still in shambles. Heck, market solutions have fucked up nearly every aspect of our country, from jobs to banks to mortgage fraud to war to poverty. Enough is enough.

I'm more inclined to believe this narrow view of politics that anything else.

People do vote on narrow issues. When their union is saying that party X will prevent their job from being outsourced, the choice is clear. When party Y offers generous handouts to a particular constituency they lap it up. Last election here in Australia, a coworker told me she voted singlehandedly for a particular party because they provided more generous maternity benefits. When it comes down to it, people have neither the time, effort or often the desire to analyse and determine the utilitarian option. Cynical sure, but just about everything from my experiences has supported this view.

Capitalism as a system, is built on incentives. Correctly calibrated with the right regulatory adjustments to prevent malfeasants like pollution, moral hazard and other negative externalities, it works incredibly well.

I think the same thing should apply to politics. For all intents and purposes that's what (a representational) democracy is grounded in anyway. Elected officials act in the interest of their constituents because that's what gets them elected. When, as in the US, campaign contributions (as a result of the almost limitless campaign financing rules) play such an important role, incentives are skewed. Curtis seems to draw the distorted view that adapting politics to a more capitalist based system implies surrendering its authority wholly to private companies when this is simply not a fair representation of game theory which on its pure theory alone implies or suggests nothing of the sort.

I really like Curtis's work, it often provides a very well thought out philosophy grounded in reason but I think he tends to oversimplify and draw swathes in describing complex issues.

Thank you, kindly.

In reply to this comment by enoch:
*promote

>> ^quantumushroom:

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?
Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.
To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income
Taxes = Income.
Taxes are not "income", as governments which didn't earn the $$$ use force to collect. Government is not a performance-based enterprise, it's a necessary evil.
Reducing government from a tick bigger than the dog it feasts upon to a reasonable size is part of the equation. The other part is LOWERING taxes for all, which paradoxically creates more revenue.
The obamateur's corrupt excuse of an administration--even with majority voting power--has failed.
Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.
Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.
Income is an indicator of how much others will pay for an individual's performance. While I think it's total nonsense that people worship some asshole that can slam dunk a ball through a metal ring, others highly value this skill, so much so they make these ring-dunkers multi-millionaires. And the team owners that pay these 'outrageous' salaries reap financial rewards that make those salaries a bargain.
The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.
Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.
Sounds like socialist claptrap. This "rigged game theory" is what justifies the redistribution of wealth (at gunpoint) that the obamas of the world believe in. If there is any 'stealing' going on, it's being done by the looters who hand out wealth to people who had absolutely no role in creating it.
The left in America apparently learned nothing from North Korean, Cuban and Soviet experiments about the failure that is communism, and nothing about rampant socialism from the collapse of Greece.
November 2nd. Change is coming.



And the right that borrows money to aviod tax-cuts, or avoids cutting defense when it is needed? And before it is said, ALL of the right is debt-lovers but deniers... 1/1000 at least. "Cut this program, cut that program, but NEVER, ever My programs..."

Number One:
Our government is in debt. How do you cure debt?

Cut spending? Sure. Tho less spending doesn't remove debt you've already accumulated.

To pay off 14 trillion in Debt. You need 14 trillion in Income

Taxes = Income.

Taxes are not "income", as governments which didn't earn the $$$ use force to collect. Government is not a performance-based enterprise, it's a necessary evil.

Reducing government from a tick bigger than the dog it feasts upon to a reasonable size is part of the equation. The other part is LOWERING taxes for all, which paradoxically creates more revenue.

The obamateur's corrupt excuse of an administration--even with majority voting power--has failed.


Number Two:
No one who MAKES 1 million dollars a year EARNS 1 million dollars a year.

Earning implies you did work.
No single person can physically work to create one million dollars in equivalent value per year. Physically impossible.

Income is an indicator of how much others will pay for an individual's performance. While I think it's total nonsense that people worship some asshole that can slam dunk a ball through a metal ring, others highly value this skill, so much so they make these ring-dunkers multi-millionaires. And the team owners that pay these 'outrageous' salaries reap financial rewards that make those salaries a bargain.

The average American only EARNS about 2.4 mill in LIFETIME earnings.

Which means, anyone who MAKES a Million+ a year STOLE the money EARNED by the VALUE of other people's hard WORK in order to write themselves such fat paychecks.

Sounds like socialist claptrap. This "rigged game theory" is what justifies the redistribution of wealth (at gunpoint) that the obamas of the world believe in. If there is any 'stealing' going on, it's being done by the looters who hand out wealth to people who had absolutely no role in creating it.

The left in America apparently learned nothing from North Korean, Cuban and Soviet experiments about the failure that is communism, and nothing about rampant socialism from the collapse of Greece.

November 2nd. Change is coming.

Seventh-ded. I've been on the edge of (and lost rank due to) pretty much every type of imaginable scenario - the change that increased requirements for levels, having a dupe discovered moments after making gold, having a video deaded, etc. It's incredibly discouraging when it happens and I can't see ruby ever being something to lust after when (at that number of sifted videos) it seems like I would constantly fight to maintain my rank, let alone get ahead.

Why do I even want the rank in the first place? Not status. I was tired of seeing dupes, deads, and being largely unable to participate in the community maintenance of the site. Ruby would be nice in order to do channel work, but gold at least finally lets me invoke most of the commands.

Edit (clarification): I understand why many of these rules were initially put in place and am not trying to argue that, say, publishing dupes should garner star points. Just saying very generally that any time points are lost, it's a discouragement from participation (in a game theory kind of way).

I think many of the shortcomings of the education system are shortcomings on the part of the academics who design the curriculums. Problem solving in the sense of how to optimally manage our intelligence would be a great thing to teach. Even PhDs don't get taught that, though.

Teaching these areas would be a great start : Cognitive science, decision theory, intelligence research, game theory, behavioral economics, risk management, cognitive bias, and rationalism.

(Wikipedia links on those subjects are here: http://www.videosift.com/video/For-all-my-Athiest-friends-on-The-Sift?loadcomm=1#comment-744091)

I also highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. (People who like reading books on their computer could find the PDF here)

@geesussfreak.
either you didnt read my entire post or you were offering a helping hand.
either system is flawed if taken to its extreme.
both have their inherent advantages and disadvantages.
game theory espouses the harnessing of mans selfish nature to create an equilibrium and was used almost exclusively during the cold war.
so while it did create a stalemate it also promoted a protracted and prolonged conflict.
on the other hand,co-operation can reap benefits that are much more quickly manifested yet takes a certain thing called "trust" that game theory was never really able to resolve.
i use these examples to illuminate my previous post.
sometimes stalemate is the only option and is necessary,other times it is co-operation that brings the biggest rewards.

i would like to know where this system of pure individual rights exists?
is it a country?a city?township?
where on planet earth is this place of pure individual rights?
said the spider to the fly......

Some light reading for you. Smart libs will often use Game theory as a justification for large government planning. Here is an interesting paper on it

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/public-choice-theory-not-the-whole-story/print/

The record for longest human lifespan is currently held by Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

She did that with 20th century technology, and she wasn't even an intellectual or highly motivated.

We've already entered the age of organ regeneration... growing new organs from our own cell... and it's already saving lives. I think it will pass regulatory hurdles and come in to widespread usage within 10 or 20 years.

Genome sequencing is down from $250k a year ago to $5k now (http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006527.html). In 10 or 20 years most people will have their genomes sequenced, and medicine will no longer be a crap shoot.

Experts say that most drugs, whatever the disease, work for only about half the people who take them. Not only is much of the nation’s approximately $300 billion annual drug spending wasted, but countless patients are being exposed unnecessarily to side effects.

[Conventional] studies tend to be “one size fits all,” with the winning treatment recommended for everybody. Personalized medicine would go beyond that by determining which drug is best for which patient, rather than continuing to treat everyone the same in hopes of benefiting the fortunate few. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/business/30gene.html?ex=1388379600&en=a3e1de30bab852a6&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

If you die in 2050, that sounds like a waste, because I think it's highly unlikely I won't live into the 2100s. Imagine where technology will be in 2100.

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Re: 'world of criminals'

I think the idea of humans as possessing 'personhood' is a simplistic model. The deeper you dig in the cognitive sciences and the human sciences in general, the more clear it becomes that human thought outputs and behavioral outputs are just the result of deterministic mechanisms. Looking at humans as 'persons' isn't looking at a deep enough level of detail... and it makes us take things 'personally' -- as if the decision agents (in a game theory sense) we're interacting with are 'persons.' Humans want to be good... they just have simplistic, unmotivated brains.

Change the inputs, and the outputs will change. Embryo selection is borderline-practical today, and it's increasingly being used. My prediction is by 2030 5% of births (in wealthy countries) will be using it (for cosmetic and temperament improvements - e.g. reduced addictive behavior, greater motivation, less 'social learners' and more 'infovores'), and by 2060 60% of births will be using it. When those generations reach 25 years old, they'll be starting to influence society, which will be 2055 and 2085, respectively.

However, by 2055, I think we'll have neurotechnology that achieves most of the large goals of neurogenetic change: next-generation neuropharmaceuticals, neuroimplants, and changes to the organization of our neural tissue using stem cells.

I believe the future is humanistic and humanitarian. And the world is incompetent, waiting for us to influence the arc of history.

IMHO, anyway.

What do you think?


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In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
I think we're going to miss SENS by at least a generation. The way I treat my body I'm expecting to die around 40.

Doesn't it gnaw at you that, living in a world mostly populated by criminals, any good you do will primarily benefit them?

In reply to this comment by chilaxe:
Gorillaman, we're young enough that we have a decent chance of living to see the fulfillment of SENS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey).

Doesn't that make you want to do something with your life that's ingenious and constructive, helping out the common good, instead of just pursuing vendettas?

The guinea pig guy is gaining a benefit from religion... he feels his role has purpose, so he's able to perform it better, and stay optimistic.

He could gain that same benefit without having to believe in untrue things by intellectually understanding the value of his role in the larger system. Also, a rational agent (see game theory) would generally be optimistic anyway.

What I mean is that I think these areas are fascinating! Cognitive science, decision theory, intelligence research, game theory, behavioral economics, risk management, cognitive bias, and rationalism.

imstellar, this is a problem of definition. What, exactly, makes someone a "socialist"? Some people are working from the description of supporting any further amount of nationalization no matter how small, some people are working from thoroughly supporting it all the way to communism.

So, socialist compared to what? Here in Europe, Obama would be right-wing with the rest of the US political system. I would argue that with the current general usage of the word socialist, Obama is not. Perhaps "more socialist" compared to other people (if you want to put it in non-useful terms like that) but certainly not *a* socialist.

Anyway, how is that simple trait important without context anyway? It depends *what* you want to nationalise. There are things the free market simply doesn't do as well - there are 100 different scenarios in game theory which turn the perfect market into a complete mess. That is reality; we need to be pragmatic, not idealogical.

Educated people who preach total deregulation are being willfully ignorant of externalities, monopolies, contract enforcement, copyright/patent enforcement, eminent domain, ignorance of most consumers, how little success in competition has to do with the price/quality of the product in many cases (advertising FTW), and how food labels could lie and get away with it.

Between two competitors in the same fixed market, advertising is basically a zero-sum game that wastes revenue and increases the price to consumers.

Pharma companies spend half their revenue on advertising to convince people to buy drugs that most of them don't need. If all the money were spent on research instead, all the drugs could be a lot cheaper. The US economy already produces much more than enough to satisfy the real needs of most people, and the rest of the economy revolves around brainwashing people into thinking they need things that they don't need through advertising.

You don't make money by providing the best or cheapest product to your customers, you make money by making them THINK that whether or not it involves actually doing it. Someone has to call advertisers on their bullshit. A typical corporate executive's only imperative is this: make a profit by any means necessary, even if it means lying to shareholders, customers, etc.

Most of the great advances in basic science did NOT come from anybody working for a company. Immediate get-rich schemes do not involve trying to understand the universe for the sake of understanding the universe. Newton was a professor, Darwin was an unemployed med school dropout who went with a ship captain to keep him company, Galileo was on state patronage, Einstein worked for the patent office, etc.

But I digress. The crux of the argument is externalities. Taxing negative externalizes and subsidizing positive externalizes are essential, as you'll see in any modern economics textbook. Otherwise we'd all kill each other with pollution and toxic waste, while neglecting to eradicate polio. If you've studied game theory at all (i.e. the prisoner's dilemma or the pollution game), you'll see that individual self interest often leads to an equilibrium that is bad for everybody. Government can adjust the payoff matrix so that the optimal (utilitarian) outcome is also an equilibrium for self-interested agents.

The reason private companies aren't mass-producing solar and wind power without subsidies is because it's still more expensive than oil and coal. Without government regulation, oil and coal would remain cheaper until we deplete the world's supply of oil and coal. If we deplete the world's entire supply of oil and coal, we'll breathe soot while Miami is underwater. Clinton's statement that massive amounts of wind/solar power would be in the interest of corporations only applies when governments tax fossil fuels or subsidize alternatives. The moral justification for taxation of negative externalities is basically the same as the moral justification for the government punishing somebody for beating up somebody else.