Do you really think there's "little discussion about how to solve collective action problems"?
For what it's worth, I agree with most of your post and I might be biased in the opposite direction about what I perceive as your sampling error, because most conversations I've had in the last several years and EVERY conversation in the last few months has been about how to counterweight incentive landscapes across multiple scales in order to rise to this particular challenge.
But I also think it's a category error to call them "problems" because that suggests they can be solved with game theory. Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons are both toy models that spit out equilibria that don't actually work as sustainable strategies in the real world.
I agree that the "what" is not enough on the first pass, and that from one angle
@dr_mcgilchrist
offers us a goal-state that is for many people in Late Capitalism hard to actually realize due to the systems in which they are embedded (see also the expropriation of meditation as a "tool" for workplace productivity). And of course there's a paradox inherent in using a left-hemisphere approach to achieve a right-hemisphere awareness.
But I think you may not be giving him enough credit. Consider for a moment that what he is offering already is the "how" you want, and that as fundamental uncertainty and complexity become more obvious to everyone the markets will adapt to favor holistic thinking (as well as the care for other beings that arises from a perspectival shift to non-separation) as *the means by which* to coordinate.
In other words, "what" and "how" are perspectives through which to see ontological properties, not ontological properties themselves. So the collective action problem is no problem at all:
• Either it cannot be solved because we are stuck in an instrumentalist way of seeing;
or
• It dissolves into the higher logical order of natural and obvious cooperation when we dilate our apertures to recognize the common identity that exists prior to, and the common goal that supersedes, small-minded conflicts.
At any rate, I look forward to speaking with you (and hopefully Iain!) about this on my show:
> For what it's worth, I agree with most of your post and I might be biased in the opposite direction about what I perceive as your sampling error, because most conversations I've had in the last several years and EVERY conversation in the last few months has been about how to counterweight incentive landscapes across multiple scales in order to rise to this particular challenge.
This was something of a "rant" so I may not have been fair to "what is out there" and would love to be pointed to things i may have missed.
Also people clearly do discuss or mention collective action problems. However, (thought-through) hypotheses for how to address them are rarer in my experience.
> But I also think it's a category error to call them "problems" because that suggests they can be solved with game theory. Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons are both toy models that spit out equilibria that don't actually work as sustainable strategies in the real world.
A few different points here.
- I don't mind what we call them and i agree that calling problems can overdo it. However, as common terminology in the literature I used that.
- I don't think game theory almost ever helps us *solve* these problems but it does help us understand them.
- "Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons are both toy models that spit out equilibria that don't actually work as sustainable strategies in the real world." Not quite sure what you meant here as those models both point to "defect, defect" as the equilibrium which is clearly not sustainable in the ecological sense for tragedy of the commons - that's the whole reason these are "problems". The question, of course, is how do we end up in cooperative, "sustainable" solutions. That's hard ... and possible (we've obviously have succeeded in doing it quite a bit as humanity though we also fail badly and regularly). (And i've read a lot of Elinor Ostrom and I've also tried to build a lot of digital commons and lived in lots of shared spaces and those commons problems are very real and not so easy to address ...)
> [McGilchrist] offers us a goal-state that is for many people in Late Capitalism hard to actually realize due to the systems in which they are embedded (see also the expropriation of meditation as a "tool" for workplace productivity). And of course there's a paradox inherent in using a left-hemisphere approach to achieve a right-hemisphere awareness.
> But I think you may not be giving him enough credit. Consider for a moment that what he is offering already is the "how" you want, and that as fundamental uncertainty and complexity become more obvious to everyone the markets will adapt to favor holistic thinking (as well as the care for other beings that arises from a perspectival shift to non-separation) as *the means by which* to coordinate.
I'm such a huge fan/admirer of McGilchrist that i feel a bit hesitant saying anything here. And this was based on one moment on one podcast where he was talking about how we should all slow down (which, btw, I agree with).
I used it as one example of how their is a tendency (in all of us) to say: we should do X (e.g. slow down, use renewables etc), we should stop Y (rushing, using fossil fuels etc). And that's easy, and the hard part is doing it.
> the markets will adapt to favor holistic thinking (as well as the care for other beings that arises from a perspectival shift to non-separation) as *the means by which* to coordinate
I guess i'm a bit dubious on this point, or more precisely if it happens it is coming from a deep cultural and ontological shift in views and values and the question then is *how* does that happen ... (there is a danger of waving our hands and saying the "markets will adapt" as if the market is some independent agentic entity separate from the people and organizations that make it up).
Copying over Michael Garfield's comment on twitter in this thread https://x.com/michaelgarfield/status/1828463248657850645 so I can reply here 🙂
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Do you really think there's "little discussion about how to solve collective action problems"?
For what it's worth, I agree with most of your post and I might be biased in the opposite direction about what I perceive as your sampling error, because most conversations I've had in the last several years and EVERY conversation in the last few months has been about how to counterweight incentive landscapes across multiple scales in order to rise to this particular challenge.
But I also think it's a category error to call them "problems" because that suggests they can be solved with game theory. Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons are both toy models that spit out equilibria that don't actually work as sustainable strategies in the real world.
I agree that the "what" is not enough on the first pass, and that from one angle
@dr_mcgilchrist
offers us a goal-state that is for many people in Late Capitalism hard to actually realize due to the systems in which they are embedded (see also the expropriation of meditation as a "tool" for workplace productivity). And of course there's a paradox inherent in using a left-hemisphere approach to achieve a right-hemisphere awareness.
But I think you may not be giving him enough credit. Consider for a moment that what he is offering already is the "how" you want, and that as fundamental uncertainty and complexity become more obvious to everyone the markets will adapt to favor holistic thinking (as well as the care for other beings that arises from a perspectival shift to non-separation) as *the means by which* to coordinate.
In other words, "what" and "how" are perspectives through which to see ontological properties, not ontological properties themselves. So the collective action problem is no problem at all:
• Either it cannot be solved because we are stuck in an instrumentalist way of seeing;
or
• It dissolves into the higher logical order of natural and obvious cooperation when we dilate our apertures to recognize the common identity that exists prior to, and the common goal that supersedes, small-minded conflicts.
At any rate, I look forward to speaking with you (and hopefully Iain!) about this on my show:
https://bit.ly/humansontheloop
> For what it's worth, I agree with most of your post and I might be biased in the opposite direction about what I perceive as your sampling error, because most conversations I've had in the last several years and EVERY conversation in the last few months has been about how to counterweight incentive landscapes across multiple scales in order to rise to this particular challenge.
This was something of a "rant" so I may not have been fair to "what is out there" and would love to be pointed to things i may have missed.
Also people clearly do discuss or mention collective action problems. However, (thought-through) hypotheses for how to address them are rarer in my experience.
> But I also think it's a category error to call them "problems" because that suggests they can be solved with game theory. Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons are both toy models that spit out equilibria that don't actually work as sustainable strategies in the real world.
A few different points here.
- I don't mind what we call them and i agree that calling problems can overdo it. However, as common terminology in the literature I used that.
- I don't think game theory almost ever helps us *solve* these problems but it does help us understand them.
- "Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons are both toy models that spit out equilibria that don't actually work as sustainable strategies in the real world." Not quite sure what you meant here as those models both point to "defect, defect" as the equilibrium which is clearly not sustainable in the ecological sense for tragedy of the commons - that's the whole reason these are "problems". The question, of course, is how do we end up in cooperative, "sustainable" solutions. That's hard ... and possible (we've obviously have succeeded in doing it quite a bit as humanity though we also fail badly and regularly). (And i've read a lot of Elinor Ostrom and I've also tried to build a lot of digital commons and lived in lots of shared spaces and those commons problems are very real and not so easy to address ...)
> [McGilchrist] offers us a goal-state that is for many people in Late Capitalism hard to actually realize due to the systems in which they are embedded (see also the expropriation of meditation as a "tool" for workplace productivity). And of course there's a paradox inherent in using a left-hemisphere approach to achieve a right-hemisphere awareness.
> But I think you may not be giving him enough credit. Consider for a moment that what he is offering already is the "how" you want, and that as fundamental uncertainty and complexity become more obvious to everyone the markets will adapt to favor holistic thinking (as well as the care for other beings that arises from a perspectival shift to non-separation) as *the means by which* to coordinate.
I'm such a huge fan/admirer of McGilchrist that i feel a bit hesitant saying anything here. And this was based on one moment on one podcast where he was talking about how we should all slow down (which, btw, I agree with).
I used it as one example of how their is a tendency (in all of us) to say: we should do X (e.g. slow down, use renewables etc), we should stop Y (rushing, using fossil fuels etc). And that's easy, and the hard part is doing it.
> the markets will adapt to favor holistic thinking (as well as the care for other beings that arises from a perspectival shift to non-separation) as *the means by which* to coordinate
I guess i'm a bit dubious on this point, or more precisely if it happens it is coming from a deep cultural and ontological shift in views and values and the question then is *how* does that happen ... (there is a danger of waving our hands and saying the "markets will adapt" as if the market is some independent agentic entity separate from the people and organizations that make it up).