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I disagree with this. Maybe normal people are unfamiliar with game theory; the prisoner's dilemma; nash equilibria; and so on. But definitely a lot of the time they can intuitively sense that there are situations where it would be good if everyone would agree to some X, but in the absence of an agreement, they feel pressured to go along with the crowd.
I disagree with this as well. Sometimes collective action problems are relatively straightforward and sometimes common sense is more than sufficient to recognize that one exists.
I'm not familiar with any formal research, however I'm pretty confident just based on general observations and common sense. Above, you asked why parents don't simply take their children's phones away. I am quite confident that -- part of -- the answer to this question is that parents don't want their children to be the weirdo in class who doesn't have a phone; who's out of the loop; etc.
Common sense in this case is a hammer you got from slate star codex, for which everything is a nail. My common sense says the hammer is a specialty one and it doesn't fit all but a few nails. Alas, rationalists are always trying to use it anyway. Collective action this, game theory that, moloch thing there, prisoner's dilemma here.
I don't think parents implementing common sense social media controls to their under-16 children would make them the weird kid in class. It would not amount to completely depriving them of a phone or the ability to text friends.
Except they fail to do this in the most important cases. Probably because their heuristic is asking whether the thing is individually good. They don't think teen phone usage is individually good, the mainstream argument is not collective action problem, it is individual parenting problem.
For what it may be worth, I was studying game theory when Scott was still in diapers.
You are sort of shifting the goalposts here. Earlier, you referred to completely taking away a child's phone:
But anyway, let's break this down.
Do you agree that many parents perceive that their children's use of social media is harmful?
Do you agree that of those parents, many also perceive that their children are likely to end up being isolated/left out/etc. if their child stops using social media while their children's peers continue to do so?
Well do you think there are ANY situations where normal people can intuitively and correctly sense that there is a collective action problem, even if they are unable to make use of the formal language and terminology?
The collective action problem is other parents. And of course, other kids.
You can't control what happens in other people's houses when your kid goes over to a friend's house. Maybe the parents are lax, maybe they don't care if their 12 year old kid is watching porn, maybe they have no idea. Boys are going to dare one another over "did you see this?"
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No, I think they lack the cognitive capacity for anything beyond „X is bad, because if it happens to me, I won't like it“ and „Y is good, because if it happens to me, I will like it“. That's the basis for all of our laws and our education system and economic system. The masses have failed to accept every well-documented collective action problem I can think of. It's because they require someone to be top 10% literacy to comprehend.
For example, this comment. He argues
But the evidence follows the individual heuristic I just wrote:
„I feel bad after too much time online, so I would be better with less time online. I sleep too little because of phone, so I would be better off putting phone away early. I feel bad on the internet, so I would like the internet to go away.“ And seriously, the last one is preposterous, can you imagine the collective economic damage if there was no internet? Meanwhile, when it comes to actual collective action, I have data that says only 16% agree that a total phone ban at school is a good idea, and only 30% agree that any phone restrictions at all are a good idea. They don't want collective action.
Yes.
No, because I think a solid fix is a screen time limit, and this doesn't lead to complete isolation. I think parents don't do this because they are lazy and weak and won't fight with their teens.
I meant partially, or on a temporary basis for a particular reason.
I disagree. For example, I'm pretty sure most people favor laws against income tax evasion. Even though most people would cheat on their taxes if they could get away with it.
Do you dispute that most people favor laws against income tax evasion?
Ok, and is so preposterous to hypothesize that people might have the following feelings: (1) I feel bad when I am away from social media because I feel left out; and (2) I feel bad when I use social media because I feel inadequate compared to a lot of my connections.
Umm, does that mean "yes" or "no"? I am not asking about screen time limits. I am asking this:
It's a very simple yes or no question.
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What are the common sense social media controls you're thinking of, exactly?
As far as I can guess at teen mindsets, having a dumb phone that is not designed to have apps in 2026 is exactly the kind of thing that would make a kid the weird kid in class.
Parental controls? Time limits? The main harm is scrolling for too long.
I don't know if that's the main harm, but certainly a significant potential harm is the feeling of constantly comparing yourself to other people and feeling that you don't measure up in some way. It's hard to see how this would be prevented with time limits. Or with parental controls other than simply preventing your child from being on social media.
Unfortunately, this is just reality. And it relates to one or two collective action problems the masses don't comprehend. The best documented of these is the eugenics problem; less well documented but probably real is a problem with the economy where too much is based on luck, so people have to watch those with the same or lesser genetic endowment as themselves be much more privileged, which is wrong. But they can only think of the dumbest communism as a solution to this and that didn't work so well, so they have given up. Communism of course is based on the selfish heuristic of I would be better if I had more stuff, and not based on true collective action problem logic. The real solution would use IQ tests and would be enforced meritocracy or something along those lines.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. Do you dispute anything I said in the post you were responding to?
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The problem with all meritocracy plans is that we don't have a rigorous definition of merit. We exist in a meritocracy if by merit we mean ability through whatever means to convince people to give you power. For various reasons people don't think this definition of merit is well aligned with their interests. I don't think a purely highest IQ people get the power would be particularly aligned with my interests either, maybe more so than the status quo, maybe not, but certainly smart people can get into all sorts of trouble.
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