We Are More Rational Than Those Who Nudge Us – Steven Poole – Aeon
The belief that human behaviour can be perfectly modelled, predicted and controlled entrains as a consequence the collapse of equitable relations between individuals and trust in institutions, and the substitution of algorithmic certainty for any semblance of participatory, democratic society. There is no appeal to collective, contestable
... See moreJames Bridle • The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff Review – We Are the Pawns
Forget woo-woo renaissance or digital fatigue. We're witnessing a recalibration of how humans navigate complexity. After drowning in data and still making spectacularly bad collective decisions, we've rediscovered that intuition deserves more than tokenistic respect.
Zoe Scaman • Primal Intelligence
Choice architecture (described as “Libertarian Paternalism” by its advocates) seems to merely dress up authoritarian high-modernism with a thin coat of caution and empirical experimentation. The basic and dangerous “I am more scientific/rational than thou” paternalism is still the central dogma.
Venkatesh Rao • A Big Little Idea Called Legibility
In his desire to wrest sole control of risk policy from experts, Slovic has challenged the foundation of their expertise: the idea that risk is objective.
Daniel Kahneman • Thinking, Fast and Slow
This is an observation about human rationality as much as it is about the epistemic conditions generated by life in what Jay Bolter has aptly termed the digital plentitude and which I usually call the Database. We are not as narrowly rational in our thinking as many would like to believe. Which is why conventional “solutions” to the problems... See more