Dr. Levin explains how institutions have devolved from molds to platforms
Molds vs. Platforms. I was primed for a presentation by a conservative lamenting the decline of traditional values captured in family and faith promoting institutions. Instead I heard a clear explanation of a model of institutions in terms of positive sum patterns (Molds) and a shift towards using institutions as a vehicle for individuals to signal their virtue/status/identity (Platforms). Molds vs Platforms is a powerful concept but this novel idea is lost in the first contact fuzziness of the language.
I should get a copy soon. There is something interesting to consider regarding his claim about Insiders acting (inappropriately in his opinion) like Outsiders.
In this framework, Insiders should be discouraging other insiders from behaving in ways that undermine public trust. Outsiders are all about criticism and making failures more salient to lower public trust.
However, my impression is that even many “institutional insiders” do genuinely feel like powerless outsiders – and with some justice – in terms of their ability to leverage whatever individual influence or authority they have into substantial, substantive change.
It’s possible for organizations, systems, institutions, etc. to become entrenched in what I call “social recursion traps”, and using different terminology, what Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about in Inadequate Equilibria. It’s like one of those voting system or incomplete / inefficient market scenarios in which somehow everybody is miffed because nobody is able to get what they want – even if it’s theoretically available – because there’s no way to get there from here.
In such a circumstance there’s no really no one motivated or with vested interest in defending the system as is, and they all have a point that the system is ‘failing’ at not delivering the hoped-for benefits from their perspective.
Now, it may be true that all these whiners (or indirect representatives or agents of whiners), perceiving themselves as outsiders, would all be better off if they started believing they were insiders and acting to bolster trust instead of tearing it down, but the are stuck in a kind of reputational tragedy of the commons with local incentives giving them only limited moved to gain on an individual level – which are all in the mode of critique and complaint.
Molds vs. Platforms. I was primed for a presentation by a conservative lamenting the decline of traditional values captured in family and faith promoting institutions. Instead I heard a clear explanation of a model of institutions in terms of positive sum patterns (Molds) and a shift towards using institutions as a vehicle for individuals to signal their virtue/status/identity (Platforms). Molds vs Platforms is a powerful concept but this novel idea is lost in the first contact fuzziness of the language.
I should get a copy soon. There is something interesting to consider regarding his claim about Insiders acting (inappropriately in his opinion) like Outsiders.
In this framework, Insiders should be discouraging other insiders from behaving in ways that undermine public trust. Outsiders are all about criticism and making failures more salient to lower public trust.
However, my impression is that even many “institutional insiders” do genuinely feel like powerless outsiders – and with some justice – in terms of their ability to leverage whatever individual influence or authority they have into substantial, substantive change.
It’s possible for organizations, systems, institutions, etc. to become entrenched in what I call “social recursion traps”, and using different terminology, what Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about in Inadequate Equilibria. It’s like one of those voting system or incomplete / inefficient market scenarios in which somehow everybody is miffed because nobody is able to get what they want – even if it’s theoretically available – because there’s no way to get there from here.
In such a circumstance there’s no really no one motivated or with vested interest in defending the system as is, and they all have a point that the system is ‘failing’ at not delivering the hoped-for benefits from their perspective.
Now, it may be true that all these whiners (or indirect representatives or agents of whiners), perceiving themselves as outsiders, would all be better off if they started believing they were insiders and acting to bolster trust instead of tearing it down, but the are stuck in a kind of reputational tragedy of the commons with local incentives giving them only limited moved to gain on an individual level – which are all in the mode of critique and complaint.