#45 – On bees, biases, bites, buzz, and broken societies
Hello hello,
In this edition of Strategy Bites we’re looking at the value and impact of biases (triggered by an article by Ian Leslie and the death of Daniel Kahneman), what bees and humans have in common, what Kate Middleton revealed about the internet, and why loneliness isn’t a personal problem but a structural one.
Enjoy the read.
Six Links of Inspiration:
We think loneliness is in our heads, but its source lies in the ruin of civil society.
One thing that is interesting in the current exploration of loneliness is that it is framed as the problem of the individual. ”There is a deeper issue, too: the tendency to individualise social issues, whether poverty or unemployment, to view them as psychological dispositions or even as moral failure. Loneliness, too, is frequently framed as a psychological condition, or mental health problem, the product of narcissism or self-obsession. […] Too much of contemporary discussion about the impact of social and technological changes on people’s psychology – from the influence of social media on the wellbeing of the young to the effect of hyper-individualism on our sense of self – fetishises the psychology at the expense of social analysis. We look for loneliness inside our heads when its source lies all around us, in the destruction of collective life, the erosion of communal bonds, the ruin of civil society, the squeezing of public spaces.” It’s therefore not a huge surprise if you look at data that shows that countries with a bigger emphasise on the individual report higher levels of loneliness (e.g. USA and UK) compared to countries with more communal, social safety nets (e.g. the Nordics.) Somewhat ironic, considering that the nordic countries are often portrayed as loners.
Why New York Restaurants Are Going Members-Only. Read this just before having food, because it’s going to make you hungry. And maybe also a bit angry and cynical and disillusioned. ”Every generation of New York restaurants includes a few establishments whose tables are notoriously elusive, and I’d long seen those places—say, Carbone or the Polo Bar—as rarities. But in recent years a growing number of restaurants seemed to shift toward the Rao’s [a restaurant] model, effectively functioning as private clubs. Suddenly, getting into any place with even a little buzz required knowing someone, or applying to use Dorsia, an app that grants seats to users who agree to pay a large, nonrefundable sum toward each bill.”
We’re All Just Fodder. There were a few times in the last few weeks when people speculated about Kate Middleton’s whereabouts or fumed about the communications skills. A lot of time I just wanted to say “it’s none of your business.” Charlie Warzel has written a great piece that carries its conclusion in the headline. “Progress, perhaps, but what’s also telling is that they didn’t really need to do the dirty work: Random people on the internet were doing it for them. They recklessly speculated, memed, and used their amateur sleuthing and networked faux expertise to concoct elaborate, semi-plausible explanations for her absence. Was Kate’s face actually Photoshopped from a Vogue spread? It wasn’t, but the conspiratorial tweet got 51.1 million views anyhow. Missing from much of the discourse was the idea that its main character was a person who was likely struggling. In essence, the internet democratized the tabloid experience, turning the rest of us into paparazzi and addled editors workshopping headlines and cover images—not to sell magazines, but to amass some kind of fleeting online popularity.” Social media platform have served as role model for now all of the internet, “where people, famous and not, are repurposed as fodder for content generation.” Eventually, we’ll all be devoured and then spat out. Disgusting, isn’t it?
Why It's Good To Be Biased. I enjoyed reading this piece from Ian Leslie about biases. Not only does it have a catchy title, it also has plenty of nuggets of wisdom (and, God, do I dread having my ignorance exposed by my children, but surely it will happen sooner rather than later) and an intriguing view of the world: ”The most productive social systems (organisations, societies, etc) are made up of somewhat ignorant, biased, closed-minded agents (individuals or groups), which remain just about open enough to all the other agents to learn and develop. Too atomised and and the system atrophies; too connected and each agent becomes less distinctive, bringing less to the metaphorical table, resulting in a system which lacks the benefits of diversity.” Biases are features, not bugs.
Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90. Talking of biases: Daniel Kahneman died. Without him and Amos Tversky we’d potentially still believe in an overly optimistic image of economic decision making: “As opposed to traditional economics, which assumes that human beings generally act in fully rational ways and that any exceptions tend to disappear as the stakes are raised, the behavioral school is based on exposing hard-wired mental biases that can warp judgment, often with counterintuitive results.” Unsurprisingly, even an obituary about one of the brightest thinkers is full of valuable behavioural lessons. I’ll copy one, the others you will have to read yourself: ”Professor Kahneman wrote, for example, that Professor Thaler had inspired him to study, as an experiment, the so-called mental accounting of someone who arrives at the theater and realizes that he has lost either his ticket or the cash equivalent. Professor Kahneman found that people who lost the cash would still buy a ticket by some means, while those who lost an already purchased ticket would more likely go home.”
What’s this buzz about bees having culture? Inside a groundbreaking experiment. Humans aren’t special. Bees are just like us: “the study marks the first time this level of socially learned problem-solving has ever been observed in a nonhuman animal population. According to Bridges, the study may indicate a capacity for culture in bumblebees and invertebrates beyond.”
That’s it for now. Before you head off into your long weekends, why not clicking on that little purple button below?
Read you all next week,
Maximilian