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Dave VolekThe Grey Scale of PoliticsWe so much like to frame issues as black and white---even when we see shades of grey. <a href="https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=21&id=400" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=21&id=400</a>If we cannot move past our "either-or" thinking, we will be missing the solutions we need to be finding.<a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/tiereddemocraticgovernance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tiereddemocraticgovernance</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a>

Tantek ÇelikI just participated in the first W3C Authentic Web Mini Workshop<a href="https://tantek.com/2025/071/t1/w3c-authentic-web-workshop-flaws#t5az1_note-1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">¹</a> hosted by the Credible Web Community Group<a href="https://tantek.com/2025/071/t1/w3c-authentic-web-workshop-flaws#t5az1_note-2" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">²</a> (of which I’m a longtime member) and up front I noted that our very discussion itself needed to be careful about its own credibility, extra critical of any technologies discussed or assertions made, and initially identified two flaws to avoid on a meta level, having seen them occur many times in technical or standards discussions: 1. Politician’s Syllogism — "Something must be done about this problem. Here is something, let's do it!" 2. Solutions Looking For Problems — "I am interested in how tech X can solve problem Y" After some back and forth and arguments in the Zoom chat, I observed participants questioning speakers of arguments rather than the arguments themselves, so I had to identify a third fallacy to avoid: 3. Ad Hominem — while obvious examples are name-calling (which is usually against codes of conduct), less obvious examples (witnessed in the meeting) include questioning a speaker’s education (or lack thereof) like what they have or have not read, or would benefit from reading. I am blogging these here both as a reminder (should you choose to participate in such discussions), and as a resource to cite in future discussions. We need to all develop expertise in recognizing these logical and methodological flaws & fallacies, and call them out when we see them, especially when used against others. We need to promptly prune these flawed methods of discussion, so we can focus on actual productive, relevant, and yes, credible discussions. <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/W3C" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#W3C</a> <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/credweb" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#credweb</a> <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/credibleWeb" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#credibleWeb</a> <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/authenticWeb" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#authenticWeb</a> <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/flaw" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#flaw</a> <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/fallacy" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a> <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/fallacies" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacies</a> <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/logicalFallacy" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#logicalFallacy</a> <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/logicalFallacies" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#logicalFallacies</a> Glossary Ad Hominem   attacking an attribute of the person making an argument rather than the argument itself   <a class="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem</a> Politician's syllogism   <a class="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism</a> Solutions Looking For Problems (related: <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/solutionism" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#solutionism</a>, <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/solutioneering" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#solutioneering</a>)   Promoting a technology that either has not identified a real problem for it to solve, or actively pitching a specific technology to any problem that seems related. Wikipedia has no page on this but has two related pages:   * <a class="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument</a>   * <a class="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix</a>   Wikipedia does have an essay on this specific to Wikipedia:   * <a class="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Solutions_looking_for_a_problem" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Solutions_looking_for_a_problem</a>   Stack Exchange has a thread on "solution in search of a problem":   * <a class="" href="https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/250320/a-word-that-means-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/250320/a-word-that-means-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem</a>   Forbes has an illustrative anecdote:     * <a class="" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2019/05/28/solution-looking-for-a-problem/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2019/05/28/solution-looking-for-a-problem/</a> References <a href="https://tantek.com/2025/071/t1/w3c-authentic-web-workshop-flaws#t5az1_ref-1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">¹</a> <a class="" href="https://www.w3.org/events/workshops/2025/authentic-web-workshop/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.w3.org/events/workshops/2025/authentic-web-workshop/</a> <a href="https://tantek.com/2025/071/t1/w3c-authentic-web-workshop-flaws#t5az1_ref-2" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">²</a> <a class="" href="https://credweb.org/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://credweb.org/</a> and <a class="" href="https://www.w3.org/community/credibility/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.w3.org/community/credibility/</a> Previously in 2019 I participated in <a class="" href="https://indieweb.social/tags/MisinfoCon:" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#MisinfoCon:</a> * <a class="" href="https://tantek.com/2019/296/t1/london-misinfocon-discuss-spectrum-recency" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://tantek.com/2019/296/t1/london-misinfocon-discuss-spectrum-recency</a> * <a class="" href="https://tantek.com/2019/296/t2/misinfocon-roundtable-spectrums-misinformation" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://tantek.com/2019/296/t2/misinfocon-roundtable-spectrums-misinformation</a>

Dr Mircea Zloteanu 🌼🐝<a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/statstab" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#statstab</a> #295 The Fallacy of the Null-Hypothesis Significance TestThoughts: "the [..] aim of a scientific experiment is not to precipitate decisions, but to make an appropriate adjustment in the degree to which one accepts, or believes, the hypothesis"<a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/NHST" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#NHST</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Bayes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Bayes</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/ConfidenceIntervals" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ConfidenceIntervals</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/pvalues" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#pvalues</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/significance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#significance</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/testing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#testing</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/hypotheses" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hypotheses</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/likelihood" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#likelihood</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/critique" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#critique</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a><a href="http://stats.org.uk/statistical-inference/Rozeboom1960.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">http://stats.org.uk/statistical-inference/Rozeboom1960.pdf</a>

Dave VolekThe Grey Scale of PoliticsWhy we need to move away from either/or thinking:<a href="https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=21&id=400" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=21&id=400</a><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/tiereddemocraticgovernance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#tiereddemocraticgovernance</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a>

Nick Byrd, Ph.D.How do <a href="https://nerdculture.de/tags/LLMs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LLMs</a> do on tests of the base rate <a href="https://nerdculture.de/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a>?<a href="https://nerdculture.de/tags/chatGPT" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#chatGPT</a> did great, but <a href="https://nerdculture.de/tags/Gemini" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Gemini</a> and <a href="https://nerdculture.de/tags/Copilot" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Copilot</a> did not.Unexpectedly, they *all* did WORSE on the "classic" tests than the "new" tests! 🤔Sofia Margarida Nogueira Santiago e Costa's thesis (U Lisboa): <a href="https://repositorio.ulisboa.pt/handle/10400.5/97097" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://repositorio.ulisboa.pt/handle/10400.5/97097</a>

doctorambient"Common sense" is what you invoke when you cannot support your beliefs with either "real arguments" or "real data."Common sense is the noise that comes out of you when all you've got is the vague sense that you must be right--somehow?--but even *you* don't know why you think that.Common sense is a slogan for shutting down arguments without having to know or prove anything.<a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/bullshit" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#bullshit</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/stupidity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#stupidity</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/apocalypse2025" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#apocalypse2025</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/uspol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#uspol</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/reasoning" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#reasoning</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/reason" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#reason</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/trump" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#trump</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/conservatives" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#conservatives</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/politics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#politics</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/cognitivebias" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#cognitivebias</a>

Jim Donegan 🎵 ✅<a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/STARTREK" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#STARTREK</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/LogicalThinking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LogicalThinking</a> #72 - STAR TREK Logical Thinking #72 - Genetic <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Fallacy</a> (Fallacy of Origins)<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnejyMrCRw" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnejyMrCRw</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Trek" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Trek</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/LogicalThinking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LogicalThinking</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Philosophy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Philosophy</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Spock" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Spock</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Enterprise" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Enterprise</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/TAS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TAS</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/StarTrekTAS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#StarTrekTAS</a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/TheAnimatedSeries" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TheAnimatedSeries</a>

SellaTheChemistA marvellous video from the team <a href="https://newsmast.social/@deutschewellerss" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@deutschewellerss</a> which talks about the primary energy fallacy, and how replacing combustion with renewables results in a huge reduction in total energy requirements. Every thermodynamics lecturer should include this in their lectures, especially giving students the challenge of thinking about what noun never gets mentioned in the entire discussion. <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/energy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#energy</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/transition" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#transition</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/climatechange" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#climatechange</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVJkq4iu7bk" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVJkq4iu7bk</a>

Jan :rust: :ferris:Oh man...I can already see the claims of companies getting so and so more productive and "streamlining" processes thanks to <a href="https://floss.social/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AI</a>, while it'll turn out that:Yes, companies will have gotten more productive.And no, it's not _directly_ because of AI - it's because employees have inadvertently produced a lot of documentation in the hope of "feeding" the AI, while, by documenting things properly, they'll have actually helped humans doing a better job.🤦 <a href="https://floss.social/tags/Fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Fallacy</a> <a href="https://floss.social/tags/LogicalFallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LogicalFallacy</a> <a href="https://floss.social/tags/Causation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Causation</a> <a href="https://floss.social/tags/LLM" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LLM</a>

Daniel AJ SokolovSupervised self-driving <a href="https://social.heise.de/tags/vehicles" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#vehicles</a> are a <a href="https://social.heise.de/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a>. Normal <a href="https://social.heise.de/tags/drivers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#drivers</a> can not do that. We can't watch a computer for hours, weeks, then be ready within a second to take over. Moreover, how can we be useful when we take over if we haven't been <a href="https://social.heise.de/tags/driving" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#driving</a> much lately?Sure, commercial airline pilots can be in a similar situation. But they have extensive training, including simulators. Such training is very expensive, unaffordable for private car drivers. And pilots have a lot more time to react. <a href="https://social.heise.de/tags/FSD" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#FSD</a>

_noelamac_A good source to expand your knowledge of fallacies and manipulative argumentation is this one:<a href="https://www.logicallyfallacious.com" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.logicallyfallacious.com</a><a href="https://spore.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a> <a href="https://spore.social/tags/arguments" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#arguments</a> <a href="https://spore.social/tags/logic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#logic</a>

VeganPizza69 ⓋⒶNatural is good.Hurricanes are natural.Therefore, .......................................by <a href="https://veganism.social/@liftingveganlogic" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@liftingveganlogic</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/idsUi1TxteY" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/idsUi1TxteY</a> <a href="https://veganism.social/tags/hurricane" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hurricane</a> <a href="https://veganism.social/tags/natural" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#natural</a> <a href="https://veganism.social/tags/goVegan" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#goVegan</a> <a href="https://veganism.social/tags/naturalness" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#naturalness</a> <a href="https://veganism.social/tags/naturalistic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#naturalistic</a> <a href="https://veganism.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a> <a href="https://veganism.social/tags/natureTho" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#natureTho</a>

Miku ra<a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/LogicalFallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#LogicalFallacy</a> lesson 1<a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/Ad_hominem" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Ad_hominem</a>: When someone attacks the person and their traits instead of addressing the argument, it's known as an Ad Hominem fallacy. This is a <a href="https://mstdn.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a> because attacking the person does not discredit or invalidate their argument.Example: "Your takes on the dangers of monopolies is invalid because you're a socialist"

Chuck DarwinMore from Dan Davies:About five years ago, I started to get very interested in an obscure subject called “<a href="https://c.im/tags/management" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#management</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/cybernetics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#cybernetics</a>”.  It was a product of the technological dreamscape of the 1960s and 70s; after the invention of the computer, but before it became ubiquitous, in a period when there was room for speculation about how the new world of artificial intelligence would change our world.I had just finished my previous book (Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of the World), and was keen to say a bit more about how organisations go wrong.  It seemed to me that it might be possible to expand the concept of a “<a href="https://c.im/tags/criminogenic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#criminogenic</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/organisation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#organisation</a>” (one where the incentives structurally produce illegal behaviour) to a more general 🔸“bad-decision-o-genic organisation”.And furthermore, that the weird mixture of pure mathematics, philosophy, accountancy, physics and economics that came together in the work of now-forgotten management gurus like <a href="https://c.im/tags/Stafford" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Stafford</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Beer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Beer</a> and <a href="https://c.im/tags/Barry" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Barry</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Clemson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Clemson</a> might be the way to think about it.What do bad decision-making organizations have in common❓Quite a few things, but one of the clearest signs is something you might call an “<a href="https://c.im/tags/accountability" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#accountability</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/sink" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sink</a>”.  This is something that might be familiar to anyone who has been bumped from an overbooked flight.  There is no point getting angry at the gate attendant; they are just implementing a corporate policy which they have no power to change.  But nor can you complain to the person who made the decision – that is also forbidden by the policy.  The airline has created an arrangement whereby the gate attendant speaks to you with the voice of an amorphous algorithm -- but you have to speak back as if to a human being like yourself.  The communication between the decision-maker and the decided-upon has been broken – they have created a handy <a href="https://c.im/tags/sink" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sink</a> into which <a href="https://c.im/tags/negative" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#negative</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/feedback" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#feedback</a> can be poured without any danger of it affecting anything.⚠️This breaking of the feedback links is, I think, one of the most important things that has happened to large organisations – banks, but also large corporations and government departments – over the last fifty years.  In most cases, it’s not been carried out purely as a responsibility-dodging exercise, or as part of a conscious effort to make things worse.  That has happened, on occasion, but for the most part, after spending a lot of time looking into examples, I concluded that feedback links were being broken simply because 💥they had to be.  The world keeps growing and getting more complicated, which means that individual managers gradually become overwhelmed; the problem of trying to get a sensible drink from the firehose of information that pours into any large organisation every day has become unbearable.And this is why institutions have started ❌ delegating decisions to systems – credit scoring algorithms, regulatory risk weighting formulas and the like.  As well as allowing decision-making to be automated and industrialised, they provide a psychological defense system, 👉preventing individual human beings from the consequences of having to make a decision and own it.Most of the time, these systems work well.  But when they break down, the consequences can be spectacular.  Because every such algorithm or rulebook is, implicitly, based on a <a href="https://c.im/tags/model" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#model</a> of the thing they’re meant to govern.  And every such model is capable of failure.  And when something comes along that’s outside the model – like, for example, a sustained nationwide fall in US house prices – you end up in a situation where literally nobody knows what to do.(1/3) <a href="https://www.netinterest.co/p/decisions-nobody-made" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.netinterest.co/p/decisions-nobody-made</a><a href="https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@pluralistic</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Boeing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Boeing</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/737MAX" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#737MAX</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Boeing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Boeing</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/merger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#merger</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/McDonnell" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#McDonnell</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Douglas" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Douglas</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/engineering" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#engineering</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/culture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#culture</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/cost" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#cost</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/control" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#control</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Ricardian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Ricardian</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Fallacy</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/hard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hard</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/data" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#data</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/culture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#culture</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/best" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#best</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/practice" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#practice</a>

Chuck DarwinDan Davies:These thoughts struck me while listening to the ** Odd Lots podcast on Boeing, which I thoroughly recommend. The <a href="https://c.im/tags/Boeing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Boeing</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/737MAX" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#737MAX</a> is one of the core case studies in "The Unaccountability Machine" (you can buy it now!), because it’s a really graphic example of 💥a decision-making system which generated an awful result -- ⚠️without any identifiable natural person being responsible for it.The Odd Lots episode, focuses on <a href="https://c.im/tags/Boeing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Boeing</a>'s 1997 <a href="https://c.im/tags/merger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#merger</a> with <a href="https://c.im/tags/McDonnell" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#McDonnell</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Douglas" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Douglas</a> as the inflection point in Boeing’s history.  ♦️This caused a thorough cultural change from Boeing’s historical “<a href="https://c.im/tags/engineering" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#engineering</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/culture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#culture</a>” -- based on ❇️getting things right and doing what was needed, ♦️to something more in tune with the Jack Welch / Shareholder Value spirit of the times, 🆘focused on <a href="https://c.im/tags/cost" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#cost</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/control" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#control</a> and "return on investment".It's kind of odd, though.  Boeing was the acquirer and the larger company; McDonnell was actually not in that great shape; it had a good defence business but a bad civilian aircraft business; in fact, one of the attractions for Boeing was that McDonnell had spare factory capacity that it could use to accelerate its own overflowing order book.  As you’d expect from a company run along financial lines, it was quite indebted too.  So why was it McDonnell’s culture that became dominant?❓⬇️ Let’s take a step back into economics.  Joseph Schumpeter identified something he called “The <a href="https://c.im/tags/Ricardian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Ricardian</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Fallacy</a>”.  This is the tendency of economists to 🔹build a theoretical model, 🔹solve the model and then 🔸act as if they have solved the problem in the real world.  To an extent, this isn’t particular to economists – it’s the nature of modelling that having made a representation of reality specifically in order to attenuate its complexity and make a problem manageable, --⭐️ you don’t then go back and unattenuate it.But bearing that in mind, the Ricardian Fallacy then interacts with another thing that economists do; --⭐️ they collect data.  Data gathering is almost never a neutral activity; it takes place within a theoretical framework.  And what this means is that if the system for gathering, classifying and tabulating the data was designed by people who had a particular model, 👉then the data will most likely support that model.  Everything which is part of the model will be well-verified, data-driven, empirically based and so on.  Everything which isn’t part of the model will be handwavey, subjective, “hard to quantify” and other synonyms for “probably special pleading and made up”.  In the book, I have a subsection called “How Ricardians Win Arguments” and this is how: – they collect the data.⬆️ Returning from the digression, the important thing to understand is that the financial accounts are a model of the business.  They incorporate a lot of assumptions, of which perhaps the least analysed but most important one is “the financial year is a meaningful time period for this process”.  Some things appear in the accounts, and they are the things which can be backed up with numbers.  Other things don’t, and therefore they can’t.  (Or best case, they can only be backed up with ad hoc, unaudited numbers which everyone will be suspicious of).💥I think that’s one of the deep causes of what went wrong in Boeing; ♦️the McDonnell-Douglas executives were the ones who could back up their business cases with a ream of <a href="https://c.im/tags/hard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#hard</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/data" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#data</a>.  ♦️The legacy Boeing executives were left talking about <a href="https://c.im/tags/culture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#culture</a> and <a href="https://c.im/tags/best" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#best</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/practice" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#practice</a> and all sorts of soft-sounding things that were hard to put into a model.  ⚠️The Ricardians won the argument, and 🔥the disastrous decisions turned out to have been made without anyone realising they were making them -- when they decided to use the financial reporting system as a tool of management(0/3) <a href="https://backofmind.substack.com/p/how-the-wrong-side-won-at-boeing" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://backofmind.substack.com/p/how-the-wrong-side-won-at-boeing</a>** Odd Lots Podcast <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-moment-that-boeings-culture-started-to-rot/id1056200096?i=1000642200497" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-moment-that-boeings-culture-started-to-rot/id1056200096?i=1000642200497</a>

Bifurkatus 🎭<a href="https://lustigetiernamenbubble.de/@realPaser" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@realPaser</a> <a href="https://dresden.network/tags/HomogeneousOpposition" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HomogeneousOpposition</a> <a href="https://dresden.network/tags/Fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Fallacy</a>

Alex M. Dunne (he/him) :ally:<a href="https://mastodon.social/@kegill" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@kegill</a> Hard agree. Latest example: media labelling as a 'proposal' his fleeting notion "government should pay for IVF" as if it was a considered, detailed, policy like what <a href="https://masto.digittante.com/tags/harris24" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#harris24</a> is putting out. <a href="https://masto.digittante.com/tags/falseequivalence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#falseequivalence</a> <a href="https://masto.digittante.com/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a>

The Krononaut Moon Project 🌑  When theoretical physicist <a href="https://me.dm/tags/MattODowd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#MattODowd</a> worries if <a href="https://me.dm/tags/physics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#physics</a> is being stalled, could one of the nearly 200 identified <a href="https://me.dm/tags/cognitive" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#cognitive</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/biases" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#biases</a> be at play? One such obstacle to clearer perceiving & thinking is called "Plan Continuation Bias". A 2-minute animated video illustrates the concept. h/t <a href="https://astrodon.social/@redshiftdrift" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@redshiftdrift</a>🔗 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr9Rlic6hJk" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr9Rlic6hJk</a> 🔗 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Logical_fallacy" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Logical_fallacy</a> 🔗 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias</a><a href="https://me.dm/tags/Community" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Community</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/TimeTravel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#TimeTravel</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/Research" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Research</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/confirmationbias" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#confirmationbias</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/continuationbias" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#continuationbias</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/logic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#logic</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/science" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#science</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/psychology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#psychology</a> <a href="https://me.dm/tags/error" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#error</a>

Mark GardnerHenry Thomas Buckle: “[Y]ou can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas.”However, Buckle also discounted free will in favor of civilization progressing by subduing nature thanks to “mental laws”… proceeding from nature?He was curiously silent on the mental laws that drove the expression of his beliefs.<a href="https://social.sdf.org/tags/philosophy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#philosophy</a> <a href="https://social.sdf.org/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a>

Cees GrootesCarl Sagan's guidelines to practice scienceThinking tools - The Baloney Detection Kit: How to Think Sceptically and Bust Bullshit🔗 <a href="https://themindcollection.com/baloney-detection-kit/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://themindcollection.com/baloney-detection-kit/</a><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/science" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#science</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/philosophyofscience" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#philosophyofscience</a> <a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/philosophy" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@philosophy</a> <a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/philosophyofmind" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@philosophyofmind</a> <a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/philosophie" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@philosophie</a> <a href="https://newsmast.community/@science" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@science@newsmast.community</a> <a href="https://beehaw.org/c/science" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@science@beehaw.org</a> <a href="https://lemmy.ml/c/science" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@science@lemmy.ml</a> <a href="https://lemmy.world/c/science" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@science@lemmy.world</a> <a href="https://kbin.social/m/science" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@science@kbin.social</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@Scientits" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@Scientits</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/thinking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#thinking</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/criticalthinking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#criticalthinking</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/philosophy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#philosophy</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/astronomy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#astronomy</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/sagan" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#sagan</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/carlsagan" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#carlsagan</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/thinking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#thinking</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/thinkingtools" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#thinkingtools</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/authority" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#authority</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/experts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#experts</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/fallacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fallacy</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/scepticism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#scepticism</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/correlation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#correlation</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/stoicism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#stoicism</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/epistemology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#epistemology</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/research" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#research</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/researchmethodology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#researchmethodology</a>

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