🌀🗞 The FLUX Review, Ep. 130
January 25th, 2024
Episode 130 — January 25th, 2024 — Available at read.fluxcollective.org/p/130
Contributors to this issue: Erika Rice Scherpelz, Justin Quimby, Dimitri Glazkov, Robinson Eaton, Melanie Kahl, Spencer Pitman, MK, Boris Smus, Neel Mehta
Additional insights from: Ade Oshineye, Ben Mathes, Alex Komoroske, Julka Almquist, Scott Schaffter, Lisie Lillianfeld, Samuel Arbesman, Dart Lindsley, Jon Lebensold,
We’re a ragtag band of systems thinkers who have been dedicating our early mornings to finding new lenses to help you make sense of the complex world we live in. This newsletter is a collection of patterns we’ve noticed in recent weeks.
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it and join the dance.”
— Alan Watts
👁️🤪 Toward better hypotheses
The scientific approach has been extremely valuable to humanity. Although too much focus on legibility can cause harm, moving from an intuitive understanding of the world to one based on validated hypotheses has been extremely valuable in helping humanity fight disease, develop technology, feed the world, and more.
However, at this point in history, the scientific approach focuses much more on validating hypotheses by running experiments than on forming interesting hypotheses to test in the first place. Experimentation is valuable when we already have a rich set of mental models. However, if our mental models are primitive or don’t highlight interesting variations in the landscape of possibilities, shining a light on them won’t bring much insight. For example, if we believe that the color or shape of a UI element has a strong impact, but the effect isn’t that strong, then all our experiments will show is statistical noise. The reproducibility crisis in psychology and medicine reveals a similar shape: when hypotheses are of marginal value, experimentation gives marginal results.
To get over this local maximum, we must shift our focus to hypothesis formation. If we have complex mental models that reflect the complexity of the phenomena we are looking at, then we can form more nuanced hypotheses. These, in turn, can yield interesting experiments.
How can we build these more complex mental models? Hypothesis forming often starts with something less legible to the system: a hunch, a tip of the tongue inking, a novel anecdote. To create deeper hypotheses, we need more affordances for sharing observations and hunches and teasing them from stories and conversations. For instance, we see FLUX as this type of space.
Outside of any particular domain, we can build our “muscle of weird.” Reading literature outside your comfort zone can be one way of doing this. We can also look for “defamiliarization techniques”: things that take the familiar and make it weird again. This “weirding” allows us to create new insights and observations we may be blind to because of our over-familiarization. One anthropological example is illuminated in Horace Miller’s 1956 piece “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” Miller describes the varied habits and rituals of the Nacirema (“American” backwards), revealing the often overlooked curiosities of American culture and behavior. This helped American observers move away from the “me” perspective to a more distanced viewpoint about the oddities of their behavior (and provided a welcome critique of mid-century anthropology).
Once we have developed more complex mental models, we can start forming richer hypotheses for more interesting experiences and, occasionally, even paradigm shifts, whether personal, organizational, or scientific.
🛣️🚩 Signposts
Clues that point to where our changing world might lead us.
🚏📽️ One university is experimenting with hologram lecturers
Loughborough University in England is experimenting with a new technology that would let them create holograms of MIT professors during lectures. Professors report that students have found the holograms far more engaging than flat Zoom projections, and university leaders think the 3D tech could help lecturers demonstrate complicated equipment more easily than on a video call. The company that makes these hologram “boxes” also uses them to help corporate clients reduce business travel and to help retailers make interactive displays.
🚏☎️ An AI robocall encouraged New Hampshire voters not to vote in the primary
In the days leading up to New Hampshire’s presidential primary elections, thousands of voters were blasted with automated calls that featured an AI version of President Joe Biden’s voice. The fake Biden “told” voters to stay home from the Democratic primary. While this particular primary wasn’t very consequential (as the incumbent President is expected to win the nomination with little difficulty), experts fear this technology could be a major problem in the general election in November.
🚏🚚 Delivery truck drivers are loving electric trucks, at least for short trips
Truck drivers who work on local or regional routes have become major proponents of electric trucks, with many praising their “handling, acceleration, smoothness, and quiet operation,” especially in contrast to noisy and rough diesel engines. The smoother rides also take less of a toll on drivers’ bodies. While electric trucks have proven great for short-haul trips, they still lack the range and charging infrastructure to make them feasible for long-haul journeys, according to industry insiders — although that may be a matter of time.
🚏💉 A cancer vaccine with minimal side effects has reached Phase III clinical trials
An emerging type of cancer vaccine known as TLPO teaches a person’s immune system to identify and eliminate tumor cells (and only tumor cells), giving it far fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy. The vaccine enjoyed remarkable success in Phase II clinical trials: the disease-free survival rate for stage 3 melanoma was 60% (compared to 39% in the placebo group), and for stage 4 melanoma it was 68% (versus 0% in the placebo group). The US FDA has now approved the vaccine for Phase III clinical trials, the penultimate stage before it can go on sale; the trial is expected to take three years
📖⏳ Worth your time
Some especially insightful pieces we’ve read, watched, and listened to recently.
Prepare for a ‘Gray Swan’ Climate (The Atlantic) — Introduces the lens of “gray swan” events, which are simultaneously predictable and unprecedented. An example is the Pacific Northwest heat wave of 2021, where scientists forecasted that extreme heat could occur, but nobody foresaw how bad it would get. Gray swans, combined with nonlinear effects, tipping points, and “compound events” (where multiple disasters coincide and interact in unexpected ways) will cause climate chaos that’s “utterly new to human experience.”
Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule (Paul Graham) — A classic essay that examines why some people are fine with nonstop back-to-back meetings while others’ entire days get ruined by a single meeting. The hidden factor is that some people are on a “manager’s schedule,” where the day is sliced into intervals and time can be allocated piece-by-piece, while others are on a “maker’s schedule,” where they need hours of uninterrupted deep focus. Makers can preserve their time for deep work by working unusual hours or timeboxing periods when others can talk to them.
George Orwell Reviews Mein Kampf (1940) (Book Marks) — Orwell examines why “all three of the great dictators [Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler] have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples.” Observes that while socialism and capitalism promise a good life, the fascists tapped into an unmet need for “struggle, danger, and death.”
Orphaned Land (Tablet Mag) — A look into a cosmopolitan Israeli band whose music “fuses death metal growls, Jewish liturgical poems, and Middle Eastern folk music.” Their popularity crosses cultures (they’re quite popular in the Arab world), and their fans have even petitioned for the band to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Check out one of their music videos.
🔍📆 Lens of the week
Introducing new ways to see the world and new tools to add to your mental arsenal.
This week’s lens: the starter option.
“Where should we go for lunch?” This is an eternally unsolvable question, made worse by the dynamics of the vetocracy. The lunch question shares properties with many interminable debates: people have different goals and criteria, there’s no obvious or dominant option, and it’s not clear who is the decider. How can we move these sorts of conversations forward?
One of our colleagues, Cezary B., shared one useful technique: the starter option. A starter option is an option that people accept, but also isn’t necessarily their top choice. In our lunch example, if a group has trouble coming up with options, asking “What if we go to the place in the lobby?” will stimulate people to come up with alternatives they like better.
Starter options work because they create an artificial best alternative to a negotiated agreement. By introducing a default option that will be the choice unless folks can agree on something better, people are motivated to come up with something better. Once multiple options are on the table, the group can evaluate them and decide.
Introducing a starter option doesn’t work when there are strong conflicting opinions. In those situations, adding a starter option just adds noise. Rather, a starter option is valuable when a group has a bunch of weakly held opinions and needs to be pushed from discussion to decision. Be warned, though: sometimes, the starter option becomes the actual outcome.
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Did you mean to write introducing a starter option only works when there are NO strong conflicting opinions ?