the man of twists and turns – Gabriel Snyder â€” Notes

The researchers were trying to find out what effect exposure to such rudeness had on public perceptions of nanotech risks. They found that it wasn’t a good one. Rather, it polarized the audience: Those who already thought nanorisks were low tended to become more sure of themselves when exposed to name-calling, while those who thought nanorisks are high were more likely to move in their own favored direction. In other words, it appeared that pushing people’s emotional buttons, through derogatory comments, made them double down on their preexisting beliefs.

The study, which was in pre-publishing form, appears to have been taken offline.

Don’t Panic: Challenges Regarding Science, News and Comments Online

I don’t want anyone to forget these questions, so I’m asking them again. Please think about them, and weigh in here. What do you make of these?

â€¢What can be done to get around the Google bottleneck â€“ that self-reinforcing search-engine feedback loop mentioned above?
â€¢What can we do to consistently draw attention to good science reporting?
â€¢Do the benefits of online commenting outweigh the costs?

John Stuart Mill, Internet Trolls, And The Principle Of Charity, Part I

As Mill highlighted a person “is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There must be discussion to show that experience is to be interpreted… Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning.” For Mill this allowed us to step ever closer to the truth of a situation or gain ever more clarity on ideas. This was the most important goal of all rational debate and, for Mill, thoughtful discussion one of the most powerful ways to acquire it.

Part II

Reading charitably does not even mean reading realistically or knowing the reader’s “true” intention, since that is largely impossible especially on a platform like the Internet. It means reading a comment, an idea, or a question in the best possible light, warranted only by two properties: (1) we are fallible and cannot know everything, no matter how certain we or our group might be; (2) many people are bad at communicating and sometimes have never encountered the ideas being presented, thus their asking questions should be viewed as if from a Martian rather than a murderer.

Charity, Accuracy, And Being ‘Nice’ In Online Debates

Xark: Why I Shut Down Comments

Climate Trolls: An Illustrated Bestiary

via MetaFilter http://www.metafilter.com/123828/Comments-Are-Important

Jan 8, 2013

“The original shark, it turns out, rotted.”

Gold, Golden, Gilded, Glittering – The Unexpected Double History Of Banking And The Art World

In fact, we have long entrusted the task of representing our ideas of value to members of two professions that might seem to have little in common: banking and art. And, in the last seven hundred years or so, it has happened more than once that visual and financial inventors have come up with strikingly similar representations. There is more than a shadow of resemblance between the purchase of the Hirst skull in 2007 and the mortgage-backed-securities debacle that made of Lehman Brothers in the following year one of the great public pictures of vanitas we’ve had. And, when you look further into these intersections, you often find that what is really at stake is a change in the way we feel and understand time.

Steven Cohen, owner of Damien Hirst’s (previously) famous The Physical Impossibility Of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living, is under investigation for insider trading.

How Larry Gagosian Is Like Goldman Sachs: short answer, by representing both buyer and seller.

Slate: Why The Art World Is So Loathsome