Thinks 665

Randall Holcombe: “Humans have always lived and worked in groups and instinctively seek to cooperate with others in their group while viewing people in other groups with hostility. People in the same tribe work together for their common good. People in other tribes are potential predators or potential prey. Those tribal instincts have stuck with us in modern times, often in socially harmful ways. Tribal instincts are the basis for racism and lay the foundations for nationalism. Modern societies have developed institutions to channel tribalism in non-destructive ways, such as organized sports. Rather than going to war with those of another tribe, we play games against them, giving us the satisfaction of battling another tribe while minimizing the death and destruction that accompanies other types of battles. Electoral politics also plays on tribal instincts. We choose sides, and it is us against them. How sides are chosen is, at least partly, up to the politicians who are up for election.”

Talia Barnes and Luke Hallam: “Freedom has value because it allows us to find structure, while structure has value because it helps us to exercise freedom. Only through a healthy relationship with both do we feel empowered and connected. On the other hand, when freedom is stifled or misdirected, people feel anxious and trapped; and when structure is thwarted or tampered with, people feel depressed and disoriented. This suggests why social media is contributing to a sense that everything is going wrong. When it comes to both freedom and structure—those precarious interrelated values—digital platforms offer us the hope of something meaningful, and spectacularly fail to deliver.”

Mint: “Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based image and art generators are having a moment. While DALL-E 2 and Craiyon have garnered most of the attention so far, a new tool is now generating interest. It’s called Midjourney…These new AI tools let people create images through simple word descriptions.”