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Are we ultimately motivated by surmountable obstacles? Interesting long read by Sander Van de Cruys: buff.ly/4aG9yaH HT @danwiliiamsphil

Becoming deeply impatient with people who have millions flowing into their academic institutes producing sub-par work

“Any system that is not explicitly pro-Weird Nerd will turn anti-Weird Nerd pretty quickly.” My essay on why those looking to create/improve intellectual institutions need to take Rux's rule into account -- with loads of references to Katalin Kariko. writingruxandrabio.com/p/the-weird-ne…

Apparently, the secret to fair funding decisions is... skipping the proposals altogether. Who knew all that effort was optional? "We find that withholding proposal texts from panelists did not detectibly impact their proposal rankings." link.springer.com/article/10.100…

RL researchers will never "solve" the intrinsic reward problem--high-dimensional rewards or value functions will never be tenable as a theory. You can only respond to how things in the world (externally, internally) impact the structure of what you are, which is high-dimensional.

Great piece by Sander Van de Cruys H/t Erik Hoel for sharing it on their s'stack

If you want to make a dent into rates of mental health problems, make sure people have a roof over their heads, health insurance coverage, enough food to eat. Let's start there. And let's not forget Kendler: "You would not explain hypertension at the level of quarks".

"A relevant distinction is between perspective-taking and perspective-getting – don’t just try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes (perspective-taking); genuinely enquire about how they see the world (perspective-getting)."

I discuss (favourably) this hypothesis in my forthcoming book on digital technopanics.

Uncovering genuine secrets of nature and delusional conspiracy theories can subjectively feel the same (‘aha’).

You’d think that conspiracy theorists are gullible, shallow thinkers. But you’d be wrong, argue @sjgadsby and Sander Van de Cruys—people who endorse and spread mad theories are intelligent, but they’re drawn (a bit too much) to the intoxicating lure of discovery: buff.ly/3Zwl5Yt

How come grant funding decisions are so biased and random given that reviewers & panel are trying their best to do the right thing? There's just no signal to detect. You can't predict what science will be important without doing it. All you can get is noise and unconscious bias.

📢New publication! Our research on strategies to correct vaccine misinformation on social media🧬📱is out now in Scientific Reports ! 🔗 nature.com/articles/s4159…

Scientific Reports 🙌Huge thanks to my supportive co-authors: Sander Van de Cruys , Larissa De Brabandere, Kirsten Maertens & Karolien Poels ! 🤗Please share with anyone interested in #HealthComm, #Misinformation, #ScienceCommunication, or #VaccineResearch!