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Vaniver comments on Rationality Quotes Thread August 2015 - Less Wrong
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--Joseph Heath
Similarly, I often remind myself that, as a general rule, I should avoid using third person imperative mood in my thinking and speech.
I agree with the sentiment that there are cases where people are lazy about problem solving, asserting essentially that the solution is that the problem ought to spontaneously solve itself. So this quote is a useful approximation. The following is just a nitpick.
Empirically, are there not cases of broad-based semi-spontaneous decentralized collective action that have solved problems? I think they're rare, but real, especially as you get closer to the microlevel. Even within the macrolevel, it's important, because good macro depends on micro. Thinking institutionally would not work, unless individual decentralized people would act in certain useful and/or predictable ways, for example in ways that make institutional action a possibility in the first place, like being willing to cooperate sometimes. And formal institutions are really just a special case of more general things, other things which are not institutions can nonetheless take advantage of similar things to what institutions take advantage of. A sports team can behave somewhat institutionally, and so can a church, or a community, or even a nation. Even without enforcement mechanisms, this is somewhat true - for example, miraculously enough, a non negligible percentage of the population is willing to vote in elections, even without good individual incentives for their marginal vote.
... is often an excuse to avoid pointing out the institutions who could actually take action and the reasons they don't want to.
Have there ever been no problems actually solved by massive, broad-based, spontaneous, decentralized collective action? (I can think of none off the top of my head and I agree it's extremely unlikely to happen, but have there even been coutnterexamples?)
Even if there were problems that were solved by such collective action, you should not create plans that rely on things like that happening (by definition, you cannot create a spontaneous action). Your plans should not rely on the problem having to solve itself. Edit: unless the type of spontaneous collective action you need is known to happen often or the problem you want to solve is of the type that are known to often solve themselves.
Actions of the crowd during the fall of the Berlin Wall seems to be an example of an event that fits the description, as it wasn't centrally organized, many people simply tried to make use of opportunity that suddenly appeared due to actions of East German government and other circumstances.
An interesting property of that example is that each individual was taking an action, attempting to escape to the west, that would benefit him personally. This is different from typical examples of "collective action" that have mass prisoners' dilemma/free rider problems.
If the words are interpreted broadly enough then the non-existence of a free online encyclopedia is an example of a problem that was solved in such a way.
The defeat of the Evil Empire, aka the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics :-D