The post describes how predation creates a specific gradient favoring better modeling of predator behavior. While fact that most predated species don't develop high intelligence is Bayesian evidence against this explanation, it’s very weak counterevidence because general self-aware intelligence is a very narrow target. More importantly, why would sexual selection specifically target intelligence rather than any other trait?
Looking at peacocks, we can see what appears to be an initial predation-driven selection for looking like they had big intimidating eyes on their backs (similar to butterflies), followed by sexual selection amplifying along roughly that same gradient direction.
Contempt of court penalties for noncompliance with an investigative process is a mainstream example of 1.
Burning Man has some aspects of the second, as do some camping trips, or simply living in a relatively harsh climate. Compare measured levels of corruption in southern vs northern Europe, for instance. When modern democracies fight big wars, the first year involves learning which parts of their warfighting institutions are corrupt and incompetent, & repairing or replacing them.
Your proposal is well-structured and interesting but has a fundamental flaw that needs to be addressed. Interest keyword-based filtering will primarily encourage politics-as-identity, which is actively harmful - it directs attention towards zero-sum thinking and performative identities, rather than creative problem solving. As Bryan Caplan demonstrates in The Myth of the Rational Voter, people already tend to vote to express identities and affiliations rather than to achieve better outcomes. We shouldn't build tools that further entrench this destructive pattern.
Instead, imagine a tool that:
This approach would ground political participation in the solving of one's own problems rather than identity expression. While technically more challenging to implement than interest-based filtering, it would generate higher-quality engagement that expands our collective problem-solving capacity rather than just reallocating political power between existing interest groups.
The patterns emerging from aggregated user experiences would naturally reveal systemic issues and preventive opportunities, especially in how regulations and policies interact to shape people's choices and planning horizons. While building reliable AI judgment about political causation is challenging, it's better to attempt something hard that would be beneficial if feasible, than to facilitate the destructive forces of identity-based politics simply because they're easier to implement.
I agree that even if the book turned out to be entirely accurate we should not assume that this case is representative of the average development project, but we could still learn from it. Many hours from highly trained and well-paid people are allocated to planning and evaluating such projects, which expenditure is ostensibly to ensure quality. Even looking at worst cases helps us see what sort of quality is or is not being ensured.
Wow, thanks for doing the legwork on this - seems like quite possibly I'm analyzing fiction? Annoying if true.
Google's AI response to my search for the Thaba-Tseka Development Project says:
According to available World Bank documentation, the "Thaba-Tseka development project" is primarily referenced within the context of the "Lesotho Integrated Transport, Trade and Logistics Project," which focuses on improving the road corridor connecting Katse to Thaba-Tseka, aiming to enhance regional connectivity and reduce trade costs at Lesotho's borders with South Africa; key documents to reference would be those related to this project, particularly those detailing the road infrastructure development component between Katse and Thaba-Tseka.
Key points about the documentation:
- Project Title: "Lesotho Integrated Transport, Trade and Logistics Project"
- Focus Area: Upgrading the Katse to Thaba-Tseka road corridor
- Objectives: Improve climate resilient regional connectivity, reduce trade costs at Lesotho's borders
- Relevant documents to explore: Project Appraisal Documents, Procurement documents related to road construction and improvement on the Katse-Thaba-Tseka stretch
There's a good chance this is an AI hallucination, though; a cursory search of the main documents didn't yield any references to a "Thaba-Tseka development project," or the wood or ponies. I'm not familiar with World Bank documentation, though, and likely the right followup would involve looking at exactly what's cited in the book.
However, the other lead funder, the Canadian International Development Agency, does seem to have at least one publicly referenced document about a "Thaba-Tseka rural development program": Evaluation, the Kingdom of Lesotho rural development : evaluation design for phase 1, the Thaba Tseka project
Initially, you argued that societal pressure often reflects genuine wisdom, using examples where a 'society who aggressively shames overconsumption of sweets' might be wiser than a child's raw preferences. You suggested that what I was calling 'intrinsic preferences' might just be 'shallow preferences' that hadn't yet been trained to reflect reality.
Now you're making a different and more sophisticated argument - that the whole framework of 'intrinsic' versus 'external' preferences is problematic because preferences necessarily develop within and respond to reality, including social reality. While this is an interesting perspective that deserves consideration, it seems substantially different from your initial defense of social restrictions as transmitting wisdom.
There's also an important point about my own position that I should clarify. When I said 'generally, upon reflection, people would prefer to satisfy their and others' preferences as calculated prior to such influences,' I wasn't making a claim about how often admonitions reflect preference inversions. Rather, I was suggesting that if people were to reflect explicitly on cases of preference inversion, they typically wouldn't want those inverted preferences to count; they would recognize these as preferences shaped by forces systematically opposed to their interests.
This connects to what I see as the core distinction: I'm not just talking about external influences or errors in the transmission of wisdom. I'm specifically pointing to cases where restrictions are moralized for the purpose of restriction itself - where the system is systematically deprecating the evolutionarily fit preferences of the person being restricted. This isn't just clumsy teaching or social pressure - it's adversarial. The system works by first making people feel guilty about their natural inclinations, then betting that they won't fully succeed at suppressing those inclinations despite earnestly trying to adopt the system's restrictions.
Consider the survival of variants of Christianity that 'do poorly' at helping people develop healthy attitudes toward sexuality. Their persistence suggests this poor performance is actually functional - they are able to exploit their members precisely because they create a system where most people must be 'bad' by design, where hypocrisy isn't a bug but a feature. When dessert companies can successfully market their products as 'sinfully delicious,' they're exploiting a system of moral restrictions that creates the very compulsive relationship to sweets it claims to prevent.
Different example - I said "instead"
If you look back, you'll see I was specifically responding to the hypothetical scenario about public admission in that comment. For your points about private shame, you might want to check my other comment replying to you where I addressed how internal shame and self-image maintenance connect to social dynamics.
I notice you're attributing positions to me that I haven't taken and expressing confusion about points I've already addressed in detail. It would be helpful if you could engage more carefully with what I've carefully written.
so if the musician openly admits and apologize for only being average they are ashamed because they are afraid of the reaction of the fan who clearly loved their performance (not their failure to abstain from what they believe is the cause of their average performance?)
You're introducing new elements that weren't in your original scenario. But more importantly: you described the show as "a hit" where "everyone loves them." Calling this performance "only average" isn't accurately revealing adverse information - it's a lie.
but if they don't mention it to anyone (therefore are committing neither a dominance nor submission gesture) they are also ashamed?
In my other reply to you, I explained how private shame often involves maintaining conflicting mental models - one that enables confident performance and another that tracks specific flaws for improvement. Even when no one would directly know or care about staying up late drinking, the performer may feel shame because they've invested in an identity as a "professional musician" or "disciplined performer" - an identity that others care about and grant certain privileges to. The shame comes from violating the requirements of this identity, which serves as a proxy for social approval and professional opportunities. This creates internal pressure toward shame even without a specific idea of someone else who would directly condemn the behavior or trait in question.
Are you telling me there is no conceivable circumstance where any human being feels shame for something which is totally alone, none at all?
What I'm suggesting is that shame inherently involves at least a tacit social component - some imagined perspective by which we are condemned. This is consistent with Smith's and Hume's moral sentiments theory, where moral judgments fundamentally involve taking up imagined perspectives of others. This doesn't mean the shame isn't genuinely felt or that any specific others would actually condemn us. But in my experience people can frequently unravel particular cases of such shame by honestly examining what specific others would actually think if they knew, which is some experimental validation for this view.
Except frequently I think people who are ashamed don't expect this.
That’s why I distinguished explicitly between shame and depravity in the OP.
In this example?
Except frequently I think people who are ashamed don't expect this. Imagine that instead of concealing they openly admit and apologize for being only average: then what? Aren't they still ashamed?
I built the explanatory model based on my experience employed by and reading about other vaguely analogous institutions, but an acquaintance who'd previously worked at the World Bank said it seemed like an accurate characterization of that institution as well.