This is a cross-post from my personal blog and the Effective Altruism Forum. I haven't modified anything w. r. t. publishing it on LessWrong, so there may be little details that do not fit to the LW context (e. g., I ask people to write me a mail, if the want to provide feedback, but obviously, there is no need for that on this platform), so please bear this in mind.
Shifting from individualistic to collaborative work in academia can improve scientific progress and increase well-being. This may be particularly important in the mind sciences where correct research methodology is challenging. Current academic incentives hinder collaboration, favouring rather narcissistic or anti-social personalities. Fundamental... (read 9376 more words →)
This is a shorter 30-min intro to complexity science by David Krakauer that I really liked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBkFu1g5PlE&t=358s
It's true that the way some people define and talk about complex systems can be frustratingly vague and non-informative, and I agree that Krakauer's way of talking about it gives a big picture idea that, in my view, has some appeal/informativeness.
What I'd really like to see a lot more is explicit model comparison where problems are seen from the complex systems lens vs. from other lenses. Yes, there are single examples where economics complexity is contrasted with traditional economics, but I'm thinking about something way more comprehensive and systematic here, i.e., taking a problem that can be approached with various methodologies, all implemented within the same computational environment, and investigating what answers each of those give, ideally with a clear idea of what constitutes a "better" answer compared to another. This would be probably also quite a research (software) engineering task.