Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 13, 2019

Using Affective Intelligence Theory (AIT) to understand politics; Rethinking the "rigidity of the right"; New York City's first autonomous shuttle service; Exploring the links between age and creativity; A preview of @steempeak's upcoming front-end for the Steem Proposal System (SPS)

Straight from my RSS feed:

Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

1. How Affective Intelligence Theory Can Help Us Understand Politics - This article is from 2017, but it provides useful background for the next link. Affective Intelligence Theory (AIT) is an attempt to describe collective human behavior in terms of a dichotomy between reason and passion. Here is a brief summary, from the article: "This led to a critical insight that in turn was instrumental in generating Affective Intelligence Theory as a dual process model. In dual process models humans are understood to have two modes of judgment. The first, the normal default mode of judgment is often labeled intuitive, automatic, or system 1. The second is often labeled deliberative, rational, or system 2. Crucially, emotion is involved in both modes of judgment, with anxiety playing a pivotal role in triggering when people depart from reliance on the default mode to take up the reasoning mode." The article goes on to assert that AIT explains why we have consciousness, by accounting for the times when our brain switches from pre-conscious (autonomous) operation to deliberative decision making.


2. Applying the Theory of Affective Intelligence to Support for Authoritarian Policies and Parties - New research suggests that the prevailing belief in the social sciences, that right wing political beliefs are driven by fear, may need revision. This study, grounded in Affective Intelligence Theory (AIT), suggests that people's beliefs are shaped the same way for conservatives and others, by evaluating multiple stimuli and choosing one of two approaches. The default approach is to rely on habit and tradition. The second approach is to increase deliberation and openness to novel solutions. In this model, fear is seen as a trigger for deliberation, but anger is seen as a queue for authoritarianism (for people across the political spectrum). This is important, because - in the words of the article: "Attempts to assuage fears over shifting demographics and cultural values appear likely to exacerbate the anger these shifts are likely producing", and also because it challenges the foundations of the prevalent "rigidity of the right" paradigm in the social sciences.


3. New York City’s first self-driving shuttle service launches today - The article is a couple days old now, but on August 7, Optimus Ride launched six autonomous shuttles, each with 6 seats, in New York City's Brooklyn Navy Yard. These shuttles will operate continuously from 7:00 am to 10:30 pm, giving free rides in a 1-mile loop. h/t Communications of the ACM


4. The real relationship between your age and your chance of success - In this TED talk, Albert-László Barabási uses network analysis to take on Einstein's oft-repeated remark that a person who hasn't made their mark by age 30 never will. In Barabási's model, performance is an individual quality, but success is a collective one, involving the person and the community. Critically, this makes success measurable. It also follows that, although performance is bounded, success is unbounded. With these insights, Barabási set about examining the success of ordinary scientists to see if their success tailed off as they age. In his summary of the analysis, here is a key exceprt: "And to make a long story short, after lots of statistical tests, ... the way we scientists work is that every single paper we write, every project we do, has exactly the same chance of being our personal best. That is, discovery is like a lottery ticket."


5. The Daily Adventures of a SteemPeak Developer #10 - A preview of the new SPS page - Steempeak developer, @asgarth, shares a post with a preview of @steempeak's coming front-end for the Steem Proposal System (SPS). The post includes screen captures from the HF21 testnet, along with annotations to explain some of the fields. (A 10% beneficiary setting has been applied to this post for @asgarth.)

My other open posts

@remlaps

@remlaps-lite

• Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 12, 2019
  
• Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 11, 2019
  
• Curating the Internet: Business, economics, and leadership micro-summaries for August 10, 2019
  
• Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 10, 2019
  
• Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 9, 2019
  
• Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 8, 2019
  
• Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 7, 2019
  
• Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for August 6, 2019
  

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