NetocracyAndEpistemology

ThoughtStorms Wiki

(ReadWith) : this paper I gave in 2007 FromNetocracyToNetworkShapedThinking

Transcluded from EpistemicInstability

In NetoCracy, the mode of information production moves on from science to become contrarianism and ConspiracyThinking because these are a fundamentally unstable ways of thinking.

Think about TheBorderBetweenTheRealAndTheUnreal in the context of what I said in FromNetocracyToNetworkShapedThinking

This fits the economic requirements of the netocrat who seeks a constant supply of novel information streams. Her position is more or less equivalent to the capitalist manufacturer who does not want to see the day when customers feel they have "enough". The netocrat needs there to be a general epistemic instability, where the only thing that other agents (both consumtariat and rival netocrats) can be sure of is that what they know today will be out-of-date tomorrow if they don't keep paying attention to her.

The value of contrarianism and conspiracy to the netocrat, then, is that they don't arrive at a fixed view of the world. Any static consensus around a particular model is ripe for disruption. The netocrat can gain attention by attacking it with more contrarian views or outrageous ConspiracyTheories. The very radical instability of these attacks creates its own energy and value for the netocrat.

Other netocrats then assess this rival view to see if adopting and promoting it can gain them some attention too.

If so, they'll jump on some version of the bandwagon. Some, then seeing the obvious direction of travel, follow along from FearOfMissingOut altogether, and falling into the ConsumTariat-like fate of being last to the party. Others, though, will attack it with a more intense counter view.

The earlier adopter of the contrarianism can reap rewards from the new disruption. They'll be perceived as an insightful thought-leader and important connection to follow.

But the overall cost is further destruction of consensus, further social fragmentation into camps who believe the rival and conflicting conspiracy theories, and less actionable knowledge as a basis for CollectiveAction

This is NOT a traditional epistemology of debate or CriticalRationalism, intended to find the truth. This is an entropic less-than ZeroSum game. The end goal is not agreement and a stable functional model of the world. The end goal is for the netocrat to have more followers hoping for an update on the epistemic "beef".

I wonder if this article on spotting crackpots in science has a relation. Effectively it says the cause or symptom of being a crackpot is that you aren't tightly enough coupled with the critical mass of those inside cutting edge physics.

Interesting 2014 predictions on the future of work (http://research.gigaom.com/2013/12/the-future-of-work-4-trends-for-2014/), StoweBoyd points out that companies are increasingly using social data in their hiring and evaluation processes :

[Pentland] learned a number of interesting lessons. About a third of team performance, he discovered, can usually be predicted merely by the number of face-to-face exchanges among team members. (Too many is as much of a problem as too few.) Using data gathered by the badges, he was able to predict which teams would win a business-plan contest, and which workers would (rightly) say they'd had a “productive” or “creative” day. Not only that, but he claimed that his researchers had discovered the “data signature” of natural leaders, whom he called “charismatic connectors” and all of whom, he reported, circulate actively, give their time democratically to others, engage in brief but energetic conversations, and listen at least as much as they talk.