Allies and Ostracism, 2/28
The game we play on social media
Russ Roberts recently hosted Luca Dellanna, and the conversation motivated me to read Dellanna’s The Control Heuristic. The book has many more interesting ideas than can be teased out in one conversation or review. I just want to riff on one casual aside. Dellanna writes,
We act to produce feelings that remind us of the outcomes we seek, not to produce these outcomes. This principle explains our propensity to engage in useless acts that feel like useful ones, such as masturbation, busywork, or social media (“likes” are surrogates for real-life laughs, which are themselves signs of having allies).
Later, he writes,
Why do I write on Twitter? Perhaps, I want to collect clues (the likes and the retweets) that I am smart and employable. Of course, this is a confabulation. The real reason I write on Twitter is that I am addicted to the dopamine rush. Why does writing on Twitter release a dopamine rush, though? Perhaps because the “likes” and the “retweets,” which are signs of appreciation, correlate with being valuable—a condition that decreases the chances of social ostracization, an existential risk.
One of Dellanna’s central theses is that we are motivated to take actions that make us feel that we are decreasing existential risk. In prehistoric times, we faced a risk of being ostracized and cast out by our communal band. We reduced this risk by forging alliances with other members of the band. Obtaining likes and retweets gives us the feeling of forging alliances.
This game feels particularly compelling on Twitter, because of the phenomenon of the Twitter mob. We observe others being socially ostracized by the mob, and this heightens the feeling of existential risk that people face when they post to Twitter. The likes and retweets help us to feel that we have reduced this existential risk.
I think that all of us who put opinions on line in any form are playing this game of allies and ostracism. Sometimes we single out other people for ostracism. But whenever we post, we are aware of the possibility of ostracism, and any positive feedback gives us the feeling of moving away from an existential risk.
The game is not as simple as maximizing the number of allies or counting the scalps of the enemy that you ostracize. Different people are attracted to different sorts of allies. The scoring criteria that I came up with for Fantasy Intellectual Teams are the ideals that I would like to see in my allies. But other people are looking for different characteristics, such as partisan loyalty or prestigious credentials.
Long before we had social media, the game of allies and ostracism was central to academic life. When I was in grad school in economics at MIT, the powerful allies to have were Stan Fischer and Rudi Dornbusch. Dornbusch and Fischer in turn enjoyed allied loyalty from their students. I think that the key role played by allies in academia helps explain why academics take to Twitter.
Journalists and public officials also have long played the game of allies and ostracism. Public officials prefer to talk with “friendly” journalists. And journalists return the favor by telling stories from the perspective of the public officials with whom they are allied.
Corporate politics, or organizational politics more broadly, is also a game of allies and ostracism. Middle managers who play the game well earn promotions. Those who commit blunders get derailed. Fortunately, in the case of corporations, there is the scoring mechanism of profits and losses that helps keep the game somewhat honest. If you get derailed in one company, you can try your luck in a different enterprise, which is what I did when things went badly for me in 1994.
Reading Roberts talk about tradition analytically, and Dellanna talk about brain evolution, and you talk about prehistoric times, one wonders where spirituality is at in the room, if at all. Human behavior and human institutions have changed widely in different ways in different communities over the last 500 years alone, not to mention in the middle ages and earlier in the historical era. and there can be little doubt that other aspects of individual human psychology and social adaptation has changed in profound and heterogenous ways as well. I can't help but compare and contrast with Simone Weil's The Need for Roots which was quite prescient in 1949 for describing the sort of behavior we see on social media.
The Need for Roots starts with an identification of a list of human needs. Weil starts off Part I setting up a framework of obligations that individuals owe to other individuals. She develops these obligations by describing the needs of the soul:
"The first of the souls's needs, the one which touches most nearly its etermal destiny, is order: that is to say, a texture of social relationships such that no one is compelled to violate imperative obligations in order to carry out other ones." She develops this extensively, then turns to liberty,
"One of the indispensable foods of the human soul is liberty. Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose....Whenever men are living in community, rules imposed in the common interest must necessarily limit the possibilities of choice." That observation too is developed, until she turns to obedience.
"Obedience is a vital need of the human soul. It is of two kinds: obedience to established rules and ovedience to human beings looked upon as leaders. It presupposes consent..." Then, responsibility.
"Initiative and responsibility, to feel one is useful and even indispensable, are vital needs of the human soul." Next, equality.
"Equality if a vital need of the human sole. It consistts in a recognition, at once public, general , effective and genuinely expressed in institutions and customs, that the same amount of respect and consideration is due to every human being becuase this respect is due to the human being as such and is not a matter of degree." She turns them to hierarchism.
"Hierarchism is a vital need of the human soul. It is composed of a certain veneration, a certain devotion towards superiors, considered not as individuals, nor in relation to the powers they exercise, but as symbols. What they symbolize is that realm situated high above all men and whose expression in this world is made up of the oblgations owed by each man to his felllowmen." Next honour.
"Honour is a vital need of the human sole....this need is fully satisfied where each of the social organisms to which a human being belongs allows him to share in a noble tradition enshrined in its past history and given public acknowledgment." Next punishment.
"Punishment is a vital need of the human soul. There are two kinds of punishment, disciplinary and penal...Punishment only takes place where the hardship is accompanied at some time or another, even after it is over, and retrospect, by a feeling of justice." And then freedom of opinion.
"Freedom of opinion and freedom of association are usually classed together. It is a mistake. Save in the case of natural groupings, association is not a need, but an expedient employed in the practical affairs of life.
On the other Hand, complete, unlimited freedom of expression for every sort of opinion, without the least restriction or reserve, is an absolute need on the part of the intelligence." This section is developed in much detail and anticipates many of the social media behaviors. But next she turns to security.
"Security is an essential need of the soul. Security means that the soul is not under the weight of fear or terror." Then on to private property.
"Private property is a vital need of the soul. The sole feels isolate, lost, it is not surrounded by objects which seem to it like an extension of the bodily members." Next collective property.
"Participation in collective possessions -- a participation consisting not in any material enjoyment, but in a feeling of ownership-- is a no less important need." Truth is next.
"The need of truth is more sacred than any other need." Here little has changed. She observes,
"The public is suspicious of newspapers, but its suspicions don't save it. ...We all know that when journalism becomes indistinguishable from organized lying, it constitutes a crime. Bur we think it is a crime impossible to punish." She ends part one with "There is no possible chance of satisfying a people's need of truth, unless men can be found for this purpose who love truth."
And with depressing note, I think that she has exhausted all of the many mental needs that individuals have that might just as readily, and with greater predictive value, explain social media behavior, as presumptions about prehistoric group dynamics. Life is too short for me to spend any amount of time on social media, but since the turmoil there spills over into other intellectual pursuits, I try to understand what I encounter as humans struggling to satisfy various combinations of these needs and the conflicts that comes from seeking such satisfaction in that type of environment. It may not be as rational sounding as looking at everything as an evolutionary brain defect, but it also feels a lot more humane. And in the case of frustrating human interactions, I think there is something to be said for balancing reason with feeling.
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Re Delanna: I actually do not pay much attention to "likes." I post to push the national conversation on whatever topic I post about in what I think is the right direction. That i why I try to post more about economies than politics; I have greater confidence that my opinions are correct about economics and politics. I do of course enjoy the thought that my posts do a tiny amount of good and don't see any trade-off of something I could do that would really do MORE good.