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alcinnz boosted

Jan :rust: :ferris:

@janriemer@floss.social · last month

Jan :rust: :ferris:

@janriemer@floss.social · 7 months ago

Do you also often have a #concept in #mind that you think about and observe frequently, but don't have a name for?

Well, maybe here's another one:

Manifest and latent functions and dysfunctions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_and_latent_functions_and_dysfunctions

These functions describe systems in #society:
Manifest functions and dysfunctions are expected.

Latent functions and dysfunctions are unexpected.

Functions lead to social stability, while dysfunctions lead to social instability.

Some examples (in part 2)

1/3

What Cory Doctorow is referring to here is called a Latent Function:

https://floss.social/@janriemer/114859289566145579

It is an unintended/unexpected consequence of an event that can be observed "from outside" that leads to social stability.

Once you know that there is a concrete name for this concept you start to see it everywhere!

Try it yourself: Next time you are the "observer" of a decision, ask yourself: what are the possible latent functions and dysfunctions of this?

2/2

#Philosophy #CriticalThinking

Nick Byrd, Ph.D.

@ByrdNick@nerdculture.de · 2 weeks ago

If your objection to something is just “it's biased”, then you do not yet have an objection.

I mention #theBiasFallacy in "Strategic Reflectivism":
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.22987

and explain it on my #blog: https://byrdnick.com/archives/11072/the-bias-fallacy

#logic #argumentation #debate #edu #criticalThinking

4 media

"'They’re biased, so they’re wrong!' That’s a fallacy. We can call it the bias fallacy. Here’s why it’s a fallacy: being biased doesn’t entail being wrong. So when someone jumps from the observation that So-and-so is biased to the conclusion that So-and-so is wrong, they commit the bias fallacy. It’s that simple.

In this post, I’ll give some examples of the fallacy, explain the fallacy, and then suggest how we should respond to the bias fallacy."

https://byrdnick.com/archives/11072/the-bias-fallacy — "'They’re biased, so they’re wrong!' That’s a fallacy. We can call it the bias fallacy. Here’s why it’s a fallacy: being biased doesn’t entail being wrong. So when someone jumps from the observation that So-and-so is biased to the conclusion that So-and-so is wrong, they commit the bias fallacy. It’s that simple. In this post, I’ll give some examples of the fallacy, explain the fallacy, and then suggest how we should respond to the bias fallacy." https://byrdnick.com/archives/11072/the-bias-fallacy

Nick Byrd, Ph.D.

The Bias Fallacy

“They’re biased, so they’re wrong!” That’s a fallacy. Why? Because being biased doesn’t entail being wrong. In this post, I’ll explain the bias fallacy, gi…

arXiv.org

Strategic Reflectivism In Intelligent Systems

By late 20th century, the rationality wars had launched debates about the nature and norms of intuitive and reflective thinking. Those debates drew from mid-20th century ideas such as bounded rationality, which challenged more idealized notions of rationality observed since the 19th century. Now that 21st century cognitive scientists are applying the resulting dual pro-cess theories to artificial intelligence, it is time to dust off some lessons from this history. So this paper synthesizes old ideas with recent results from experiments on humans and machines. The result is Strategic Reflec-tivism, the position that one key to intelligent systems (human or artificial) is pragmatic switching between intuitive and reflective inference to opti-mally fulfill competing goals. Strategic Reflectivism builds on American Pragmatism, transcends superficial indicators of reflective thinking such as model size or chains of thought, applies to both individual and collective intelligence systems (including human-AI teams), and becomes increasingly actionable as we learn more about the value of intuition and reflection.

Charlie Stross

@cstross@wandering.shop · 2 weeks ago

#WritersCoffeeClub 27th Jan 2026. What’s a technical skill you think should be more widespread?

Critical reading/media literacy.

(At risk of getting political on a writers hashtag, most of our political problems exist because our media environment is owned by billionaires and heavily propagandized to promote their preferred policies and attitudes. And most people have no idea when they're being lied to subtly.)

CriticalThinkingGames

@CriticalThinkingGames@games.ngo replied · 2 weeks ago

@cstross

Teach #criticalthinking from an early age!

Doug Belshaw

@dajb@social.coop · 3 weeks ago

We often treat decision-making as a purely cognitive exercise. But bodies, context, and relationships are doing quiet work in the background.

Some of our worst decisions come from our "best" analysis, so here's how a more embodied approach can help:
https://blog.dougbelshaw.com/decision-making/

#DecisionMaking #SystemsThinking #CriticalThinking #Complexity

Open Thinkering

Why your worst decision probably came from your best analysis

When we stop trying to choose between our head and our gut, we are more likely to bring our full intelligence to work.

Nick Byrd, Ph.D.

@ByrdNick@nerdculture.de · 3 weeks ago

Looks like I’m not the only one to find that between-person differences in #criticalThinking didn’t replicate in within-person changes over time:

Testing #argumentMapping effects: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390977878

Assessing #higherEd over time: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-025-01000-1

#edu #stats

4 media

"Rational thinking skills were assessed using a German test battery consisting of four subtests of heuristics and biases tasks."

"Cognitive Reflection was assessed using three items of the original CRT..."

"Resistance to Belief Bias was assessed using five items created by Markovits and Nantel (1989) and one new item."

"Resistance to Ratio Bias was assessed using four items by Toplak et al. (2014). In each item, the subjects’ task is to choose between a small and a large tray of white and black marbles...."

"Disjunctive Reasoning was assessed using the knights and knaves problem (Toplak & Stanovich, 2002; adapted from Shafir, 1994) and five new items. In all items, the participants’ task was to decide whether the question can be answered with yes, no, or not at all based on the given information." — "Rational thinking skills were assessed using a German test battery consisting of four subtests of heuristics and biases tasks." "Cognitive Reflection was assessed using three items of the original CRT..." "Resistance to Belief Bias was assessed using five items created by Markovits and Nantel (1989) and one new item." "Resistance to Ratio Bias was assessed using four items by Toplak et al. (2014). In each item, the subjects’ task is to choose between a small and a large tray of white and black marbles...." "Disjunctive Reasoning was assessed using the knights and knaves problem (Toplak & Stanovich, 2002; adapted from Shafir, 1994) and five new items. In all items, the participants’ task was to decide whether the question can be answered with yes, no, or not at all based on the given information."

"Prior to analyses, data were cleaned and checked for outliers. Responses to items of rational thinking skills that were unusually fast (3 SD or more below the item-specific log mean; following recommendations of Ratcliff, 1993) were considered unreliable and were deleted. This applied to 0.27% of all trials at t1 and 0.19% of all trials at t2. For continuous variables (fluid intelligence, rational thinking dispositions, rational thinking skills, student satisfaction), scores deviating more than 3 SD from the sample mean were excluded from path and regression analyses."

"our sample size" was "101, excluding missing values and outliers)" — "Prior to analyses, data were cleaned and checked for outliers. Responses to items of rational thinking skills that were unusually fast (3 SD or more below the item-specific log mean; following recommendations of Ratcliff, 1993) were considered unreliable and were deleted. This applied to 0.27% of all trials at t1 and 0.19% of all trials at t2. For continuous variables (fluid intelligence, rational thinking dispositions, rational thinking skills, student satisfaction), scores deviating more than 3 SD from the sample mean were excluded from path and regression analyses." "our sample size" was "101, excluding missing values and outliers)"

"Regarding rational thinking skills, there were no significant differences between t1 and t2 in the means of cognitive reflection (t(119) = 1.73, p =.086, d = 0.16; all means are depicted in Table 1), resistance to belief bias (t(123) = 0.53, p =.598, d = 0.05), resistance to ratio bias (t(123) = −0.64, p =.521, d = −0.06), and disjunctive reasoning (t(119) = −0.31, p =.756, d = −0.03). Regarding rational thinking dispositions, there was no significant difference in consideration of future consequences between t1 and t2 (t(123) = 0.85, p =.395, d = 0.08). Interestingly, the mean scores of students’ need for cognition slightly, but significantly, declined from t1 to t2 (t(123) = −2.07, p =.040, d = −0.19). Overall, these results suggest that the students’ rational thinking skills and dispositions remained very stable over the course of two semesters in terms of both their absolute level and their relative ranking."

Rational thinking in university students: Examining temporal stability and effects on academic performance and student satisfaction

Hacker News

@h4ckernews@mastodon.social · 4 weeks ago

Slop Is Everywhere for Those with Eyes to See

https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/slop-is-everywhere-for-those-with-eyes-to-see/

#HackerNews #Slop #Is #Everywhere #for #Those #with #Eyes #to #See #technology #insights #criticalthinking #awareness #culture

from jason

Slop is Everywhere For Those With Eyes to See

How mindless consumption is making our FYPs worse.

⁂

More from

fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻

Doug Belshaw

@dajb@social.coop · 4 weeks ago

Framework fundamentalism: when your thinking tools become thinking cages.

Anarchist theory + pragmatist philosophy = liberation through temporariness

blog.dougbelshaw.com/cognitive-autonomous-zones/

#SystemsThinking #Strategy #CriticalThinking

danmcquillan

@danmcquillan@kolektiva.social · 4 weeks ago

All the noise about alignment from the advocates of 'AI Safety' is completely specious because AI already aligns with the hierarchical dualisms that shape our society at the deepest levels, especially misogyny, racism and a contempt for nature.

CriticalThinkingGames

@CriticalThinkingGames@games.ngo replied · 4 weeks ago

@danmcquillan

GIGO

Garbage in; garbage out!

#criticalthinking #AI

Jan :rust: :ferris:

@janriemer@floss.social · last month

RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115819402267996681

"Because, after decades of throwing myself against a locked door, the door that leads to a new, good internet, one that delivers both the technological self-determination of the old, good internet, and the ease of use of Web 2.0 that let our normie friends join the party, that door has been unlocked.

Today, it is open a crack. It's open a crack!

And here's the weirdest part: Donald Trump is the guy who's unlocked that door."

1/2

#Enshittification #Hope #Society

Jan :rust: :ferris:

@janriemer@floss.social replied · last month

Jan :rust: :ferris:

@janriemer@floss.social · 7 months ago

Do you also often have a #concept in #mind that you think about and observe frequently, but don't have a name for?

Well, maybe here's another one:

Manifest and latent functions and dysfunctions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_and_latent_functions_and_dysfunctions

These functions describe systems in #society:
Manifest functions and dysfunctions are expected.

Latent functions and dysfunctions are unexpected.

Functions lead to social stability, while dysfunctions lead to social instability.

Some examples (in part 2)

1/3

What Cory Doctorow is referring to here is called a Latent Function:

https://floss.social/@janriemer/114859289566145579

It is an unintended/unexpected consequence of an event that can be observed "from outside" that leads to social stability.

Once you know that there is a concrete name for this concept you start to see it everywhere!

Try it yourself: Next time you are the "observer" of a decision, ask yourself: what are the possible latent functions and dysfunctions of this?

2/2

#Philosophy #CriticalThinking

Warm Signull

@warmsignull@mastodon.social · last month

Do you have a topic you want to debate, but no one willing to sit with the complexity instead of rushing to conclusions?

I am here for that kind of conversation.

Let us think out loud without turning it into a performance.

#ThoughtfulConversation #DeepThinking #Nuance #Complexity #CriticalThinking
#Ideas #Debate #IntellectualCuriosity #Philosophy #LongTermThinking
#FediMeta #AskFedi #WritersOfFedi #TechCulture #IndieWeb #OpenWeb

Hacker News

@h4ckernews@mastodon.social · last month

Software engineers should be a little bit cynical

https://www.seangoedecke.com/a-little-bit-cynical/

#HackerNews #SoftwareEngineers #Cynicism #TechCulture #CriticalThinking #ProfessionalDevelopment

Software engineers should be a little bit cynical

Jan :rust: :ferris:

@janriemer@floss.social · last month

2026 is the year of #AI sobriety - a Quiet #Rebellion in a World full of #Slop

- by persistent bloom

Invidious:
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=y39n3Mn6jac
(or YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y39n3Mn6jac)

"Does this allow me to hear myself think? Or does it make it harder to hear what voice is my own?"

I absolutely love this! 💯 So many good points!

I also highly agree with the usefulness of smaller open language models.

#AISober #AISobriety #LLM #LLMs #ArtificialIntelligence #Art #Philosophy #CriticalThinking

Hacker News

@h4ckernews@mastodon.social · 2 months ago

I don't think Lindley's paradox supports p-circling

https://vilgot-huhn.github.io/mywebsite/posts/20251206_p_circle_lindley/

#HackerNews #LindleysParadox #pCircling #DecisionMaking #CriticalThinking #AIResearch

I don’t think Lindley’s paradox supports p-circling – Vilgot's website

Don’t give p-values a role they’re not made for

Hacker News

@h4ckernews@mastodon.social · 2 months ago

Secondary school maths showing that AI systems don't think

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/secondary-school-maths-showing-that-ai-systems-dont-think/

#HackerNews #SecondarySchoolMaths #AISystems #CriticalThinking #Education #Technology

Jan :rust: :ferris: boosted

Coach Pāṇini ®

@paninid@mastodon.world · 2 months ago

The #institutions of academia were fractured and now they are broken.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/colleges-ai-education-students/685039/?gift=-Fv9R4P6cEEN68vsamhTNHKLWWoWhcNXDTnLEzS4Hr4

#education #learning #teaching #CriticalThinking

Jan :rust: :ferris: boosted

Federation Bot

@Federation_Bot · 2 months ago

Empower young people to make BETTER decisions than we've made: support critical thinking skills!

1️⃣ Be curious.

2️⃣ Be questioning.

3️⃣ Be OPEN to what you find.

#criticalthinking #media #education #politics #reasoning #information #knowledge #data #lifeskills #research

Coach Pāṇini ®

@paninid@mastodon.world · 2 months ago

The #institutions of academia were fractured and now they are broken.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/colleges-ai-education-students/685039/?gift=-Fv9R4P6cEEN68vsamhTNHKLWWoWhcNXDTnLEzS4Hr4

#education #learning #teaching #CriticalThinking

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 boosted

Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸

@corbden@defcon.social · 2 years ago

So many of these people I interact with on NextDoor simply haven’t thought it through. It’s amazing.

When you figure out how to detect and handle actual abusers, you find all these people who just mimic abusers because they haven’t been exposed to any other way.

Asking questions really is a super power in these troubling times. Don’t argue, don’t debate. Ask questions. It opens up everything. If they’re a genuine abuser or fascist, they will show their colors to everyone. If they’re just a follower, it gets them to think it through, sometimes for the first time. Even more, the attention you show can get them to trust you, let down their guard, and then anything you say can be actually heard.

(I might post screenshots later. But I have to take this slow to take care of myself.)

#NextDoor #AbuseCulture #CriticalThinking