*New paper * in Political Communication 📓:

What matters more for believing disinformation: social media use, political views, or a conspiracy mindset?

First, some good news: in most places, only a minority “fell” for the debunked claims which were used to justify invading Ukraine. 🧵↓

Summing up: anti-systemic and conspiratorial intuitions are the single best predictor of agreement with justifications for the invasion:

'Is There a Duty to Speak Your Mind?'

Published today in an issue on Epistemic Autonomy.

It starts with my favorite epigraph yet by Bo Burnham.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Join us today at 4:30PM @ Senate House for Sarah Fine's talk, 'Not at Home.' Can't wait!

This is our penultimate talk of the series. Next week, Dan Williams joins to discuss misinformation.

Details:
-philosophy.sas.ac.uk/events/not-hom…
-philosophy.sas.ac.uk/events/focus-m…

Hope to see you there!!

Does widespread alarm about “disinformation” reflect an objective and apolitical concern with dangerous lies or a thinly veiled political project designed to demonise anti-establishment perspectives?, asks Dan Williams

conspicuouscognition.com/p/debunking-di…

'In politics, people are

A friend just introduced me to the concept of “s-hacking” (stimulus hacking)

S-hacking is like p-hacking, except that instead of trying different analyses until you get the results you want, you try different stimulus materials until you get the results you want

Those who deny incentivized (motivated) reasoning...Do you outright deny that beliefs are ever systematically skewed as the apparently non-epistemic incentives (social uptake, self-esteem, hedonic benefits, whatever) change? ...

My paper, 'Existential Risk and Equal Political Liberty' (co-authored with Joseph Porter), is now forthcoming at Asian Journal of Philosophy. You can access the penultimate version at the link below.

philpapers.org/rec/PORERA

New blog post (link in bio) covers:
* Peter Singer's greatest contributions
* Where we disagree
* A personal note of appreciation
* Reflections on the lamentable disconnect between academic incentives and socially valuable research.

📢 Seminar Alert: 'Not At Home' by Sarah Fine Sarah Fine (Cambridge)

📅 Thurs, 23 May 2024
🕠 4:30PM - 6:00PM
📍 Room 243, Senate House

Part of The Practical, the Political, and the Ethical series. See you there!

philosophy.sas.ac.uk/events/not-hom…

This is a great essay on the roots and mechanisms of human morality. Dan presents a coherent picture based on insights from cognitive science, game theory and evolutionary theory. I highly recommend it.

Fascinating essay and thread Dan Williams on the complexities of human morality -
conspicuouscognition.com/p/strategic-al…
of interest to Rutger Bregman Amitav Ghosh

Ben Tappin Dan Williams Fits pretty well with this theory:

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

Great talk by the always excellent Sacha Altay on 'Rethinking the Problem of Misinformation'. Highly recommend! youtube.com/watch?v=Yms5Df…

'In the context of COVID-19, prestige was not a determining factor in the amount of information remembered by people' - preregistered study journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

Join me for THE SCIENCE OF STORYTELLING LIVE!

Huge amounts of brand new material not included in the book, including a deep dive into the psychology of identification with flawed characters.

June 4th for fiction
June 5th for non-fiction

TICKETS: eventbrite.co.uk/o/will-storr-2…

References to the work of many people in the essay, including: Geoffrey Miller Moshe Hoffman manvir singh Lionel Page David Pinsof Randy Nesse Rutger Bregman Robert L. Trivers Will Storr

However, just as one can be too cynical about human nature, one can also be insufficiently cynical. To understand moral psychology, you must contend with prosocial instincts that are both deeply sincere and uncomfortably strategic.