Right now, there are generally two types of people on social media: those awash in red button/blue button discourse, and those blissfully unaware of it. For those second types, at the heart of the conversation is the following thought experiment. Everyone in the world has to privately choose to press a red button or a blue button. If a majority of people press blue, everyone lives. If a majority of people press red, only red-pressers live. The current conversation apparently kicked off a few weeks ago with this X poll; … [Read more...] about Science Corner: One Button, Two Button, Red Button, Blue Button
cooperation
Science Corner: The Force of Cuteness
Large swaths of the Internet have fallen under the spell of Baby Yoda, and I guess I'm not immune to those charms either. (Yes, I recognize they're not actually young Yoda, but the character doesn't have an actual name and Baby Yoda has a satisfying lilt.) Actually, part of the charm is intrinsic to our biology and psychology as humans; certain features common to human babies, like big eyes and proportionately large heads, read as cute to nearly all of us across a variety of contexts. One might expect baby chimps and … [Read more...] about Science Corner: The Force of Cuteness
Science Corner: Artificial Intelligence Deploys Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
My son finds decision-making challenging at times (OK, who doesn't?) and eeny, meeny, miny, moe helps him break his internal deadlock. Actually, it did until he realized it was deterministic and he could decide the outcome by choosing where to start. So now he waves his hand around while he sings a song for a while, then opts for whatever he's pointing at when the song ends. I'm not sure it's actually a random process, but it seems like it must be closer than the original version. Plus he finds it satisfying which is … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Artificial Intelligence Deploys Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe