First Principles Approach to Social Problem Solving

zdenekn · 2012-08-07T21:21:30+00:00

This is a very long winded response, but as someone whose living is made through research and sees science attacked on a daily basis, by people whose line of reasoning follows yours. I feel the need to get this point across as vividly and descriptive as possible. There’s a TL;DR at the bottom that sums my point across; the rest is my train of thought and method of reaching my conclusion:

First, what do you mean by social and financial problem solving? Are you trying to optimize human lifespan? Lifespan potential? Wealth? Wealth potential? Happiness? Are you proposing that those principles are effective in promoting those virtues, and will at the same time prove that feminism causes greater harm?

Secondly, what you are proposing sounds like Praxeology. If you can calculate mathematically, ab initio, from the laws of physics through chemistry and biology related to human neuroscience, derive a social system that is logically consistent and requires only those 5 axioms that you describe (though you'll need to elaborate, since they're vague as they stand) Then I will laud your efforts, for you have managed to be a god amongst men, unbounded by logic.

I'm skeptical as to how much useful knowledge and methods could be gained from trying to apply any first principles approach followed purely by logical deduction. My reasoning is based on Godel's First Incompleteness theorem:

Any effectively generated logical theory capable of expressing more than elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete

What this means is that if the five principles you propose are capable, as you claim, of solving all related topics of human nature (as defined by feminism and state intervention) then they will be inconsistent and thus you'll be able to derive opposite actions and solutions from the very same principles, which makes the system as a whole useless.

On the other hand, if each solution that can be derived is consistent with other approaches, then you will have solutions and proposals that can be derived as true based on your principles, but cannot be proven to be true based on the principles you have. Lack of proof means other people will be hesitant or unwilling to adopt your principles, especially if they are capable of having a smaller set of axioms (occam's razor) that is more powerful at describing the world.

There is, in fact, a more powerful set of principles that is useful for making informed decisions about how to achieve noble goals in the world. You touched upon earlier before, but asserted that its priority comes after the first principles you suggested: The Scientific Method.

There are only two axioms that the scientific method relies on, in addition to classical Western logic:

1) Causality: All events have an observable cause/effect relationship

2) Universality/Repeatability: Behaviors observed are time/space invariant controlling all other conditions

From this, the system of hypothesis, experimentation, observation, formalization is derived. When combined with deductive logic from mathematics and statistics, we're able to produce highly descriptive and predictive models of how the World works around us, which becomes useful for informing law, medicine, and finances.

Rather than spend time trying to describe your principles and holding them axiomatic, I would argue that a more constructive use of time would be the following:

1) Formalize your principles into questions or optimization parameters: For example: “Characterization of Merit”, what attributes of a person do we believe are meritorious, can we develop a system to promote such attributes through merit.

2) Read peer reviewed scientific literature that may cover those parameters: An example study with regards to characterising merit was done in 2009 by Pluchino, Rapisarda, and Garofalo: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study” http://arxiv.org/pdf/0907.0455

3a) If you find relevant studies, and they match your convictions, Congrats! Use it to inform and change public policy. With regards to the above study, they found that the best strategy for minimizing a potential loss in efficiency in an organization if one is unsure of how well competencies transfer in promotion is to alternate between the two strategies they described at a fixed percentage rate.

3b) If you find relevant studies that contradict your convictions, or none exist, find out what wasn't controlled in the experiment, or what variables you would need to control for in order to test your hypothesis, and suggest revisions or a new experiment that takes into account those things. For example, when I reviewed the above article , my key criticism was that the experimenters assumed talent within a given position in the organization was based on a normal distribution, whereas several studies done on talent distribution, such as distribution of player batting averages, tend to be beta distributed, which makes sense from an evolutionary biology perspective, considering the same type of distribution can be used to describe the distribution of alleles in a population, which can predispose what talents people might have.

*TL;DR: I agree that feminism has become a destructive ideology, to the point of being a cult, but you cannot argue against it by adopting opposite principles and performing deduction from there. I can vouch that science will do more to convince people than any attempt to adhere to first principles and using them to motivate and change the minds of people. Norway’s state funding for gender studies was disbanded after a documentary series by Harald Eia titled “Brainwashing” took principles and concepts that researchers in the gender studies field was espousing (Which by the way, were done through first principle deduction as you suggest) and exposed the contradictions in their theories through actual empirical observation and rigorous experimentation. *

rightsbot · 2012-08-07T01:40:18+00:00

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Demonspawn · 2012-08-07T06:46:48+00:00

1) Personal Responsibility 2) Personal Accountability 3) Characterization by Merit 5) Respect for Personal Property Rights

I find this interesting. Anyone want to guess why I find this interesting?

throwaway1233444 · 2012-08-07T06:09:45+00:00

You over-estimate the intelligence of the average /r/mensrights subscriber.

Title	First Principles Approach to Social Problem Solving
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	7
Comments	13
Date	August 7, 2012 1:38 AM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/xssbg/first_principles_approach_to_social_problem/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/first-principles-approach-to-social-problem.1016388 https://theredarchive.com/post/1016388

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