johnywrites.com

Category: Society-Ecosystem etc

  • Possessive individualism in entrepreneurship: A convenient lie

    I was watching a Rugby Try and thought about the player who did the Try. The player who did the try may get the credit, but the actual effort was cumulative and the opportunity was emergent. Without the cumulative skills, the synergy of the whole team, and the contingent emergent opportunity the Try would never be possible. This made me think about the idea of Possessive Individualism which is dominant in Entrepreneurship

    FIRST EVER TRY IN SUPER RUGBY GOES TO SOLOMONE FUNAKI

    Possessive Individualism in Entrepreneurship

    Most entrepreneurship models, particularly the prescriptive models like the lean-startup, business plan, etc. are based on the idea of the sole entrepreneur making decisions. It is also visible in the expertise framing of effectuation by Saras Saraswathy. This relates to the conception of Possessive individualism, which is the assumption that capacities, beliefs, and desires, etc. are possessions of an individual (Macpherson, 2010).

    In this approach, the individual is viewed atomistically as ‘essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities; which include: intelligence; cognitive capacities such as memory; the ability to process information; and such personality characteristics as desires and wants, crucially ‘owing nothing to society for them’(MacPherson, 1962, p. 3; 2010).

    Such Possessive individualism is convenient for reductionistic studies that ignore the difficulty of complexity and the context.

    The problem is that the reality of entrepreneurship is far from the case. Realworld cognition, decisions, actions, expertise, etc are extended outside of the individual. Donald Trump can hire the best programmers in the world, and functionally perform far better than any single expert programmer. In the real actual world we are living in, Richard Branson who struggled with accounting doesn’t had to practice MCQ tests to become better at accounting before starting his venture. Instead, he can hire as many accountants as he wants. Thus functionally perform far better than any single expert accountant. Now think of sophisticated tools or software for the practice of accounting. Most of the tools currently available are far more intelligent than any single expert accountant.

    According to Clark and Chalmers(1998), real-world cognition and decisions are extended outside of our brain. They present the idea of active externalism in which objects within the environment function as a part of the mind.

    They argue that the separation between the mind, the body, and the environment is an unprincipled distinction. This suggests that entrepreneurial cognition and decisions are not simply happening inside the entrepreneur’s brain, but extended outside. 

    Another way to view it is the distributed nature of real-world decisions(Rapley, 2008; Schneeweiss,2012; Charles et al, 1997, 1999). In contexts like entrepreneurship, there are multiple stakeholders with diverse and conflicting beliefs, preferences, and goals. They all are part of entrepreneurial cognition and decisions.

    This distributed nature of decisions in entrepreneurship is partially influenced by the distributed nature of expertise in complex social domains (Edwards, 2010).

    Thus, It is not necessary that an entrepreneur must be an expert in finance, accounting, programming, law, etc. Such expertise is distributed(and or extended) across various individuals(lawyer, doctor) institutions(law enforcement, companies), artifacts(tools, software), etc.

    It is not even necessary that the entrepreneur know the entrepreneurial core activities. He/She can still win in-case he/she is in the right high network place, get good people to mentor and work, get access to specialized institutions, have a rich family to support, etc.

    Further, In a complex domain, decision-makers(entrepreneurs or managers) are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. These problems are labeled by Ackoff as messes (Ackoff 1978; Bennet et al, 2008).

    Part of Esoloop Framework

    Citations

    Macpherson, Crawford Brough. “The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes
    to Locke.” (1962; 2010).

    Clark, Andy, and David Chalmers. “The extended mind.” analysis 58, no. 1 (1998): 7-19.

     Schneeweiss, Christoph. Distributed decision making. Springer Science & Business Media,
    2012.

    Charles, Cathy, Amiram Gafni, and Tim Whelan. “Decision-making in the physician and patient
    encounter: revisiting the shared treatment decision-making model.” Social science & medicine 49,
    no. 5 (1999): 651-661.

    Charles, Cathy, Amiram Gafni, and Tim Whelan. “Shared decision-making in the medical
    encounter: what does it mean?(or it takes at least two to tango).” Social science & medicine 44,
    no. 5 (1997): 681-692.

    Edwards, Anne. Being an expert professional practitioner: The relational turn in expertise. Vol. 3.
    Springer science & business media, 2010

    Ackoff, Russell Lincoln. “The Art of Problem Solving Accompanied by Ackoff’s Fables.” (1978)

    Bennet, Alex, and David Bennet. “The decision-making process in a complex situation.” In
    Handbook on Decision Support Systems 1, pp. 3-20. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008

  • Julie Posselt: How Graduate Admissions really works

    Julie’s work explores how Graduate Admissions really works in the United States

    I have been following Julie Posselt for some time, particularly because of her observational studies and insights into US higher education.

    Along with recent books like “The Tyranny of Merit” by Michael Sandel and “The Meritocracy Trap” by Daniel Markovits, her book “Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping”, throws a lot of light into socio-economic implications of existing perceptions about merit and equity in the US Higher ed.

    Her work specifically digs into the nature of grad school admissions in elite US institutions?. Tries to find for whom(which social group) does the system work + Varying perception of merit, Legacy admissions, Homophily, Faculty gatekeeping, etc?

    Based on firsthand observations of admission committees and interviews with faculty in top 10 doctoral programs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, she shows admissions from decision makers’ point of view, including interesting episodes of committees debating the process, interviewing applicants, and grappling with borderline cases.

    To her, more equitable outcomes occur when admission committees are themselves diverse and when members take a fresh look at inherited meritocratic assumptions that affect their judgment.

    A few of her interesting papers are the following.

    1. Trust networks: A new perspective on pedigree and the ambiguities of admissions
    2. Equity Efforts as Boundary Work: How Symbolic and Social Boundaries Shape Access and Inclusion in Graduate Education
    3. Disciplinary Logics in Doctoral Admissions: Understanding Patterns of Faculty Evaluation
    4. Why are Women Underrepresented in Elite Colleges and Universities?
    5. Typical physics Ph.D. admissions criteria limit access to underrepresented groups but fail to predict doctoral completion
    6. Toward inclusive excellence in graduate education: Constructing merit and diversity in PhD admissions

    Following are a few interesting videos of her discussing the topic

    1)What Phd aspirants need to know

    2) Same Idea, different presentation.

    3) In the following video Julie Posselt discusses her new(another) book “Equity in Science”

    The video

  • Don’t get too comfortable: Story of Balearic Islands cave goat

    Balearic Islands cave goat had no predators for many generations of their evolution that their eyes moved from the side of their heads to forward-facing. The species had gone extinct when new stressors showed up (predators, humans, and others).

    I was thinking recently about the social and business versions of this goat.

    Companies like Kodak, My-Space, Blockbuster, Blackberry, etc., all fit the Goat category in my view.

    (Related Note: According to a forecast by Innosight, the average company will only last just 12 years on the S&P 500 by 202)

  • Difference between Ecological Psychology and Ecological rationality

    This is a twitter thread on the difference between Ecological Psychology, which is often identified with Gibson, and Ecological rationality approach, which is developed primarily by people like Gerd Gigerenzer as a response to Heuristics and Bias perspective on human decision making.

    https://twitter.com/RoopeKaaronen/status/1325767951971196928?s=20
    https://twitter.com/RoopeKaaronen/status/1325768212953313280?s=20

  • Kishore Mahbubani talks about his book “Has China Won?”

    Three things which i find interesting about this interview:

    1. American decline after Ronald Reagan era structural change: Half the American population have a declining standard of living since 1989 . US at the same time is living under the delusional ideological certainty (American Exceptionalism) that when a thriving democracy takes-on a geopolitical struggle against a commi system, the thriving democracy will always win. According to Kishore If we dig deeper and try to understand what is the core situation of American society today and the core situation of Chinese society, we could easily discover that the United States is actually having to deal with some major structural challenges, and one of the key structural challenges is that the average income of the bottom 50% has been sliding down over a 30 year period. Deep structural forces in American society that have moved America away from being a thriving democracy towards becoming a plutocracy. By contrast, China in the same 30 year period bottom 50% have had their best 30 years in 3,000 years.
    2. USA vs China is not a fight of democracy vs communism, but Plutocracy and a Meritocracy: According to Kishore, the Chinese communist party may possibly be the most meritocratic political party in the world. And the selection process results in the best minds running China today. This is not a contest with a democracy and a communist party system, it’s a contest within a Plutocracy and a Meritocracy.
    3. The Bloated Military: Instead of China behaving like the Soviet Union, It is the United States that’s behaving like the Soviet Union with its bloated military budget. The contest between United States and China will not take place in the military sphere. In a nuclear war between United States and China, there will not be a winner and loser, there will be a loser and loser. So logically, it should be in the interest of the United States therefore to reduce its defense budget and take the money and invest in R&D because that’s where the real contest is. But the United States cannot reduce its defense budget because the process of deciding where to spend money is locked in by the US Congress and allocations are made to each constituency by the congressmen and therefore the defense budget is large, irrational and unnecessary. If the United States was serious about taking on China, it should cut its defense budget in half but that’s impossible. And in that case , it’s like the old Soviet Union that also couldn’t cut its defense budget into half. So in that sense the United States hasn’t thought very hard and very deep about how different this contest with China is whereas by contrast, the Chinese are quite happy, they’re growing their defense budget, but at a fixed percentage of their GNP and not increasing it( Think also about Chinese PPP) . And the Chinese are very happy that America has 13 aircraft carrier fleets because each aircraft carrier fleet is draining millions of dollars away from the US Treasury every day. Kishore “Paradoxically, in military terms, an aircraft carrier today is a sitting duck and as an American professor Tim Colton of Harvard told me, it just takes $100,000 hypersonic missile to bring down a billion dollar aircraft carrier. It doesn’t make sense anymore.”

    Watch the Interview Here

  • Self-Control, Marshmallow, Replication Crisis

    Your fate cannot be determined solely by a test of your ability at age 5 to resist the temptation of one marshmallow for 15 minutes to get two marshmallows( Article)

  • Twitter thread about Social science methods

    I think contribution from social science is mostly incremental. Cross pollination of methods from pure sciences formed the foundation for many methodological development. Here is a thread.

  • Should policy makers listen to business. Where should we draw the boundary ?

    Business community is sometimes the most short sighted pressure group you can see anywhere in the world.

    This is not because they are stupid, but because their default propensity is to optimize the present, it’s anti delayed gratification, anti Sustainable development, anti Human development etc.

    Every country (or state) ever succeeded in the world has a history of resisting their crooked persuasive tactics, whether it’s FDR in USA, Labor in UK, CCP of China, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, Socialist-welfare parties in Nordics and Europe. In the FDR example, his policies impacted US economy from 1946 -1963, a period of unparalleled economic growth and redistributed gains in family income. That time the top marginal personal income tax rate was 91%, applied to incomes of $200,000 or more (or $2.8 million in today’s money as of 1946) until 1955, when the threshold was raised to $400,000 (or $3.8 million today)(source : Latimes )If we take the Kerala example, land-reforms, progressive taxation, labor laws, investment in health and education, etc, at the time(even now) was dubbed as anti capital, anti business, anti development. Long term If we are smiling at our HDI or Niti Ayog index, etc we should be thanking the bold step the old guard took even at the heavy risk on life.

    SOME THREADS

    https://twitter.com/EinarRasmussen/status/1306737303596003331?s=20
    https://twitter.com/johnywrites/status/1302609204159496192?s=20

  • Immigrants and Socio-economic status: Thread

    When we talk about immigrants I really like to dig one more layer with things like;

    • # Socio-economic status.
    • # Familial socialism as a unit of observation.
    • # Cultural background. Eg. Most Indian founders are higher caste,
    • # Enormous familial scaffolding(kind of powerful Familial socialism),
    • etc.

    While US elites are romanticizing about Immigrants, they practically pay ero attention to their own future generations.

    We need debates about Self made billionaires who comes from affluent backgrounds. Are they really self made ??