Tootfinder

https://www.psypost.org/psychological-entitlement-new-research-unveils-link-to-pandemic-non-compliance-and-conspiracy-beliefs/
Noi unexpected, honestly, but... Yeah.

Psychological entitlement: New research unveils link to pandemic non-compliance and conspiracy beliefs
New research reveals that individuals with a strong sense of entitlement were more likely to ignore COVID-19 safety measures, visiting non-essential venues and endorsing conspiracy theories. This behavior highlights the complex interplay between psychological traits and public health responses.

MAGA Republicans to a tee.
"Paranoid thoughts can become delusions when irrational thoughts and beliefs become so fixed that nothing can convince a person that what they think or feel is not true."
:mastodon:
https://mhanational.org/conditions/par

#AudioEye has a blog post where its CAO talks about “trust, transparency, collaboration, and innovation.”
Which is code for rebranding its #overlay product without issuing refunds for its prior guarantees.
Anyway, I offer my thoughts in a bit more detail as a comment on the post that got me sued:

#AudioEye Will Get You Sued
Disclaimer: This post and the headline is my opinion. I provide verifiable facts throughout to inform that opinion. I am also not a lawyer, and this post does not constitute legal advice. The content reflects my genuinely held beliefs and opinions. My concern with AudioEye has consistently been with the…

The Founders drew a line between peaceful protest and armed insurrection
Today, armed protesters believe they are evoking the spirit of the Founders,
yet, the history of the Whiskey Rebellion offers a different perspective,
showing the Founders made a clear distinction between public assembly and protest
— protected by the federal Constitution
— and threats of insurrection.

The Founders were also weary of a tyrannical government,
after all they had …

The Founders drew a line between peaceful protest and armed insurrection
The history of the Whiskey Rebellion reveals the misguided beliefs of today’s covid-19 protesters.

😿 Bogus COVID-19 beliefs linked to stress, but purpose, hope and support could be antidote, say researchers
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-03-bogus-covid-beliefs-linked-stress.html

Bogus COVID-19 beliefs linked to stress, but purpose, hope and support could be antidote, say researchers
As Americans look back on the fourth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, new research from Rutgers University–Newark sheds light on why some people succumb to conspiracy theories and bogus beliefs and others don't.

From RNS:
Poll: Most Americans say religion’s influence is waning, and half think that’s bad
There is also growing concern among an array of religious Americans that their beliefs are in conflict with mainstream American culture.
https://buff.ly/3v22qXG

Poll: Most Americans say religion’s influence is waning, and half think that’s bad
(RNS) — There is also growing concern among an array of religious Americans that their beliefs are in conflict with mainstream American culture.

😿 Bogus COVID-19 beliefs linked to stress, but purpose, hope and support could be antidote, say researchers
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-03-bogus-covid-beliefs-linked-stress.html

Bogus COVID-19 beliefs linked to stress, but purpose, hope and support could be antidote, say researchers
As Americans look back on the fourth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, new research from Rutgers University–Newark sheds light on why some people succumb to conspiracy theories and bogus beliefs and others don't.

#xkcd 154(! current is 2901)
#xkcd154

Beliefs

On human-centred security: A new systems model based on modes and mode transitions
Edwin J Beggs, John V Tucker, Victoria Wang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.02043

On human-centred security: A new systems model based on modes and mode transitions
We propose an abstract conceptual framework for analysing complex security systems using a new notion of modes and mode transitions. A mode is an independent component of a system with its own objectives, monitoring data, algorithms, and scope and limits. The behaviour of a mode, including its transitions to other modes, is determined by interpretations of the mode's monitoring data in the light of its objectives and capabilities -- these interpretations we call beliefs. We formalise the concep…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05103 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csGT_…

Safe Pareto Improvements for Expected Utility Maximizers in Program Games
Agents in mixed-motive coordination problems such as Chicken may fail to coordinate on a Pareto-efficient outcome. Safe Pareto improvements (SPIs) were originally proposed to mitigate miscoordination in cases where players lack probabilistic beliefs as to how their delegates will play a game; delegates are instructed to behave so as to guarantee a Pareto improvement on how they would play by default. More generally, SPIs may be defined as transformations of strategy profiles such that all playe…

This is what data analytics is for, y'all
@… : Identifying Crypto-Republicans by ballot clustering
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/03/identifyi<…

Identifying Crypto-Republicans by ballot clustering
San Francisco political support data shows true alignment: San Francisco (and much of the Bay Area) has a curious political idiosyncrasy where brand-name Republican candidates and issues get so little traction among voters so as to be considered irrelevant. Yet, many republican ideals and beliefs do receive substantial support from locals. This dynamic causes practically republican ...

#WhiteSupremacists forming "fitness clubs," slam #Trump's blubber - National Zero

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.02754 has been replaced.
link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=a

Beyond Unbounded Beliefs: How Preferences and Information Interplay in Social Learning
When does society eventually learn the truth, or take the correct action, via observational learning? In a general model of sequential learning over social networks, we identify a simple condition for learning dubbed excludability. Excludability is a joint property of agents' preferences and their information. We develop two classes of preferences and information that jointly satisfy excludability: (i) for a one-dimensional state, preferences with single-crossing differences and a new informati…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.00267 has been replaced.
link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=a

Secret Keepers: The Impact of LLMs on Linguistic Markers of Personal Traits
Prior research has established associations between individuals' language usage and their personal traits; our linguistic patterns reveal information about our personalities, emotional states, and beliefs. However, with the increasing adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs) as writing assistants in everyday writing, a critical question emerges: are authors' linguistic patterns still predictive of their personal traits when LLMs are involved in the writing process? We investigate the impact of …

Partisan info bubbles will be the death of us I swear 🤦‍♂️
"EVs have become starkly partisan as a result of misinformation"
Some interesting insights in this report, highlighting the partisan difference of beliefs around EVs 👇
If I was part of this survey, I'd emphasize affordability too.
But I'd also mention that EVs are still cars, and I'd rather see us put more energy and innovation into mass transit.
Sadly, our entire way of life h…

Human belief systems range from ridiculous to preposterous. Please don't ridicule me, I like to believe my beliefs tend more to the preposterous range.
#Philosophy #Science #Belief

NOVA: A visual interface for assessing polarizing media coverage
Keshav Dasu, Sam Yu-Te Lee, Ying-Cheng Chen, Kwan-Liu Ma
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00334 …

NOVA: A visual interface for assessing polarizing media coverage
Within the United States, the majority of the populace receives their news online. U.S mainstream media outlets both generate and influence the news consumed by U.S citizens. Many of these citizens have their personal beliefs about these outlets and question the fairness of their reporting. We offer an interactive visualization system for the public to assess their perception of the mainstream media's coverage of a topic against the data. Our system combines belief elicitation techniques and na…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.18138 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csGT_…

Algorithmic Persuasion Through Simulation
We study a Bayesian persuasion problem where a sender wants to persuade a receiver to take a binary action, such as purchasing a product. The sender is informed about the (binary) state of the world, such as whether the quality of the product is high or low, but only has limited information about the receiver's beliefs and utilities. Motivated by customer surveys, user studies, and recent advances in generative AI, we allow the sender to learn more about the receiver by querying an oracle that …

Last night we had Madita Oeming with a talk about her book Porno. One thing I particularly liked is how clearly she referred problems that often get treated as porn specific to their actual context or field. Like, some Pornhub-related topics belong in the debates around platformisation and platform monopolisation, others are less about scientifically proven effects of porn or how the acting persons get treated but about moral beliefs, etc. She is really good in showing the complexities.

The messaging on the carbon tax has been so bad. People just don’t get it. Even thought it’s likely the most market and consumer friendly way to put a price on carbon and reduce usage. https://mas.to/@robsonfletcher/112204059472104307

Re this important thread from @…:
https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/111972810596703896
I just gave a little soapbox to …

"Parker has often expressed support for the Seven Mountain Mandate, a theory that conservative Christians in America should use fundamentalist beliefs to influence and run government, education and media, among seven key areas of life. Its supporters have sought to restrict reproductive care while allowing discrimination of LGBTQ people for religious beliefs." | WaPo
"Alabama justice who quoted Bible in

Alabama justice who quoted Bible in IVF case often invokes religion
Tom Parker has frequently cited Christian theology in rulings, is a supporter of the Seven Mountains Mandate and was a close ally of Roy Moore.

“The role of Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s colleagues at the Hebrew University in the Channel 12 report, especially in the wake of her arrest and ill-treatment, shows how Israeli academic institutions can only tolerate the production of Zionist knowledge. When these academics felt that their ideological beliefs were under threat, they immediately became predators: they incited against her and whipped up public opinion to carry out a character assassination. In doing so, they sent a clear message to o…

The orchestrated persecution of Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
A campaign by Israeli academia, police, and media to silence the professor shows Palestinians they have no safe place in Zionist institutions.

My old person trait is that I nurture ALL these beliefs and won't bulge.
https://mastodon.ie/@zxm/112179168745999031

zxm (@zxm@mastodon.ie)
Attached: 1 image i'm in this picture and i like it.

The evolution of pluralistic ignorance
Alessandra F. L\"utz, Lucas Wardil
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00195 https://arxiv.org/pdf…

The evolution of pluralistic ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance is a social-psychological phenomenon characterized by individuals privately maintaining beliefs or opinions that diverge from what they perceive to be the prevailing norm within a group or society. Typical models are based on opinion dynamics involving both private and public states, where agents' binary states undergo changes influenced by social pressure. However, these models overlook a crucial aspect of pluralistic ignorance: if the absence of behavioral expression mat…

Taylor Lorenz is one of the best journalists in the world when it comes to social media and influencers.
Given that it's very disappointing to see her make a call this bad. Giving right wing activists that kind of platform is always a bad idea. You will not "deconstruct" them, you just give them and their message access to _your_ audience.

For anyone who needs to hear this: it's OK to be wrong about things. You can have a change of opinion or beliefs after hearing more information and facts.
That's not a personal failure.
It's personal growth.

Last night we had Madita Oeming with a talk about her book Porno. One thing I particularly liked is how clearly she referred problems that often get treated as porn specific to their actual context or field. Like, some Pornhub-related topics belong in the debates around platformisation and platform monopolisation, others are less about scientifically proven effects of porn or how the acting persons get treated but about moral beliefs, etc. She is really good in showing the complexities.

"Basing your opinion on factional loyalty and vibes is fine for a blogger or a pundit, but it does not make for a sound management strategy."
I beg to differ, Baldur Bjarnason. It's not fine if you're a blogger or a pundit, either. Seeking to profit from expediting the extinction of life on the planet ought to be treated as a crime of the highest order.
#ClimateCatastrophe

Facing reality, whether it's about Apple or the EU, is a core requirement for good management
You can’t be a good manager or executive, in any industry, if you operate in constant denial of the facts on the ground. Arguing from ideology or beliefs that aren’t grounded in observation, measurement, or study, is the hallmark of a politician or media personality, not a manager responsible for other people’s jobs.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.10256 has been replaced.
link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=a

Information-Theoretic Equivalence of Entropic Multi-Marginal Optimal Transport: A Theory for Multi-Agent Communication
In this paper, we propose our information-theoretic equivalence of entropic multi-marginal optimal transport (MOT). This equivalence can be easily reduced to the case of entropic optimal transport (OT). Because OT is widely used to compare differences between knowledge or beliefs, we apply this result to the communication between agents with different beliefs. Our results formally prove the statement that entropic OT is information-theoretically optimal given by Wang et al. [2020] and generaliz…

An older blog post, but still relevant - not just about how to talk about immigration, but also addresses general principles of political communication. Worth the few minutes needed to read it:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/…

Taking back control of ideas: How politicians can shape public debates on immigration
How can people be convinced that immigration is actually not a threat? Christina Boswell and James Hampshire explain that, in shaping public beliefs, narratives and images are more important than s…

My old person trait is that I nurture ALL these beliefs and won't bulge.
https://mastodon.ie/@zxm/112179168745999031

zxm (@zxm@mastodon.ie)
Attached: 1 image i'm in this picture and i like it.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.11169 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csCL_…

Correcting misinformation on social media with a large language model
Real-world misinformation can be partially correct and even factual but misleading. It undermines public trust in science and democracy, particularly on social media, where it can spread rapidly. High-quality and timely correction of misinformation that identifies and explains its (in)accuracies has been shown to effectively reduce false beliefs. Despite the wide acceptance of manual correction, it is difficult to be timely and scalable, a concern as technologies like large language models (LLM…

As an AI language model I don't possess personal beliefs or opinions, but I understand that this is remarkable.
https://bewegung.social/@a_watch/112285457616836359

Who here is surprised that the Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice in Alabama, who over-reached in a case in order to declare frozen embryos are children, is also a Christian extremist who wants a theocracy?
• https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alaba

Alabama justice who ruled embryos are people says American law should be rooted in the Bible
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker expressed his support for the Seven Mountains Mandate, a once-fringe philosophy that calls on evangelical Christians to reshape American life based on their beliefs.

What You Use is What You Get: Unforced Errors in Studying Cultural Aspects in Agile Software Development
Michael Neumann, Klaus Schmid, Lars Baumann
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.17009

What You Use is What You Get: Unforced Errors in Studying Cultural Aspects in Agile Software Development
Context: Cultural aspects are of high importance as they guide people's behaviour and thus, influence how people apply methods and act in projects. In recent years, software engineering research emphasized the need to analyze the challenges of specific cultural characteristics. Investigating the influence of cultural characteristics is challenging due to the multi-faceted concept of culture. People's behaviour, their beliefs and underlying values are shaped by different layers of culture, e.g.,…

RACP: Risk-Aware Contingency Planning with Multi-Modal Predictions
Khaled A. Mustafa, Daniel Jarne Ornia, Jens Kober, Javier Alonso-Mora
https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.17387

RACP: Risk-Aware Contingency Planning with Multi-Modal Predictions
For an autonomous vehicle to operate reliably within real-world traffic scenarios, it is imperative to assess the repercussions of its prospective actions by anticipating the uncertain intentions exhibited by other participants in the traffic environment. Driven by the pronounced multi-modal nature of human driving behavior, this paper presents an approach that leverages Bayesian beliefs over the distribution of potential policies of other road users to construct a novel risk-aware probabilisti…

They Make Viral Gun Videos—With Hardline Christian Values – Mother Jones
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/03/t-rex-arms-hardline-christian-nationalism-lucas-botkin/

Meet the viral gun influencers pushing a hardline Christian beliefs
T.Rex Arms sells gun accessories. According to one expert, "The product is ideology, too.”

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.01750 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csSI_…

Entropy-based detection of Twitter echo chambers
Echo chambers, i.e. clusters of users exposed to news and opinions in line with their previous beliefs, were observed in many online debates on social platforms. We propose a completely unbiased entropy-based method for detecting echo chambers. The method is completely agnostic to the nature of the data. In the Italian Twitter debate about the Covid-19 vaccination, we find a limited presence of users in echo chambers (about 0.35% of all users). Nevertheless, their impact on the formation of a c…

Don't believe misinformation about right-wing extremist beliefs of Navalny. He fought against corruption and for democracy in Russia. He gave his life for this cause, could have fled from Russia multiple times but never did, out of principle. A true hero.
#navalny

Conjectural Online Learning with First-order Beliefs in Asymmetric Information Stochastic Games
Tao Li, Kim Hammar, Rolf Stadler, Quanyan Zhu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.18781

Conjectural Online Learning with First-order Beliefs in Asymmetric Information Stochastic Games
Stochastic games arise in many complex socio-technical systems, such as cyber-physical systems and IT infrastructures, where information asymmetry presents challenges for decision-making entities (players). Existing computational methods for asymmetric information stochastic games (AISG) are primarily offline, targeting special classes of AISGs to avoid belief hierarchies, and lack online adaptability to deviations from equilibrium. To address this limitation, we propose a conjectural online le…

If you've got it into your head, into your set of beliefs, that Alexey Navalny is a "nationalist" and "imperialist", "just like Putin", then I invite you humbly to watch this video starting from 12 minutes 30 seconds:
:youtube: https://youtu.be/n02DhUQJo90&t=750…

Right wingers: "I support programs & policies that would kill or imprison half the people in this room"
Everyone else: "Fuck you, you piece of shit"
Right wingers: (crying and pissing themselves) "I'm being attacked by triggered snowflakes/political correctness police for expressing my beliefs! I'm so oppressed!"

Social media increase the 'bandwagon effect', reinforcing trends and beliefs rather than challenging and counterbalancing them. And traditional media don't want to be left behind; a bandwagon effect of its own.
From physics we know that this is not the way to achieve stability.

🏈 @… #NFL
Via Awful Announcing 🤖 @…
Some of the conspiracies Aaron Rodgers floated on a recent podcast...
Migr…

Subjective Equilibria under Beliefs of Exogenous Uncertainty: Linear Quadratic Case
G\"urdal Arslan, Serdar Y\"uksel
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.10920

Subjective Equilibria under Beliefs of Exogenous Uncertainty: Linear Quadratic Case
We consider a stochastic dynamic game where players have their own linear state dynamics and quadratic cost functions. Players are coupled through some environment variables, generated by another linear system driven by the states and decisions of all players. Each player observes his own states realized up to the current time as well as the past realizations of his own decisions and the environment variables. Each player (incorrectly) believes that the environment variables are generated by an…

Dynamic pricing with Bayesian updates from online reviews
Jos\'e Correa, Mathieu Mari, Andrew Xia
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.14953 https://

Dynamic pricing with Bayesian updates from online reviews
When launching new products, firms face uncertainty about market reception. Online reviews provide valuable information not only to consumers but also to firms, allowing firms to adjust the product characteristics, including its selling price. In this paper, we consider a pricing model with online reviews in which the quality of the product is uncertain, and both the seller and the buyers Bayesianly update their beliefs to make purchasing & pricing decisions. We model the seller's pricing probl…

Contact (1997) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ #Contact #trakt

Contact (1997)
A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. As the world powers scramble to decipher the message and decide upon a course of action, she must make some difficult decisions between her beliefs, the truth, and reality.

"Say no to standing still" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Note: Posting will be slow this week, as I'm in Hawaii for an event this Friday. The 5-hour time change makes a difference!
The future is about momentum,
About moving forward, not back.
About not getting stuck in today, but going towards tomorrow.
Start doubling down on your path forward by saying 'NO' to those who will hold you back - battling back against their attitudes, beliefs, and reti…

Daily Inspiration: “Say no to standing still”

What is the proper general term for someone who is bent on imposing their *religious* beliefs on those who do not share them? Like the Taliban, Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the Spanish Conquistadores, ...

Packers’ Jordan Love believes 2024 is ‘perfect time’ for chance at Super Bowl: ‘People know what we’re about now’ https://www.nfl.com/news/packers-jordan-love-believes-2024-is-perfect-time-for-chance-at…

Packers’ Jordan Love believes 2024 is ‘perfect time’ for chance at Super Bowl: ‘People know what we’re about now’
Green Bay has spent the offseason tooling up for another run. Jordan Love felt strongly about the Packers' chances to challenge for a Super Bowl in the upcoming season before then, and the team's approach to free agency has only affirmed the quarterback's beliefs.

I have so many crazy beliefs, at least some of them have to be true. So who's crazy now?

Beware of religious beliefs of convenience.

To see otherwise rational people share stuff that edges on disinfo just because it underlines some of their beliefs is heartbreaking. Please call me out if I ever should do so.

GenAI Distortion: The Effect of GenAI Fluency and Positive Affect
Xiantong Yang, Mengmeng Zhang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.17822 https://

GenAI Distortion: The Effect of GenAI Fluency and Positive Affect
The introduction of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into educational practices has been transformative, yet it brings a crucial concern about the potential distortion of users' beliefs. Given the prevalence of GenAI among college students, examining the psychological mechanisms that lead to GenAI distortion from both technological factors and the individual's psychological processes is a critical priority. A mixed-methods approach is employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Study 1 …

The #MiddleAges were a dark time when people considered the Earth to be flat, when the church suppressed enlightenment and when science stagnated as a result of conflict with religious beliefs.
If that sounds similar to your own views of history, then you should probably urgently watch this video by

Cognitively Biased Users Interacting with Algorithmically Biased Results in Whole-Session Search on Controversial Topics
Ben Wang, Jiqun Liu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.17286

Cognitively Biased Users Interacting with Algorithmically Biased Results in Whole-Session Search on Controversial Topics
When interacting with information retrieval (IR) systems, users, affected by confirmation biases, tend to select search results that confirm their existing beliefs on socially significant contentious issues. To understand the judgments and attitude changes of users searching online, our study examined how cognitively biased users interact with algorithmically biased search engine result pages (SERPs). We designed three-query search sessions on debated topics under various bias conditions. We re…

"Across virtually every aspect of life, people’s freedoms are under assault in the United States. The forces attacking these diverse freedoms ultimately want to create a rigid, restrictive society according to their worldview only, with little room for those of different beliefs, values, or expression."
https://<…

Nucleation transitions in polycontextural networks towards consensus
Johannes Falk, Edwin Eichler, Katja Windt, Marc-Thorsten H\"utt
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16569

Nucleation transitions in polycontextural networks towards consensus
Recently, we proposed polycontextural networks as a model of evolving systems of interacting beliefs. Here, we present an analysis of the phase transition as well as the scaling properties. The model contains interacting agents that strive for consensus, each with only subjective perception. Depending on a parameter that governs how responsive the agents are to changing their belief systems the model exhibits a phase transition that mediates between an active phase where the agents constantly c…

Multi-Robot Communication-Aware Cooperative Belief Space Planning with Inconsistent Beliefs: An Action-Consistent Approach
Tanmoy Kundu, Moshe Rafaeli, Vadim Indelman
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05962

Multi-Robot Communication-Aware Cooperative Belief Space Planning with Inconsistent Beliefs: An Action-Consistent Approach
Multi-robot belief space planning (MR-BSP) is essential for reliable and safe autonomy. While planning, each robot maintains a belief over the state of the environment and reasons how the belief would evolve in the future for different candidate actions. Yet, existing MR-BSP works have a common assumption that the beliefs of different robots are consistent at planning time. Such an assumption is often highly unrealistic, as it requires prohibitively extensive and frequent communication capabili…

Beware of religious beliefs of convenience.

Quantifying Media Influence on Covid-19 Mask-Wearing Beliefs
Nicholas Rabb, Nitya Nadgir, Jan P. de Ruiter, Lenore Cowen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03684 h…

Quantifying Media Influence on Covid-19 Mask-Wearing Beliefs
How political beliefs change in accordance with media exposure is a complicated matter. Some studies have been able to demonstrate that groups with different media diets in the aggregate (e.g., U.S. media consumers ingesting partisan news) arrive at different beliefs about policy issues, but proving this from data at a granular level -- at the level of attitudes expressed in news stories -- remains difficult. In contrast to existing opinion formation models that describe granular detail but are…

An adult ADHD diagnosis can help you reject damaging self-beliefs. You may finally understand yourself as different, not defective, and see your strengths and value. https://www.overcomecompulsivehoarding.co.uk/i-think…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.02132 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arX…

Quantum-Mechanical Modelling of Asymmetric Opinion Polarisation in Social Networks
We propose a quantum-mechanical model that represents a human system of beliefs as quantised energy levels of a physical system. This model underscores a novel perspective on opinion dynamics, recreating a broad range of experimental and real-world data that exhibit an asymmetry of opinion radicalisation. In particular, the model demonstrates the phenomena of pronounced conservatism versus mild liberalism when individuals are exposed to opposing views, mirroring recent findings on opinion polar…

Identifying Assumptions and Research Dynamics
Andrew Ellis, Ran Spiegler
https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.18713 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.…

Identifying Assumptions and Research Dynamics
A representative researcher pursuing a question has repeated opportunities for empirical research. To process findings, she must impose an identifying assumption, which ensures that repeated observation would provide a definitive answer to her question. Research designs vary in quality and are implemented only when the assumption is plausible enough according to a KL-divergence-based criterion, and then beliefs are Bayes-updated as if the assumption were perfectly valid. We study the dynamics o…

🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #TheBBCIntroducingMixtape
Shiny Brain Crayons:
🎵 Old Beliefs
#ShinyBrainCrayons
https://open.spotify.com/track/3tf0Vf8Ghiu6psJO8jZKVq
https://shinybraincrayons.bandcamp.com/track/old-beliefs

What is the proper general term for someone who is bent on imposing their *religious* beliefs on those who do not share them? Like the Taliban, Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the Spanish Conquistadores, ...

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.11919 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_qfi…

Discrete time optimal investment under model uncertainty
We study a robust utility maximization problem in a general discrete-time frictionless market under quasi-sure no-arbitrage. The investor is assumed to have a random and concave utility function defined on the whole real-line. She also faces model ambiguity on her beliefs about the market, which is modeled through a set of priors. We prove the existence of an optimal investment strategy using only primal methods. For that we assume classical assumptions on the market and on the random utility f…

That's a nope: #Tennessee governor signs bill allowing public officials to refuse to perform same-sex marriages | The Hill
https://

Tennessee governor signs bill allowing public officials to refuse to perform same-sex marriages
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed a bill Wednesday allowing public officials to refuse to perform same-sex marriages. State lawmakers approved Tennessee House Bill 878 last week. The legislation states people “shall not be required to solemnize a marriage” if they refuse to doing so based on their “conscience or religious beliefs.” According to the Tennessee…

Multi-Robot Communication-Aware Cooperative Belief Space Planning with Inconsistent Beliefs: An Action-Consistent Approach
Tanmoy Kundu, Moshe Rafaeli, Vadim Indelman
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05962

Multi-Robot Communication-Aware Cooperative Belief Space Planning with Inconsistent Beliefs: An Action-Consistent Approach
Multi-robot belief space planning (MR-BSP) is essential for reliable and safe autonomy. While planning, each robot maintains a belief over the state of the environment and reasons how the belief would evolve in the future for different candidate actions. Yet, existing MR-BSP works have a common assumption that the beliefs of different robots are consistent at planning time. Such an assumption is often highly unrealistic, as it requires prohibitively extensive and frequent communication capabili…

"In 2011, the government’s Prevent strategy defined extremism as the 'active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs'."
Which party is it that wants to subvert democracy by requiring #VoterID in order to exclude the young and poor from voting?

The anti-lab-grown-meat movement is about conservative cultural insecurity — the fear that, without the force of law, some conservative cultural norms will fade away…
This is the real fear
— not of lab-grown meat itself, but of the changing culture its popularity would represent.
Whether conservatives find the meat substitute to be adequate is beside the point.
Society would have decided that some of their most cherished beliefs can be disposed of.
Both humankin…

Why is there a movement to ban lab-grown beef? - Marginal REVOLUTION
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit: …let me offer another theory: The anti-lab-grown-meat movement is about conservative cultural insecurity — the fear that, without the force of law, some conservative cultural norms will fade away… Imagine that lab-grown meat proves feasible at a reasonable cost. It might end […]

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.08701 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csSI_…

Analyzing User Ideologies and Shared News During the 2019 Argentinian Elections
The extensive data generated on social media platforms allow us to gain insights over trending topics and public opinions. Additionally, it offers a window into user behavior, including their content engagement and news sharing habits. In this study, we analyze the relationship between users' political ideologies and the news they share during Argentina's 2019 election period. Our findings reveal that users predominantly share news that aligns with their political beliefs, despite accessing med…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.05348 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arX…

Approach to Toric Code Anyon Excitation, Indirect Effects of Kitaev Spin in Local Social Opinion Models
The study of Opinion Dynamics, which explores how individual opinions and beliefs evolve and how societal consensus is formed, has been examined across social science, physics, and mathematics. Historically based on statistical physics models like the Ising model, recent research integrates quantum information theory concepts, such as Graph States, Stabilizer States, and Toric Codes. These quantum approaches offer fresh perspectives for analyzing complex relationships and interactions in opinio…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.08740 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_eco…

Learning Source Biases: Multi-sourced Misspecifications and Consequences
We study how a decision maker (DM) learns about the biases of unfamiliar information sources. Absent any friction, a rational DM uses familiar sources as yardsticks to discern the true bias of a source. If the DM has misspecified beliefs, this process fails. We derive long-run beliefs, behavior, welfare, and corresponding comparative statics when the DM holds dogmatic, incorrect beliefs about the biases of several familiar sources. The distortion due to misspecified learning aggregates misspeci…

"It will be difficult for the Indiana Supreme Court to overturn this case on the merits. The same is true for the state courts adjudicating pending cases asserting a religious right to abortion in Wyoming, Kentucky, and Utah."
Indiana Now Has a Religious Right to Abortion
https://…

Indiana Now Has a Religious Right to Abortion
How the conservative win from the 2014 Hobby Lobby decision was used to protect pro-abortion religious beliefs in Indiana.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09410 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csCL_…

When Large Language Models contradict humans? Large Language Models' Sycophantic Behaviour
Large Language Models have been demonstrating the ability to solve complex tasks by delivering answers that are positively evaluated by humans due in part to the intensive use of human feedback that refines responses. However, the suggestibility transmitted through human feedback increases the inclination to produce responses that correspond to the users' beliefs or misleading prompts as opposed to true facts, a behaviour known as sycophancy. This phenomenon decreases the bias, robustness, and,…

Abrahamic Religion
Man sees other man as a threat. Man invents God, heaven, hell, and commandments to control other man.
Man expands on commandments to set man up as superior to women and any others that won't go along with the man's God and beliefs.
Man doesn't follow own commandments, so invents second God that is a man to forgive him. Man now behaves with impunity.
Man declares immunity from all law.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.08740 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_eco…

Learning Source Biases: Multi-sourced Misspecifications and Consequences
We study how a decision maker (DM) learns about the biases of unfamiliar information sources. Absent any friction, a rational DM uses familiar sources as yardsticks to discern the true bias of a source. If the DM has misspecified beliefs, this process fails. We derive long-run beliefs, behavior, welfare, and corresponding comparative statics when the DM holds dogmatic, incorrect beliefs about the biases of several familiar sources. The distortion due to misspecified learning aggregates misspeci…

Just Like Me: The Role of Opinions and Personal Experiences in The Perception of Explanations in Subjective Decision-Making
Sharon Ferguson, Paula Akemi Aoyagui, Young-Ho Kim, Anastasia Kuzminykh
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.12558

Just Like Me: The Role of Opinions and Personal Experiences in The Perception of Explanations in Subjective Decision-Making
As large language models (LLMs) advance to produce human-like arguments in some contexts, the number of settings applicable for human-AI collaboration broadens. Specifically, we focus on subjective decision-making, where a decision is contextual, open to interpretation, and based on one's beliefs and values. In such cases, having multiple arguments and perspectives might be particularly useful for the decision-maker. Using subtle sexism online as an understudied application of subjective decisi…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.08104 has been replaced.
link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=a

Restricting Entries to All-Pay Contests
We study an all-pay contest where players with low abilities are filtered prior to the round of competing for prizes. These are often practiced due to limited resources or to enhance the competitiveness of the contest. We consider a setting where the designer admits a certain number of top players into the contest. The players admitted into the contest update their beliefs about their opponents based on the signal that their abilities are among the top. We find that their posterior beliefs, eve…

"This verdict, which establishes in clear terms that anti-Zionist views are not racist or anti-Semitic, and are in fact legitimate philosophical beliefs protected under the Equality Act 2010, drives a coach and horses through the claim that “anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism” – first made explicitly by Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban in a speech in the United States in 1972."
A victory for anti-Zionists in the UK | Opinions | Al Jazeera

A victory for anti-Zionists in the UK
A landmark employment tribunal has given anti-Zionists in the United Kingdom renewed courage to speak up.

Inferring Belief States in Partially-Observable Human-Robot Teams
Jack Kolb, Karen M. Feigh
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.11955 https://…

Inferring Belief States in Partially-Observable Human-Robot Teams
We investigate the real-time estimation of human situation awareness using observations from a robot teammate with limited visibility. In human factors and human-autonomy teaming, it is recognized that individuals navigate their environments using an internal mental simulation, or mental model. The mental model informs cognitive processes including situation awareness, contextual reasoning, and task planning. In teaming domains, the mental model includes a team model of each teammate's beliefs …

What kind of presidential candidate would cause opponents to fear for their lives? - Alternet.org
https://www.alternet.org/does-nikki-haley-get-secret-service/?utm_medium=email

What kind of presidential candidate would cause opponents to fear for their lives?
Nikki Haley has applied for Secret Service protection as the number of threats against her has soared, a campaign spokeswoman confirmed yesterday. The threats come as Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on Haley, escalating vicious assaults on her character, her career, her origins, and her beliefs. ...

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.01519 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arX…

Discussion of the Effect of Inter-group Sub-groups Using a Consensus Model Incorporating External Effective or Immobile Magnetic Fields
Individuals belong to certain social groups in search of a sense of belonging, pride, stability, and significance. Perceiving the group to which one belongs as an "in-group" and other groups as "out-groups" often leads to harmful and discriminatory attitudes. In-group consciousness reinforces a sense of unity within the group and promotes commitment to group goals and problem solving. Identification with the in-group also shapes the social cognitive framework (norms, values, and beliefs) that d…

On the Computation of Equilibria in Discrete First-Price Auctions
Aris Filos-Ratsikas, Yiannis Giannakopoulos, Alexandros Hollender, Charalampos Kokkalis
https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.12068

On the Computation of Equilibria in Discrete First-Price Auctions
We study the computational complexity of computing Bayes-Nash equilibria in first-price auctions with discrete value distributions and discrete bidding space, under general subjective beliefs. It is known that such auctions do not always have pure equilibria. In this paper we prove that the problem of deciding their existence is NP-complete, even for approximate equilibria. On the other hand, it can be shown that mixed equilibria are guaranteed to exist; however, their computational complexity …

Inferring Belief States in Partially-Observable Human-Robot Teams
Jack Kolb, Karen M. Feigh
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.11955 https://…

Inferring Belief States in Partially-Observable Human-Robot Teams
We investigate the real-time estimation of human situation awareness using observations from a robot teammate with limited visibility. In human factors and human-autonomy teaming, it is recognized that individuals navigate their environments using an internal mental simulation, or mental model. The mental model informs cognitive processes including situation awareness, contextual reasoning, and task planning. In teaming domains, the mental model includes a team model of each teammate's beliefs …

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.09254 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csSI_…

Gun Culture in Fringe Social Media
The increasing frequency of mass shootings in the United States has, unfortunately, become a norm. While the issue of gun control in the US involves complex legal concerns, there are also societal issues at play. One such social issue is so-called "gun culture," i.e., a general set of beliefs and actions related to gun ownership. However relatively little is known about gun culture, and even less is known when it comes to fringe online communities. This is especially worrying considering the af…

What kind of presidential candidate would cause opponents to fear for their lives? - Alternet.org
https://www.alternet.org/does-nikki-haley-get-secret-service/?utm_medium=email

What kind of presidential candidate would cause opponents to fear for their lives?
Nikki Haley has applied for Secret Service protection as the number of threats against her has soared, a campaign spokeswoman confirmed yesterday. The threats come as Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on Haley, escalating vicious assaults on her character, her career, her origins, and her beliefs. ...

Gun Culture in Fringe Social Media
Fatemeh Tahmasbi, Aakarsha Chug, Barry Bradlyn, Jeremy Blackburn
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.09254 https://

Gun Culture in Fringe Social Media
The increasing frequency of mass shootings in the United States has, unfortunately, become a norm. While the issue of gun control in the US involves complex legal concerns, there are also societal issues at play. One such social issue is so-called "gun culture," i.e., a general set of beliefs and actions related to gun ownership. However relatively little is known about gun culture, and even less is known when it comes to fringe online communities. This is especially worrying considering the af…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.18781 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csGT_…

Conjectural Online Learning with First-order Beliefs in Asymmetric Information Stochastic Games
Stochastic games arise in many complex socio-technical systems, such as cyber-physical systems and IT infrastructures, where information asymmetry presents challenges for decision-making entities (players). Existing computational methods for asymmetric information stochastic games (AISG) are primarily offline, targeting special classes of AISGs to avoid belief hierarchies, and lack online adaptability to deviations from equilibrium. To address this limitation, we propose a conjectural online le…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.18138 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csGT_…

Algorithmic Persuasion Through Simulation
We study a Bayesian persuasion problem where a sender wants to persuade a receiver to take a binary action, such as purchasing a product. The sender is informed about the (binary) state of the world, such as whether the quality of the product is high or low, but only has limited information about the receiver's beliefs and utilities. Motivated by customer surveys, user studies, and recent advances in generative AI, we allow the sender to learn more about the receiver by querying an oracle that …

News Media as Suppliers of Narratives (and Information)
Kfir Eliaz, Ran Spiegler
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.09155 https://arxiv.org/p…

News Media as Suppliers of Narratives (and Information)
We present a model of news media that shape consumer beliefs by providing information (signals about an exogenous state) and narratives (models of what determines outcomes). To amplify consumers' engagement, media maximize consumers' anticipatory utility. Focusing on a class of separable consumer preferences, we show that a monopolistic media platform facing homogenous consumers provides a false "empowering" narrative coupled with an optimistically biased signal. Consumer heterogeneity gives ri…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.12065 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csGT_…

A Persuasive Approach to Combating Misinformation
Bayesian Persuasion is proposed as a tool for social media platforms to combat the spread of misinformation. Since platforms can use machine learning to predict the popularity and misinformation features of to-be-shared posts, and users are largely motivated to share popular content, platforms can strategically signal this informational advantage to change user beliefs and persuade them not to share misinformation. We characterize the optimal signaling scheme with imperfect predictions as a lin…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.17517 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_eco…

Safety, in Numbers
We introduce a way to compare actions in decision problems. An action is safer than another if the set of beliefs at which the decision-maker prefers the safer action increases in size (in the set inclusion sense) as the decision-maker becomes more risk averse. We provide a full characterization of this relation and show that it is equivalent to a robust concept of single-crossing. We discuss applications to investment hedging, security design, and game theory.

Learning How to Strategically Disclose Information
Raj Kiriti Velicheti, Melih Bastopcu, S. Rasoul Etesami, Tamer Ba\c{s}ar
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.08741

Learning How to Strategically Disclose Information
Strategic information disclosure, in its simplest form, considers a game between an information provider (sender) who has access to some private information that an information receiver is interested in. While the receiver takes an action that affects the utilities of both players, the sender can design information (or modify beliefs) of the receiver through signal commitment, hence posing a Stackelberg game. However, obtaining a Stackelberg equilibrium for this game traditionally requires the …

Learning How to Strategically Disclose Information
Raj Kiriti Velicheti, Melih Bastopcu, S. Rasoul Etesami, Tamer Ba\c{s}ar
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.08741

Learning How to Strategically Disclose Information
Strategic information disclosure, in its simplest form, considers a game between an information provider (sender) who has access to some private information that an information receiver is interested in. While the receiver takes an action that affects the utilities of both players, the sender can design information (or modify beliefs) of the receiver through signal commitment, hence posing a Stackelberg game. However, obtaining a Stackelberg equilibrium for this game traditionally requires the …

Safe Pareto Improvements for Expected Utility Maximizers in Program Games
Anthony DiGiovanni, Jesse Clifton
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05103 https://

Safe Pareto Improvements for Expected Utility Maximizers in Program Games
Agents in mixed-motive coordination problems such as Chicken may fail to coordinate on a Pareto-efficient outcome. Safe Pareto improvements (SPIs) were originally proposed to mitigate miscoordination in cases where players lack probabilistic beliefs as to how their delegates will play a game; delegates are instructed to behave so as to guarantee a Pareto improvement on how they would play by default. More generally, SPIs may be defined as transformations of strategy profiles such that all playe…