Created by Rishabh Srivastava, Founder of Loki.ai
This summary was largely done for my own note-taking, sharing it just in case it adds more value to other people.
I have no affiliation whatsoever with anyone in this note. This is a summary largely taken for my own reference, and may contain errors :)
Context
Source URL:
Why is it important: The book analyses the consequences of preference falsification, and gives readers a powerful mental model to make sense of the world
Keywords
Preference Falsification, Surveys, Sampling, Polling
Summary
When trying to displace the status quo (politics, enterprise software, cryptocurrencies), you have to try and displace a preset public opinion. But this is really hard, because many people don't speak out their mind and live with the preset public opinion because of either reputational reasons or because they genuinely don't know what the disadvantages of the status quo are.
But this can be changed. A lot of revolutions (like open-source) appear sudden. Bu a rapid change in public opinion does not mean a rapid change in private opinion. Merely a rapid change in public display
How does the individual choose what preferences to convey? There are 3 considerations
- The satisfaction is is likely to obtain from society’s approval of his decision [Intrinsic Utility]
- The rewards and punishments associated with his chosen preference [Reputational Utility]
- The benefits he derives from truthful self-expression [Expressive Utility]
When planning to topple the status quo, engineer all 3
In the presence of preference falsification, private opposition may spread and intensify indefinitely without any apparent change in support for the status quo. Yet at some point the right event, even an intrinsically minor one, can make a few sufficiently disgruntled individuals reach their thresholds for speaking out against the status quo. Their switches can then impel others to add their own voices to the opposition. Public opposition can grow through a bandwagon process, with each addition generating further additions until much of society stands publicly opposed to the status quo
The risk of personal loss is greater for the first person to take up a cause or enforce a selective incentive than it is for the contributor to a cause already on the road to success. But some people have unusually intense wants on particular matters, coupled with extraordinarily great expressive needs. They are inclined to speak their minds even at the risk of severe punishment, and regardless of whether such truthful speech can make a difference.
Such exceptional individuals who will undertake to activate a movement may be characterised as activists. The generally far too numerous non-activists are too sensitive to reputational incentives to take part in the activation process. They will participate only if others have already lowered the cost or raised the benefit of participation.
Use pressure groups to support activists, and to recruit more non-activists
Organizations routinely adopt policies that they then retain indefinitely. A social order incorporates multitudes of decisions inherited from the past. Under the prevailing reputational incentives, people will not shift for fear that others will not. And others will not for fear that they will not. Public opinion may thus outlive the circumstances that created it.
This is the spiral of prudence: Nothing is ever done until every one is convinced that it ought to be done, and has been convinced so long that it is not time to do something else
Socially inefficient choice can endure because of people’s deficiency in pursuing their personal interests — a deficiency caused, for instance, by institutional constraints. When an inefficiency is sustained by preference falsification, the source of the problem is not some incapacity to maximise personal utility. Rather, it is the capacity to pursue one’s needs. If you bring enough pressure to bear, this can change.
Where the status quo owes its stability to preference falsification, there are people waiting for an opportunity, and perhaps others who can easily to induced, to stand up for change. Some eye-opening event or an apparent shift in social pressures may cause public opposition to swell. The public preferences of individuals are interdependent, so a jump in public opposition may be self augmenting. Under the right conditions, every jump will galvanise further jumps
Highlights
In a totalitarian system, where the government systematically persecutes dissenters. Fearful of official reprisals, potential critics refrain from saying what they think, from revealing their misgivings about government policies, from calling from reforms
But a despotic government is not the only source of fear. A more basic factor is public opinion. Even in democratic societies, unorthodox views can evoke enormous hostility
However strictly enforced, freedom of speech does not insulate people’s reputations from their expressed opinions. Individuals normally tailor their expressions to the prevailing social pressures
Part 1: Living a Lie
Key Insights: A rapid change in public opinion does not mean a rapid change in private opinion. Merely a rapid change in public display
Often, you face a choice between openness and concealment, between self-assertion and social accommodation, between maintaining your integrity and protecting your image. There are always good reasons to opt for insincerity, advantages that outweigh the benefits of being uncompromisingly and assertively truthful
If one distinguishing characteristic of preference falsification is that it brings discomfort to the falsified. Another is that it is a response to real of imagined social pressures to convey a particular preference.
Preference falsification may have unintended consequences. It represses important ideas. Yet it is not an unmitigated social menace. It can benefit others by suppressing the communication of knowledge that happens to be false. It can harmonize our social interactions by restraining impulses like malice, envy, and prejudice. And further, it can enhance vital social cooperation by silencing minor disagreements of opinion
There are 2 views around preference falsification. In the proconformist view, preference consolidation can go on indefinitely without altering the preferences being suppressed. In the anti-conformist view, the effects of preference falsification outlive the forces behind it (the latter is correct)
In the case of religious dissimulation, dissimulation may give way to genuine conversion. In this way, it carries the risk of annihilation.
The fear of leaks makes the number of officials involved with an issue inversely proportional to its significance.
Preference falsification produces two category of effects. First, expressed preferences have social consequences, as when women choosing to veil induce conformist responses from women who would rather stay unveiled
Second, the social climate fostered by preference falsification may transform the preferences people are trying to hide. An example is the eventual disappearance of a religion that is practiced only in secret
How does the individual choose what preferences to convey? There are 3 considerations
- The satisfaction is is likely to obtain from society’s approval of his decision [Intrinsic Utility]
- The rewards and punishments associated with his chosen preference [Reputational Utility]
- The benefits he derives from truthful self-expression [Expressive Utility]
Often, public opinion becomes self-reproducing. Though it may differ from private opinion. One socially significant consequence of preference falsification is that is leads to widespread public support for policies that would be rejected in a vote taken by secret ballot
Preference falsification influences public discourse. To conceal our private preferences successfully we must hide the knowledge on which they rest. Thus, we must reinforce our preference falsification through knowledge falsification. In doing so, we distort, corrupt, and impoverish the knowledge in the public domain. We conceal from others fact we know to be true and expose them to ones we consider false
Another possible consequence of preference falsification: widespread ignorance of the status quo’s disadvantages. In the process, members of society lose their capacity to want change. The status quo, once sustained because people were afraid to challenge it, will thus come to persist because no one understands its flaws or can imagine a better alternative. Preference falsification will have brought about intellectual narrowness and ossification
This outcome is likely when private knowledge is drawn largely from others. It is less likely on matters where personal experience is the primary source of private knowledge. If public discourse were the only determinant of private knowledge, a public consensus in favour of some policy (once attained) would become immutable. But in fact, private knowledge has other determinants and these can undermine an attained public consensus
In the presence of preference falsification, private opposition may spread and intensify indefinitely without any apparent change in support for the status quo. Yet at some point the right event, even an intrinsically minor one, can make a few sufficiently disgruntled individuals reach their thresholds for speaking out against the status quo. Their switches can then impel others to add their own voices to the opposition. Public opposition can grow through a bandwagon process, with each addition generating further additions until much of society stands publicly opposed to the status quo
Politics interferes with directly productive activity, which is one reason why most people devote little time to it. Highly politicised societies, observes Giovanni Sartorial, fall behind economically. Political hypertrophy brings economic atrophy.
The risk of personal loss is greater for the first person to take up a cause or enforce a selective incentive than it is for the contributor to a cause already on the road to success
Some people have unusually intense wants on particular matters, coupled with extraordinarily great expressive needs. Relative to most people, such individuals are insensitive to the prevailing reputational incentives, because they obtain unusually high satisfaction from truthful self expression. They are inclined to speak their minds even at the risk of severe punishment, and regardless of whether such truthful speech can make a difference
Such exceptional individuals who will undertake to activate a movement may be characterised as activists. The generally far too numerous non-activists are too sensitive to reputational incentives to take part in the activation process. They will participate only if others have already lowered the cost or raised the benefit of participation
The source of political power is public opinion, not private opinion. Because of this, pressure groups have an incentive to extend their support as much as possible
Collective Consevatism
Societies routinely adopt policies that they then retain indefinitely. At any particular time, therefore, a social order incorporates multitudes of decisions inherited from the past. This applies both to societies perceived as inert and to ones considered exceptionally dynamic. It applies to even those that promote the notion of “permanent revolution”. No community keeps all of its social arrangements constantly open to change.
Under the prevailing reputational incentives, people will not shift for fear that others will not. And others will not for fear that they will not. Public opinion may thus outlive the circumstances that created it
The spiral of prudence: Nothing is ever done until every one is convinced that it ought to be done, and has been convinced so long that it is not time to do something else
Socially inefficient choice can endure because of people’s deficiency in pursuing their personal interests — a deficiency caused, for instance, by institutional constraints. When an inefficiency is sustained by preference falsification, the source of the problem is not some incapacity to maximise personal utility. Rather, it is the capacity to pursue one’s needs
Public Discourse and Private Knowledge
Politics of Persuasion: Appeals to Social Proof
Repetition as Social Proof
Hard Knowledge vs Soft knowledge (soft knowledge is more prone to public opinion)
Belief Perseverance
By transferring believes from the realm of the thinkable to that of the unthinkable, social pressures induce the withdrawal of those beliefs from public discourse. The consequence reconstitution of public discourse distorts private knowledge. It makes people progressively less conscious of the disadvantages of what is publicly favoured and increasingly more conscious of the advantages. As a result, private opinion moves against the public unfavourable alternatives. Having lessened their public popularity, preference falsification thus ends up also lessening their private popularity.
An immediate consequence of the extinction of some idea is a shift in the relevant distribution of private preferences.
Generating surprise and unforeseen political revolutions
Where the status quo owes its stability to preference falsification, there are people waiting for an opportunity, and perhaps others who can easily to induced, to stand up for change. Some eye-opening event or an apparent shift in social pressures may cause public opposition to swell. The public preferences of individuals are interdependent, so a jump in public opposition may be self augmenting. Under the right conditions, every jump will galvanise further jumps