Paul Smaldino

@psmaldino.bsky.social

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Paradigmatically promiscuous scientist. Modeler of cultural evolution and related topics. Professor at UC Merced and the Santa Fe Institute.
Web: https://smaldino.com/wp/

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Paul Smaldino

I’ve got a book out soon, grandiosely entitled “Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species.” What’s my book all about, you ask? A thread 🧵👇 www.amazon.com/Disbelief-Or...

Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species: Gervais Ph.D, Will M.: 9781633889248: Amazon.com: Bookswww.amazon.com Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species [Gervais Ph.D, Will M.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species

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Paul Smaldino

As usual, Rebecca Solnit nails it. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Why is the pundit class so desperate to push Biden out of the race? | Rebecca Solnitwww.theguardian.com Yes, Biden had a bad debate – but so did Trump. The media is once again repeating the mistakes of 2016

Ok, hear me out: TWO Chauncey Gardiners.

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Paul Smaldino

these assholes are going to start a resource war

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This but unironically.

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Paul Smaldino

More trains please.

Paw Patrol is essentially technofascist propaganda. Even has the totally ineffectual mayor to convey private > public.

The thesis statement of the show seems to be basically that public services should be replaced by private outreach groups run by independently wealthy children and dogs.

Because we all need a little joy right now, I’ll let you know that I’ve successfully gotten my 5-year-old into Jonathan Richman.

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Paul Smaldino

Preprint: a cross-cultural review of knots. Using archaeo & anthro data, our study reveals the cultural evolution of knots across 10k years and 83 societies. With mathy methods, we show which knots are most common & how they shaped human innovation. A knotted thread. 🧵🏺 osf.io/preprints/os...

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I can't remember a tech campaign this relentless.

Jeff is incredibly curious, extremely detail oriented, and an amazing educator. If you’re a complex systems/cogsci person, check out his new book detailing all the cool things that can happen with Braitenberg vehicles.

My book with Scott Hotton on Braitenberg Vehicles was published yesterday 🥳. The result of thousands of backyard meetings and zoom calls, the book confirms what I'll call Braitenberg's dictum: even the simplest systems contain great wealths of complexity. mitpress.mit.edu/978026254819...

The Open Dynamics of Braitenberg Vehiclesmitpress.mit.edu An introduction to dynamical systems theory, a detailed mathematical analysis of pairs of Braitenberg vehicles, and a look at how these results apply to the ...

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I would like more trains, and faster.

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Our (with Oskar Burger and Ron Lee) edited volume Human Evolutionary Demography is now published by Open Book Publishers 🎉 32 chapters completely free to read, including an impressive line-up of researchers working in this area 😊

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Hey I made a visualization of the proposed Elon Musk pay package. yyahn.com/elon_paypack... Let me know what you think! 🙈 You can also suggest improvements: github.com/yy/elon_payp...

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Paul Smaldino

Is anyone working on either duplicating Scholar Google or buying it from them (it doesn’t make any money for them!) before they get around to encrappifying it?

Yes to more of this.

The leader of the Massachusetts Senate is pushing legislation that would create the first universal statewide tuition-free community college program (no income caps or age limits). Expect major pushback behind the scenes from state universities.

Massachusetts moves toward free community college for allwww.insidehighered.com The first year of a program offering free college for those over 25 was a rousing success at boosting enrollment. Now, some legislators want to expand the program to all ages.

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💀

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Paul Smaldino

Just replicated - wildly irresponsible for Google to turn this loose. Normies use Google and don't know about AI caveats. The scope of potential harms seems far greater than LLMs.

oh my god

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The origin story of the term ‘allomother’ (anyone caring for a child other than the mother), from Sarah Hrdy’s new book 👇 E.O. Wilson suggested the term, Hrdy adopted it and now it exists out there in the real world

Heading for a nice visit to IAST in Toulouse, kicking off with this workshop on Identity and Politics. I am prepared to be pretty stressed out from spending 2 full days on this topic, but hopefully something useful comes out of it. www.iast.fr/interdiscipl...

Interdisciplinary Workshop on Identity and Politicswww.iast.fr Interdisciplinary Workshop on Identity and Politics, Toulouse, TSE/IAST Building, May 15–16, 2024.

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Just placed the order for @psmaldino.bsky.social's new book on Modeling Social Behavior. There's a sale going on, and the book is priced at 50% discount in the Princeton University Press website. So you can get the paperback at around $30!

📚 Paul Smaldino’s (@psmaldino.bsky.social) new book, “Modeling Social Behavior.” explores the power of computational modeling to understand why misinformation spreads, cooperation falters, and vaccination hesitancy persists. www.santafe.edu/news-center/...

Last week, I’d been feeling pretty good about how the UC admins had been handling the protests. Not so much anymore.

It’s a rough day to be employed at UCLA.

I don’t have much use for these academies, but I’ll take this opportunity to say that every year that goes by I find more and more to be inspired by in the work of Rob and his collaborators. Absolutely field-defining. news.asu.edu/20240429-uni...

ASU faculty member elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences | ASU Newsnews.asu.edu Arizona State University Professor Robert Boyd is among those newly elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. Boyd is one of 250 ...

It would be pretty ironic if a horrifically disproportionate act of massive retaliation was launched against students protesting a horrifically disproportionate act of massive retaliation.

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My new professional home 😊 Delighted to be taking up the post of Director of the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London. Check out the amazing people I’ll now be working with (along with several new hires not yet on the website!) www.brunel.ac.uk/research/Cen...

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This is my first post on Bluesky. As a former director for civic integrity at Twitter, I’ve been familiar with Bluesky for years, even before it was a real thing. Today, I took the step of leaving Twitter, completely, and I’m happy to be here. Why? Here’s my last tweet: mem.ai/p/e83QTrTPnt...

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Eileen Clancy

Noëlle McAfee, President-elect, Emory Faculty Senate arrested after telling a cop to stop “pummeling” a young person on the ground. She was 4 ft away. Police told her to move. She said “No,” They arrested her. She tears up remembering the kid, wondering if they are OK. link: x.com/sanjenasathi...

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wtf are we even doing here? who is making these decisions are what exactly are they so scared of?

Police snipers on the roof at Ohio State watching the encampment.

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Wow. I read this this morning for nostalgia–it describes vividly what it's like to intersect with Dennett's life. But the best part is when the author describes how/why he switched from Chalmers' to Dennett's perspective on the "hard problem" of consciousness. www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

Daniel Dennett’s Science of the Soulwww.newyorker.com A philosopher’s lifelong quest to understand the making of the mind.