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Jag Bhalla
Science Writer, Blogger, and Essayist
Jag Bhalla is a writer and entrepreneur. Current projects include this "Thought Fix" blog series for Big Think. And NanoSalad a zero-prep way to zap veggie gaps (by BodZoo LLC, a future-friendly, basic-by-design business, see www.bodzoo.com for further details). Prior projects include "Errors We Live By," a series of short exoteric essays exposing errors in the big ideas running our lives. And I'm Not Hanging Noodles On Your Ears, a surreptitious science gift book from National Geographic Books, which explains his twitter handle @hangingnoodles.
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Is AI about to take over? Or does it struggle to be as smart as a toddler?
Terrorists exploit the “glamor of action movies, video games, and gangsta rap.” Counterterrorist efforts somehow have to counter that glamorization.
The big story that probably most shapes our times is too simple. We can't afford to go on ignoring its plot holes and more complex dark side.
The mental mechanics of how emotions and logic relate aren't widely understood. Our minds are built to mostly be "indirectly rational."
Where do we learn what matters? Are new forces crowding out the old sources of stories that shape us?
Although it seems savvy to defer to “the data,” the devil is in the mixed details. For example, humans on average have one testicle and one ovary.
Are too many taking liberties with the logic of our freedoms? A smart reassessment of Henry David Thoreau's work spotlights key related issues.
Beauty and duty are increasingly involved in an undeclared conflict. It's not a fair fight; one side is much stronger (illustrating how art works on our "hidden brain").
Free markets aren’t like gravity. They’re ruled by neither laws of nature nor commandments carved in stone. Delegating our ethics to markets risks costly error. All things are not equally auctionable.
Their hyper-repetitive patterns mean video games vastly outgun older emotech... like movies, or novels. Some emotech helps you be more human. Some reduces your "humanity." We shape our emotech, and then it shape us.
Technomorphic ideas can alter the rules of our thinking about our thinking — and also show that simple rules can escape physics-like predictability.
Biases and flaws are like foreheads — it’s easier to see others’ than your own. So our most cherished beliefs should be tested by rigorous bias-balancing processes.
Many market lovers hate what their love needs to work. An incomplete logic has them in its spell, blinding them to the fact that “invisible hand” cuts both ways.
Hayek viewed markets as distributed-intelligence systems that evolved to compute resource allocations. We can now update that view with ideas from computer science, biological signalling, and evolution.
Can we rely on Adam Smith's "invisible hand" to lead markets to "the best" overall outcome? Darwin's insights say no.
A key thought experiment, the "tragedy of the commons," is widely misunderstood, especially among certain kinds of economists. Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel Prize for showing how irrational they can be.
Our unique capacities were created by a major transition in evolution, which built a need for teamwork and inclusive economics deep into our nature. But many economists — quite unnaturally — exclude its logic from their ideas.
“Teamwork is the signature adaptation of” humanity, says David Sloan Wilson. And our ancestors evolved ruthlessly cooperative means of ensuring productive social coordination.
Division of labor creates a need for others. And it logically connects your interests with the interests of those needed others (which complicates evolutionary trade-offs).
Evolution can be seen as a process of discovering logic that works well in a particular environment. But evolution can't see what our foresight can grasp. In some cases the logic inherent in relationships of need (e.g. within groups) can be decisive.