Max Henning

Democracy practitioner, background in neuroscience and social and behavioral science. Big fan of humans, despite it all.

[Don Pettit @astro_Pettit]

I finally have all 1.2 million raw image files from my latest mission to ISS! Here is a sample of one of my favorite Milky Way photos, taken from the Cupola with Nikon Z9, Arri Zeiss 15mm lens, T1.8 with custom sidereal drive that cancelled out star motion relative to our orbit.

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@daviddunn177 @MattRosoff Actually had the same experience but for brains. As soon as he started talking about brains and his approach to neuralink it was obvious that he did not in fact know what he was talking about

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@misandrism “Unstructured thinking” is the productivity framed version of it and it’s pretty well supported

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@ChillWaterson @Liz_Wheeler Ive heard that’s partly due to child mortality? So it doesn’t actually mean that ppl didn’t get old, just that lots died while infants? Haven’t personally verified this tho

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@QiaochuYuan A “profound capability for psychology” and yet asking on Reddit for people to talk to.. 🙄

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@PeterDiamandis Hey yeah no not at all. When surveilled people are less creative, less generative, and more easily controlled. This reduces the flexibility, adaptability, and dynamism of our societal systems, which is.. not great for those long time horizons you supposedly care about

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

Quite honestly it’s not constructive or helpful in any way to repost this as just a block quote like this, and actually much more likely to cause harm.

It signal boosts it and deepens polarization on both sides by highlighting one of the most intentionally divisive figures in national media.

He’s not just pandering to right wing folks, he WANTS folks on the left to see it, and to be outraged, to perceive that this is a standard default right wing viewpoint (which it isn’t), because then folks on the left will seem more extreme in how outraged they are, and that prevents center right folks from feeling safe moving left even if they would prefer to.

There’s plenty of ways to let folks know about this without just block quoting. Give context. Fact check. Highlight the underlying motive. Anything but this really

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@vortogen @midjourney Or more likely the idea that “more compute = more consciousness” isn’t right— check out Antonio Damasios work for a more evolutionarily and biologically grounded perspective

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

Increasingly convinced that democracy is about social norms much more than it is about institutions

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

Just want to say I appreciate you asking the question and the replies and the tone of it all.

Would echo what others have said. ID in principle is great, but the way this bill does it, without measures to lower financial and time costs etc, will create a big hill to climb for folks who are just getting by. At scale it will suppress voting among people who are legally eligible. Conveniently it will particularly affect many of the groups that are most frustrated by the administration and are likely to vote against it.

It’s entirely possible to implement voter ID in a way that makes it easier for eligible voters to vote while also making it harder for ineligible voters to, but this bill doesn’t do that.

The important thing is that this isn’t an accident. The people designing the policy know how policy works and what it will do. There were many decisions made about how to structure the policy, and what they settled on is 100% going to significantly reduce voting among eligible voters, and they know that, which makes it harder to deny that it’s intentional.

So, the bill is intentionally designed in a way that will make it harder to vote for specifically those groups that are most frustrated with this administration. Not great.

But it’s framed in such a way that if you point out these issues and try to change the bill to not hurt eligible voters, they scream that you want ineligible people to vote, that you support voter fraud. But ***no one*** on the left wants ineligible people to vote. No one. And if there is one we disavow them. We all want secure and verifiable elections, that’s obviously in everyone’s interest.

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@elonmusk Then why not include measures to ensure all eligible voters can get qualifying voter id easily and for free… ohhh right it’s because it’s actually a voter suppression bill!

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

How do you say you don’t understand, while avoiding mentioning the single most publicized central point of the opposition— that it will prevent voting among those who legally should be able to vote. No one on the left wants anyone who is not eligible to vote to be able to vote, that would be insane.

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

It’s not about the policies, or the gas prices, never was. Always about social group identity. And that identity is now becoming a liability. The social capital of MAGA is fracturing. The identity isn’t giving them safety and purpose in the way that it was. It’s now kind of embarrassing to be MAGA, not something that seemed cool and rebellious and irreverent. Some folks are backing away, some are in too deep and can’t afford to leave because they’ve alienated lots of people already.

It’s a tightrope moment, where folks will either keep jumping ship or will double down, depending largely on their experience of poking their head out of MAGA to see what the world outside is like. If they get hit with shame many will go right back in. If they get an off ramp and safety, they may actually leave and turn on maga to prove their belonging in the outside world.

At least that’s my view? Curious to hear others thoughts.

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@elonmusk That’s rich

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@davidharsanyi @NoBallsXXstalls That’s rich

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

One thing that often gets missed in these discussions is that people’s opinions on issues are usually unconsciously driven by social/group processing, and are less about the issues or beliefs themselves than about the groups they are part of and how safe or threatened they feel by other groups.

Much of what we believe is good or right we believe not because we’ve thought it all through from scratch (because most of our biases are invisible to us anyway), but because the right other people seem to believe it, or disagree with it.

For most folks, if we can help them feel safe in spaces outside their group, their commitment to their groups beliefs can soften. But it’s harder with provocateurs because they reinforce their own group membership by insulting others and provoking negative responses that are consistent with their prejudices 🤷‍♂️

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

Makes sense about candidates being a bridge too far, but I’m more talking about social influences/peer networks? We as social influences can reduce people’s susceptibility to Fox messaging— If a Fox viewer knows/trusts/has good experiences/relationships with folks that are Dems, they will subconsciously be less susceptible to Fox narratives, or at a minimum it will cause some dissonance for them, which is a good first step

A lot of what people think and believe “sounds right” is driven by these unconscious social calculations, and working on that level is at least a somewhat promising way to lower the threshold for people to change. Isn’t easy and isn’t a silver bullet but it’s one way to weaken foxs hold, whereas shaming/socially punishing them for their views will just amplify and reinforce what they’re hearing on Fox due to motivated reasoning. Idk, seems worth a shot at least

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

@wilksopinion @DerateTheHate 100%, and getting this message out now is more important than eve

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

What? All I'm saying that if we want their behavior to change, us shaming them prob won't help. Shame can change behavior but it can backfire pretty hard especially if it comes from an outgroup. Doesn't carry the same social pressure as it does when it comes from an in-group. Outgroup shame often pushes people further away, binds them more closely to their current group, and deepens rejection of whoever is doing the shaming.

Right now we really need to win again. We need them to stop voting for MAGA, and idk that shaming them harder this time will somehow convince them to support us? But seems you have a different lens on it?

[Max Henning @maxahenning]

its usually not about evidence at all, more about underlying unconscious social safety/group identity processes that make them reject automatically any information that challenges the beliefs that bind their social group together. It sucks and isn't fair but if we want to change their behavior shame probably isn't the way to go