Paul Smaldino @psmaldino@qoto.org

I’ve finished Abram’s new book on competition. It is rewarding but hard. The most revealing passage is on page 288 after 100’s of pages of math. Abrams asks:

“Why have the aspects of [competition theory] been ignored?... A scientific approach to this question… is not possible, [but it may involve] the economics and sociology of the research environment.”

Makes me wonder if us theory folks need to focus less on the math and much more on the "economics and sociology of research environment".

This is the funniest thing I've read in ages. Also, mastodon is going to lose to bluesky because of lack of quotetweets https://infosec.exchange/@codinghorror/110828740888574284

Now out in Perspectives on Psychological Science, our discussion on how changing the reward structure to reward the group, instead of individuals, might lead to better science. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17456916231182568

A nice blog post about thinking when building models by Daniel Saunders
https://daniel-saunders-phil.github.io/imagination_machine/posts/if-none-of-the-above-then-what/

Sociologists: Apply to work with me at McGill Sociology!

We are hiring TWO tenure-track lines this year, one in social demography and one in qualitative methods. I can't say enough good things about the department, and Montreal is an unbeatable place to live.

Demography: https://mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/McGill_Careers/job/Leacock-Building/Assistant-Professor_JR0000028940

Qualitative: https://mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/McGill_Careers/job/Leacock-Building/Assistant-Professor---Department-of-Sociology_JR0000043118

#sociology #sociologie #socjobs #academicjobs @sociology

Fantastic explainer on LLMss from Timothy B. Lee (@timlee) and Sean Trott.
https://www.understandingai.org/p/large-language-models-explained-with

Highly recommend it if you want something that doesn't assume much technical expertise, but goes well beyond "LLMs just predict the next word".

It seems like Mastodon could use some more whimsy. To remedy that, here's a new song from my band. It's called Muffins, and it's about muffins. https://open.spotify.com/album/1GRP3NhWYd3joYgwRsjqEw?si=0QdWmjBVQYajdX5WVhIwtA

☢️ a couple music-related posts

second one: "muffins," the first single from the new album by the small dinosaurs — the brainchild of @psmaldino

https://smalldinosaurs.bandcamp.com/album/muffins

https://songwhip.com/thesmalldinosaurs/muffins

what it is: absurdist indie rock. think: jonathan richman, early talking heads, etc. i think of it as children's music for adults

this song is literally about muffins

my involvement: produced / engineered / mixed / mastered

the whole record is 🏆

how good is this single artwork?

Rate Limit Exceeded would be a great album title. Alas, I’m not in a band anymore.

First chapter of Paul Smaldino's @psmaldino new book available for preview at https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691224145/modeling-social-behavior#preview

Majority of nation's spike in requests to ban books from libraries came from just 11 individuals.

Democracy, amirite?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/05/23/lgbtq-book-ban-challengers/

Hey look, you can now view (and download) the ToC and Chapter 1 from my forthcoming modeling book. This chapter provides something of a philosophical grounding before we get into the more technical weeds in the subsequent chapters.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691224145/modeling-social-behavior#preview