iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 12/03/2026

Thanks, I've discovered there's a vertical seam in my monitor

Reposted by Mark Stanford

Charlie Thame @charliethame.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

For those in Bangkok next week please join us on Tha Prachan campus to hear Elliott Prasse-Freeman (@epf.bsky.social) to discuss his ongoing research. "The Political Economy of Rohingya Mass Violence: The Centrifugal/Centripetal Dialectic of Racial Capitalism"

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 19/11/2025

In the case of recruitment via social media, I wonder if quite a lot of this could be avoided simply by screening for duplicate IP addresses (and duplicate contact details for reimbursement). How many people can really be bothered to spoof hundreds of IP addresses for this amount of money?

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 07/11/2025

By 2038 the only programmers will be LLMs fed on the popular narrative that Y2K didn't happen because it was a false alarm, not because people worked hard to stop it. They won't do anything to avert the crisis and humanity will finally be destroyed by slop

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 05/11/2025

The median voter theorem falls apart when the political spectrum is bimodally distributed. The far right have understood this for 10+ years, while the centre-left all across the West continue in thrall to the median voter fantasy. Like generals fighting the last war www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Polarization, abstention, and the median voter theorem - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Polarization, abstention, and the median voter theorem

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Reposted by Mark Stanford

Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

The count down starts for #CESRabat! Follow @ces2026.bsky.social and join us May 11-13 next year for an exciting meeting in Rabat, Morocco. Massive thanks to the #CESRabat organising committee: Sarah Alami (co-chair) Mathieu Charbonneau (co-chair) Zachary Garfield Edmond Seabright

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 02/09/2025

The complacency and rudderless drift are reminiscent of the US under Biden. If the 'It can't happen here' mentality was naïve before, it's utterly inexcusable now.

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Complexity Science Hub @csh.ac.at · 23/07/2025

What do the gods want? The book Seshat History of Moralizing Religion explores how cultures from Egypt to India to the Americas linked morality to supernatural reward & punishment. Learn more & read about the book edited by Jenny Reddish, Peter Turchin and Jennifer Larson: shorturl.at/jUj6m

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 31/07/2025

Thus I argue that so-called 'collective propitiatory obligations' already constitute a form of moralising religion, even before the 'Axial Age'. And they persist today in the 'little traditions' of world religions not because of superstition, but because they powerfully support local cooperation.

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 31/07/2025

This isn't so different from e.g. Christian sin, in which harming others has often been thought of as wrong because it's disobedient to God. In both cases, the proximate cause of punishment is disobedience, but the ultimate cause is an interpersonal violation. In this case, defection/free-riding.

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 31/07/2025

Punishment happens when designated individuals fail to contribute to the common good. Emically, sacrificial obligations on behalf of the community are no different from public goods problems like maintaining a dam or a commons. Punishment results from people failing each other, not just the deity.

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 31/07/2025

Secondly, collective punishment for incorrect offerings to deities. Traditionally, this is seen as amoral, because the deity doesn't care about interpersonal behaviour; it is simply angered by not receiving its due. But I argue this is (often) a misconception.

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 31/07/2025

Firstly, what @manvir.bsky.social calls 'mystical harm beliefs', such as the evil eye. These are typically supernatural punishments for breaking local norms vital to social harmony. Whether or not they actually sustain cooperation, I argue they're emically a result of key interpersonal violations.

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 31/07/2025

Enjoyed putting together two chapters for this new volume on the history of how religions have come to see supernatural punishment and reward as moral (a result of interpersonal conduct). I argue that two kinds of supernatural punishment typically seen as amoral are actually moral.

berestabooks.com

Beresta Books

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 28/02/2025

I'm not sure there's a single word for it. Think of Austronesian peoples in Madagascar. When they arrived in the 6th century, they intermarried with 'indigenous' Bantu people. By the time the French arrived, they'd become 'indigenous'. You need whole sentences to explain the geographical trajectory

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 28/02/2025

'Indigenous' doesn't mean this. As you say, it comes from colonialism and it's only meaningful relative to an invading colonial population. That's why the only people who use it to refer to English people are on the far right - it's a racist dog whistle.

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Geoffrey Harris @geoffreyharris.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Science is a lot cheaper than most other investments. The anti-intellectual society is inescapably on the decline, abolishing its own future. Be the opposite of that. Go all-out for science, expertise and knowledge, because it pays back, many times over, as it did for the formerly-great America

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Evan Westra @evanwestra.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

In the past 5 years, there’s been an explosion of new work on the philosophy & cog sci of norms. If you want to get up to speed on it, check out this newly revised SEP entry on the Psychology of Normative Cognition by @dryan149.bsky.social, Stephen Setman & me. plato.stanford.edu/entries/psyc...

plato.stanford.edu

The Psychology of Normative Cognition (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Bowie's dad @80incognito.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

"The Special Feature 'Half a Century of Cultural Evolution' assembles answers from a broad array of scientific disciplines with vastly different views on culture, but with one uniting theme: that culture evolves." Open access www.pnas.org/topic/565

pnas.org

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Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 24/01/2025

Great new paper from @aiyanakoka.bsky.social consistent with the argument that 'mystical harm' can be seen as moralising supernatural punishment -- for local, particularistic norm violations

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Mark Stanford @markstanford.org · 28/12/2024

Yes, but also, moving some from obscurantist approaches to those that actually enable cumulative intellectual progress is good. Quantitative vs. qualitative is less the issue, I think, than sense vs. nonsense

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Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · 15/11/2024

Announcement! The next @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social CES conference will be at UM6P in Rabat, Morocco, provisional dates 11-13th May 2026! Hosted by Mathieu Charbonneau, @sarahalami.bsky.social, @zhgarfield.com & @edseabright.bsky.social. Save the dates! culturalevolutionsociety.org/news-and-eve...

culturalevolutionsociety.org

Cultural Evolution Society 2026 Conference Announced - Cultural Evolution Society

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