Good computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines. They get themselves learned and learned well, so that they get played long and hard by a great many people. This is how they and their designers survive and perpetuate themselves. If a game cannot be learned and even mastered at a certain level, it won't get played by enough people, and the company that makes it will go broke. Good learning in games is a capitalist-driven Darwinian process of selection of the fittest. Of course, game designers could have solved their learning problems by making games shorter and easier, by dumbing them down, so to speak. But most gamers don't want short and easy games. Thus, designers face and largely solve an intriguing educational dilemma, one also faced by schools and workplaces: how to get people, often young people, to learn and master something that is long and challenging--and enjoy it, to boot.

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What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

When people make donations to privately provided public goods, such as charity, there may be many factors influencing their decision other than altruism. Social pressure, guilt, sympathy, or simply a desire for a "warm glow" may all be important. This paper considers such impure altruism formally and develops a wide set of implications. In particular, this paper discusses the invariance proposition of public goods, solves for the sufficient conditions for neutrality to hold, examines the optimal tax treatment of charitable giving, and calibrates the model based on econometric studies in order to consider policy experiments. Impure altruism is shown to be more consistent with observed patterns of giving than the conventional pure altruism approach, and to have policy implications that may differ widely from those of the conventional models. Copyright 1990 by Royal Economic Society.

https://creationetfinancement.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/impure-altruism-and-donations-to-public-goods.pdf

Impure altruism and donations to public goods: a theory of warm-glow giving*

An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (2nd ed.

THE NEW LONDON GROUP 1 In this article, the New London Group presents a theoretical overoiew of the connec­ tions between the changing social environment facing students and teachers and a new approach to literacy pedagogy that they call "multiliteracies. " The authors argue that the multiplicity of communications channels and increasing cultural and lin­ guistic diversity in the world today call for a much broader view of literacy than portrayed by traditional language-based approaches. Multiliteracies, according to the authors, overcomes the limitations of traditional approaches by emphasizing how ne­ gotiating the multiple lingustic and cultural differences in our society is central to the pragmatics of the working, civic, and private lives of students. The authors maintain that the use of multiliteracies approaches to pedagogy will enable students to achieve the authors' twin goals for literacy learning: creating access to the evolving language of work, power, and community, and fostering the critical engagement necessary for them to design their social futures and achieve success through fulfilling employment. If it were possible to define generally the mission of education, one could say that its fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life. Literacy pedagogy is expected to play a particularly important role in ful­ filling this mission. Pedagogy is a teaching and learning relationship that creates the potential for building learning conditions leading to full and equitable social participation. Literacy pedagogy has traditionally meant teaching and learning

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A pedagogy of Multiliteracies Designing Social Futures

Evolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. What distinguishes evolutionary psychologists from many cognitive psychologists is the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce. To understand the central claims of evolutionary psychology we require an understanding of some key concepts in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. Philosophers are interested in evolutionary psychology for a number of reasons. For philosophers of science —mostly philosophers of biology—evolutionary psychology provides a critical target. There is a broad consensus among philosophers of science that evolutionary psychology is a deeply flawed enterprise. For philosophers of mind and cognitive science evolutionary psychology has been a source of empirical hypotheses about cognitive architecture and specific components of that architecture. Philosophers of mind are also critical of evolutionary psychology but their criticisms are not as all-encompassing as those presented by philosophers of biology. Evolutionary psychology is also invoked by philosophers interested in moral psychology both as a source of empirical hypotheses and as a critical target.

/pdf/stanford-encyclopedia-of-philosophy-1wqoykisq0.pdf

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Why do we volunteer time? Why do we contribute money? Why, even, do we vote, if the effect of a single vote is negligible? Rationality-based microeconomic models are hard-pressed to explain such social behavior, but Howard Margolis proposes a solution. He suggests that within each person there are two selves, one selfish and the other group-oriented, and that the individual follows a Darwinian rule for allocating resources between those two selves. "Howard Margolis's intriguing ideas . . . provide an alternative to the crude models of rational choice that have dominated economics and political science for too long."—Times Literary Supplement

Selfishness, altruism, and rationality

Visual explanations: Images and quantities, evidence and narrative

Why do we volunteer time? Why do we contribute money? Why, even, do we vote, if the effect of a single vote is negligible? Rationality-based microeconomic models are hard-pressed to explain such social behavior, but Howard Margolis proposes a solution. He suggests that within each person there are two selves, one selfish and the other group-oriented, and that the individual follows a Darwinian rule for allocating resources between those two selves. "Howard Margolis's intriguing ideas . . . provide an alternative to the crude models of rational choice that have dominated economics and political science for too long."-"Times Literary Supplement"

Selfishness, Altruism, and Rationality: A Theory of Social Choice

For decades, both policymakers and analysts have been frustrated by sharp and stubborn conflicts between expert and lay perceptions on issues of environmental risk. For example, most experts - even those opposed to nuclear power on other grounds - would see precautions like those now in place as adequate to protect against risks from nuclear waste. But the public finds that very hard to believe. Similar sharp conflicts of expert/lay intuition are evident on a wide range of risk issues, from the safety of bendictin as a treatment for morning sickness to the safety of irradiation of food to destroy microorganisms. In Dealing with Risk, Howard Margolis explores the expert/lay rift surrounding such contentious issues and provides a provocative new account. The usual explanation of expert/lay conflicts is that experts are focused only on a narrow notion of risk - such as potential fatalities - but lay intuition is concerned about a wide range of further concerns, such as fairness and voluntariness of exposure. Margolis argues that this "rival rationalities" view in a fundamental way misses the point of these controversies, since the additional dimensions of lay concern often are more plausibly interpreted as reflections of lay concern than as causes. Margolis argues that risk assessment typically involves weighing a broad range of often complicated trade-offs between costs and benefits. As laypersons, however, we are by definition forced to make judgments on complex matters beyond the scope of our normal experience. Especially in cases involving potential danger, we frequently discount nuance and respond more viscerally. Cognitively we fall back on default responses, all-purpose intuitionssuch as "better safe than sorry" or "nothing ventured, nothing gained." Such intuitions don't admit of careful balancing of pros and cons, and lay opinion consequently becomes polarized and at odds with the expert view.

Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition: A Theory of Judgment

For decades, policymakers and analysts have been frustrated by the stubborn and often dramatic disagreement between experts and the public on acceptable levels of environmental risk. Most experts, for instance, see no severe problem in dealing with nuclear waste, given the precautions and safety levels now in place. Yet public opinion vehemently rejects this view, repudiating both the experts' analysis and the evidence. In this study, Howard Margolis moves beyond the usual "rival rationalities" explanation proffered by risk analysts for the rift between expert and lay opinion. He reveals the conflicts of intuition that underlie those concerns, and proposes a new approach to the psychology of persuasion and belief. Examining the role of intuition, mental habits, and cognitive frameworks in the construction of public opinion, this account seeks to bridge the public policy impasse that has plagued controversial environmental issues.

Howard Margolis

Papers

Selfishness, altruism, and rationality

Visual explanations: Images and quantities, evidence and narrative

Selfishness, Altruism, and Rationality: A Theory of Social Choice

Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition: A Theory of Judgment

Dealing with risk : why the public and the experts disagree on environmental issues