Preference Falsification
Preference falsification is a theory brought forth by Timur Kuran in his book Private Truths, Public Lies. It is the act of misrepresenting one's wants under perceived social pressures, and it deliberately aims to disguise one's motivations and dispositions.
Eric contends that the theory of Preference Falsification is Intellectual Kryptonite. "Because your theory can be accommodated within the standard theory... the problem is that it is a ready made upgrade to the existing theory in which nothing is lost but new degrees of freedom are gained; and that could have an absolutely unpredictable effect on the entire field because it is at the level of the substrate." #4 Prof. Timur Kuran @ 1:08:40
On X[edit]
2011[edit]
A gentle hint to study the mathematics of preference falsification is given by Timur Kuran via the revolutions of 2011: http://bit.ly/f6bhjE
2018[edit]
If you want to know whatās happening here in real-time, you could do worse than to study the off-beat Turkish Economist @timurkuran and his theory of abrupt āPreference Falsificationā-mediated phase change.
My party (the Democrats) wonāt listen ... until itās too late. Pity. https://t.co/5YSNXObhZ4
Advertisers vs Riskvertisers:
An advertiser is a company commandeering attention to promote a product. A riskvertiser, by contrast, would be a courageous firm that underwrites important speech others wish to ban, and asks the public to consider its product in return for courage.
The following is an (unauthorized) RISKVERTISMENT for @DrBronner.
I love DR BRONNER soap! Their luxurious Castille soaps are no less amazing than their corporate bravery in support of Psychedelic Research on substances which are currently illegal!
- RewardCourage #Riskvertise.
We the public and the creators need to stop supporting advertisers who buckle to sanctimonious mobs out of cowardice when the charges are frivolous.
More importantly, WE need to lead and build the Riskvertising industry. Letās reward those companies that treat us as adults.
If you know of other firms that donāt buckle under pressure and who are interested in underwriting free speech, psychedelic research, and other unpopular worthy causes, please let me know! Letās experiment with paying it forward until we find underwriters who donāt cut &run.
š
@AndyHoelter Not about Tucker.
@Respecticles Super interesting. Hadnāt seen it. Thanks!
@mic_p_dre I see the need. Hence the theory.
And note: this isnāt about Tucker. Itās about general ambient pressure that seems more about sanctimony than ethics.
@AndyHoelter I have not only boycotted products, I have organized boycotts of advertisers myself. And I would do so again. I think perhaps we arenāt connecting intellectually here.
@B_Salvi I didnāt love Tuckerās remarks. This isnāt about Tucker. Itās a very general issue now.
@B_Salvi I respect your thinking and remarks. Iām in a slightly different place but see your perspective and want to acknowledge itās validity.
@B_Salvi Too complicated for Twitter. It has to do with bad actors driving costs via preference falsification.
@DatsuChris @DSgear @RubinReport @jordanbpeterson I want to hear more about your story.
2019[edit]
Wow. Thank you Jonathan.
Predictably, The Portal featured on almost no mainstream āBest of 2019ā lists w/ our amazing roster of guests as we grow in size with actual listeners & get great people.
Hopefully we will be no less acceptable in 2020. Pirate radio is the place to be.
@Megadogyourmom4 With all my respect, the issue isnāt numbers. Itās who is listening. We arenāt exactly doing gaming, makeup tips and sports commentary. When you are talking spinors and preference falsification Itās amazing anyone is listening.
@garyHeff @tylercowen Remember this tweet as we go on.
@4rt_yy Itās interesting how you parsed this.
What makes this ānot mainstreamā is not controversy. Itās talking about hard issues like gauge theory in economics as a means to stop wealth transfers from CPI hacking as we touched on in this episode. Hopefully it is *not* a shock show. š
@podcastnotes Nooooo! You are ruining a near perfect record. Breaker also screwed it up however.
@4rt_yy Again. Weird parse.
No. Mostly we never get to the good stuff. We spend so much time worrying about hand holding that we never get to higher topics. People donāt even know they are there to be learned.
@podcastnotes Whew!!
@podcastnotes And thanks for the kind words.
2020[edit]
For those of you who do not understand why I am not counting @AndrewYang out, go back to @timurkuranās appearance on the Portal: the more Yang can show that the polls, pundits & party are wrong, the more people will switch their votes to him. Letās imagine he gets past Warren...
...And, just to make this fit in a tweet, letās imagine that one of the two older candidates stumbles for health reasons & gets sidelined. Then what? Yang would be number 2. Think about that. Thatās when the whole āfringe candidateā & ānoveltyā narrative would actually backfire.
This is why @timurkuran and his theory of preference falsification is so important! This is how things can shift quickly and why normies miss this possibility. Learn the logic of how the mainstream can sometimes get it so wrong. This is now within reach:
How could someone who doesnāt get airtime because they arenāt āseriousā to the media be number 3? This is what happened with Trump and Obama and Bernie: the narrative backfires when the media spell breaks. Which is now quite possible. And that breaking will show up as new voters.
@mvttxiii @timurkuran Thatās why we put it up front. It leads to a surprising conclusion. No one sees the effect coming because it is not every day as well as its non linear nature.
@jjpinkard1 @AndrewYang @timurkuran Ah. I remember Lehman Brothers, Obama over Clinton, the Bernie Surge, Trump in 2016 and Brexit too.
Now I get things very wrong. But what I am saying is that this is now merely unlikely. But Itās not āone in a millionā. Neither of us really know.
Iām not delusional here. As anyone who follows this feed knows, Iām far more interested in the issue of ending āThe Truman Showā than in who becomes president. There are three candidates that challenge the party leadership: Tulsi, Yang & Sanders. Yang has only one possible path.
But thatās how this would explode IF possible. Frankly, I donāt see another path. Itās a *very* long shot. But the one thing thatās been truly weird is the amount of credibility that MSM spent on #YangMediaBlackout. It may have stopped him from polling higher, but at great cost.
I donāt see this for Tulsi, and Sanders has already ridden such a wave from 2016. So the question is simple.
Q: Are enough Yang supporters:
A) Invisible to Polls
and/or
B) Contingent on realism concerns
and/or
C) Lying about supporting Biden/Sanders Warren.
I donāt know.
It is very simple. The MSM and DNC have been VERY effective at killing off the sense he *can* win. For Yang to take off, he would need to ride a wave of preference falsification. For example, if he did twice as well as expected for a while, the polls would become suspect to all.
Iāve been focused on this since before 2016 and this is why @timurkuran was my 3rd interview. This is about the potential energy that can be stored in a system. I canāt measure it for you. No one can.
But my thinking has been here in the open for months:
The only way that makes sense is if:
A) He once had a chance which is now gone due to the finger on the scales via #YangMediaBlackout
Or
B) Media knows that heās still got hidden support as per the above.
But Iām not playing pick the winner. Iām focused on #EndTheTrumanShow
In 2016 you told me that Trump couldnāt win. I pointed you to the @timurkuran and the theory of Preference Falsification.
In 2020 Iām telling you that the *pandemic* makes it possible to dislodge Biden. But:
A) You would have to deeply care. B) Your window will soon close.
@einselection @timurkuran No. Resignation. He needs to be pressured to resign.
This is representative of an important class of tweets for understanding preference falsification in the theory of @timurkuran with its effects on polling.
When open support for any candidate leads to to immediate dissolution of relationships, there will be an effect on polls.
Iām not saying this isnāt a principled stand as I donāt know these people. What I am talking about is people threatening to cease all interaction and the effect on our political sentiment data.
Looking forward to discussing @timurkuran and the theory of preference falsification with all of the news organizations that donāt talk to me anymore: @CNN @NPR @nytimes etc...
Or you smarties can just double down. Again. And again. And again.
Take your pick.
@timurkuran @CNN @NPR @nytimes Not calling the winner yet of course. Calling the polls as likely being off due to preference falsification. Trump is at least beating the point spread at a minimum. So far.
2021[edit]
At the beginning of The Portal I introduced you to @timurkuran & his theory of preference falsification.
This year I want to introduce you to Prof. @jjfreydcourage and her theory of Institutional Betrayal. It will change your understanding of everything.
I have spoken to Jennifer who I last saw in the 1980s. I insisted we boost her theory and she agreed to let me introduce you to her. This is one of the most complicated and important stories that no one is tracking at an appropriate level.
This article is backstory. Pls Read it.
Dear @lsarsour, @AOC, @nhannahjones, @DrIbram, @RashidaTlaib, @ezraklein, @CBSEntDiversity, @OpenSociety.
Genuinely interested in trying to get at whether thereās broad support for a DEI agenda. Would you consider running this poll w/ your followers or alerting them to this one?
Feel free to editorialize if you think this is outrageous/biased. I just want to figure out the level of preference falsification. Are folks really excited about DEI? If so, letās find out. If not, letās find out. Iād be honored if youād run this same question as you see fit.š
Almost 10k accounts have voted, and there is plenty of time as there are still >8 hours to go. I canāt get fully rid of follower bias in my own account of course, but you could conduct the same poll in your own account if you are as curious as to the level of support as I am.
2022[edit]
1) General Relativity 2) (Pseudo-)Riemannian Geometry 3) Quantum Field Theory 4) Material Science/Condensed Matter 5) Nuclear Physics/Weaponry 6) Disinformation Theory 7) Cult Indoctrination/Deprogramming 8) Propaganda 9) Preference Falsification Theory 10) Mansfield Amendment
11) Science Policy Theory (V Bush) 12) Selection (Abstracted) 13) Comparative Eschatology 14) Anti-Gravity Pseudo-science involving top physicists and mathematicians in the era of the So-Called āGolden age of General Relativityā. 15) GU 16) Mind control.
Remember: you asked! ;-)
@zlabrah Selection. Natural, Sexual and memetic. As above.
@IsDrainBamaged I tried at the beginning. Then I realized I forgot some stuff.
@AndrewJayabc It is spread out over 1,2, 3 and 4. Right at the top. Look.
@GambleDale @Manning123Sm Wow! Thanks for asking Dale. 1969ā¦but 1973 is closely related.
Nobody gets this anymore. Itās like talking to the wind. Thanks for spotting that entry. Truly.
@DontsitDJ Such as?
@GambleDale @Manning123Sm I got it immediately. Stay in touch? Thx.
@HDinthesky Map. The Schwartzchild and Robertson Walker singularities indicate it is the map. Plus some other stuff.
@getalongyoufool 12)
Above. š
@CriticalReview9 Of the endless frontier. But yes.
@BakuDreamer Weird. It was a big deal. And it has disappeared from memory.
2023[edit]
@cvaldary Well, one thing we all need to do Chloe is come up with new cognitive primitives. I introduce a lot of these. But the next stage will be organizing to resist being coerced towards extremes. We certainly can't afford a normalization of extremist politics with such powerful tech.
@cvaldary Sure. I have been pretty active in emphasizing the following;
GIN Kayfabe Russell Conjugation DISC E.G.O. Preference Falsification Audience Capture My Four Quadrant Model Anthropic Capitalism IDW
There are a lot. Some as with the above are due to others.
2024[edit]
This *is* what science looks like right now.
Does this sound like real science? Even at a passing level? Just see. Read it.
āPeople studying misinformation lean left for two reasons:ā
Extraordinary claim. Supported byā¦.? I meanā¦Huge if true! I would have thought there would be complicated effects of political economy in science funding as well. But there is no discussion of any such effects.
Itās just two causes. Who knew.
ā1. scientists lean left, regardless of specialty, because they care about facts.ā
I meanā¦.damn. I donāt even understand the argument. It feels like ābecauseā is doing all the work here.
No discussion of history (e.g. The Mansfield Amendment), incentive structures, institutional dependence. Just a bald assertion known as an appeal to authority. The author is a professor, after all. . ā2. misinformation today primarily comes from the Right ("they're eating the dawwwgs!") which makes it worth studying and fighting against for people leaning left.ā
Appeal to ridicule. Strawmanning. Yes, Donald Trump is no scientist.
But the Institutional Left has been wrong all over the place, no? On sex, heritability, public health, viral origins, migration externalities, and prediction of elections via failure to adjust for preference falsification at scale.
What is this? I donāt know. Itās not the science you grew up witb that changed everything and illuminated the world.
My point is not to vilify Dr LeCun. It is to point out what institutional science NOW looks like. It used to look totally different.
But in 2024, it looks like exactly like this.
This tweet ā¬ļø below. Learn to spot it.
I will be surprised if it is close, due to preference shielding and preference falsification. I donāt know what evidence you are privileging.
[How @timurkuran is not one of the worldās most famous economic & social welfare theorists is beyond me. Itās simply an elite āerrorā.]
If you are indeed looking for a landslide and the polls are close, vote and take heart. I made Prof. Kuran one of my very first guests because he totally changed my understanding of our world through an effect that turned out to be anything but small:
@SweatEm @timurkuran Maybe Iām wrong. Maybe itās closeā¦š¤·āāļø
But I donāt think we have polling that accurately adjusts for preference falsification. Itās kind of an amazing and large effect that seems almost deliberately neglected within neoclassical economics and social welfare theory.
Are you also watching the brain trust of tbe Democratic Party who lost this election, now trying to figure out HOW they could possibly have lost this election?
As a highly visible Democrat who never thought this was going to be close or a ānail biterā, and who said publicly that the the polls were off and that there was reason to think that preference falsification could result in a *landslide*, do you think anyone would pick up the phone and call? There is zero interest. Not one intern. Not one consultant.
This is exactly like String Theory. For 40 years string theorists have hermetically sealed themselves in an imaginary universe where they are succeeding because they became the arbiters in a system called Peer Review. The Lords/Peers of String Theory do not talk with, and do not listen to commoners. As a result they enter into a curricular conversation.
Listening to what @maddow has to say about @KamalaHarrisā part in @SpeakerPelosiās brilliant strategy with @PeteButtigieg to help @SenSchumer after @donlemonās insightful analysis mirroring Joy @thereidout brutal truths following the @NPR @cnn exposes of Trumps devious plans is exactly the String theory vibe.
What does Cumrun say about Andyās latest idea to build on Lennyās insight to get around Evaās paper showing that Ashokās plan to use Juanās discovery that Brian and Michio discussed recently on the 13th anniversary of Shamitās paper tweaking Davidās original epiphany, can only work if some speculations of Cumrun are true to begin with in Euclidean signature?
Oh and by the way, there are no other approaches beyond String Theory, because anyone not part of this circle is a self promoter saying āonly wordsā. We will only need another 100 years before it gives fruitā¦
Well, this is what a cult sounds like. Communists build such elaborate circular worlds of internal references. As do members of spiritual, academic and religious orders.
My claim is that the Democratic leadership is a lucrative cult. Itās not a party. Itās not trying to win. Itās trying to serve its members and work towards winning as little as possible, consistent with first serving the personal needs of its senior leadership. Itās trying to pay its leadership in riches, prestige and control. Itās a payout system. What are all these people making financially? I donāt know. Nancy does alright. So does Rachel. But not all payment is monetary.
That is why their conversation is so bizarre. They need to fire each other. But the entire point of our party as they see it is to serve as a trough.
Take it from a pre-Dick Morris Democrat also focused on physics: the 1992 election 32 years ago brought us this madness in just the way that Ed Witten, Michael Green and John Schwarz brought us The Holy Revelation of String Theory 40 years ago in 1984.
The most important part of these cults is sealing out the critics as āinterloping self promoting grifting charlatans.ā
I wound love to come on MSNBC and discuss my pre-election claims that this was unlikely to be close and quite possibly a landslide. I would love to help the party fire its senior leadership. It is well past time to overthrow the partyās brain trust that leads us away from focusing on the welfare of working families, free speech, individualistic greatness, common sense, consumer protection, fair play, and into the arms of evil and madness.
The Clinton-Morris era needs to end. We need a revolt to overthrow our Lords and Masters. There is now no reason these people should be at the helm.
None.
š
@I_Hippocrite @mises Never been invited so I donāt know much about you.
@ericcorbello @Charles32615710 Thanks Brother. Prefer to work with you. Lots to be done. And congratulations.
Not really. Itās not a psychological thing. Itās this frustration that EVERYTHING has become team sports.
Iām looking to retain my independence, so the pickup game analogy is a good one.
Iām an individualist looking to caucus with others and frustrated by the emphasis on team purity.
Imagine a free soloist rock climber trying to talk to a football team about how to scale a tall building to retrieve their ball from the roof. He wants to help but doesnāt want to become a linebacker.
@PlanRightDave @Charles32615710 Right wing cancel culture is so weird. Thanks brother.
See Also[edit]
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