Empowerment and Stakeholder Management var siteUrl = 'https://www.cold-takes.com'; var localTheme = localStorage.getItem('dawn\_theme'); switch (localTheme) { case 'dark': document.documentElement.classList.add('theme-dark'); break; case 'light': document.documentElement.classList.add('theme-light'); break; default: break; } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Cold Takes", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/favicon.ico", "width": 48, "height": 48 } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Holden Karnofsky", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/07/HK-headshot-current---compressed-1.jpg", "width": 1600, "height": 1067 }, "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/author/holden/", "sameAs": [ "https://www.cold-takes.com/about/" ] }, "headline": "Empowerment and Stakeholder Management", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/empowerment-and-stakeholder-management/", "datePublished": "2022-01-18T19:52:51.000Z", "dateModified": "2022-02-22T15:43:10.000Z", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2022/01/buffystake.png", "width": 2000, "height": 1000 }, "description": "Click lower right to download or find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.

I've been writing recently about sweeping, very-long-run trends in whether
things are going well or poorly in the world.1
[https://www.cold-takes.com/p/b38f340e-4b80-4823-adc5-0176ba638a4c/#fn1] One
candidate trend I haven't talked about yet: what some see as a trend toward
vetocracy
[https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228469/marc-andreessen-build-government-coronavirus]
, kludgeocracy
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} } //Implement light/dark theme if(existingTheme == "dark") { ctdark(); } else if(existingTheme == 'light') { ctlight(); } window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-TZK0WDB1DH'); var clicky\_site\_ids = clicky\_site\_ids || []; clicky\_site\_ids.push(101323562); ![Clicky](//in.getclicky.com/101323562ns.gif) :root {--ghost-accent-color: #888888;} [Cold Takes](https://www.cold-takes.com) [About (+highlights)](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/) [Most Important Century](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) [About (+highlights)](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/) [Most Important Century](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Cold Takes](https://www.cold-takes.com) - Empowerment and Stakeholder Management By [Holden Karnofsky](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/ "Holden Karnofsky") Jan 18, 2022 8 min read Empowerment and Stakeholder Management ====================================== ![Empowerment and Stakeholder Management](/content/images/size/w960/2022/01/buffystake.png) *Click lower right to download or find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.* I've been writing recently about sweeping, very-long-run trends in whether things are going well or poorly in the world.[1](https://www.cold-takes.com/p/b38f340e-4b80-4823-adc5-0176ba638a4c/#fn1) One candidate trend I haven't talked about yet: what some see as a trend toward [vetocracy](https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228469/marc-andreessen-build-government-coronavirus), [kludgeocracy](https://www.newamerica.org/economic-growth/policy-papers/kludgeocracy-the-american-way-of-policy/), bureaucracy and/or red tape - [things getting harder to build](https://future.a16z.com/its-time-to-build/), more [costly](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/), etc. I basically buy the idea that we are seeing - and should broadly expect to continue seeing - trends in this direction. I think some of this is specific to particular parts of the world (e.g., the USA), but I broadly expect there to be overall trends in this direction over time, pretty much across the board. That's because I think there is a deep connection between: * **Empowerment -** increased options and capabilities for people (including e.g. technology), which I consider one of the most [robust historical trends](https://www.cold-takes.com/summary-of-history-empowerment-and-well-being-lens/). * **Stakeholder management**, or the challenge of carrying out activities that lots of people want input into. I think stakeholder management can explain a lot of what we see in terms of rising bureaucracy, red tape, etc. * To be clear, I think stakeholder management can be a good thing too, and that empowerment is broadly "worth it" despite the stakeholder management challenges. Here, I'm going to lay out the conceptual basics of what I mean. Future posts will likely refer back to this one, when trying to make sense of ways in which the world may be getting better or worse. What is stakeholder management? \------------------------------- The term "stakeholder" comes up a fair amount in corporate and nonprofit settings. I'd define it as someone who cares about a decision, wants to weigh in on it, and might react badly if they aren't satisfied by it. For example, if a company changes its compensation policy, affected employees are stakeholders for the decision; if it changes its product, both employees and customers are. It's common to do "stakeholder management" in advance of making some change: contacting some key stakeholders, hearing from them how they'd feel about the change, and looking for compromises on the aspects they feel strongest about in order to keep as many people as possible happy and avoid blowback. The more stakeholders there are, the more challenging this can be, and the more it can slow projects down and make it hard to make changes. (I think the best public examples of what "stakeholder management" looks like tend to come from stories about how legislation gets passed, such as in the movie [Lincoln](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/) and the book [Showdown at Gucci Gulch](https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B004FGLXJC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr;=1). I also liked [this article](https://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/<PHONE>/how-a-bill-becomes-a-law-in-2014); sections 2, 5, 8 and 9 are particularly germane.) When we make personal decisions like where to work, whom to date, etc., we don't tend to have to satisfy a lot of stakeholders - if anything, modern individualism means we're more "on our own" here than we used to be. But when it comes to companies setting policies, legislators making laws, diplomats reaching agreements, schools designing syllabi, governments trying to build subway stations, and more, stakeholder management can be a huge part of where the effort goes. **The more active, opinionated stakeholders there are, the more conflicting desires there are to satisfy, and the harder it is to move things forward quickly, decisively or cheaply.** This is often a good thing! (And in nonprofit circles, it's often assumed to be.[2](https://www.cold-takes.com/p/b38f340e-4b80-4823-adc5-0176ba638a4c/#fn2)) I'd guess most decisions are much better when they have input from interested and affected parties, vs. when they're just made unilaterally. I think the right amount of stakeholder participation is more than zero - but I think there's also an amount that just makes it very hard to accomplish anything. For a vivid example, see this article on [two San Francisco residents who have been solely responsible for blocking large numbers of city projects](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/San-Francisco-lets-just-one-person-stop-<PHONE>.php): > Two San Franciscans seem to have made it their pandemic hobby to file appeals for just about every emergency action taken by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in the past six months ... [E]ach of the five appeals will cost about 100 hours of work by ... staff ... each hearing at the Board of Supervisors, which serves as the judge and jury in these cases, costs a combined $10,000 in city officials' and attorneys' time. In fact, Tumlin said each appeal is taking more time and money than it took to create the emergency programs in the first place." I think the modern world sees a lot of instances of **stakeholder strength growing to the point where making any kind of change to the status quo becomes prohibitively difficult.** Some central examples in my mind: * [NIMBY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY)ism: any attempt to build a subway station, power plant, or just more housing is met with complaints and blocking maneuvers (as above) by the people directly affected. * A dynamic sometimes referred to as "why we can't have nice things": there are increasing numbers of people who might get injured or hurt (or just upset) by some product or service, possibly suing over it, and so providing the product or service requires more and more measures to pre-empt possible ways in which it could harm someone. Some nice examples are in [this post](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/17/highlights-from-the-comments-on-cost-disease/) (see comments from John Schilling, bkearns123, CatCube). I see this phenomenon - a growing "stakeholder management" burden - as **having a likely deep connection to historical trends toward greater [empowerment](https://www.cold-takes.com/summary-of-history-empowerment-and-well-being-lens/).** As people become wealthier, more educated, and more informed, they become louder and more opinionated, active stakeholders. To reiterate: I think this is a good thing overall. But it means there are increasing numbers of hurdles to building new things and changing the status quo in domains that invite a lot of stakeholder participation. **I like the "stakeholder" lens better than lenses based around "over-regulation" or "bureaucracy" or "red tape,"** because it points at the underlying cause rather than blaming some particular government or institution. * It seems to me that across the world's rich countries, we're seeing consistent trends toward more difficult and costly stakeholder management. For example, I believe it's getting harder in ~all rich, urban areas to build new subway stations. * I think this dynamic affects private companies, governments and more. While "red tape" appears in institutions, I think the *underlying cause* of the "red tape" often comes from the behavior of private individuals. And I don't think the world becoming more "libertarian" (at least in the narrow sense of seeking to shrink government) would necessarily solve much (at least, I wouldn't expect it to lead to more subway stations!) ### Legacy systems and kludgeocracy Even holding the amount of stakeholders constant, the *burden* of stakeholder management - and the difficulty of changing the status quo - could grow over time, via a couple of common dynamics. The first is **legacy systems:** things that aren't how we would do them today, but that lots of people have built their lifestyles/routines/businesses around, such that change is painful. Simple examples: * A lot of government and other bureaucratic processes still give prominent roles to written paperwork and fax machines; switching over to electronic records tends to be a huge project, even though it would've been easy to start out that way if the technology had been available earlier. * When the World Wide Web was new, there was an opportunity to define the basic protocols and languages that power it - such as HTML - with a lot of freedom. Today, if there were some obvious improvement to how HTML should work, implementing the improvement could cause a lot of websites built under the old system to break, and there's a [tremendous amount of effort needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web_Consortium) even for relatively modest upgrades. I think most people would agree that the current way HTML, CSS and JavaScript work together to power most websites is a mess, and not the way we'd set things up if we were starting over - but also that fundamental change is unlikely. The second is **kludgeocracy:** when any new initiative or change (to policies, neighborhoods, etc.) has to navigate legacy systems and compromises with opponents, a system can get more and more complex over time. This can make it more and more difficult to understand what's going on, more and more difficult to understand the full effects of a change, and thus even harder to make changes. The term "kludgeocracy" comes from [this essay by Steven Teles](https://www.newamerica.org/economic-growth/policy-papers/kludgeocracy-the-american-way-of-policy/), which is focused on the US but which I'd expect to be somewhat applicable across the board. The abstract states: > The dictionary tells us that a kludge is "an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose…a clumsy but temporarily effective solution to a particular fault or problem" ... "Clumsy but temporarily effective" also describes much of American public policy. For any particular problem we have arrived at the most gerry-rigged, opaque and complicated response. Upshot \------ In modern, politically stable societies with high levels of [empowerment](https://www.cold-takes.com/summary-of-history-empowerment-and-well-being-lens/), there's reason to expect that lots of things could get gradually "harder to do" - and in particular, systems could get harder to change - over time. I think this explains many observations about [vetocracy](https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228469/marc-andreessen-build-government-coronavirus), [kludgeocracy](https://www.newamerica.org/economic-growth/policy-papers/kludgeocracy-the-american-way-of-policy/), bureaucracy and red tape, etc. I think the *degree* of these problems varies from place to place and domain to domain, and depends on lots of details of how systems are set up and how stakeholder input works (e.g., what can people sue for or formally block, as opposed to just complaining?) I think there's probably plenty of room to significantly mitigate these challenges via well-designed processes for considering - but not being totally beholden to - stakeholder input. But overall, we should expect this sort of thing to be a challenge that grows with modernity. I think it's "worth it" and consider empowerment overall to be a good thing, but recognize there's room for debate there. It's also possible that these sorts of problems are pretty temporary in the scheme of things. As these problems become more and more noticeable, there may be increasing pressure to change governance practices and norms to make changes to the status quo easier. Or perhaps [some other change](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) will come along that makes it all look like small potatoes. [![Twitter](https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/06/ct-twitter-square.png)](https://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/twitter/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cold-takes.com%2Fempowerment-and-stakeholder-management%2F&pubid;=ra-60a178324cffc42e&title;=Cold%20Takes%20-%20Empowerment%20and%20stakeholder%20management&ct;=1) [![Facebook](https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/06/ct-facebook-square.png)](https://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/facebook/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cold-takes.com%2Fempowerment-and-stakeholder-management%2F&pubid;=ra-60a178324cffc42e&title;=Cold%20Takes%20-%20Empowerment%20and%20stakeholder%20management&ct;=1) [![Reddit](https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/06/ct-reddit-square.png)](https://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/reddit/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cold-takes.com%2Fempowerment-and-stakeholder-management%2F&pubid;=ra-60a178324cffc42e&title;=Cold%20Takes%20-%20Empowerment%20and%20stakeholder%20management&ct;=1) [![More](https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/06/ct-addthis-square.png)](https://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/menu/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cold-takes.com%2Fempowerment-and-stakeholder-management%2F&pubid;=ra-60a178324cffc42e&title;=Cold%20Takes%20-%20Empowerment%20and%20stakeholder%20management&ct;=1) [Comment/discuss](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/87AugxNfxAgAqR3mv/comments-for-shorter-cold-takes-pieces?commentId=eMnuzFExGvuLa5tNz) \--- Footnotes \--------- 1\. [Has Life Gotten Better?](https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better/) discusses whether quality of life has improved for the average person over the course of human history. [Where's Today's Beethoven?](https://www.cold-takes.com/wheres-todays-beethoven/) discusses whether our society has become worse at scientific and artistic innovation over the past few centuries. [↩](#fnref1)- Here's an [example](https://nonprofitquarterly.org/who-are-stakeholders-and-why-do-they-matter/) I grabbed by taking the first Google result for "nonprofit stakeholders." [↩](#fnref2) Powered by [Ghost](https://ghost.org/) #### Popular tags [sports](/tag/sports/) [innovationstagnation](/tag/innovationstagnation/) [2star](/tag/2star/) [utopia](/tag/utopia/) Subscribe to Cold Takes ======================= For audio version, search for "Cold Takes Audio" in your podcast app Subscribe **Great!** Check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription. **If you don't see it, check your spam!** Please enter a valid email address! $("#lower-right-subscribe").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1458'); /\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#upper-right-subscribe-1").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1471'); /\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#upper-right-subscribe-2").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1471'); /\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#cover-subscribe").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1472'); /\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#footer-subscribe").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1473'); /\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#final-subscribe").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1474'); }); //When someone clicks an anchor link, I want the sticky nav to go away. $("a").click(function(f) { body.removeClass('sticky-visible'); lastSt = 9999999999999}); function ctlight() { html.removeClass('theme-dark').addClass('theme-light'); localStorage.setItem('dawn\_theme', 'light'); //$(".gh-portal-triggerbtn-container").css("background","#0000dd"); /\* document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--brand-color', '#0000dd'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#ffffff'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--primary-text-color', '#1a1a1a'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--secondary-text-color', '#1a1a1a');\*/ // $("#CT-thumbID").css("transform","translate(0px,0)"); // $(".single-content").css("font-weight","400"); existingTheme = "light"; } function ctdark() { html.removeClass('theme-light').addClass('theme-dark'); localStorage.setItem('dawn\_theme', 'dark'); /\*document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--brand-color', '#5ceaff'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#18141f'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--primary-text-color', '#fff'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--secondary-text-color', '#fff');\*/ //document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#14101b'); //document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#121212'); //document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#282c35'); //$(".single-content").css("font-weight","300"); // $("#CT-thumbID").css("transform","translate(19px,0)"); existingTheme = "dark"; } //For light/dark toggle $(".CT-toggle").click(function(g) { g.preventDefault(); if(existingTheme == "dark") { ctlight(); } else if(existingTheme == 'light') { ctdark(); } } ); // Parse the URL parameter, then log goal if it is a completed subscription. 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Empowerment and Stakeholder Management var siteUrl = 'https://www.cold-takes.com'; var localTheme = localStorage.getItem('dawn\\_theme'); switch (localTheme) { case 'dark': document.documentElement.classList.add('theme-dark'); break; case 'light': document.documentElement.classList.add('theme-light'); break; default: break; } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Cold Takes", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/favicon.ico", "width": 48, "height": 48 } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Holden Karnofsky", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/07/HK-headshot-current---compressed-1.jpg", "width": 1600, "height": 1067 }, "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/author/holden/", "sameAs": [ "https://www.cold-takes.com/about/" ] }, "headline": "Empowerment and Stakeholder Management", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/empowerment-and-stakeholder-management/", "datePublished": "2022-01-18T19:52:51.000Z", "dateModified": "2022-02-22T15:43:10.000Z", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2022/01/buffystake.png", "width": 2000, "height": 1000 }, "description": "Click lower right to download or find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.\n\nI've been writing recently about sweeping, very-long-run trends in whether\nthings are going well or poorly in the world.1\n[https://www.cold-takes.com/p/b38f340e-4b80-4823-adc5-0176ba638a4c/#fn1] One\ncandidate trend I haven't talked about yet: what some see as a trend toward \nvetocracy\n[https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228469/marc-andreessen-build-government-coronavirus]\n, kludgeocracy\n[https://www.newamerica.org/eco", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://www.cold-takes.com/" } } .gh-post-upgrade-cta-content, .gh-post-upgrade-cta { display: flex; 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function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-TZK0WDB1DH'); var clicky\\_site\\_ids = clicky\\_site\\_ids || []; clicky\\_site\\_ids.push(101323562); ![Clicky](//in.getclicky.com/101323562ns.gif) :root {--ghost-accent-color: #888888;} [Cold Takes](https://www.cold-takes.com) [About (+highlights)](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/) [Most Important Century](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) [About (+highlights)](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/) [Most Important Century](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Cold Takes](https://www.cold-takes.com) - Empowerment and Stakeholder Management By [Holden Karnofsky](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/ "Holden Karnofsky") Jan 18, 2022 8 min read Empowerment and Stakeholder Management ====================================== ![Empowerment and Stakeholder Management](/content/images/size/w960/2022/01/buffystake.png) *Click lower right to download or find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.* I've been writing recently about sweeping, very-long-run trends in whether things are going well or poorly in the world.[1](https://www.cold-takes.com/p/b38f340e-4b80-4823-adc5-0176ba638a4c/#fn1) One candidate trend I haven't talked about yet: what some see as a trend toward [vetocracy](https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228469/marc-andreessen-build-government-coronavirus), [kludgeocracy](https://www.newamerica.org/economic-growth/policy-papers/kludgeocracy-the-american-way-of-policy/), bureaucracy and/or red tape - [things getting harder to build](https://future.a16z.com/its-time-to-build/), more [costly](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/), etc. I basically buy the idea that we are seeing - and should broadly expect to continue seeing - trends in this direction. I think some of this is specific to particular parts of the world (e.g., the USA), but I broadly expect there to be overall trends in this direction over time, pretty much across the board. That's because I think there is a deep connection between: * **Empowerment -** increased options and capabilities for people (including e.g. technology), which I consider one of the most [robust historical trends](https://www.cold-takes.com/summary-of-history-empowerment-and-well-being-lens/). * **Stakeholder management**, or the challenge of carrying out activities that lots of people want input into. I think stakeholder management can explain a lot of what we see in terms of rising bureaucracy, red tape, etc. * To be clear, I think stakeholder management can be a good thing too, and that empowerment is broadly "worth it" despite the stakeholder management challenges. Here, I'm going to lay out the conceptual basics of what I mean. Future posts will likely refer back to this one, when trying to make sense of ways in which the world may be getting better or worse. What is stakeholder management? \------------------------------- The term "stakeholder" comes up a fair amount in corporate and nonprofit settings. I'd define it as someone who cares about a decision, wants to weigh in on it, and might react badly if they aren't satisfied by it. For example, if a company changes its compensation policy, affected employees are stakeholders for the decision; if it changes its product, both employees and customers are. It's common to do "stakeholder management" in advance of making some change: contacting some key stakeholders, hearing from them how they'd feel about the change, and looking for compromises on the aspects they feel strongest about in order to keep as many people as possible happy and avoid blowback. The more stakeholders there are, the more challenging this can be, and the more it can slow projects down and make it hard to make changes. (I think the best public examples of what "stakeholder management" looks like tend to come from stories about how legislation gets passed, such as in the movie [Lincoln](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/) and the book [Showdown at Gucci Gulch](https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B004FGLXJC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr;=1). I also liked [this article](https://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5723878/how-a-bill-becomes-a-law-in-2014); sections 2, 5, 8 and 9 are particularly germane.) When we make personal decisions like where to work, whom to date, etc., we don't tend to have to satisfy a lot of stakeholders - if anything, modern individualism means we're more "on our own" here than we used to be. But when it comes to companies setting policies, legislators making laws, diplomats reaching agreements, schools designing syllabi, governments trying to build subway stations, and more, stakeholder management can be a huge part of where the effort goes. **The more active, opinionated stakeholders there are, the more conflicting desires there are to satisfy, and the harder it is to move things forward quickly, decisively or cheaply.** This is often a good thing! (And in nonprofit circles, it's often assumed to be.[2](https://www.cold-takes.com/p/b38f340e-4b80-4823-adc5-0176ba638a4c/#fn2)) I'd guess most decisions are much better when they have input from interested and affected parties, vs. when they're just made unilaterally. I think the right amount of stakeholder participation is more than zero - but I think there's also an amount that just makes it very hard to accomplish anything. For a vivid example, see this article on [two San Francisco residents who have been solely responsible for blocking large numbers of city projects](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/San-Francisco-lets-just-one-person-stop-15561164.php): > Two San Franciscans seem to have made it their pandemic hobby to file appeals for just about every emergency action taken by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in the past six months ... [E]ach of the five appeals will cost about 100 hours of work by ... staff ... each hearing at the Board of Supervisors, which serves as the judge and jury in these cases, costs a combined $10,000 in city officials’ and attorneys’ time. In fact, Tumlin said each appeal is taking more time and money than it took to create the emergency programs in the first place." I think the modern world sees a lot of instances of **stakeholder strength growing to the point where making any kind of change to the status quo becomes prohibitively difficult.** Some central examples in my mind: * [NIMBY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY)ism: any attempt to build a subway station, power plant, or just more housing is met with complaints and blocking maneuvers (as above) by the people directly affected. * A dynamic sometimes referred to as "why we can't have nice things": there are increasing numbers of people who might get injured or hurt (or just upset) by some product or service, possibly suing over it, and so providing the product or service requires more and more measures to pre-empt possible ways in which it could harm someone. Some nice examples are in [this post](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/17/highlights-from-the-comments-on-cost-disease/) (see comments from John Schilling, bkearns123, CatCube). I see this phenomenon - a growing "stakeholder management" burden - as **having a likely deep connection to historical trends toward greater [empowerment](https://www.cold-takes.com/summary-of-history-empowerment-and-well-being-lens/).** As people become wealthier, more educated, and more informed, they become louder and more opinionated, active stakeholders. To reiterate: I think this is a good thing overall. But it means there are increasing numbers of hurdles to building new things and changing the status quo in domains that invite a lot of stakeholder participation. **I like the "stakeholder" lens better than lenses based around "over-regulation" or "bureaucracy" or "red tape,"** because it points at the underlying cause rather than blaming some particular government or institution. * It seems to me that across the world's rich countries, we're seeing consistent trends toward more difficult and costly stakeholder management. For example, I believe it's getting harder in ~all rich, urban areas to build new subway stations. * I think this dynamic affects private companies, governments and more. While "red tape" appears in institutions, I think the *underlying cause* of the "red tape" often comes from the behavior of private individuals. And I don't think the world becoming more "libertarian" (at least in the narrow sense of seeking to shrink government) would necessarily solve much (at least, I wouldn't expect it to lead to more subway stations!) ### Legacy systems and kludgeocracy Even holding the amount of stakeholders constant, the *burden* of stakeholder management - and the difficulty of changing the status quo - could grow over time, via a couple of common dynamics. The first is **legacy systems:** things that aren't how we would do them today, but that lots of people have built their lifestyles/routines/businesses around, such that change is painful. Simple examples: * A lot of government and other bureaucratic processes still give prominent roles to written paperwork and fax machines; switching over to electronic records tends to be a huge project, even though it would've been easy to start out that way if the technology had been available earlier. * When the World Wide Web was new, there was an opportunity to define the basic protocols and languages that power it - such as HTML - with a lot of freedom. Today, if there were some obvious improvement to how HTML should work, implementing the improvement could cause a lot of websites built under the old system to break, and there's a [tremendous amount of effort needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web_Consortium) even for relatively modest upgrades. I think most people would agree that the current way HTML, CSS and JavaScript work together to power most websites is a mess, and not the way we'd set things up if we were starting over - but also that fundamental change is unlikely. The second is **kludgeocracy:** when any new initiative or change (to policies, neighborhoods, etc.) has to navigate legacy systems and compromises with opponents, a system can get more and more complex over time. This can make it more and more difficult to understand what's going on, more and more difficult to understand the full effects of a change, and thus even harder to make changes. The term "kludgeocracy" comes from [this essay by Steven Teles](https://www.newamerica.org/economic-growth/policy-papers/kludgeocracy-the-american-way-of-policy/), which is focused on the US but which I'd expect to be somewhat applicable across the board. The abstract states: > The dictionary tells us that a kludge is “an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose…a clumsy but temporarily effective solution to a particular fault or problem" ... “Clumsy but temporarily effective” also describes much of American public policy. For any particular problem we have arrived at the most gerry-rigged, opaque and complicated response. Upshot \------ In modern, politically stable societies with high levels of [empowerment](https://www.cold-takes.com/summary-of-history-empowerment-and-well-being-lens/), there's reason to expect that lots of things could get gradually "harder to do" - and in particular, systems could get harder to change - over time. I think this explains many observations about [vetocracy](https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228469/marc-andreessen-build-government-coronavirus), [kludgeocracy](https://www.newamerica.org/economic-growth/policy-papers/kludgeocracy-the-american-way-of-policy/), bureaucracy and red tape, etc. I think the *degree* of these problems varies from place to place and domain to domain, and depends on lots of details of how systems are set up and how stakeholder input works (e.g., what can people sue for or formally block, as opposed to just complaining?) I think there's probably plenty of room to significantly mitigate these challenges via well-designed processes for considering - but not being totally beholden to - stakeholder input. But overall, we should expect this sort of thing to be a challenge that grows with modernity. I think it's "worth it" and consider empowerment overall to be a good thing, but recognize there's room for debate there. It's also possible that these sorts of problems are pretty temporary in the scheme of things. As these problems become more and more noticeable, there may be increasing pressure to change governance practices and norms to make changes to the status quo easier. Or perhaps [some other change](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) will come along that makes it all look like small potatoes. [![Twitter](https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/06/ct-twitter-square.png)](https://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/twitter/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cold-takes.com%2Fempowerment-and-stakeholder-management%2F&pubid;=ra-60a178324cffc42e&title;=Cold%20Takes%20-%20Empowerment%20and%20stakeholder%20management&ct;=1) [![Facebook](https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/06/ct-facebook-square.png)](https://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/facebook/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cold-takes.com%2Fempowerment-and-stakeholder-management%2F&pubid;=ra-60a178324cffc42e&title;=Cold%20Takes%20-%20Empowerment%20and%20stakeholder%20management&ct;=1) [![Reddit](https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/06/ct-reddit-square.png)](https://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/reddit/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cold-takes.com%2Fempowerment-and-stakeholder-management%2F&pubid;=ra-60a178324cffc42e&title;=Cold%20Takes%20-%20Empowerment%20and%20stakeholder%20management&ct;=1) [![More](https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/06/ct-addthis-square.png)](https://api.addthis.com/oexchange/0.8/forward/menu/offer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cold-takes.com%2Fempowerment-and-stakeholder-management%2F&pubid;=ra-60a178324cffc42e&title;=Cold%20Takes%20-%20Empowerment%20and%20stakeholder%20management&ct;=1) [Comment/discuss](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/87AugxNfxAgAqR3mv/comments-for-shorter-cold-takes-pieces?commentId=eMnuzFExGvuLa5tNz) \--- Footnotes \--------- 1\. [Has Life Gotten Better?](https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better/) discusses whether quality of life has improved for the average person over the course of human history. [Where's Today's Beethoven?](https://www.cold-takes.com/wheres-todays-beethoven/) discusses whether our society has become worse at scientific and artistic innovation over the past few centuries. [↩](#fnref1)- Here's an [example](https://nonprofitquarterly.org/who-are-stakeholders-and-why-do-they-matter/) I grabbed by taking the first Google result for "nonprofit stakeholders." [↩](#fnref2) Powered by [Ghost](https://ghost.org/) #### Popular tags [sports](/tag/sports/) [innovationstagnation](/tag/innovationstagnation/) [2star](/tag/2star/) [utopia](/tag/utopia/) Subscribe to Cold Takes ======================= For audio version, search for "Cold Takes Audio" in your podcast app Subscribe **Great!** Check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription. **If you don't see it, check your spam!** Please enter a valid email address! $("#lower-right-subscribe").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1458'); /\\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#upper-right-subscribe-1").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1471'); /\\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#upper-right-subscribe-2").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1471'); /\\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#cover-subscribe").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1472'); /\\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#footer-subscribe").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1473'); /\\*LO.events.track('Subscribe-LR');\\*/ setTimeout(function(){$("#subscribe-input").focus();},500); }); $("#final-subscribe").click(function(f) { clicky.goal('1474'); }); //When someone clicks an anchor link, I want the sticky nav to go away. $("a").click(function(f) { body.removeClass('sticky-visible'); lastSt = 9999999999999}); function ctlight() { html.removeClass('theme-dark').addClass('theme-light'); localStorage.setItem('dawn\\_theme', 'light'); //$(".gh-portal-triggerbtn-container").css("background","#0000dd"); /\\* document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--brand-color', '#0000dd'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#ffffff'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--primary-text-color', '#1a1a1a'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--secondary-text-color', '#1a1a1a');\\*/ // $("#CT-thumbID").css("transform","translate(0px,0)"); // $(".single-content").css("font-weight","400"); existingTheme = "light"; } function ctdark() { html.removeClass('theme-light').addClass('theme-dark'); localStorage.setItem('dawn\\_theme', 'dark'); /\\*document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--brand-color', '#5ceaff'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#18141f'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--primary-text-color', '#fff'); document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--secondary-text-color', '#fff');\\*/ //document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#14101b'); //document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#121212'); //document.documentElement.style.setProperty('--white-color', '#282c35'); //$(".single-content").css("font-weight","300"); // $("#CT-thumbID").css("transform","translate(19px,0)"); existingTheme = "dark"; } //For light/dark toggle $(".CT-toggle").click(function(g) { g.preventDefault(); if(existingTheme == "dark") { ctlight(); } else if(existingTheme == 'light') { ctdark(); } } ); // Parse the URL parameter, then log goal if it is a completed subscription. 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Assorted cold-ish links var siteUrl = 'https://www.cold-takes.com'; var localTheme = localStorage.getItem('dawn\_theme'); switch (localTheme) { case 'dark': document.documentElement.classList.add('theme-dark'); break; case 'light': document.documentElement.classList.add('theme-light'); break; default: break; } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Cold Takes", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/favicon.ico", "width": 48, "height": 48 } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Holden Karnofsky", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/07/HK-headshot-current---compressed-1.jpg", "width": 1600, "height": 1067 }, "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/author/holden/", "sameAs": [ "https://www.cold-takes.com/about/" ] }, "headline": "Assorted cold-ish links", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/assorted-cold-ish-links/", "datePublished": "2022-01-14T22:41:05.000Z", "dateModified": "2022-01-14T22:41:05.000Z", "description": "These links are mostly (though not 100%) relevant to themes I've written about
fairly recently.

Ten Big Wins for Farm Animals in 2021
[https://mailchi.mp/b47bde83e0b8/ten-big-wins-for-farm-animals-in-2021?e=a9bc80e08e]
, from my coworker Lewis Bollard's excellent newsletter on farm animal welfare.
I'm sharing this because it's probably some of the year's most significant news
about reducing modern-day suffering, and probably hasn't gotten anywhere near
proportionate attention.

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} } //Implement light/dark theme if(existingTheme == "dark") { ctdark(); } else if(existingTheme == 'light') { ctlight(); } window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-TZK0WDB1DH'); var clicky\_site\_ids = clicky\_site\_ids || []; clicky\_site\_ids.push(101323562); ![Clicky](//in.getclicky.com/101323562ns.gif) :root {--ghost-accent-color: #888888;} [Cold Takes](https://www.cold-takes.com) [About (+highlights)](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/) [Most Important Century](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) [About (+highlights)](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/) [Most Important Century](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Cold Takes](https://www.cold-takes.com) - Assorted cold-ish links By [Holden Karnofsky](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/ "Holden Karnofsky") Jan 14, 2022 4 min read Assorted cold-ish links ======================= These links are mostly (though not 100%) relevant to themes I've written about fairly recently. [Ten Big Wins for Farm Animals in 2021](https://mailchi.mp/b47bde83e0b8/ten-big-wins-for-farm-animals-in-2021?e=a9bc80e08e), from my coworker Lewis Bollard's excellent newsletter on farm animal welfare. I'm sharing this because it's probably some of the year's most significant news about reducing modern-day suffering, and probably hasn't gotten anywhere near proportionate attention. [On (Not) Reading Papers](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/72QA8qk9g6wZNDWeS/on-not-reading-papers): > It is a bit of an [open secret](https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-read-research-papers-quickly) that "not reading the paper" is the only feasible strategy for staying on top of the [ever-increasing mountain of academic literature](http://blog.cdnsciencepub.com/21st-century-science-overload/). But while everybody knows this, not [everybody knows that everybody knows this](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/common-knowledge). On discussion boards, some researchers claim with a straight face to be reading [100 papers per month](https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_papers_do_I_have_to_read_per_month_as_a_researcher). Skimming 100 papers per month might be possible, but reading them is not ... Even though scientists don't read papers, the entire edifice does not collapse. How is that? **In this post, I will go through some obvious and less obvious problems that come from "not reading the paper", and how those turn out to not be *that* bad.** I liked the piece! It's got some similar ideas to my past posts [reading books vs. engaging with them](https://www.cold-takes.com/reading-books-vs-engaging-with-them/) and [Gell-Mann Earworms](https://www.cold-takes.com/gell-mann-earworms/), but with more specificity about what it's like to be a scientist dealing with a mound of papers to "read." And here's another approach: [read less but read it twice](https://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/how-to-read-books/). Not my approach, but in general I'm just super in favor of "What should my strategy be for deciding what to read and how to read it?" discourse - there doesn't seem to be enough of it, and I think "Read interesting-seeming things straight through once" is a bad default. Bloomberg: [Podcasting hasn't produced a new hit in years](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-01-09/podcasting-hasn-t-produced-a-new-hit-in-years). Subhed: "The average podcast in the top 10 is more than seven years old." The reason given in the article is that there are just too many podcasts out there for any one of them to grab a lot of market share, which sounds very plausible to me (and is probably going on with TV as well; music and film seem less affected here because you can't just stick with your favorite album/film for 10 years). I'm guessing that 50 years from now, this will color how critics think about which podcasts are "significant," and many will pine for a [golden age](https://www.cold-takes.com/wheres-todays-beethoven/#the-golden-age-hypothesis) of podcasting. Also related to "pining for a golden age": * This was a [good Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/pashulman/status/1478780393268596740) citing old public opinion polling. Counter to some narratives that the US used to be more universally pro-science, it looks like we've always been pretty wary, e.g. going to the moon was pretty unpopular and there was plenty of skepticism about the polio vaccine. * [Eliezer Yudkowsky thinks](https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10159977101859228) "all of the talented executives and ops people were in 1950 and now they're dead and there's fewer and fewer surviving descendants of their heritage every year." Anyone know what evidence this is or could be based on? Claim that I'm not supporting, more curious about: [4 Years After the FCC Repealed Net Neutrality, the Internet Is Better Than Ever](https://reason.com/2021/12/15/net-neutrality-fcc-repeal-internet-faster-better/). Does anyone know of good analysis on whether the repeal of net neutrality mattered much (my not-particularly-informed current sense is that it didn't), and/or any "I was wrong" takes from people who said it would matter greatly (my sense is that there are no such takes)? I would be very interested in either (via [comments](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/87AugxNfxAgAqR3mv/comments-for-shorter-cold-takes-pieces?commentId=Qaa7AAgHfJFizHPEv) or [tips](https://forms.gle/J4yCHcRL8VAC6mKR6)). If the repeal didn't end up mattering much, it seems like a significant set of people ought to be talking and thinking about what they got wrong, and if it did, I have things to learn about what's going on with the Internet. Couple updates on previous Cold Takes posts: * On October 19, I [criticized a Wikipedia page on hunter-gatherers](https://www.cold-takes.com/hunter-gatherer-gender-relations-seem-bad/) in a post. On November 30, it looks like the things I complained about (which have mostly been there since [May 2013](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hunter-gatherer&oldid;=553660106)) were [largely fixed by a Wikipedia editor](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hunter-gatherer&type;=revision&diff;=<PHONE>&oldid;=<PHONE>). Regardless of whether these two events are connected, this is evidence that the system works, IMO. * Apparently [89 people have made a forecast on Metaculus](https://www.metaculus.com/questions/9119/holdens-bet-with-zvi-about-omicron/) about the [Omicron bet I posted about a few weeks ago](https://www.cold-takes.com/bet-with-zvi-about-omicron/). The aggregate forecast has hovered around a 51-54% chance that I win the bet (assuming it isn't a push), which is actually higher than the probability I gave. (I put it at 50%, and we bet at odds implying 40%) [The unweaving of a beautiful thing](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mCtZF5tbCYW2pRjhi/the-unweaving-of-a-beautiful-thing): a short story submitted to an effective altruism creative writing contest, which I quite liked (and it's short). 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Assorted cold-ish links var siteUrl = 'https://www.cold-takes.com'; var localTheme = localStorage.getItem('dawn\\_theme'); switch (localTheme) { case 'dark': document.documentElement.classList.add('theme-dark'); break; case 'light': document.documentElement.classList.add('theme-light'); break; default: break; } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Cold Takes", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/favicon.ico", "width": 48, "height": 48 } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Holden Karnofsky", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/content/images/2021/07/HK-headshot-current---compressed-1.jpg", "width": 1600, "height": 1067 }, "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/author/holden/", "sameAs": [ "https://www.cold-takes.com/about/" ] }, "headline": "Assorted cold-ish links", "url": "https://www.cold-takes.com/assorted-cold-ish-links/", "datePublished": "2022-01-14T22:41:05.000Z", "dateModified": "2022-01-14T22:41:05.000Z", "description": "These links are mostly (though not 100%) relevant to themes I've written about\nfairly recently.\n\nTen Big Wins for Farm Animals in 2021\n[https://mailchi.mp/b47bde83e0b8/ten-big-wins-for-farm-animals-in-2021?e=a9bc80e08e]\n, from my coworker Lewis Bollard's excellent newsletter on farm animal welfare.\nI'm sharing this because it's probably some of the year's most significant news\nabout reducing modern-day suffering, and probably hasn't gotten anywhere near\nproportionate attention.\n\nOn (Not) Reading", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://www.cold-takes.com/" } } .gh-post-upgrade-cta-content, .gh-post-upgrade-cta { display: flex; 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function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-TZK0WDB1DH'); var clicky\\_site\\_ids = clicky\\_site\\_ids || []; clicky\\_site\\_ids.push(101323562); ![Clicky](//in.getclicky.com/101323562ns.gif) :root {--ghost-accent-color: #888888;} [Cold Takes](https://www.cold-takes.com) [About (+highlights)](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/) [Most Important Century](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) [About (+highlights)](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/) [Most Important Century](https://www.cold-takes.com/most-important-century/) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Subscribe (free)](#subscribe) [Cold Takes](https://www.cold-takes.com) - Assorted cold-ish links By [Holden Karnofsky](https://www.cold-takes.com/about/ "Holden Karnofsky") Jan 14, 2022 4 min read Assorted cold-ish links ======================= These links are mostly (though not 100%) relevant to themes I've written about fairly recently. [Ten Big Wins for Farm Animals in 2021](https://mailchi.mp/b47bde83e0b8/ten-big-wins-for-farm-animals-in-2021?e=a9bc80e08e), from my coworker Lewis Bollard's excellent newsletter on farm animal welfare. I'm sharing this because it's probably some of the year's most significant news about reducing modern-day suffering, and probably hasn't gotten anywhere near proportionate attention. [On (Not) Reading Papers](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/72QA8qk9g6wZNDWeS/on-not-reading-papers): > It is a bit of an [open secret](https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-read-research-papers-quickly) that "not reading the paper" is the only feasible strategy for staying on top of the [ever-increasing mountain of academic literature](http://blog.cdnsciencepub.com/21st-century-science-overload/). But while everybody knows this, not [everybody knows that everybody knows this](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/common-knowledge). On discussion boards, some researchers claim with a straight face to be reading [100 papers per month](https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_papers_do_I_have_to_read_per_month_as_a_researcher). Skimming 100 papers per month might be possible, but reading them is not ... Even though scientists don't read papers, the entire edifice does not collapse. How is that? **In this post, I will go through some obvious and less obvious problems that come from "not reading the paper", and how those turn out to not be *that* bad.** I liked the piece! It's got some similar ideas to my past posts [reading books vs. engaging with them](https://www.cold-takes.com/reading-books-vs-engaging-with-them/) and [Gell-Mann Earworms](https://www.cold-takes.com/gell-mann-earworms/), but with more specificity about what it's like to be a scientist dealing with a mound of papers to "read." And here's another approach: [read less but read it twice](https://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/how-to-read-books/). Not my approach, but in general I'm just super in favor of "What should my strategy be for deciding what to read and how to read it?" discourse - there doesn't seem to be enough of it, and I think "Read interesting-seeming things straight through once" is a bad default. Bloomberg: [Podcasting hasn't produced a new hit in years](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-01-09/podcasting-hasn-t-produced-a-new-hit-in-years). Subhed: "The average podcast in the top 10 is more than seven years old." The reason given in the article is that there are just too many podcasts out there for any one of them to grab a lot of market share, which sounds very plausible to me (and is probably going on with TV as well; music and film seem less affected here because you can't just stick with your favorite album/film for 10 years). I'm guessing that 50 years from now, this will color how critics think about which podcasts are "significant," and many will pine for a [golden age](https://www.cold-takes.com/wheres-todays-beethoven/#the-golden-age-hypothesis) of podcasting. Also related to "pining for a golden age": * This was a [good Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/pashulman/status/1478780393268596740) citing old public opinion polling. Counter to some narratives that the US used to be more universally pro-science, it looks like we've always been pretty wary, e.g. going to the moon was pretty unpopular and there was plenty of skepticism about the polio vaccine. * [Eliezer Yudkowsky thinks](https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10159977101859228) "all of the talented executives and ops people were in 1950 and now they're dead and there's fewer and fewer surviving descendants of their heritage every year." Anyone know what evidence this is or could be based on? Claim that I'm not supporting, more curious about: [4 Years After the FCC Repealed Net Neutrality, the Internet Is Better Than Ever](https://reason.com/2021/12/15/net-neutrality-fcc-repeal-internet-faster-better/). Does anyone know of good analysis on whether the repeal of net neutrality mattered much (my not-particularly-informed current sense is that it didn't), and/or any "I was wrong" takes from people who said it would matter greatly (my sense is that there are no such takes)? I would be very interested in either (via [comments](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/87AugxNfxAgAqR3mv/comments-for-shorter-cold-takes-pieces?commentId=Qaa7AAgHfJFizHPEv) or [tips](https://forms.gle/J4yCHcRL8VAC6mKR6)). If the repeal didn't end up mattering much, it seems like a significant set of people ought to be talking and thinking about what they got wrong, and if it did, I have things to learn about what's going on with the Internet. Couple updates on previous Cold Takes posts: * On October 19, I [criticized a Wikipedia page on hunter-gatherers](https://www.cold-takes.com/hunter-gatherer-gender-relations-seem-bad/) in a post. On November 30, it looks like the things I complained about (which have mostly been there since [May 2013](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hunter-gatherer&oldid;=553660106)) were [largely fixed by a Wikipedia editor](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hunter-gatherer&type;=revision&diff;=1057851009&oldid;=1056382104). Regardless of whether these two events are connected, this is evidence that the system works, IMO. * Apparently [89 people have made a forecast on Metaculus](https://www.metaculus.com/questions/9119/holdens-bet-with-zvi-about-omicron/) about the [Omicron bet I posted about a few weeks ago](https://www.cold-takes.com/bet-with-zvi-about-omicron/). The aggregate forecast has hovered around a 51-54% chance that I win the bet (assuming it isn't a push), which is actually higher than the probability I gave. (I put it at 50%, and we bet at odds implying 40%) [The unweaving of a beautiful thing](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mCtZF5tbCYW2pRjhi/the-unweaving-of-a-beautiful-thing): a short story submitted to an effective altruism creative writing contest, which I quite liked (and it's short). 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