Nicholas A. Christakis Profile picture
Aug 6, 2022 13 tweets 5 min read Read on X
A systematic study of a complete sample of 20 shipwrecks (that involved >19 people stranded for >2 months) out of >9,000 wrecks between 1500AD and 1900AD reveals crucial factors in social order relevant to survival. amazon.com/Blueprint-Evol… #BLUEPRINTbook ImageImage
Crucial factors in surviving shipwrecks in the period 1500-1900AD?

No alcohol in the salvage.
Ability to make a bellows.

But, most important:
Ability to cooperate.
Ability to teach each other things.
And mild hierarchy.

#BLUEPRINTbook
In 1864, two ships wrecked on opposite ends of Auckland Island, near Antarctica -- in a riveting natural experiment. The Grafton crew survived, even thrived, and the Invercauld crew fell upon itself (nearly all died). Learn why in #BLUEPRINTbook
The captain of the Grafton (Thomas Musgrave) and the first mate (Francois Raynal), both of whom were extraordinary, wrote first-person accounts of this astonishing 1864 survival story in very challenging circumstances, explicated in #BLUEPRINTbook. Image
Crucial factors in surviving shipwrecks in the period 1500-1900AD?

No alcohol in the salvage.
Ability to make a bellows.

But, most important:
Ability to cooperate.
Ability to teach each other things.
And mild hierarchy.

#BLUEPRINTbook [unifying threading here]
Of course, with respect to "survivorship bias' (literally in this case!), we only have detailed records from wrecks where someone survived to write story, though we have other cases where records were found or excavations of survivor camp shed light on social order. @R_Thaler
My favorite example of communication from a wrecked crew where all of the died was the wreck of the Tamaris in 1887.
On September 19, 1887, an albatross dropped dead on a beach in Fremantle in western Australia. When examined, the bird was found to have a tin band around its neck, with a message in French punched on it. It was from a group of shipwrecked sailors. The message read:
"Thirteen shipwrecked have taken refuge on the Crozet Islands, 4th August, 1887."
The albatross had flown 5,616 kilometers over the Indian Ocean and delivered its message from the shipwrecked crew of the Tamaris before dying. Image
The albatross was likely one of several sent away with messages of the shipwreck Tamaris (wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?160…), which appears to have wrecked on March 9, 1887, months before the crew sent SOS messages via albatross. Many wrecks have taken place off the Crozet islands.
The Australian authorities then sent a telegram to the French authorities, who dispatched the warship La Meurthe from Madagascar, north of the Crozet islands, to attempt a rescue.
The ship La Meurthe arrived on December 2, 1887, but all no survivors of the Tamaris, who had sent their SOS via a tin ring on an albatross, were found. They had all perished. Hence, this group did not make it into the collection of stories in #BLUEPRINTbook #SurvivorshipBias

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More from @NAChristakis

Jul 2
In new work from #HNL in @NatureComms, we explore the ability of simple AI to affect the capacity of creativity of human groups. This work continues a stream of work we inaugurated in 2017, studying “hybrid systems” of humans and machines. 1/ nature.com/articles/s4146…
The primary obstacle to finding good ideas is normally not that innovations are hard to evaluate, but rather that coming up with an original idea that pushes the boundary of available ideas is hard. This is a challenge that groups can both mitigate and amplify. Distinctly, since AI can alter group behavior, AI might also affect creativity. 2/
Innovative ideas can enhance the immediate welfare of a population and even modify the course of human evolution. However, finding such valuable ideas often involves exploring a large pool of possibilities – which can be a challenging process for both individuals and groups. 3/
Read 17 tweets
Jul 1
Human beings have both friends and enemies, and they can track such connections. Why? It’s not hard to see why we evolved the capacity for friendship, but why do we have a capacity for animosity, and how might it shape our social networks, potentially for the better? 1/
In new work in @PNASNews, @Amir_Ghasemian and I explore “The Structure and Function of Antagonistic Ties in Village Social Networks.”

At the population level, the existence of antagonism has important implications for the overall structure and function of human groups. #HNL 2/

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…Image
Just as friendship ties can impose costs (ranging from the demands our friends place on us to the risk of infection that social connections entail), antagonistic ties can offer benefits (ranging from enhancing our overall access to novel information or reducing our membership in overly siloed groups). We show how this plays out. 3/

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…Image
Read 15 tweets
May 3
Social contagion is a powerful force.

People copy the thoughts, feelings, & actions of those to whom they are connected. Understanding social network structure & function makes it possible to use social contagion to intervene in the world to improve health, wealth, & learning.Image
In a large randomized controlled field trial in 24,702 people in 176 isolated villages in Honduras, published in @ScienceMagazine on May 3, 2024, we showed how social contagion can be used to improve human welfare. #HNL @eairoldi science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
Image
To exploit social contagion, tools are needed to eficiently identify individuals who are better able to initiate cascades. To be maximally useful, such tools should be deployable without having to actually map face-to-face social network interactions. science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
Read 18 tweets
Apr 30
I have some thoughts on this fine statement by @Yale President Peter Salovey regarding desire by some students to impose "ideological litmus test" for access to a shared Yale space.

Salovey said: “Those protestors asked individuals who wished to pass through or enter their area, which is a shared campus space, to agree with their political viewpoints. This action is unacceptable and antithetical to the very purpose of a university.”

It’s is quite right to reject this impulse, but where might students have got this sort of idea?

The background for this statement is pro-Palestinian protests and certain recent actions by some protestors.

For the removal of doubt, I wholly support the right to protest and am sympathetic both to Israel and the civilians suffering horribly in Gaza. I have no problem with the tents or public art.

But protest that stops others from using the campus crosses line into civil disobedience and is distinct from free expression.

and
The problem with the otherwise commendable statement by President Salovey is that the students’ impulse to have a litmus test is part of a broader pattern of such actions at Yale (violating its liberal tenets). We have procedures and bureaucracies that do just this -- which may have given the students this very idea!
Read 7 tweets
Dec 12, 2023
How will AI affect the way we treat each other?

In "hybrid systems" of humans and machines, how will AI (whether simple or complex) affect not just human-machine interactions, but human-human interactions in the presence of machines?

Will AI change human ethical behavior? 1/
In new work in @PNASNews, we showcase a novel cyber-physical system of people driving cars via the internet in an experimental diorama. This system allows us to explore how forms of AI affect existing human norms of cooperation and coordination. 2/ pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
Image
Hiro Shirado (), @shn_kasa, and I tested how AI might affect norms of reciprocity using a novel cyber-physical lab experiment where online subjects (N=300 in 150 dyads) drove robotic vehicles remotely in a game of CHICKEN. #HNL 3/ shirado.net
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
Read 14 tweets
Nov 26, 2023
If you hide people's wealth, you can make the economic gradient in happiness go away, in part by making poor people relatively happier.

New (somewhat dispiriting) experiments spearheaded by @Nishi_Akihiro in @NatMentHealth #HNL 1/ nature.com/articles/s4422…
Image
A lot of the economic gradient in subjective well being (SWB) with respect to wealth has to do with the invidious comparisons people can make with those around them. 2/
One classic study reported that most people prefer to choose A (current yearly income is $50,000 and others earn $25,000) over B (current yearly income is $100,000 and others earn $200,000).

People would rather be relatively rich and absolutely poor!

3/sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Read 10 tweets

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