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Cultural persistence

Cultural persistence refers tois the persistence over time of "cultural traits" like customs, beliefs, and behaviours.behaviours over time. In some cases, such traits last for very long periods of time,periods, while in other casescases, they change more rapidly and dramatically.[1] Relevant traits could include such things as democratic or authoritarian norms and behaviours, concern for human rights, concern for animal welfare, orand norms conducive to scientific progress or free markets.

Cultural persistence refers to the persistence over time of "cultural traits" like customs, beliefs, and behaviours. In some cases, such traits last for very long periods of time, while in other cases they change more rapidly and dramatically.[1] Relevant traits could include such things as democratic or authoritarian norms and behaviours, concern for human rights, concern for animal welfare, or norms conducive to scientific progress or free markets.

cluelessness | cultural evolution | cultural lag | hinge of history | trajectory change | value drift | value lock-in

  1. ^

    Giuliano, Paola & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 88, pp. 1541–1581.

  2. ^

    Beckstead, Nick (2015) The long-term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks, The GiveWell Blog, August 13 (updated 16 September 2015).

  3. ^

    Kelly, Morgan (2019) The standard errors of persistence, SSRN Electronic Journal.

  4. ^

    Giuliano & Nunn, Understanding cultural persistence and change.

This question of cultural persistence has received some academic attention,[3]1][4]3] and is also related to the field of cultural evolution.

  1. ^

    Giuliano, Paola & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 88, pp. 1541–1581.

  2. ^

    Beckstead, Nick (2015) The long-term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks, The GiveWell Blog, August 13 (updated 16 September 2015).

  3. ^

    Giuliano & Nunn, Understanding cultural persistence and change.

  4. ^

    Kelly, Morgan (2019) The standard errors of persistence, SSRN Electronic Journal.

  5. ^

    Giuliano & Nunn, Understanding cultural persistence and change.

  1. ^

    Giuliano, Paola & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, rdaa074.vol. 88, pp. 1541–1581.

  2. ^

    Beckstead, Nick (2015) The long-term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks, The GiveWell Blog, August 13 (updated 16 September 2015).

  3. ^

    Giuliano, PaolaGiuliano & Nathan Nunn (2020)Nunn, Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 88, pp. 1541–1581..

  4. ^

    Kelly, Morgan (2019) The standard errors of persistence, SSRN Electronic Journal.

  1. ^

    Giuliano, Paola & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, rdaa074.

  2. ^

    See alsoBeckstead, Nick Beckstead (2015) The long-term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks, The GiveWell Blog, August 13 (16(updated 16 September 2015).

  3. ^

    Giuliano, Paola & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 88, pp. 1541–1581.

  4. ^

    Kelly, Morgan (2019) The standard errors of persistence, SSRN Electronic Journal.

This question of cultural persistence has received some academic attention,[3][4] and is also related to the field of cultural evolution.

  1. ^

    Giuliano, Paola & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, rdaa074.

  2. ^

    See also Nick Beckstead (2015) The long-term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks, The GiveWell Blog, August 13 (16 September 2015).

  3. ^

    For exampleGiuliano, Paola Giuliano & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change,  andThe Review of Economic Studies, vol. 88, pp. 1541–1581.

  4. ^

    Kelly, Morgan Kelly (2019) The standard errors of persistence, SSRN Electronic Journal.

Cultural persistence refers to the persistence over time of "cultural traits" like customs, beliefs, behaviours. In some cases, such traits last for very long periods of time, while in other cases they change more rapidly and dramatically (Giuliano & Nunn 2020).dramatically.[1] Relevant traits could include such things as democratic or authoritarian norms and behaviours, concern for human rights, concern for animal welfare, or norms conducive to scientific progress or free markets.

It could be valuable to know how persistent cultural traits tend to be, how often they are very persistent, how this varies between traits and conditions, and what interventions could affect persistence. This could inform predictions about what the future will be like and views about the importance of intervening to change various traits or various conditions that affect persistence. For example, generally, the more persistent we expect a positive change in people's moral views to be, the more valuable causing that change may be. Cultural persistence is therefore relevant to ideas such as trajectory change and value lock-in (see also Beckstead 2015).[2]

This question of cultural persistence has received some academic attention (e.g. Giuliano & Nunn 2020; Kelly 2019),attention,[3] and is also related to the field of cultural evolution.

BibliographyFurther reading

Beckstead, Nick (2015) The long-term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks, The GiveWell Blog, August 13 (16 September 2015).

Giuliano, Paola & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, rdaa074.

Kelly, Morgan (2019) The standard errors of persistence, SSRN Electronic Journal.

  1. ^

    Giuliano, Paola & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change, The Review of Economic Studies, rdaa074.

  2. ^

    See also Nick Beckstead (2015) The long-term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks, The GiveWell Blog, August 13 (16 September 2015).

  3. ^

    For example Paola Giuliano & Nathan Nunn (2020) Understanding cultural persistence and change,  and Morgan Kelly (2019) The standard errors of persistence, SSRN Electronic Journal.

Pablo3y20

Thanks, Michael. I agree that the name change renders the other issues moot.

Reply

It could be valuable to know how persistent cultural traits tend to be, how often they are very persistent, how this varies between traits and conditions, and what interventions could affect persistence. This could inform predictions about what the future will be like and views about the importance of intervening to change various traits or various conditions that affect persistence. For example, generally, the more persistent we expect a positive change in people's moral views to be, the more valuable causing that change may be. Cultural persistence is therefore relevant to ideas such as trajectory change and value lock-in (see also Beckstead, 2016)Beckstead 2015).

This question of cultural persistence has received some academic attention (e.g. Giuliano & Nunn 2020; Kelly,Kelly 2019), and is also related to the field of cultural evolution.

Beckstead (2016)Beckstead, Nick (2015) https://blog.givewell.org/2015/08/13/the-The long-term-significance-of-reducing-global-catastrophic-risks/term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks, The GiveWell Blog, August 13 (16 September 2015).

MichaelA3y40

Regarding cultural persistence (or whatever):

I've now changed the name to cultural persistence, updated and expanded the text, and (hopefully) more clearly indicated how this connects to both the academic line of work and to EA interests. Feel free to make additional suggestions/edits as well :)

I roughly agree with the general principle given in your final paragraph. (FWIW, I did propose the original name and description before creating the entry, and did see it as more a "first pass" than a final state. But that's not really disagreeing with your comment, since your comment can be seen as basically a prod to now go beyond that "first pass".)

In this case, I also think that switching to the term "cultural persistence" largely bypasses these concerns, since that term's meaning seems fairly intuitive and is covered in some academic work. (That said, I haven't read any of the papers in full myself, though I've encountered various EA summaries of them.)

Reply

It's often importantCultural persistence refers to have a sensethe persistence over time of the persistence"cultural traits" like customs, beliefs, behaviours. In some cases, such traits last for very long periods of political/cultural variables -time, while in other cases they change more rapidly and dramatically (Giuliano & Nunn 2020). Relevant traits could include such things as democracy, authoritarianism,democratic or authoritarian norms and behaviours, concern for human rights, a concern for animal welfare, or norms conducive to scientific progress or free markets.

It could be valuable to know how persistent cultural traits tend to be, how often they are very persistent, how this varies between traits and conditions, and what interventions could affect persistence. This cancould inform our predictions ofabout what the future will be like and our views onabout the importance of changing those variables.intervening to change various traits or various conditions that affect persistence. For example, generally, the more persistent we expect a positive change in people's moral views to be, the more valuable causing that change may be. Cultural persistence is therefore relevant to ideas such as trajectory change and value lock-in (see also Beckstead, 2016).

See alsoThis question of cultural persistence has received some academic work on cultural persistenceattention (e.g. Giuliano & Nunn 2020; Kelly, 2019), and is also related to the field of cultural evolution.

Beckstead (2016) https://blog.givewell.org/2015/08/13/the-long-term-significance-of-reducing-global-catastrophic-risks/

MichaelA3y20

Regarding memetics and cultural evolution:

I just checked the history of the tags, and apparently Owen Cotton-Barratt created the memetics entry, and then later I created the cultural evolution entry (having proposed it in my tag proposal thread and noted it overlapped with memetics, and with JP indicating being in favour of this new entry as well). 

I think there's a reasonable argument for just having one or the other entry. And if we do just have one, I think it should be cultural evolution rather than memetics.

It's also possible that if we'd had the cultural evolution entry first and then someone proposed a memetics entry, my intuitions would be less favourable.

But currently I still weakly favour keeping the memetics tag, for the reason given above: I think it's a large and interesting enough topic in its own right to warrant an entry, even if it does seem to be a subset of cultural evolution. (But this is just a weak favouring, and can be overruled.)

'Memetics' is also a term of dubious scientific standing and is not generally used in the scholarly literature.

A substantial chunk of our wiki entries are terms that aren't used in the scholarly literature. 

This case is different in that the scholarly literature has to some extent discussed and then apparently often looked down on this term, rather than simply never discussing it. But FWIW, my independent impression is that "memetics", at least as used by EAs, points to a just quite clearly useful set of metaphors, analogies, etc., which aren't in the right category of thing to be a "false theory" or "pseudoscience". 

To me, I think the main reason the dubious scientific standing matters is not because of the information that provides but because I think the wiki is intended partly for purposes along the lines of field building, and for that it's good to manage our reputation, look credible and serious, etc. I'd understand cutting the entry for that reason, especially given it overlaps considerably with "cultural evolution".

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