The White House All Up In Your Memetics

[Telarus]

http://now.msn.com/behavioral-insights-team-nudge-squad-at-white-house

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/30/govt-knows-best-white-house-creates-nudge-squad-to-shape-behavior/


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am always baffled when people expect the government, especially high-level government, to be more disconnected from understanding of the social research which for the most part we only understand the dynamics of because they funded it.

[Cain]

Downing Street has been making similar use of such strategies for the past few years.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/09/cameron-nudge-unit-economic-behaviour

A "nudge unit" set up by David Cameron in the Cabinet Office is working on how to use behavioural economics and market signals to persuade citizens to behave in a more socially integrated way.

The unit, formally known as the Behavioural Insight Team, is being run by David Halpern, a former adviser in Tony Blair's strategy unit, and is taking advice from Richard Thaler, the Chicago professor generally recognised as popularising "nudge" theory – the idea that governments can design environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves and society.

Thaler was in London for three days this week advising ministers, and in a speech urged the government to adopt longer term horizons. The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said he believed the unit could change the way citizens think.

It is reporting to a prestigious board including Jeremy Heywood, the prime minister's permanent secretary, Steve Hilton, the prime minister's strategic adviser, Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, and Robert Devereux, permanent secretary at the Department of Transport and head of the civil service policy profession. The unit has a two-year life, and its work will be reviewed after a year.

Behavioural work was undertaken by Tony Blair; under Gordon Brown the emphasis shifted to changes in the law and regulations. The aim of the unit, strongly supported by George Osborne, is to explore ways of encouraging citizens to behave in social ways relying on market incentives, as opposed to regulations. The initial work of the unit will be focused on areas such as public health issues such as obesity, alcohol intake or organ donation.

You'll notice the economic underpinning of "nudge theory" is one which is entirely compatible with a crude libertarian approach to economics.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/healthandsocialcare/2012/04/12/whither-behavioural-economic-policy/

In policy circles, there appears to be the perception that behavioural economics, due to its potential to guide people towards making 'better' decisions, can be used as an alternative to stricter forms of regulation, such as taxes and bans. This no doubt in part explains the popularity of the approach with the current right-of-centre UK Government and its apparent preference for a smaller central state.

Unsurprisingly, in the UK at least, there is a "for-profit" motive backing this:

http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/all/head-civil-service/a-nudge-in-the-right-direction

Also buried within the article is the positive story that the Behavioural Insights Team, based in the Cabinet Office, is taking its first step to becoming a profit-making joint venture. This is very much something that has the backing of the team and it is great news for them. They have done tremendous work using "Nudge" techniques to support people to make better choices for themselves, identifying tens of millions of pounds of savings in the process.

The team are considering a joint venture model with a strong element of employee participation in partnership with Government and the private sector. This will give them even more opportunity to increase innovation and win new contracts, as well as respond to the demand they have for their services both in the UK and overseas. And the taxpayer benefits, by receiving profits through the Government-owned share. This has been driven by the team and they will continue to own and run the organisation.

And it's worth noting this particular clusterfuck

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/06/dwp-admits-more-lies-and-misdeeds-re-fake-psych-test/

There has been considerable furore over the fake psychometric 'test' the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been forcing jobseekers to use under the threat of 'sanction' (immediate loss of benefits) since I revealed it in April and the Guardian newspaper published its own account of the story at the beginning of May.

The DWP and the head of Downing Street's 'Behavioural Insights Team' (BIT or 'nudge unit') officially denied to the Guardian that anyone had ever been forced to complete the 'test', while the head of the nudge unit even wrote an indignant open letter to the Guardian to the same effect.

The government then issued a confused statement stating both that it had not forced anyone to take the test – and that it had.

[P3nT4gR4m]

So what's happened is the government has invented advertising 

[Cain]

No, and if you had bothered to read the links I posted - you know, the ones which I copied and pasted from to make it easier to get a gist of what they are on about - you'd know that.

[Doktor Howl]

What's awesome here is that the government can't do authoritarian shit properly, let alone social engineering. 

I am for some reason reminded of old civil defense films.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

I am always baffled when people expect the government, especially high-level government, to be more disconnected from understanding of the social research which for the most part we only understand the dynamics of because they funded it.

I think the expectation is that since government entities can't seem to do anything right that something as subtle as this would be way beyond their ability to pull off. Also, it's really easy to get the impression that government on a whole is tech-illiterate since most of congress and almost all of the judicial branch can't tell their ass from an sql injection.

[Doktor Howl]

I am always baffled when people expect the government, especially high-level government, to be more disconnected from understanding of the social research which for the most part we only understand the dynamics of because they funded it.

I think the expectation is that since government entities can't seem to do anything right that something as subtle as this would be way beyond their ability to pull off. Also, it's really easy to get the impression that government on a whole is tech-illiterate since most of congress and almost all of the judicial branch can't tell their ass from an sql injection.

What's funny is that even the competent crowd is under the supervision (and funding) of the morons.

[The Johnny]

fucking AIDS, its back to the 40s with Skinner and operant conditioning.

[Doktor Howl]

fucking AIDS, its back to the 40s with Skinner and operant conditioning.

Naw.  8 circuit model, applied ham-handedly.  And they told the audience that they were gonna do it.

Hilarity set to ensue.

[The Johnny]

fucking AIDS, its back to the 40s with Skinner and operant conditioning.

Naw.  8 circuit model, applied ham-handedly.  And they told the audience that they were gonna do it.

Hilarity set to ensue.

I personally don't know the specifics of the 8 circuit model (i know it's Leary tho) I'll look into it... but as far as operant conditioning goes, we already have the punishment (negative feedback), and now we get the reinforcement (positive feedback) - I also remember some part of the book i read by him, some fascist utopia, i think it was this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two

or was it Watson? I cant quite recall, this one book about how conditioning will resolve all the world's problems by directing the masses that don't know any better, shaped by the government for the "greater good".

[Cain]

This has nothing to do with the 8 circuit model.  As people would know if they read the damn links.

Why the fuck do I even bother?

[MMMW]

Nudge Squads can't fuck with Don't Budge Squads!

[LMNO]

In reading the links, and knowing a bit about so-called "Nudge Theory", I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I don't really mind it, as a concept. It's been clearly shown that the way you phrase or construct a form can radically change how most people answers or completes it. And if The Man wants The Masses to behave a certain way, it's pretty much the easiest way to do it.

An incredibly simple example is opt-in vs opt-out. If your job sets a 5% payroll contribution to your 401k as a default with a one-click opt-out option, the end result is most employees will keep it; but if the default is nothing, but there's a one-click option to enroll, most people don't do it.

Of course, this could get evil really quickly, no doubt. But I don't see anything morally wrong with the theory.

Cain, I'm still unclear how the UK thinks making the nudge team for-profit will help in any way.

[Left]

This has nothing to do with the 8 circuit model.  As people would know if they read the damn links.

Why the fuck do I even bother?

Followed one of the links...and hopped over to this in action, because I'm not grasping it in the abstract.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/dec/30/jobseekers-dole-nudge-unit-psychology

While I think the use of this is pretty logical in context, I can't help but think " Gee, if the government really wants to help people get off benefits, it would more profitably look at how to bring more jobs to the UK."

Edited to add:
...So they wanted to require taking this test to receive benefits though...and they were conducting a not-so-tightly controlled psych experiment, in effect...and using unqualified personnel to do it also.
...Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

In reading the links, and knowing a bit about so-called "Nudge Theory", I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I don't really mind it, as a concept. It's been clearly shown that the way you phrase or construct a form can radically change how most people answers or completes it. And if The Man wants The Masses to behave a certain way, it's pretty much the easiest way to do it.

An incredibly simple example is opt-in vs opt-out. If your job sets a 5% payroll contribution to your 401k as a default with a one-click opt-out option, the end result is most employees will keep it; but if the default is nothing, but there's a one-click option to enroll, most people don't do it.

Of course, this could get evil really quickly, no doubt. But I don't see anything morally wrong with the theory.

Right now, the uses seem pretty benign...in the example I listed above, for instance, they are trying to help people feel better about themselves as part of the process of finding a job...and considering how demoralizing it is to look for a job, I think this is a very sensible approach.
Edited to add:  My guess is the for-profit aspect of it would be to create advertising for private entities that also supports government objectives of behavioral alteration?