The main purpose of this goingconcern article is to pan a TurboTax ad that will be aired during the 2020 Super Bowl. I agree the ad is pretty bad. Anyway, it seems the author couldn't resist another pot shot at TurboTax and its maker Intuit. Relying on ProPublica's deceptive and biased reporting about free filing income taxes (see this blog May 2019), the reporter says: "But that ad time cost is chump change for Intuit, maker of TurboTax and staunch proponent of charging millions of customers for tax filing services they should’ve gotten for free."
Should've gotten for free? Huh? Perhaps could have, but should have by what standard? That if a filer fails to heed the caveats, plows ahead anyway, and later learns that he or she doesn't meet the criteria for filing free, that Intuit and TurboTax should allow him or her to file free anyway? That Intuit put a copy of TurboTax on an IRS site that some lower income folks could use for free wasn't enough goodwill?
By the way, I recently learned something else about using the IRS's Free File site. Suppose the following. You proceed to use one of the software programs within the IRS's suite and later discover that you don't meet the eligibility criteria. The eligibility criteria aren't fool-proof and you might err. What happens? You are directed back to the IRS's Free File site to try another product -- which might get the same result. That's it; no other options. If you had selected, say, TurboTax, you could not be redirected to a paid version of TurboTax on a TurboTax website. That prohibition is the IRS's. Suggesting a pay version of TurboTax would be akin to advertising. Moreover, wherever you go requires starting again from scratch for input. The data you had entered up to the point of failure cannot be exported to another website. Would you be upset or pleased with the IRS?
In all its reporting about TurboTax, ProPublica never wrote about this feature of the IRS's Free File site. That's a double standard. If a person tries to file free yet fails to meet the criteria for doing so starting on a TurboTax website, ProPublica feels the need to bad-mouth TurboTax's maker. If a person does likewise starting on the IRS's Free File site, ProPublica is mute.
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
The Knowledge Illusion #7
Continuing about The Knowledge Illusion:
To run a company or any organization, a team with complementary skills is most likely to satisfy all the demands made by the division of cognitive labor.
As individuals, we know little. There's not too much we can do about that; there's too much to know. Obviously we can learn some facts and theories, and we can develop skills. But we also have to learn how to make use of others' knowledge and skills.
The idea that education is for increasing intellectual independence is not entirely correct. That idea isn't wrong so much as incomplete. It ignores the fact that knowledge depends on others. For example, a car mechanic relies on others for parts, diagnostic tools made by others, maybe co-workers, and manuals.
Science is about justification, which comes in various forms. But most conclusions in science aren't based on either observation or inference. They are based on authority, on what is written in a textbook or journal or what your expert friend tells you. That's one role of the community of knowledge, to supply facts when direct justifications would take too much time or be too costly or difficult. Everyone's understanding is dependent on what others know.
But we shouldn't take faith in whatever a community believes or whatever a credentialed expert says. We should have enough skepticism and a keen eye for charlatans and those who are confidently wrong.
This is my final post about The Knowledge Illusion.
To run a company or any organization, a team with complementary skills is most likely to satisfy all the demands made by the division of cognitive labor.
As individuals, we know little. There's not too much we can do about that; there's too much to know. Obviously we can learn some facts and theories, and we can develop skills. But we also have to learn how to make use of others' knowledge and skills.
The idea that education is for increasing intellectual independence is not entirely correct. That idea isn't wrong so much as incomplete. It ignores the fact that knowledge depends on others. For example, a car mechanic relies on others for parts, diagnostic tools made by others, maybe co-workers, and manuals.
Science is about justification, which comes in various forms. But most conclusions in science aren't based on either observation or inference. They are based on authority, on what is written in a textbook or journal or what your expert friend tells you. That's one role of the community of knowledge, to supply facts when direct justifications would take too much time or be too costly or difficult. Everyone's understanding is dependent on what others know.
But we shouldn't take faith in whatever a community believes or whatever a credentialed expert says. We should have enough skepticism and a keen eye for charlatans and those who are confidently wrong.
This is my final post about The Knowledge Illusion.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
The Knowledge Illusion #6
Continuing about The Knowledge Illusion:
Chapter 9 is Thinking About Politics.
A community of knowledge can become dangerous. When a group of people don't know much but share a position, the members reinforce one another's sense of understanding, even when there is no real expertise to give it solid support. Group-think diminishes independent thinking and political opposition through propaganda and even terror.
The authors did experiments exploring people's understanding of specific political positions. With few exceptions, the subjects had little to say when asked to explain how a policy worked, its mechanics. Usually when people talk about political policies, they are not engaged in causal thinking. Causal explanations may be hard; they require people to go outside their belief systems. You can't consider the implications of a policy by ruminating on how you feel about it.
When subjects in experiments were asked about their feelings, they didn't change their positions. When the subjects were asked for causal explanations, they better appreciated the shallowness of their understanding.
Proponents of political positions often cast policies in value-based terms in order to hide their ignorance, prevent moderation of opinion, and block compromise. An example is health care. The debate shouldn't be about basic values, because to most people they aren't the issue. The issue is the best way to achieve the best outcomes.
Ballot measures voted on directly by citizens can bypass politicians in power, but neglect the knowledge illusion. Individual citizens rarely know enough to make an informed decision about complex social policy issues even when they think they do.
Chapter 9 is Thinking About Politics.
A community of knowledge can become dangerous. When a group of people don't know much but share a position, the members reinforce one another's sense of understanding, even when there is no real expertise to give it solid support. Group-think diminishes independent thinking and political opposition through propaganda and even terror.
The authors did experiments exploring people's understanding of specific political positions. With few exceptions, the subjects had little to say when asked to explain how a policy worked, its mechanics. Usually when people talk about political policies, they are not engaged in causal thinking. Causal explanations may be hard; they require people to go outside their belief systems. You can't consider the implications of a policy by ruminating on how you feel about it.
When subjects in experiments were asked about their feelings, they didn't change their positions. When the subjects were asked for causal explanations, they better appreciated the shallowness of their understanding.
Proponents of political positions often cast policies in value-based terms in order to hide their ignorance, prevent moderation of opinion, and block compromise. An example is health care. The debate shouldn't be about basic values, because to most people they aren't the issue. The issue is the best way to achieve the best outcomes.
Ballot measures voted on directly by citizens can bypass politicians in power, but neglect the knowledge illusion. Individual citizens rarely know enough to make an informed decision about complex social policy issues even when they think they do.
Friday, January 24, 2020
The Knowledge Illusion #5
Continuing about The Knowledge Illusion:
Like it or not, the Internet has become a major player in our lives. It is our main source of information, a centerpiece in our community of knowledge. Technology is quickly transforming our lives. Humans are made for technological change. Our bodies and brains are designed to incorporate new tools into our activities as if they were extensions of our bodies.
There are some worrisome consequences. The Internet's store of knowledge is so accessible and vast that we may be fashioning a society where everyone with a smartphone and Wi-Fi connection becomes a self-appointed expert in multiple domains.
But notice what these machines don't do. They do not have intentions and hence do not share intentions with us the way people share intentions. Machines without the basic human ability to share attention and goals will never be able to read our minds and outsmart us because they won't even be able to understand us.
A chapter on science describes how the average person knows so little compared to the experts. Example topics given are (1) genetic engineering, and (2) bacteria, viruses, and antibiotics. What is actually in our heads -- our causal models -- are sparse and often wrong.
Like it or not, the Internet has become a major player in our lives. It is our main source of information, a centerpiece in our community of knowledge. Technology is quickly transforming our lives. Humans are made for technological change. Our bodies and brains are designed to incorporate new tools into our activities as if they were extensions of our bodies.
There are some worrisome consequences. The Internet's store of knowledge is so accessible and vast that we may be fashioning a society where everyone with a smartphone and Wi-Fi connection becomes a self-appointed expert in multiple domains.
But notice what these machines don't do. They do not have intentions and hence do not share intentions with us the way people share intentions. Machines without the basic human ability to share attention and goals will never be able to read our minds and outsmart us because they won't even be able to understand us.
A chapter on science describes how the average person knows so little compared to the experts. Example topics given are (1) genetic engineering, and (2) bacteria, viruses, and antibiotics. What is actually in our heads -- our causal models -- are sparse and often wrong.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
The Knowledge Illusion #4
Continuing about The Knowledge Illusion:
In nature we often see complex behavior arise through the coordination of multiple individuals. When multiple cognitive systems work together, group intelligence can emerge that goes beyond what each individual is capable of. The authors give a beehive as an example. Wolves in packs and lions in a pride after prey are others. Historically hunting was a communal enterprise requiring a level of cooperation unique to humans. Consider the variety of trades that participate in building a home.
Living in a group also demands certain cognitive abilities. It requires the ability to communicate in sophisticated ways, to understand and incorporate the perspectives of others, and to share common goals. Humans have an ability that no machine or other animal does. They can share their attention with someone else. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky made pioneering insights into the idea of a community of knowledge.
There is teamwork in many human efforts, such as the medical health professions. People tend to remember what they have to within a particular community to best make their contribution to the division of cognitive labor. They rely on experts to remember everything else. In a community of knowledge, what matters more than having ready knowledge is having access to knowledge.
In nature we often see complex behavior arise through the coordination of multiple individuals. When multiple cognitive systems work together, group intelligence can emerge that goes beyond what each individual is capable of. The authors give a beehive as an example. Wolves in packs and lions in a pride after prey are others. Historically hunting was a communal enterprise requiring a level of cooperation unique to humans. Consider the variety of trades that participate in building a home.
Living in a group also demands certain cognitive abilities. It requires the ability to communicate in sophisticated ways, to understand and incorporate the perspectives of others, and to share common goals. Humans have an ability that no machine or other animal does. They can share their attention with someone else. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky made pioneering insights into the idea of a community of knowledge.
There is teamwork in many human efforts, such as the medical health professions. People tend to remember what they have to within a particular community to best make their contribution to the division of cognitive labor. They rely on experts to remember everything else. In a community of knowledge, what matters more than having ready knowledge is having access to knowledge.
Monday, January 20, 2020
The Knowledge Illusion #3
Continuing about The Knowledge Illusion:
Causal reasoning serves as an infrastructure of thought, but that doesn't mean people are ideal causal reasoners. We shouldn't berate ourselves for not being ideal. Think about what it would take to make correct causal inferences in every situation, even unfamiliar ones. People do excel at causal reasoning, but tend to do it superficially outside their expertise.
The decisions we come to quickly and intuitively aren't the same as those we come to through careful deliberation. Intuition gives us a simplified, coarse, and usually good enough analysis, and gives us the illusion that we know a fair amount. But when we deliberate, we come to appreciate how complex things really are, and this reveals how little we really know.
Reasoning isn't limited to the brain. Our bodies support it. The authors use the example of a baseball player catching a fly ball. The trajectory of a ball can be calculated with mathematical equations, but the player doesn't do that (and hasn't enough time to). External aids support reasoning, too. Example are doing arithmetic on a chalkboard and writing things down to help develop and fine-tune one's thoughts.
Causal reasoning serves as an infrastructure of thought, but that doesn't mean people are ideal causal reasoners. We shouldn't berate ourselves for not being ideal. Think about what it would take to make correct causal inferences in every situation, even unfamiliar ones. People do excel at causal reasoning, but tend to do it superficially outside their expertise.
The decisions we come to quickly and intuitively aren't the same as those we come to through careful deliberation. Intuition gives us a simplified, coarse, and usually good enough analysis, and gives us the illusion that we know a fair amount. But when we deliberate, we come to appreciate how complex things really are, and this reveals how little we really know.
Reasoning isn't limited to the brain. Our bodies support it. The authors use the example of a baseball player catching a fly ball. The trajectory of a ball can be calculated with mathematical equations, but the player doesn't do that (and hasn't enough time to). External aids support reasoning, too. Example are doing arithmetic on a chalkboard and writing things down to help develop and fine-tune one's thoughts.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
The Knowledge Illusion #2
Chapter 1 of The Knowledge Illusion is titled What We Know. To illustrate how we can believe we know more than we actually do, the authors describe experiments in which people tried to draw a bicycle. Some couldn't draw the pedals and chains correctly.
Deliberation is only a tiny part of what goes on when we think. Most of cognition consists of intuitive thought that occurs below the surface of consciousness.
Chapters 2 and 3 are about why and how we think. We mainly think in order to act. Just as people don't think only by association, people do not always reason via logical deduction. We think about how causes produce effects, what kinds of things disable or prevent effects, and what factors must be in place for causes to have their influence. Rather than thinking in terms of propositional logic, which tells us whether a statement is true or false, people think in terms of causal logic, which incorporates knowledge about how events actually come about in order to reach conclusions. Sometimes people ignore alternative causes when thinking about cause and effect because their mental simulations have no room for them.
Stories may be communal entities, but telling them requires that individuals possess a cognitive system that's up to the task. The cognitive system's ability to represent and reason about causal systems is limited, and we can't as individuals deal with all the complexity of the world. This is surely why stories tend to simplify and sometimes oversimplify events.
Deliberation is only a tiny part of what goes on when we think. Most of cognition consists of intuitive thought that occurs below the surface of consciousness.
Chapters 2 and 3 are about why and how we think. We mainly think in order to act. Just as people don't think only by association, people do not always reason via logical deduction. We think about how causes produce effects, what kinds of things disable or prevent effects, and what factors must be in place for causes to have their influence. Rather than thinking in terms of propositional logic, which tells us whether a statement is true or false, people think in terms of causal logic, which incorporates knowledge about how events actually come about in order to reach conclusions. Sometimes people ignore alternative causes when thinking about cause and effect because their mental simulations have no room for them.
Stories may be communal entities, but telling them requires that individuals possess a cognitive system that's up to the task. The cognitive system's ability to represent and reason about causal systems is limited, and we can't as individuals deal with all the complexity of the world. This is surely why stories tend to simplify and sometimes oversimplify events.
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