Launhcing Arguable: A Debating Experiment

Strong opinions, weakly held

People who share the same birthday are slightly more likely to get married to one another. People named Carpenter are more likely to be carpenters and those with the last name Baker are more likely to be bakers. There’s at least a modest tendency for women named Georgia to gravitate towards Georgia, women named Virginia to gravitate towards Virginia, and the more closely the name resembles the state, the bigger the effect appears to be. This can be attributed to implicit egotism, a term coined by Brett Pelham from Montgomery University that suggests we have an unconscious preference for things we relate to.

The IKEA Effect: We LOVE Our Own Ideas

Named after the global furniture company, the Ikea effect states that consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they create.

In 2011, Duke University psychologist Dan Ariely collaborated with two Harvard professors to study people assembling Ikea boxes, folding origami and assembling Lego sets. They brought participants into a lab, and gave them either a pre-assembled Lego car, or Legos and instructions to build a car. They then asked the volunteers how much they would be willing to pay to keep the car. Turns out the participants were ready to pay twice as much for the Lego car if they had just finished building it.

“Strong Opinions, Weakly Held"

The combined might of Ikea effect, implicit egotism and not-invented-here syndrome makes effective decision making tricky. Does that mean we ignore our convictions because they might be biased?

Paul Saffo, a noted technology forecaster, once said, "Have strong opinions, weakly held."

Conviction is an important decision-making tool, but it shouldn’t blind us. We should continually gather information that either supports or refutes our hypothesis. If we uncover information unfriendly to our belief, we should abandon our belief. That doesn’t make us flaky. If anything, it shows maturity.

That’s the essence of our (Dhruva Bhat, Utkarsh Amitabh) new experiment Arguable.

The first episode

Doing Good: If you want to do good, should you choose a career where you’re having a direct positive impact on people, or a career where you make as much money as you can and donate the majority of it to charity?  

It is estimated that in a person’s lifetime, they devote 80,000 hours to their career. A longstanding question in the Effective Altruism movement is whether one should ‘earn to give’ or directly pursue a high impact career. Is there a tradeoff between pursuing these two career paths? Is there greater additionality or a larger marginal difference to society when you fill a gap in talent or one in funding? Is 'earning to give' ethical if one earns that money by working for a shady investment bank or oil company? How should one look back and measure the total amount of ‘good’ that they have done using their career?

We would appreciate if you listen, follow, and leave us a review. We will try to invite the most interesting commentators to join the podcast. Our goal is to have the most wide-ranging debates with the most wide-ranging spectrum of ideas.

These are some of the other topics we have in mind

Cancelled: Should the art of immoral artists be deplatformed?  

There are sadly countless artists from Woody Allen to YNW Melly to Dr Dre who have committed immoral acts. Is deplatforming their art a just and effective way to hold them accountable? What should be done to respect victims? Is it possible to appreciate the work of an artist while also condemning their personal actions? Who even gets to decide the standard artists are held to and whether or not they should be deplatformed? 

The Future of Work: Will generative AI cause widespread job loss? 

AI could replace as many as 300 million full-time jobs according to a report by Goldman Sachs. What jobs is AI most likely to replace and least likely to? Should we welcome the role generative AI will have in transforming the workforce (e.g. by putting algorithms in charge instead of traditional bosses)? What effect will AI have on inequality and economic growth in both developed and developing countries? Should governments act by putting a pause to the rapid development of AI? 

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: Has the rise of the venture capital-backed consumer tech startup ecosystem in India been a force for good? 

Have the profit-incentives of VCs been beneficial or harmful in causing Indian tech startups to scale up and grow large? To what extent has the combination of VC industry expertise and network building led to the success of Indian technology startups? Given the inherent limitations of early-stage investing, have VCs in India truly achieved unbiased and equitable funding decisions that are not inherently biassed towards certain types of founders or ventures? How do other funding alternatives such as banks and private investors compare to VCs? 

Campus Politics: Should universities make public statements about political issues? 

Should universities be a place for political activism or solely education and academic activities? Under what circumstances should universities consider taking public stances on political issues, and how can they determine the appropriate level of engagement (silence, neutrality, or active advocacy)? Who in the university should be involved in developing public statements on political issues? What factors (e.g., student recruitment, alumni donations, reputation of the university to employers) should be considered before a stance is taken? Should universities have handled the recent pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses any differently?

Representation Matters?: Should popular media (movies, books, etc.) always seek to have storylines/characters with different ethnicities, religious backgrounds and sexualities?  

How should this form of representation take place in popular culture? Will this result in role models and inspiration for minorities, or will it create tokenistic and inauthentic portrayals? Will this approach challenge stereotypes, or will it reinforce them? How will this impact the quality of the story?/Can it hinder artistic expression?  

Child’s Play: Should we be having children today? 

Anti-natalism is a controversial ethical framework considered when asking this question. The growing ‘voluntary childlessness’ movement speaks to the increasing number of people who have decided against having children. Is it or is it not in one's self-interest to have children? Will the world be a better or worse one to live in for children in the future? Is there a moral obligation to procreate to continue the human race? Or is it only a moral good? Can it even be immoral to have a child given the harm doing so may have on society? 

The Visible Hand: Should governments be playing an active role in directing and supporting the setting up of specific industries (i.e. using industrial policy)? 

Are governments effective at deciding what industries they want to foster or are they prey to political pressures and corruption? Should industrial policy focus on direct subsidies, tax breaks, infrastructure development, or research and development funding? Do the economic benefits of job creation and export-oriented growth outweigh the potential costs of overspecialization and retaliation from other countries? Does government intervention lead to inefficiency and decrease competition? Is there a way to strike a balance between the invisible and visible hand in the market when setting up these industries? 

General Education: Should universities require students to take classes in the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities?

There is a growing number of universities outside the US (e.g. Ashoka, FLAME, and Krea in India) that offer a liberal arts education where students are meant to take classes from a variety of fields ranging from STEM to the humanities. Will exposing students to a wide variety of skills and academic fields improve the future prospects of graduates or take valuable time and energy away from gaining expertise in one area? Will general education become a valued part of the university experience, or be seen as a mandatory hurdle? Can all universities, regardless of the resources they have, meaningfully implement this?

Affirmative Action in India:  Should India reform its caste and religion-based reservation system? 

Caste and religion-based reservations are coded into the Constitution of India. However, there has always been a longstanding disagreement on whether the system should continue to exist. Is the current system of reservation meritocratic? Is this the best way to improve the social mobility of people from scheduled castes and tribes? How have political parties in India used promises of expanding caste and religion-based reservations in their electoral campaigns? Are there alternative policies that can be passed to address caste-based discrimination?