Paul Smaldino
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psmaldino.bsky.social
Paul Smaldino
@psmaldino.bsky.social
5.7K followers 930 following 700 posts
Paradigmatically promiscuous scientist. Ankylosaur enthusiast. Modeler of cultural evolution and related topics. Professor at UC Merced and the Santa Fe Institute.
Web: https://smaldino.com/wp/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
bjjbarrett.bsky.social
Postdoc position in individual-level incentives, social
learning, and payoff-biased imitation shape group-level accuracy in complex prediction and decision-making tasks in Konstanz

files.newsletter2go.com/l3slzozn/s_i...
files.newsletter2go.com
November 17, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
abenewman.bsky.social
We are on the brink of a once in a generation transformation in world politics. @erikvoeten.bsky.social @segoddard.bsky.social and I talk neo-royalism as one future.
Give a list: goodauthority.org/news/the-new...
Check out the article it is based on here:
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
November 21, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
abenewman.bsky.social
1/This week has seen a blitz of what looks like corruption sandals: Saudi development deals for US military tech, Pakistani payments to Trump insiders for tariff relief, Swiss gold bars for a trade deal. Far from a payoff, this is a reordering of internat'l system.
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mxthh...
www.dropbox.com
November 18, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
asherelbein.bsky.social
I cosign every single word of this

anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...
I do understand: you want permission. There’s a machine in the corner wrapped in human skin that makes things out of shit and blood to look like whatever you want (as long as you don’t look too closely). You gave one to your teacher and they didn’t notice. Your boss told you to use it after they laid off half the team and it was fine. You fed one to your kids and they liked it. You want to know you can use it sometimes without me thinking less of you. You don’t need me to believe it’s useful, you just want me to be polite about it. But I am a hater, and I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid shit-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.
November 19, 2025 at 1:21 PM
psmaldino.bsky.social
Using AI to amplify societal biases, exhibit 2490439840398
moreperfectunion.bsky.social More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 8d
Researchers are now saying that AI can find correlations between facial characteristics and success on the job.

The Economist says that corporations would have a “strong incentive” to deploy this technology when looking at applicants.
November 18, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
tomstafford.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy
Monday boost for yesterday's newsletter, looking at whether we can discern general principles for how to connect teams to make them smarter:

https://tomstafford.substack.com/p/when-less-communication-is-more-collective

#psychology #cogsci #collectiveintelligence
When less (communication) is more (collective intelligence)
Team work, complex problems, and preserving diversity in the ecosystem of ideas
tomstafford.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 8:39 AM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
alexmesoudi.com
Come and do a PhD at Exeter with me and Chico Camargo (Computer Science) on human-genAI coevolution

"Leveraging Natural Language Processing for Data-Driven Agent-Based Modelling of Online Cultural Dynamics"

www.exeter.ac.uk/v8media/recr...

More details here:
www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...
www.exeter.ac.uk
November 14, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
runwithskizzers.bsky.social
THEN YOU PURCHASE THEM AND DO NOT USE THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS
November 14, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
charlesefferson.bsky.social
Congratulations to Dr @mariapykala.bsky.social for successfully defending her PhD thesis yesterday. Two big themes. 1) Social learning as a two-step process with psychological biases shaping both network formation and social learning given a network. 2) Cumulative cultural evolution in an AI world.
November 14, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
alexmesoudi.com
Congratulations to Andoni Sergiou for defending his PhD thesis today! And special thanks to @psmaldino.bsky.social and @cornishjackdaws.bsky.social for examining his thesis
November 11, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
cbo.bsky.social
This is…outstanding. If I may, I urge us to read it carefully, and appreciate the details, the shape, the picture it paints.
brittanytrang.com Brittany Trang @brittanytrang.com · 17d
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
thetnholler.bsky.social
Thinking this level of inequality is unsustainable isn’t radical, thinking it isn’t is
November 6, 2025 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
simongreenhill.bsky.social
why has no-one written a book on the evolution of cooperation titled "Decent with Modification"?

#evolution #culturalevolution
November 6, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
m-b-petersen.bsky.social
Four (!) three-year postdoc positions available at @au.dk: international.au.dk/about/profil...

Join an incredible team & help understand the psychological & political implications of the clash between high-speed society & slow-speed democracy.

Please share! @tboeggild.bsky.social can help with Qs
Four three-year postdoctoral positions in the project Slow-Motion Democracy - Vacancy at Aarhus University
Vacancy at Department of Political Science, Aarhus University
international.au.dk
November 6, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
epthepod.bsky.social
This week we talk to @babeheim.bsky.social about culture, change, modeling, running red lights, and the game of go.
youtu.be/nqTkSK-qtJM
www.podbean.com/eas/pb-hrn9v...
Cultural Dynamics with Bret Breheim
YouTube video by Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast)
youtu.be
November 4, 2025 at 2:59 PM
psmaldino.bsky.social
In 1970, Hunter S Thompson ran for sheriff of Aspen, CO, under the progressive “Freak Power” party platform. He lost by 31 votes despite receiving more votes than the previous winner, largely because the Dems and Republicans colluded to run a single candidate.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bat...
Thompson for sheriff 1970. The campaign logo is a doubled-thumbed fist holding a mescaline button.
November 4, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
esqueer.net
They just gutted Teen Vogue which had top notch political journalism. The media is continuing to purge any sort of political dissent to Trump and the oligarchs.

www.vogue.com/article/teen...
November 3, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
lexmcmenamin.com
I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day.

certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.
November 3, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
patrickesavage.bsky.social
This thicc 71-chapter book (academic.oup.com/edited-volum...) arrived just in time to use as the textbook for my new "Cultural Evolution" class I've just started teaching!
Featuring this chapter from @cailinmeister.bsky.social @psmaldino.bsky.social & Jingyi Wu as well as much more including...
Syllabus for my new "Cultural Evolution" class: Topic Reading 1 (Textbook) Reading 2 (primary source) Course overview (none) (none) How to read + history Foreword: A brief history of the study of cultural evolution Editor’s Preface How and why to read (and write and publish) academic research Arts 39) Cultural evolution and music Sequence alignment of folk song melodies reveals cross-cultural regularities of musical evolution Communication 55) Language phylogenies: Modeling the evolution of language Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages Animal culture 22) What constitutes non-human culture and how is it studied? Cultures in chimpanzees Technology 36) Digital culture Large language models show human-like content biases in transmission chain experiments Religion 44) The cultural evolution of religion and cooperation Testing the Big Gods hypothesis with global historical data: A review and ‘retake’ Sociality 49) Cultural evolution and the economic wealth of nations Dual Evolutionary Foundations of Political Ideology Predict Divergent Responses to COVID-19 Coevolution 60) Cultural evolution and diet Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe Applications (policy) 69) Cultural evolution and public policy Female genital cutting is not a social coordination norm Applications (science) 71) Cultural evolution of science The natural selection of bad science Final discussion 1) Perspectives on cultural evolution from pioneers in the field Genes, culture, and scientific racism The thicc 71-chapter Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution
October 29, 2025 at 11:35 AM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
cailinmeister.bsky.social
Congrats to all involved in the production of the massive Oxford Handbook of cultural evolution. You can read our paper The Cultural Evolution Of Science here: cailinoconnor.com/wp-content/u...
October 14, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
mmitchell.bsky.social
Screensnapshot of our times. Corporate pressure to use AI creates bad outcomes with real-life consequences; seeking to unpack the problem yields more pressure to indulge in the very thing causing the problem.
Reuters screenshot. Headline: "Two federal judges say use of AI led to errors in US court rulings". Bottom left: Reuters AI saying, "Get the key points from this story with Reuters AI"
October 26, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
radleybalko.bsky.social
I know it’s too much to expect them to know their history, but if the American Revolution had a motto, it definitely would not have been “immigrants go home.”

It would have been “get your fucking soldiers out of our cities.”
craigipedia.bsky.social Craig Harrington @craigipedia.bsky.social · 28d
America... boy, I dunno.
October 28, 2025 at 1:48 PM
psmaldino.bsky.social
Re-posting this because I really like it and I think we need to understand identity from a functionalist perspective more than ever.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
psmaldino.bsky.social Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · Jun 2
I wrote a chapter on a functionalist account of social identity.

IMO, thinking about identity in an instrumental way helps explain a lot of behavior that seems otherwise baffling.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
This chapter focuses on how people use identity categories for adaptive decision making and how they strategically apply signals of identity. Adopting a functional view of identity for communication and behavior allows us to focus on the forces that shape their use. I will first make it clear that signals of social identity often encode meaningful information for decision making. I will then review specific perspectives on how selection by consequences has shaped the use of identity signals to more adaptively facilitate social learning, partner choice, and coordination, followed by a consideration of how those uses have changed in a world characterized by diversity, anonymity and the Internet, and political polarization. Identity is constructed for functional purposes, and is therefore only essential insofar as forming categories and legible cultural artifacts are essential features of human activity.
October 27, 2025 at 8:11 PM
psmaldino.bsky.social
Revision posted! An evolutionary model of identity signaling with nested/overlapping/intersectional identities, complex multidimensional signaling capabilities, and a primer on ancient Mesopotamia. What more could you ask for?
osf.io/preprints/so...
psmaldino.bsky.social Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · Jul 1
New preprint w/ Nathan Gabriel & @avbell.bsky.social: The Evolution of Identity Signals for Coordination in Diverse Societies

The model tackles multiple nested/overlapping identities and complex signaling structure. Recovers lots of old results and adds several new ones osf.io/preprints/so...
Individual social identities indicate group affiliations and are typically associated with 3 group-typical preferences, signals that indicate group membership, and the propensity to condition actions on the social signals of others, resulting in group-differentiated interaction norms. Past work modeling identity signaling and coordination has typically assumed that individuals belong to one of a discrete set of groups. Yet individuals can simultaneously belong to multiple groups, which may be nested within larger groupings. Here, we introduce the generalized Bach or Stravinsky game, a coordination game with ordered preferences, which allows us to construct a model that captures the overlapping and hierarchical nature of social identity. Our model unifies several prior results into a single framework, including results related to coordination, minority disadvantage, and cross-cultural competence. Our model also allows agents to express complex social identities through multidimensional signaling, which we use to explore a variety of complex group structures. Our consideration of intersectional identities exposes flaws in naive measures of group structure, illustrating how empirical studies may overlook some social identities if they do not consider the behaviors that those identities function to afford.
October 27, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Paul Smaldino
jbenmenachem.com
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs

- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
www.thecrimson.com
October 21, 2025 at 5:11 PM