Social Epistemology

For at least 2 meals this week, sit with people in a public place (e.g. the dining hall) who you don’t know at all. (Try not to just interrupt people’s lunches, ask if you can join them beforehand!) Then write a reflection about the experience. Were people receptive to you joining your table or did most people discourage you from sitting with them? Why do you think they had this response? Did you learn anything new about other students that changed your views? Did the experience of trying to meet new people change how you think about the social dynamics of our campus? Write your response with reference to Hill and Joshi’s work. 

Evidence:  Ask to include selfies with your new lunch buddies. If they do not want to be photographed, you can also have them email me to verify that they didn't know you before you shared a meal. 

Choose an ordinary event, institution, or recurring phenomenon in your life (e.g. your university, your dorm, grocery stores, your team, local coffee shop, or instagram page) Deliberately interpret everything you observe as though there were a hidden coordinated explanation operating beneath the surface. Construct the best possible conspiracy theory about the thing you are observing. You do not have to believe the theory. Your task is to notice how easy it is to generate explanations that connect disparate facts into a coherent narrative.

Write down a prelimnary theory, and then each day record three observations, explaining how they could support the larger theory. Only at the end of the project can you then record what evidence would actually count against your theory.  In your reflection, discuss why conspiracy theories can become psychologically compelling. Did contradictory evidence weaken the theory or simply require modifying it? Do you kind of believe your theory now? 

Imagine civilization collapsed and you are rebuilding knowledge for all of humanity. Choose three of the following forms of knowledge, which would be important for rebuilding civilization.

• Clean water

• Germ theory

• Electricity

• Nutrition and food safety 

• Farming 

• Engineering/tools 

Before the deadline, you must find one real person in your community who possesses that knowledge without using AI or any other technology. They can only relay this knowledge to you using their own memory. Interview them to get the knowledge. Ask them how they learned it and how they would teach it to a true novice. What mistakes would a survivor make and how cna they be avoided? 

Evidene: Interview notes and a Photo with your "knowledge keeper."