Sunday, October 18, 2020

The four failure modes of Enlightenment values


I don't write about process as much these days — in part because I'm no longer working my previous project that had me effectively commuting across the country every month to the middle of nowhere, and in part because I'm now working a much bigger project that barely leaves me enough time to update even the existing dynamic information equilibrium model forecasts. But recently there seems to be an upswing in calls for civility, declarations of incivility, and long sighs about about how to criticize the "correct" way. I saw George Mason economist Peter Boettke tweet out this the other day that includes a list of "rules" for how to criticize:
How to compose a successful critical commentary:
  1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, "Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way."
  2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
  3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
  4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
It seems fitting that Boettke would tweet this out given his defense of the racist economist/public choice theorist James Buchanan. It's pure "Enlightenment" rationalism — the same Enlightenment that gave us many advances in science, but also racism and eugenics. These rules are in general a great way to go about criticism — but if and only if certain norms are maintained. If these norms aren't maintained, these rules inculcate us with a vulnerability to what I've called viruses of the Enlightenment. To put in the terms of my job: this process has not been subjected to failure mode effect analysis (FMEA) and risk management.

This isn't intended to be a historical analysis of what the "Enlightenment" was, how it came to be, or its purpose, but rather how the rational argument process aspect is used — and misused — in discourse today. I've identified a few failure modes — the vulnerabilities of "Enlightenment" values.

Failure mode 1: Morally repugnant positions

I'm under the impression that like bioethics, medical ethics, or scientific ethics, someone needs to convene an interdisciplinary ethics of rational thought. There are still occasions when science seems to think the pursuit of knowledge is an aim higher than any human ethics, and failures run the gamut from the recent protests to building another telescope on Mauna Kea (part of a longer series of protests) to unethical human experiments.

Rationalism seems to continue to hold this view — that anything should be up for discussion. But we've long since discovered that science can't just experiment on people without considering the ethics, so why should we believe rationalism can just say whatever it wants?

Unfortunately, since we are humans and not rational robots, the discussion of some ideas themselves might spread or exacerbate morally repugnant beliefs. This is contrary to the stated purpose of "Enlightenment values" — open discussion that leads to the "best" ideas winning out in the "marketplace of ideas". And if that direct causality breaks (open discussion → better ideas), the rationale for open discussion is weakened [0]. Simply repeating a lie or conspiracy theory is known to strengthen the belief in it — in part from familiarity heuristic. And we know that simply changing the framing of a question on polls can change people's agreement or disagreement. Right wing publications try to launder their ideas by simply getting mainstream publications to acknowledge them, pulling them out the "conservative ecosystem" — as Steve Bannon has specifically talked about (see here).

Rule #1 fails to acknowledge our humanity. Simply repeating a morally repugnant idea can help spread it, and in the very least requires the critic to carry water for a morally repugnant idea. I cannot be required to restate someone's position that's favorable racism because that requires giving racism my voice, and immorally helping the cause of racism.

For example, Boettke's defense of Buchanan requires him to carry water for Buchanan. If we consider the possibility that Nancy MacLean's claims of a right-wing conspiracy to undermine democracy and promote segregation are true (I am not saying they are, and people I respect — e.g. Henry Farrell — strongly disagree with that interpretation of the evidence), then carrying that water should be held to a level of ethical scrutiny a bit higher than, say, discussing the differences between Bayesian and frequentist interpretations of probability.

This is not to say we shouldn't talk about Buchanan or racism. It's not like we don't experiment with human subjects (e.g. clinical trials). It's just that when we do, there are various ethical questions that need to be formally addressed from informed consent to what we plan to learn from that experiment. A human experiment where we ask the question about whether humans feel pain from being punched in the face is not ethical even if we have consent from the subjects because the likelihood of learning something from it is almost zero. "I'm just asking questions" here is not a persuasive ethical argument.

This is in part why I think shutting down racists from speaking on college campuses isn't problematic in any way. Would we authorize a human experiment where we engage in a campaign of intimidation of minorities just to measure the effects? We already know about racist thought — it's not like these are new ideas. They're already widely discussed — that's how students on campuses know what to protest. And in terms of ethical controls, we might well consider that the moral risk managed solution consistent with intellectual discourse is to have these “speakers” write their “ideas” down, have the forum led by someone who is not a famous racist, or possibly is even opposed to the “ideas” [3].

Failure mode 2: Over-representation of the elite

I criticized Roger Farmer's acceptance of Hayek's interpretation that prices contain information on Twitter a year or so ago (for more detail on my take, you can check out my Evonomics article). Farmer subsequently unfollowed me on Twitter which likely decreases the engagement I get through Twitter’s algorithms.

Now my point here is not that one is obligated to listen to every crackpot (such as myself) and engage with their “ideas”. It’s that we cannot feasibly exist in a world where all expression is heard and responded to — regardless of how misguided or uninformed. And who would want that?

But it does mean participation via the (purportedly) egalitarian Enlightenment ideals of “free speech” and “free expression” in the marketplace of ideas is already limited. And the presumption of “equals” engaging in mutual criticism behind Bottke's “rules” artificially limits the bounds of criticism further. Already elites pick and choose the criticism they engage with — giving them an additional power of “permission” distorts the power balance even more.

Unfortunately public speech and public attention ends up being rationed the same way most scarce resources are rationed — by money. The elite gatekeepers at major publications push the opinions and findings of their elite comrades through the soda straw of public attention. We hear the opinions of millionaires and billionaires as well as people who find themselves in circles where they occasionally encounter billionaires far more often than is academically efficient. Bloomberg and Pinker talking about free speech. MMT. Charles Murray.

Bloomberg writing at bloomberg.com is a particularly egregious example of breaking the egalitarian norm. Bloomberg's undergraduate education is in electrical engineering from the 1960s and he has a business degree from the same era. He has no particular qualifications to judge the quality of discourse, the merits of the freedom of speech, or who should be forced to tolerate right wing intimidation on college campuses. He is in the position he is in because he made a great deal of money which enabled him to take a chance on running for office and becoming mayor of New York.

That said, I don't have particular expertise in this area — but then I don't get to write at bloomberg.com.

As such, “cancelling” the speech of these members of the elite mitigates this bias almost regardless of the actual reason for the cancellation simply because they’re over-represented.

More market-oriented people might say having billions of dollars must mean you’ve done at least something right and therefore could result in being over-represented in the marketplace of ideas. That's an opinion you can argue — in the marketplace of ideas — not implement by fiat. Now this is just my own opinion, but I think having too much money seems to make people less intelligent. Maybe life gets too easy. Maybe you lose people around you that disagree with you because they're dependent on your largess. Lack of intellectual challenge seems to turn your brain to mush in the same way lack of physical activity turns your body to mush. You might have started out pretty sharp, but — whatever the reason — once the cash piles up it seems to take a toll. I mean, have you listened to Elon Musk lately? However, even if you believe having billions of dollars means you have something worthwhile to say, that is not the Enlightenment's egalitarian ethos. King George III had a lot more money than any of the founders of the United States, but it's not like they felt compelled to invite him or his representatives to speak at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

While everyone has a right to say what they want, that right that does not grant everyone a platform. The “illiberal suppression” of speech can be a practical prioritization of speech. "Cancelling" can mitigate systemic biases, enabling a less biased, more genuine discourse. Why should we have to listen to the same garbage arguments over and over again? Even if they aren’t garbage, why the repetition? And even if the repetition is valid, why must we have the same people doing the repeating? [1] An objective function optimized for academic discussion should prioritize novel ideas, not the same people rehashing racism, sexism, or even “enlightenment” values for 30 years.

It's true that novelty for novelty's sake creates its own bias in academia — journals are biased towards novel results rather than confirmation of last year's ideas creating a whole new set of problems. In addition to novel ideas, verifiability and empirically accuracy would also be good heuristics. Expertise or credentials in a particular subject is often a good heuristic for priority, but like the other heuristics it is just that — a heuristic. Knowing when to break with a heuristic is just as valuable as the heuristic itself.

In any case, just assuming elites and experts should be free from criticism unless it meets particular forms of "civility" or that their "ideas" should be granted a platform free from being "cancelled" do not further the spirit of the Enlightenment values that most of us agree on — that what's true or optimal ought to win out in the marketplace of ideas.

Failure mode 3: Rational thought and academic research is not free speech

Something obvious in the norms in Boettke's list is that he appears to recognize rational argument differs from free speech. "Free speech" does not require you to speak in some proscribed manner — that would ipso facto fail to be free speech. 

However, the ordinary process by which old ideas die off through rational argument seems to be conflated with suppressing free speech these days. Having your paper on race and IQ rejected for publication because it rehashes the old mistakes and poor data sets is normal rational progress, not the suppression of free speech. "Just asking questions" needs to come to grips with the fact that lots of those questions have been asked before and have lots of answers. Just as we don't need to continuously rehash 19th century aether theory, we don't need to continuously rehash 19th century race science [2].

When shouts of "free speech" are used as a cudgel to force academic discussion of degenerative research programs in Lakatos' sense, it represents a failure mode of "Enlightenment" values and science in general. In order for science and the academy to function, it needs to rid itself these degenerative research programs regardless of whether rural white people in the United States continue to support them. If these research programs turn out to not be degenerative — well, there's a pretty direct avenue back into being discussed via those new results showing exactly that. Assuming they follow ethical research practices, of course.

Failure mode 4: People don't follow the spirit of the rules

Failure to follow the spirit of these rules tends to be rampant in any "school of thought" that claims to challenge orthodoxy from race science to Austrian economics. Feynman's famous "cargo cult science" commencement address is a paean to the spirit of the rules of science (and "Enlightenment" values generally), but unlike Boettke's rules for others Feynman asks fledgling scientists to direct the rules inward — "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."

This failure mode is far less intense than discussing racism, unethical human experiments or plutocracy, but is far more common. Certainly, the "straw man" application of Rule #1 falls into this. But one of the most frustrating is the one many of us feel when engaging with e.g. MMT acolytes — never acknowledging that you have "re-express[ed] your target’s position ... clearly, vividly, and fairly."

Randall Wray or William Mitchell (e.g.) simply never acknowledge any criticism is valid or accurate. Criticism is dismissed as ad hominem attacks instead of being acknowledged. If "successful" critical commentary (per the "rules") requires the subjects to grant you permission, any criticism can be shut down by a claim that the critic doesn't know what they are talking about.

This failure to follow the spirit of the rules appears in numerous ways, from claims that simply expressing a counterargument isn't civil discourse to the failure of someone espousing racist views to admit that those views are actually racist [4] to general hypocrisy. However, the end effect is that failure to follow the spirit of the rules is an attempt to enable the speaker with the ability to grant permission to which facts or counterarguments are allowed and which aren't. That's not really how "Enlightenment values" are supposed to work.

Being granted permission by the subject of criticism is also generally unnecessary to actual progress. Humans — especially established public figures — rarely listen to criticism. Upton Sinclair, Bertrand Russell, and Max Planck captured different dimensions of this (a rationale, a mechanism, and a real course of progress) in pithy quotes (respectively):
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! 
If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. 
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
This is how the world has always been. Your audience for your criticism is never the subjects of the criticism, but rather the next generation. Explaining your subject's position before criticizing it is done as part of Feynman's "leaning over backward" — for yourself — not legitimacy.

Other failure modes

I wanted to collect my thoughts on free speech, "cancelling", and the terrible state of "the discourse" in one essay. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, and I may expand it in the future when I have new examples that don't fit in the previous four categories. For example, you might think that academic journals are a form of intellectual gatekeeping — and I'd agree — but I believe that falls under failure mode 2: the over-representation of the elite, not a separate category. There are also genuine workarounds in that case that everyone uses (arXiv, SSRN). You may also disagree with the particular choice of basis — and I'm certain another orthonormal set of failure modes could span the same failure effect space.

Also, because I talk about MMT along with Public Choice and racism, it doesn't mean I equate them. There are similarities (both get a leg up through the support of billionaires), but I am trying to find examples from across a broad spectrum of politics and political economy. There are major failures and minor. However, I think the examples I've chosen most clearly illustrate these failure modes.

I have been sitting on this essay for nearly a year. I was motivated to action by a tweet from Martin Kulldorff, a professor at the Harvard Medical School about how Scott Atlas was "censored" [5] for spreading misinformation about the efficacy of various coronavirus mitigations (from masks to lockdowns). Atlas is on the current administration's "Coronavirus Task Force" and a fellow at the Hoover institution — a front for right wing views funded by billionaires. There is literally no universe in which this is a true egalitarian "Enlightenment" discussion — from the elite over-representation with Harvard and the billionaires at Hoover to the lack of disclosure of conflicts of interest (failure modes 2 and 4, respectively). That far too many people think Atlas being "censored" is against the spirit of the Enlightenment is exactly how it can fail.

... 

Footnotes:

[0] This is similar to the argument against markets as mechanisms for knowledge discovery — information leakage in the causal mechanism breaks it.

[1] More on this here. Why do we have to hear specifically Charles Murray talk about race and IQ? (TL;DR because it's not about ideas, but rather signalling and authority.)

[2] Personally, I think IQ tests should include a true/false question that asks if you think there's nothing wrong with believing the racial or ethnic group to which you belong has on average a higher IQ than others. Answering "true" would indicate you're probably bad at understanding self-bias that is critical to scientific inquiry and should reduce your score by at least 1/2.  As George Bernard Shaw said, “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.” Racism is at its heart your conviction that your race is superior to all other races because you were born into it — the rest is confirmation bias.

[3] In Star Trek: The Next Generation "Measure of a Man" (S:2 E:9), Commander Riker is tasked with prosecuting the idea that the android Lt. Commander Data is not a person, but rather Federation property — something with which Riker personally disagrees.

[4] I have never really understood this. Unless you're hopelessly obtuse, you must know if you have racist views. Why would you be upset about other people identifying them as such? The typical argument being supported by racist views is that racism is correct and right! A racist (who happens to be white by pure coincidence) who believes that other non-white people have lower IQs through some genetic effect is trying to support racism. I have so much more respect for racists, like a pudgy white British man who appears in the beginning of The Filth and the Fury (2000) who openly admits he is racist. That's the Enlightenment!

[5] In no way is this censorship and calling it that is risible idiocy. The tweets were removed on Twitter, a private company, not by the US government. And Atlas still has access to multiple platforms — including amplification by elite Harvard professors, which is what is actually happening.

4 comments:

  1. I hope you are well. I thought that you must have given up writing the blog. Over the lockdown period, I have caught up with some of your older posts that I missed when they were published, but I have not commented as many of our debates had become repetitive. However, this is an interesting post as it concerns the socialisation of science – the relationship between science and the rest of society. That subject is rarely discussed.

    IMHO, enlightenment values are an equivalent of the US constitution – a social statement of intent that was fit for purpose when it was created but requires modernisation with experience. The traditional view of science has stagnated even though there have been many changes in society.

    In the olden days, most people were not educated formally. Many could not read or write. That is not true nowadays. Also, many scientists inhabited elitist establishments and published their work only in elitist publications that were not generally accessible. Now anyone can access endless information via the internet and other mass media. I often wonder if academic economists realise that other people can now read what they write on the internet and can judge their arguments for themselves. For example, I recall an argument between Paul Krugman and Steve Keen around 2011 where my view was that, if they were my children, I would send them both to bed and ground them for a week!

    Here are just three examples where I think that science needs to evolve.

    First, I agree with your main point that we need to discuss the relationship between science and morality. Humans are a complex mixture of natural instincts, learned biases and rational thought, so the enlightenment view that bias can always be replaced with rationality seems wrong. You think that racism is an important moral issue (so do I) but other people have different moral values. Many people see abortion as an important moral issue. Others see animal cruelty as a moral issue. Yet more see the trashing of the environment as a moral issue. What about cultural differences between countries? And what about the evolution of moral values?

    All morals values are based on instinctive and learned biases. Who decides what are “approved” moral values? That is the role of politics rather than science. One of the prime reasons that economics is not a science is that it involves otherwise intelligent people pretending that their own instincts and biases represent some sort of truth.

    Second, since we last talked, I have discovered Sabine Hossenfelder’s physics blog. She asks questions that most particle physicists resent. I like her. She is feisty! For example, she asks why society should continue to fund expensive particle research that does not appear to progress. Why should we not divert scientific research funds to areas that might have more immediate social benefits? Forget what the answer to these questions should be. Many particle physicists appear to resent anyone who even asks them.

    Third, there is the question of settled science versus disputed science. IMHO science has had a bad pandemic this year because many scientists present their provisional views as though they have the authority of Newton’s laws even as those views are contradicted by other scientists. This egotistical behaviour and lack of self-discipline destroys the trust of non-scientists. To use a term loved by economists, scientists become a fallacy of composition as politicians and the public do not know who or what to believe.

    We need a better understanding of how modern science fits into wider society, including the limits of what should be considered science. IMHO the suggestion that enlightenment values support egalitarian ideals is not credible.

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    Replies
    1. Nice to hear from you and I hope you are also well! I'm glad there are some people out there that still read blogs — I still read many but it seems to be a dying form on the internet. The actual reason I haven't been blogging as much has nothing to do with the lack of engagement or anything like that; it's because my real job has taken over most of my spare time over the past two years after we won a huge program back in 2018.

      I agree that scientists, "rationalists", or the "debate me coward" crowd shouldn't appoint themselves arbiters of what is and isn't a moral value — my primary point here is that we should at least discuss the ethics before going with the choice (and it is a choice) that "all speech by all speakers must be allowed in all forums".

      I pretty much agree with the criticisms you bring; my larger project was to point out general failure modes of "the discourse", but I am not sure how to solve them.

      Sabine does do some great writing and criticism. And I might actually agree that giant particle accelerators should come under more scrutiny than they do — but that doesn't apply uniformly across experiments (LIGO comes to mind as something that can continue to be fruitful). However, to use an Econ example as a simile: Hossenfelder criticizing her idea of string theory for not considering alternative explanations of gravity is like Robert Shiller criticizing macro for not including behavioral economics. Shiller is a behavioral economist who mostly studies finance (not macro) and his ideas to include behavioral econ in macro have not produced anything that has improved upon the failings of macro — and instead of showing that it does, has taken to arguing in favor of including behavioral econ for a general audience (to which there is no shortage of eyeballs for criticism of the status quo). In the same way, Sabine is a gravitational phenomenologist (not a string theorist) and her ideas about e.g. locality in a quantum theory of gravity haven't improved on the failings of string theory. That is to say, like Lee Smolin, her complaints have a hint of "why don't I get as many grad students as the string theory people". And instead of arguing that her approaches are better with physicists, she has taken to the internet to argue it with a general audience (again, no shortage of eyeballs for criticism of the status quo).

      Another way to put it is that it's analogous to Noah Smith's characterization of "lazy econ critiques" — "lazy physics critiques" (string theorists are too enamored with 'beauty', there are no empirical results, there are a quasi-infinite number of string theories in the landscape). These criticisms never answer the immediate question that should be asked: "Ok, what should we do? What is a more fruitful avenue of research?" And with no answer to that, most physicists just go back to whatever it was they were doing before.

      Basically, like in econ, new ways of doing theory come from trying new ideas and getting results — not talking about trying new ideas.

      There is so much of that in economics ... economics should include X! Don't tell me how awesome X is — show me how including X gets us a better description. But if you're aiming at a general audience, all you get is advertising for X — none of the technical work associated with showing X improves our understanding. With Hossenfelder, Woit and Smolin, physics seems to be getting its own version of that.

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  2. Jason: “my larger project was to point out general failure modes of "the discourse", but I am not sure how to solve them”

    I think that this is the single biggest challenge for all social subjects including economics, and for natural sciences where their application impacts on wider society. However, part of the problem is that academics want to have insular technical debates. Instead, they need to acknowledge that their science is part of human society and they need to involve the rest of society in their discourse. I do not have a concise answer, just some thoughts.

    As I have said before, I spent many years helping businesses and government departments solve operational problems. The people in those organisations were mostly very smart. However, they were often unable to untangle themselves from dysfunctional discourse. The three biggest causes of such dysfunction were: differences in perspective; unstated assumptions; and accountability failures.

    For example, in academic economics the mainstream gang and the MMT gang have nothing good to say about each other. Their debates are dysfunctional even though they are mostly intelligent people. Both sides recognise the dysfunction on the other side. Neither side recognises their own dysfunction. No-one listens to anyone else.

    In my terms, the two sides have different perspectives. We can see that as they use different concepts to describe the world. For example, MMT does not talk about velocity of money or representative agents. And there are no agreed accountability rules that can be used to resolve disputes. Each person sees themself as the judge and jury of the debate as well as a participant. They all assume that they are scientists and that their opponents are not. As a result, they also assume that they cannot be challenged by anyone outside their academic discourse – even by people who know more than they do about a specific topic or technique!

    In my experience, one of the best ways to get to the heart of such dysfunction is to ask: “what are the most important underlying questions to which the two sides would give different answers?” If I ask that of the mainstream/MMT discourse, an example underlying question might be:

    “should central banks operate independently from democratically elected governments?”

    The mainstream says Yes. MMT says No. However, this central question is never debated openly. Answers are just assumed on both sides. Academic discussions ignore that this is a highly political question, and it is not the role of would-be scientists to answer political questions. It is their role to analyse such questions objectively, to itemise the pros and cons of alternative answers, and to present these alternatives to the rest of society. However, none of them does that. There is also an even more fundamental underlying question about the relationship between democracy and technocracy.

    That is just one example. However, my main point is twofold. First, most academic economic discourse is hopeless, and all sides are to blame. The underlying problems are not technical, so the resolutions will not be technical either. Better mathematics will not resolve these problems. Second, the underlying questions, where everyone assumes their own answers without open debate, are often the real sources of dispute. However, no-one likes to be challenged on their own underlying assumptions.

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  3. Jason: “Another way to put it is that it's analogous to Noah Smith's characterization of ‘lazy econ critiques’”

    I am afraid that I do not accept Noah Smith’s idea of “lazy econ critiques”. He is another who fails to challenge his own assumptions or to engage with anyone else’s assumptions. Imagine if you complained about inedible food at a restaurant, only to be told by the restauranteur that your complaints represented “lazy food critiques” as many other people were making the same criticism and, anyway, you could not cook a better meal. You would laugh at the restauranteur, leave without paying, and never return. I do not think that Noah Smith has understood that he must subject himself to the same social rules as my restauranteur if he wants to be taken seriously.

    In academic debates, I often read about “paradigm shifts” but the discussions are banal. Paradigm shifts occur when we change the underlying assumptions and questions in a debate and explore the consequences of such change. For example, the earth is not the centre of the universe. Paradigm shifts involve thinking the apparently unthinkable.

    If I were to challenge myself to outline some of the underlying questions in our debates over the last few years, I would propose questions such as:

    What is the limit of our ability to predict the future? How should we plan when we cannot predict the future? [These are, in my opinion, two of the core questions that JM Keynes raised nearly a century ago that are still unanswered]

    Can we learn more about how the economy works from predicting the future or from analysing the past?

    Do participants in the economy (e.g. businesses, asset market traders, policy makers) have valid/useful insights into the economy that are distinct from those of academic observers?

    What precisely is, or is not, science and how does it relate to economics? How should an outsider recognise it, particularly when, as in economics and other social subjects, would-be scientists disagree about even the most basic ideas?

    Is science part of human society or separate from it? [For example, to take a physics example, should we pass moral judgement on the US physicists who helped create the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan in WWII? Would we make the same judgement if Japanese physicists had helped create bombs that were dropped on the US? Or should we see science only for its technical prowess and avoid any such moral judgement? I have deliberately used a physics example here to point out to you that it is not for physicists to make this judgement or to tell the rest of society what judgement to make]

    Could policy making (or any other decision making) ever be considered scientific even if it were managed by scientists, or is it always influenced by personal biases e.g. morals, ethics, priorities, and attitudes to risk?

    Is mainstream economics just an alternative name for US status quo economics, complete with an unstated assumption that the US provides a model to which other countries should aspire? Why are there no Chinese mainstream economists?

    You would probably propose different underlying questions. That would be ok with me. However, note that my questions are more philosophical than technical, and the current generation of economists, including Noah Smith, are mostly technicians who do not seem interested in challenging themselves by asking such questions.

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