tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post4690142661662230519..comments2023-06-18T01:25:08.748-07:00Comments on Information Transfer Economics: The four failure modes of Enlightenment valuesJason Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-69393643445105389842020-11-04T07:08:21.174-08:002020-11-04T07:08:21.174-08:00Jason: “Another way to put it is that it's ana...Jason: “Another way to put it is that it's analogous to Noah Smith's characterization of ‘lazy econ critiques’”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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:<br /><br />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]<br /><br />Can we learn more about how the economy works from predicting the future or from analysing the past?<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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] <br /><br />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?<br /><br />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?<br /> <br />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.Jamiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03489060325921337036noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-91067359048675960872020-11-04T07:05:31.275-08:002020-11-04T07:05:31.275-08:00Jason: “my larger project was to point out general...Jason: “my larger project was to point out general failure modes of "the discourse", but I am not sure how to solve them”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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:<br /><br />“should central banks operate independently from democratically elected governments?”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Jamiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03489060325921337036noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-59417853874267720292020-10-23T13:22:55.890-07:002020-10-23T13:22:55.890-07:00Nice to hear from you and I hope you are also well...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.<br /><br />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".<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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).<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Basically, like in econ, new ways of doing theory come from trying new ideas and getting results — not talking about trying new ideas.<br /><br />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.Jason Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-22947214668381628822020-10-23T07:04:28.913-07:002020-10-23T07:04:28.913-07:00I hope you are well. I thought that you must have ...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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />Here are just three examples where I think that science needs to evolve.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Jamiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03489060325921337036noreply@blogger.com