I believe the risk of information cascades due to the newsletter is very low. The biggest factor in my expectation is this one:
As a result, an opinion from a researcher who didn’t do the work can help contextualize the results that makes it easier for less involved readers to figure out the importance of the ideas.
That is to say, it is very clear that this is a newsletter, and that your opinion differs from that of the authors of the papers. This goes a long way to preventing the kind of uncritical agreement that typifies information cascades.
Also, consider the case where nothing in the newsletter ever becomes the subject of wide agreement: this suggests to me that either the field is not making enough progress to settle questions (which is very bad), or that the newsletter is by accident or design excluding ideas upon which the field might settle (which seems bad from the perspective of the newsletter).
Finally, I expect this field and the associated communities are unusually sensitive to information cascades as a problem, and therefore less likely to fall victim to them.
So there is a mechanism working against cascades, other reasons to expect things in the newsletter to be widely agreed on over time, and a community less likely to fall victim to cascades even if the former two items did not apply.
Mitigation: other people writing summaries and opinions seems to me the best mitigation, because a diversity of opinion works directly against the cascade and it also seems a likely course for handling the increased volume of research. In particular, if two or more contributors to the newsletter wrote up different opinions on a paper, this would probably kill the cascade dead for that particular paper and further signal the importance of direct evaluation for the others.
Also, consider the case where nothing in the newsletter ever becomes the subject of wide agreement: this suggests to me that either the field is not making enough progress to settle questions (which is very bad), or that the newsletter is by accident or design excluding ideas upon which the field might settle (which seems bad from the perspective of the newsletter).
Certainly when my opinions are right I would hope that they become widely agreed upon (and I probably don’t care too much if it happens via information cascade or via good epistemics). The question is about when I’m wrong.
That is to say, it is very clear that this is a newsletter, and that your opinion differs from that of the authors of the papers. This goes a long way to preventing the kind of uncritical agreement that typifies information cascades.
Journalism has the same property, but I do see uncritical agreement with things journalists write. Admittedly the uncritical agreement comes from non-experts, but with the newsletter I’m worried mostly about insufficiently critical agreement from researchers working on different areas, so the analogy kinda sorta holds.
Finally, I expect this field and the associated communities are unusually sensitive to information cascades as a problem, and therefore less likely to fall victim to them.
Agreed that this is very helpful (and breaks the analogy with journalism), and it’s the main reason I’m not too worried about information cascades right now. That said, I don’t feel confident that it’s enough.
I think overall I agree with you that they aren’t a major risk, and it’s good to get a bit of information that at least you treat the opinion as an opinion.
I believe the risk of information cascades due to the newsletter is very low. The biggest factor in my expectation is this one:
That is to say, it is very clear that this is a newsletter, and that your opinion differs from that of the authors of the papers. This goes a long way to preventing the kind of uncritical agreement that typifies information cascades.
Also, consider the case where nothing in the newsletter ever becomes the subject of wide agreement: this suggests to me that either the field is not making enough progress to settle questions (which is very bad), or that the newsletter is by accident or design excluding ideas upon which the field might settle (which seems bad from the perspective of the newsletter).
Finally, I expect this field and the associated communities are unusually sensitive to information cascades as a problem, and therefore less likely to fall victim to them.
So there is a mechanism working against cascades, other reasons to expect things in the newsletter to be widely agreed on over time, and a community less likely to fall victim to cascades even if the former two items did not apply.
Mitigation: other people writing summaries and opinions seems to me the best mitigation, because a diversity of opinion works directly against the cascade and it also seems a likely course for handling the increased volume of research. In particular, if two or more contributors to the newsletter wrote up different opinions on a paper, this would probably kill the cascade dead for that particular paper and further signal the importance of direct evaluation for the others.
Certainly when my opinions are right I would hope that they become widely agreed upon (and I probably don’t care too much if it happens via information cascade or via good epistemics). The question is about when I’m wrong.
Journalism has the same property, but I do see uncritical agreement with things journalists write. Admittedly the uncritical agreement comes from non-experts, but with the newsletter I’m worried mostly about insufficiently critical agreement from researchers working on different areas, so the analogy kinda sorta holds.
Agreed that this is very helpful (and breaks the analogy with journalism), and it’s the main reason I’m not too worried about information cascades right now. That said, I don’t feel confident that it’s enough.
I think overall I agree with you that they aren’t a major risk, and it’s good to get a bit of information that at least you treat the opinion as an opinion.