I think Tyler’s way too impressed by himself and his discipline than he should be. There’s a saying about economists making fortune tellers look good that seems appropriate here. And he probably shouldn’t be posting insulting things about epidemiologists in the same breath as saying most economists are just as bad—which he followed up with saying he wants to be rude by asking questions he could have spent half an hour googling—he hadn’t even done basic research. I also think that people on lesswrong give too little credit to public health officials for being properly cautious about overreacting, especially given that even for COVID-19, many people are saying that we went too far, and the economic harms were not worth the damage.
Next, should academics and public servants in epidemiology simply be paid more? No, and no. If anything, there is not enough disincentive to enter academia, since there are so many more good applicants than spots, across disciplines. Something else needs to be fixed there first. (Everything, actually.) And government isn’t set up well to pay people more in ways that gets better candidates—doubling salaries wouldn’t be enough to get anyone more competent to run for the Senate, much less be a senior government appointee, unless they already wanted to do that and didn’t actually care about the money. (There are other ways we underpay and sabotage government that money could fix, but that’s a different discussion.) And I’m surprised that an economist doesn’t know enough about these structures to see why higher pay isn’t a useful lever.
This also makes me wonder what people think of:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/04/what-does-this-economist-think-of-epidemiology.html
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/04/from-my-email-a-note-about-epidemiology.html
I think Tyler’s way too impressed by himself and his discipline than he should be. There’s a saying about economists making fortune tellers look good that seems appropriate here. And he probably shouldn’t be posting insulting things about epidemiologists in the same breath as saying most economists are just as bad—which he followed up with saying he wants to be rude by asking questions he could have spent half an hour googling—he hadn’t even done basic research. I also think that people on lesswrong give too little credit to public health officials for being properly cautious about overreacting, especially given that even for COVID-19, many people are saying that we went too far, and the economic harms were not worth the damage.
Also see this thread: https://twitter.com/davidmanheim/status/1235274008142270466
Next, should academics and public servants in epidemiology simply be paid more? No, and no. If anything, there is not enough disincentive to enter academia, since there are so many more good applicants than spots, across disciplines. Something else needs to be fixed there first. (Everything, actually.) And government isn’t set up well to pay people more in ways that gets better candidates—doubling salaries wouldn’t be enough to get anyone more competent to run for the Senate, much less be a senior government appointee, unless they already wanted to do that and didn’t actually care about the money. (There are other ways we underpay and sabotage government that money could fix, but that’s a different discussion.) And I’m surprised that an economist doesn’t know enough about these structures to see why higher pay isn’t a useful lever.