I’d be interested in the justification to have strong opinions about who is allowed to have strong opinions. Or, more directly, which “experts” actually have useful opinions to adopt, and how non-experts can tell the difference.
I’d be interested in the justification to have strong opinions about who is allowed to have strong opinions.
(I’ll interpret this as “justified in” instead of “allowed to”.)
I have a hard time articulating this well. Where I’m coming from is that it just seems like a complex enough system such that it is very difficult to predict what the (not-immediate-term) consequences of a given action will be.
Why do I perceive it to have this level of complexity? This level of difficulty anticipating what the consequences will be? This is where I feel like I’m kinda blanking. I feel like I could “see it” but also have a good deal of trouble articulating it.
At least concisely. I suppose if I really took many, many hours trying to do so, it’d take the form of something like: “Well, A seems like it plausibly could affect A.1, A.2, A.3, and A.4. Then A.4 seems like it could plausibly affect A.4.1. And a lot of these affects seem to be plausibly very, very large.” So on and so forth.
Or, more directly, which “experts” actually have useful opinions to adopt, and how non-experts can tell the difference.
(I think this is a different question than your first question about justification.)
I don’t really have any insight here other than to skim through Tetlock’s work and do your best to apply it to this situation.
Fully agreed that it’s a complex system, with both historical and current-cultural antagonism that don’t seem to be really solvable in any way. My best guess is there is no reachable acceptable (to all major participants) equilibrium. The question is whether this makes NOBODY justified in having an opinion, or whether some opinion-havers (or opinions themselves) are justified is the difficult part. Your post seems to imply that “experts” exist, but eveyone else is ignoring them.
I’m also unsure whether “justified” matters in a lot of these cases. Especially when it’s not clear how to justify nor to whom, on topics where there is no authority to determine which opinions are correct.
The question is whether this makes NOBODY justified in having an opinion, or whether some opinion-havers (or opinions themselves) are justified is the difficult part. Your post seems to imply that “experts” exist, but eveyone else is ignoring them.
I’m agnostic on the question of whether experts are justified in having confident opinions here. I don’t know enough to be able to tell. The (attempted) focus of our conversation was on whether non-experts are justified. Relevant excerpt:
Too complex for anyone to figure out? Or just for most people to? Who can figure it out?
I am not sure what to think about any of those questions. It feels analogous my opinions about Disputed Question in the field of zoology. I don’t know much about the field of zoology, and so I don’t really know how much expertise it takes to justifiably have a strong opinion.
Similarly, I don’t know much about fields like geopolitics and international relations to have a sense of how much expertise it’d take to justifiably have a strong opinion about the war in Gaza, or how rare it is to have the requisite amount of expertise.
I’m also unsure whether “justified” matters in a lot of these cases. Especially when it’s not clear how to justify nor to whom, on topics where there is no authority to determine which opinions are correct.
I mean “justified” in a Bayesian sense. Like, given what data you have, is it justifiable to update to the stated position (posteriors)?
Ok, I think I see. On some level, I even agree. I don’t have high confidence in any opinion on the topic, including my own. In a Bayesian sense, it wouldn’t take much evidence to move my opinion. But (and this is stronger than just conservation of expected evidence—it’s not about direction, but about strength) I don’t think anyone will GET strong evidence about what actions COULD be successful.
I agree with you that all of the casual debate (I know nothing of what military or State Department leaders are thinking; they’re pretty rational in being quiet rather than public) is fairly meaningless signaling and over-fitting of topics into their preferred conflict models. I disagree that there’s a good alternative, and I’m not sure if you think people should just shut up or if there are good opinions they should weigh more heavily. I get value from the (stupid and object-level useless) discussion and posting, in that it shows people’s priors and models more clearly than otherwise.
I don’t think anyone will GET strong evidence about what actions COULD be successful.
Seems plausible.
I disagree that there’s a good alternative, and I’m not sure if you think people should just shut up or if there are good opinions they should weigh more heavily. I get value from the (stupid and object-level useless) discussion and posting, in that it shows people’s priors and models more clearly than otherwise.
I think that it is definitely ok for people to talk about their models and opinions. I agree that getting a sense of peoples models and priors is often useful. And I think that some opinions are better than others and should be valued more heavily, even when none of them are particularly accurate.
I’d be interested in the justification to have strong opinions about who is allowed to have strong opinions. Or, more directly, which “experts” actually have useful opinions to adopt, and how non-experts can tell the difference.
(I’ll interpret this as “justified in” instead of “allowed to”.)
I have a hard time articulating this well. Where I’m coming from is that it just seems like a complex enough system such that it is very difficult to predict what the (not-immediate-term) consequences of a given action will be.
Why do I perceive it to have this level of complexity? This level of difficulty anticipating what the consequences will be? This is where I feel like I’m kinda blanking. I feel like I could “see it” but also have a good deal of trouble articulating it.
At least concisely. I suppose if I really took many, many hours trying to do so, it’d take the form of something like: “Well,
Aseems like it plausibly could affectA.1,A.2,A.3, andA.4. ThenA.4seems like it could plausibly affectA.4.1. And a lot of these affects seem to be plausibly very, very large.” So on and so forth.(I think this is a different question than your first question about justification.)
I don’t really have any insight here other than to skim through Tetlock’s work and do your best to apply it to this situation.
Fully agreed that it’s a complex system, with both historical and current-cultural antagonism that don’t seem to be really solvable in any way. My best guess is there is no reachable acceptable (to all major participants) equilibrium. The question is whether this makes NOBODY justified in having an opinion, or whether some opinion-havers (or opinions themselves) are justified is the difficult part. Your post seems to imply that “experts” exist, but eveyone else is ignoring them.
I’m also unsure whether “justified” matters in a lot of these cases. Especially when it’s not clear how to justify nor to whom, on topics where there is no authority to determine which opinions are correct.
I’m agnostic on the question of whether experts are justified in having confident opinions here. I don’t know enough to be able to tell. The (attempted) focus of our conversation was on whether non-experts are justified. Relevant excerpt:
I mean “justified” in a Bayesian sense. Like, given what data you have, is it justifiable to update to the stated position (posteriors)?
Ok, I think I see. On some level, I even agree. I don’t have high confidence in any opinion on the topic, including my own. In a Bayesian sense, it wouldn’t take much evidence to move my opinion. But (and this is stronger than just conservation of expected evidence—it’s not about direction, but about strength) I don’t think anyone will GET strong evidence about what actions COULD be successful.
I agree with you that all of the casual debate (I know nothing of what military or State Department leaders are thinking; they’re pretty rational in being quiet rather than public) is fairly meaningless signaling and over-fitting of topics into their preferred conflict models. I disagree that there’s a good alternative, and I’m not sure if you think people should just shut up or if there are good opinions they should weigh more heavily. I get value from the (stupid and object-level useless) discussion and posting, in that it shows people’s priors and models more clearly than otherwise.
Seems plausible.
I think that it is definitely ok for people to talk about their models and opinions. I agree that getting a sense of peoples models and priors is often useful. And I think that some opinions are better than others and should be valued more heavily, even when none of them are particularly accurate.