If I go around saying “This belief is wrong! Hey everyone, did you know that this belief is wrong?” and it’s a low-status belief, high-status people are likely to ask “What’s the harm?” If it’s a high-status belief, due to correctness of the Titanic analogy, very few high-status people will ask that. They are much more likely, instead, to criticize your argument that the belief is wrong.
What’s The Harm is not an introduction to the practice of rationality. It is a response to a specific argument. It makes that counter-argument best and most clearly by only including beliefs that are almost never held by high-status individuals.
(In addition, the whole methodology of collecting individual examples works well for distributed mistakes like the passengers’, but not for large, single mistakes like the captain’s.)
If it’s a high-status belief, due to correctness of the Titanic analogy, very few high-status people will ask that [what’s the harm]. They are much more likely, instead, to criticize your argument that the belief is wrong.
Would that it were so! When it comes to really pervasive and established high-status delusional beliefs, with very few exceptions, what you’ll get is at best a criticism whose content is far below the usual scholarly standards, and at worst just mindless sneering and moral indignation.
This holds both for those high-status false beliefs that are a matter of ideological orthodoxy and those that are a matter of venal interest. (The overlap between those is, of course, larger than the pure part of either category, and people have no problem coming up with honest rationalizations for their professional, ideological, and other interests.)
(In addition, the whole methodology of collecting individual examples works well for distributed mistakes like the passengers’, but not for large, single mistakes like the captain’s.)
In many cases, high-status delusional beliefs don’t result in a single identifiable disaster, but rather in lots of widely distributed harm and suffering. (In this sense, the Titanic analogy breaks down.)
In these cases, however, a collection of touching human-interest stories will likely fail to strike the intended note among high-status readers, and will instead be dismissed as nefarious extremist propaganda.
If I go around saying “This belief is wrong! Hey everyone, did you know that this belief is wrong?” and it’s a low-status belief, high-status people are likely to ask “What’s the harm?”
Not really. It depends on the exact way the belief in question is perceived in high-status circles. In some cases, you’ll win status points out of all proportion with the actual importance of the problem and without much scrutiny of the accuracy of your arguments (the phrase “raising awareness” comes to mind). In other cases, you won’t register on high-status people’s radar even if you have a solid case, simply because the issue doesn’t happen to be a status-fertile cause. In yet other cases, it may happen that while a belief is low-status, it is also considered uncouth to attack it all-out; one is supposed to scoff at it in more subtle and oblique ways instead.
Would that it were so! When it comes to really pervasive and established high-status delusional beliefs, with very few exceptions, what you’ll get is at best a criticism whose content is far below the usual scholarly standards, and at worst just mindless sneering and moral indignation.
Would you argue that this consists of people “asking what’s the harm” rather than “criticizing your argument”? I never said that they would criticize your argument well.
In many cases, high-status delusional beliefs don’t result in a single identifiable disaster, but rather in lots of widely distributed harm and suffering. (In this sense, the Titanic analogy breaks down.)
The point stands. Low-status beliefs come in clear pockets with clear examples. Widely distributed harm and suffering usually has the property that you can’t blame any single instance of suffering on it.
Not really. It depends on the exact way the belief in question is perceived in high-status circles. In some cases, you’ll win status points out of all proportion with the actual importance of the problem and without much scrutiny of the accuracy of your arguments (the phrase “raising awareness” comes to mind). In other cases, you won’t register on high-status people’s radar even if you have a solid case, simply because the issue doesn’t happen to be a status-fertile cause. In yet other cases, it may happen that while a belief is low-status, it is also considered uncouth to attack it all-out; one is supposed to scoff at it in more subtle and oblique ways instead.
Indeed, there are many possible responses. “likely” was not intended to mean “overwhelmingly probable”. It’s just a likely occurrence.
You’ve left me very curious as to what high status beliefs you think are inaccurate.
I myself find that “right thinking” academic elites are blisteringly wrong on many things, and I would be interested to see where others are willing to go out on a limb and challenge orthodoxy.
You’ve left me very curious as to what high status beliefs you think are inaccurate.
Trouble is, the fact that they are high-status means that contradicting them without a very good supporting argument (and usually even otherwise) will make one sound like a crackpot or extremist of some sort.
Nevertheless, I think there are some examples that shouldn’t sound too controversial. Take for example modern economics, and macroeconomics in particular. Our governments do many things based on what passes for professional scientific expertise in this field, and if this supposed expertise is detached from reality, the policies based on it can result in catastrophically bad consequences in many imaginable ways. Arguably, this has happened in many times and places historically, some arguable examples being the Great Depression and the present global economic crisis.
Now, to put it bluntly, I see no rational reason to believe that macroeconomists have any clue about anything. The greatest luminaries of scholarship in this field always espouse theories that are suspiciously convenient for their ideological agenda, and are apt to dismiss their equally prestigious ideological opponents as crackpots (more or less diplomatically, depending on the occasion). What’s more, even a casual inquiry into the epistemological standards in the field reveals an awfully bad situation, with all signs of cargo cult science plainly obvious.
Accordingly, one is tempted to conclude that all these sophisticated and supposedly scientific economic policies have never been much more than ideologically-driven dilettantism (except for a few elementary principles of political economy that have been well understood since antiquity), and we’re just lucky that the economy is resilient enough not to be damaged by it too catastrophically. But even if one doesn’t draw such a strong conclusion, it certainly seems to me the height of irrationality to worry about petty folkish superstitions that anyone with any intellectual status scoffs at, while at the same time our prosperity is in the hands of people who dabble with it using “expertise” that at least partly consists of evident pseudoscience, but nevertheless gets to be adorned with the most prestigious academic titles.
I can think of many other examples, most of which are likely to be more controversial.
I can think of many other examples, most of which are likely to be more controversial.
One way to initiate discussion about them without lowering your status would be to include them among a larger list of high-status beliefs, with the list sufficiently large that everyone thinks the experts wrong on some of them.
E.g., Say “I think that one or more of the following fifty high status opinions are wrong,” and then make your list.
I can think of many other examples, most of which are likely to be more controversial.
I’ve already read many of your excellent comments and now I’m just too curious about your ideas. Would you mind writing me a PM elucidating your theories?
You’ve left me very curious as to what high status beliefs you think are inaccurate.
I ‘m planning a LW post about a high status belief I believe to be inaccurate. I call this belief ‘the strong law of one price’ or SLOOP, a currently high status belief in financial economics. SLOOP essentially says that the fair value of an instrument (e.g., a contingent set of cash flows) does not depend on whether the market for that instrument is well modeled by a Walrasian auction. Examples of instruments that are not well modeled by a Walsasian auction include demand deposits and pension liabilities.
It’s my opinion that all the arguments in favor of SLOOP involve either an invalid form of inductive logic, or circular reasoning. I plan on doing some DIY science by conducting an online experiment. I’m going to offer $1,000 to anyone who can present in support of SLOOP, either empirical evidence or a valid deductive logical argument.
I’m going to offer $1,000 to anyone who can present in support of SLOOP, either empirical evidence or a valid deductive logical argument.
You might consider making your offer much more precise, specifying in advance exactly what sort of evidence you would find convincing. Do you really mean any evidence? Even if the SLoOP isn’t the best model of reality, there could still be probabilistic evidence that favors the SLoOP over some rival theories.
If I go around saying “This belief is wrong! Hey everyone, did you know that this belief is wrong?” and it’s a low-status belief, high-status people are likely to ask “What’s the harm?” If it’s a high-status belief, due to correctness of the Titanic analogy, very few high-status people will ask that. They are much more likely, instead, to criticize your argument that the belief is wrong.
What’s The Harm is not an introduction to the practice of rationality. It is a response to a specific argument. It makes that counter-argument best and most clearly by only including beliefs that are almost never held by high-status individuals.
(In addition, the whole methodology of collecting individual examples works well for distributed mistakes like the passengers’, but not for large, single mistakes like the captain’s.)
Will Sawin:
Would that it were so! When it comes to really pervasive and established high-status delusional beliefs, with very few exceptions, what you’ll get is at best a criticism whose content is far below the usual scholarly standards, and at worst just mindless sneering and moral indignation.
This holds both for those high-status false beliefs that are a matter of ideological orthodoxy and those that are a matter of venal interest. (The overlap between those is, of course, larger than the pure part of either category, and people have no problem coming up with honest rationalizations for their professional, ideological, and other interests.)
In many cases, high-status delusional beliefs don’t result in a single identifiable disaster, but rather in lots of widely distributed harm and suffering. (In this sense, the Titanic analogy breaks down.)
In these cases, however, a collection of touching human-interest stories will likely fail to strike the intended note among high-status readers, and will instead be dismissed as nefarious extremist propaganda.
Not really. It depends on the exact way the belief in question is perceived in high-status circles. In some cases, you’ll win status points out of all proportion with the actual importance of the problem and without much scrutiny of the accuracy of your arguments (the phrase “raising awareness” comes to mind). In other cases, you won’t register on high-status people’s radar even if you have a solid case, simply because the issue doesn’t happen to be a status-fertile cause. In yet other cases, it may happen that while a belief is low-status, it is also considered uncouth to attack it all-out; one is supposed to scoff at it in more subtle and oblique ways instead.
Would you argue that this consists of people “asking what’s the harm” rather than “criticizing your argument”? I never said that they would criticize your argument well.
The point stands. Low-status beliefs come in clear pockets with clear examples. Widely distributed harm and suffering usually has the property that you can’t blame any single instance of suffering on it.
Indeed, there are many possible responses. “likely” was not intended to mean “overwhelmingly probable”. It’s just a likely occurrence.
You’ve left me very curious as to what high status beliefs you think are inaccurate.
I myself find that “right thinking” academic elites are blisteringly wrong on many things, and I would be interested to see where others are willing to go out on a limb and challenge orthodoxy.
NMJablonski:
Trouble is, the fact that they are high-status means that contradicting them without a very good supporting argument (and usually even otherwise) will make one sound like a crackpot or extremist of some sort.
Nevertheless, I think there are some examples that shouldn’t sound too controversial. Take for example modern economics, and macroeconomics in particular. Our governments do many things based on what passes for professional scientific expertise in this field, and if this supposed expertise is detached from reality, the policies based on it can result in catastrophically bad consequences in many imaginable ways. Arguably, this has happened in many times and places historically, some arguable examples being the Great Depression and the present global economic crisis.
Now, to put it bluntly, I see no rational reason to believe that macroeconomists have any clue about anything. The greatest luminaries of scholarship in this field always espouse theories that are suspiciously convenient for their ideological agenda, and are apt to dismiss their equally prestigious ideological opponents as crackpots (more or less diplomatically, depending on the occasion). What’s more, even a casual inquiry into the epistemological standards in the field reveals an awfully bad situation, with all signs of cargo cult science plainly obvious.
Accordingly, one is tempted to conclude that all these sophisticated and supposedly scientific economic policies have never been much more than ideologically-driven dilettantism (except for a few elementary principles of political economy that have been well understood since antiquity), and we’re just lucky that the economy is resilient enough not to be damaged by it too catastrophically. But even if one doesn’t draw such a strong conclusion, it certainly seems to me the height of irrationality to worry about petty folkish superstitions that anyone with any intellectual status scoffs at, while at the same time our prosperity is in the hands of people who dabble with it using “expertise” that at least partly consists of evident pseudoscience, but nevertheless gets to be adorned with the most prestigious academic titles.
I can think of many other examples, most of which are likely to be more controversial.
One way to initiate discussion about them without lowering your status would be to include them among a larger list of high-status beliefs, with the list sufficiently large that everyone thinks the experts wrong on some of them.
E.g., Say “I think that one or more of the following fifty high status opinions are wrong,” and then make your list.
I’ve already read many of your excellent comments and now I’m just too curious about your ideas. Would you mind writing me a PM elucidating your theories?
I ‘m planning a LW post about a high status belief I believe to be inaccurate. I call this belief ‘the strong law of one price’ or SLOOP, a currently high status belief in financial economics. SLOOP essentially says that the fair value of an instrument (e.g., a contingent set of cash flows) does not depend on whether the market for that instrument is well modeled by a Walrasian auction. Examples of instruments that are not well modeled by a Walsasian auction include demand deposits and pension liabilities.
It’s my opinion that all the arguments in favor of SLOOP involve either an invalid form of inductive logic, or circular reasoning. I plan on doing some DIY science by conducting an online experiment. I’m going to offer $1,000 to anyone who can present in support of SLOOP, either empirical evidence or a valid deductive logical argument.
You might consider making your offer much more precise, specifying in advance exactly what sort of evidence you would find convincing. Do you really mean any evidence? Even if the SLoOP isn’t the best model of reality, there could still be probabilistic evidence that favors the SLoOP over some rival theories.