Economic policy is a prime example (and maybe a rare example) where learning a small amount of factual information—basically, the content of Econ 101 -- is enough to change people’s views, to the point that there are areas of rough normative consensus among everybody who knows Econ 101.
Economists are already popularizing Econ 101, very well in my opinion, and we don’t have to do it here.
The other thing I want to point out is that we should not expect everything in the world to be like economics. It is not always the case that a little evidence and a little rational thought will create wide agreement. It is not always the case that opinions divide neatly into the “smart” and the “stupid.” I really don’t want LW to develop the attitude that “with a little rationality we can do better than the rest of the world!” on normative issues.
I really don’t want LW to develop the attitude that “with a little rationality we can do better than the rest of the world!” on normative issues.
Sometimes much of the rest of the world is really, really stupid. We already do much better than some people on normative issues by not getting our morality from religious dogma.
Economic policy is a prime example (and maybe a rare example) where learning a small amount of factual information—basically, the content of Econ 101 -- is enough to change people’s views, to the point that there are areas of rough normative consensus among everybody who knows Econ 101.
Economists are already popularizing Econ 101, very well in my opinion, and we don’t have to do it here.
The other thing I want to point out is that we should not expect everything in the world to be like economics. It is not always the case that a little evidence and a little rational thought will create wide agreement. It is not always the case that opinions divide neatly into the “smart” and the “stupid.” I really don’t want LW to develop the attitude that “with a little rationality we can do better than the rest of the world!” on normative issues.
Especially since that often seems to involve confusing terminal values with ‘rationality’.
Sometimes much of the rest of the world is really, really stupid. We already do much better than some people on normative issues by not getting our morality from religious dogma.