I’d argue demand side is equally important. People seem to have a tendency to confuse “well, it is hard to say what will happen because of ….” with the speaker not knowing what they are talking about, and certainty with lots of knowledge. Predictably then, people tend to listen to those who ignorantly assert certainty above those who wisely do not.
That’s how the sociopaths get the upper hand, by learning to exploit that and dodge the fallout of being wrong.
> But he [Rauch] nonetheless presents the elite press, the intelligence community, and the public health bureaucracy (to name three examples) as noble victims of the Morlocks who aim to discredit them. His problem is that he never gets around to the myriad ways these institutions have abandoned the epistemology that he ascribes to them, and in doing so have discredited themselves.
I credit Kling with linking and introducing me to the excellent Eli Lake rebuttal. I credit Kling with saying "Rauch has a blind spot with respect to the political biases of the FBI." Rauch is not just wrong, but absurdly wrong. Unfortunately, I'm noticing that our generous host Kling, whom I've read for 20+ years is much more on the Rauch side of the issue than on the Eli Lake side.
I think that Rauch is very right in seeing rationality as a social phenomenon. His book goes too easy on mainstream institutions. But in podcasts since then he is somewhat harder on them. Still not as hard on them as I would be.
Sorry, Arnold. Your poor discussion of institutions reminded me of how lost Douglass North was about institutions (yes, he won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering contributions to institutional economics but at the end of his long career he used the term social orders). In Spanish, the meaning is clear: organization, a structured group of people acting together to achieve a particular goal. In English, in addition to organization, institution means a set of rules for a particular set of social interactions. The institution of journalism is about a set of rules. The NYT as an institution refers usually to the organization but sometimes to some non-enforceable rules governing the interactions between editors and readers (indeed, the editors want to believe readers are their captive audience). I prefer to use the terms norms and organizations. A country's law is the set of norms enforced by the legitimate power of government but in every country many sets of norms coexist and some may be as important as law albeit enforceable by the fear of losing reputation. The lack of serious discussion about the details of norms and organizations has been a major constraint to the expansion of institutional economics.
I vote for "the supply side (people who have a high opinion of themselves fight harder to get to the top)".
The Founders foresaw this, and tried to erect checks and balances to minimize the damage such people could do.
It worked fairly well for a few centuries, but now, the sociopaths are getting the upper hand.
I’d argue demand side is equally important. People seem to have a tendency to confuse “well, it is hard to say what will happen because of ….” with the speaker not knowing what they are talking about, and certainty with lots of knowledge. Predictably then, people tend to listen to those who ignorantly assert certainty above those who wisely do not.
That’s how the sociopaths get the upper hand, by learning to exploit that and dodge the fallout of being wrong.
Where are the first two paradoxes covered? Sorry - a bit lost with the move to substack.
If you go to my main substack page, scroll down, and click "see all" you will find a list of posts. The ones that recap the first two sessions are here (https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/notes-from-first-seminar-meeting) and here (https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/seminar-notes-session-2).
Eli Lake wrote:
> But he [Rauch] nonetheless presents the elite press, the intelligence community, and the public health bureaucracy (to name three examples) as noble victims of the Morlocks who aim to discredit them. His problem is that he never gets around to the myriad ways these institutions have abandoned the epistemology that he ascribes to them, and in doing so have discredited themselves.
I credit Kling with linking and introducing me to the excellent Eli Lake rebuttal. I credit Kling with saying "Rauch has a blind spot with respect to the political biases of the FBI." Rauch is not just wrong, but absurdly wrong. Unfortunately, I'm noticing that our generous host Kling, whom I've read for 20+ years is much more on the Rauch side of the issue than on the Eli Lake side.
I think that Rauch is very right in seeing rationality as a social phenomenon. His book goes too easy on mainstream institutions. But in podcasts since then he is somewhat harder on them. Still not as hard on them as I would be.
"Still not as hard on them as I would be."
Glad to see you moving, toward facing what crap these institutions have recently become.
Sorry, Arnold. Your poor discussion of institutions reminded me of how lost Douglass North was about institutions (yes, he won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering contributions to institutional economics but at the end of his long career he used the term social orders). In Spanish, the meaning is clear: organization, a structured group of people acting together to achieve a particular goal. In English, in addition to organization, institution means a set of rules for a particular set of social interactions. The institution of journalism is about a set of rules. The NYT as an institution refers usually to the organization but sometimes to some non-enforceable rules governing the interactions between editors and readers (indeed, the editors want to believe readers are their captive audience). I prefer to use the terms norms and organizations. A country's law is the set of norms enforced by the legitimate power of government but in every country many sets of norms coexist and some may be as important as law albeit enforceable by the fear of losing reputation. The lack of serious discussion about the details of norms and organizations has been a major constraint to the expansion of institutional economics.