Not all—not most—economists failed to understand the fanlike potential distribution of inflation-unemployment outcomes back at the start of 2022, and Smialek & Casselman should not pretend that...
I don't think that Brad understands journamalistic conventions. To a journo, an "economist" is a soothsayer consulted on the business cycle or stock market. Once consulted, you're an economist, regardless of credentials or quality of sooth. Tim Geithner and Jay Powell are NOT economists, whatever journos may say. They are smart guys who happily talk to economists and carefully talk to journos. But since they talk about the future, they are often called economists. Peter Schiff is NOT an economist. He is a grifter, happily fellating the press. (Or vice-versa.) Etc.
Too bad "economist" isn't a regulated profession like Engineering.
It took me a few years of doing regional economic analysis after my economic geography PhD to be comfortable at people calling me an economist rather than economic geographer.
Another comment. Del Maestro's point is spot-on, but incomplete. Dwellers are not trying to maximize the market value of their dwellings. They are trying to maximize the *value* of their dwellings. This means having the right neighbors and right kind of school system, if y'know what I mean. (It also means good local public services.) If all housing were rental, the stress would be pushed from zoning to increasingly subtle forms of neighbor discrimination, enforced by the landlord to maximize their market value.
Journalism: That New York Times article is a case of utter dereliction of duty. I don't know whether that is covered by their code of ethics. Clearly, stuff like that doesn't seem to have consequences for them.
This is a good piece. While it focuses on AI and related, matters, it, perhaps unsurprisingly, fails to note that there are ways we have learned to reach the truth. The big one is the scientific method, where an experiment is used to test theories. The judicial system is another, albeit far less effective, and subject to the same biases that affect our cognition. Clearly, social output vastly exceeds any hope of using the scientific method to catch BS, but it is attempted in some forums through fact-checking. If we had some form of readily available fact-checking that could be left on, then we just might be able to overcome our susceptibility to plausible BS, sales patter, scams, etc. But just as we know that lies can smooth social interactions, such devices might well become a society-wide "Black Mirror" episode. Having said that, back in the 1990s, I found that having a laptop and an internet connection was an effective way to counter BS during coffee house discussions/arguments. It wasn't perfect and was best used for facts of science, technology, history, etc, and not for politics and other "mushy" subjects.
Without such tools, we have to fall back on group deliberation. Sadly, as our political systems here and elsewhere demonstrate, deliberative bodies are anything but these days, more like competing protest groups shouting slogans at each other, with the loudest "winning".
With AI techniques, especially those of LLMs, we fall into teh danger of having them "polluted". LLMs would be as manipulated by the "Big Lie" (ie many instances to mine and extract from) as humans. What we need is ti add GOFAI methods to extract [more] truthful responses, using the many methods we have developed as social animals. Computers can apply those methods very quickly, making Kahneman's "thinking slow" as responsive and timely as his "thinking fast".
Harrison: AND "globalization" was to a very important extend just another kind of technological change, the fiver optic cable and the container ship/container ship port infrastructure.
Luce: basic agreement but I'd like to carefully distinguish 'good for 'business'" [aggregate discounted future profits or something like that] from "good for high-income people who own shares in business."
I doubt that cutting tax rates of corporations and allowing that to increase the deficit increases aggregated discounted future profits.
There are other less speculative reasons to have promoted home ownership that the civic virtue argument. Namely, it was practically the only vehicle for subsidizing saving (via principle pay off).
But also I do not think that NIMBYism is mainly driven by the urge by homeowners to increase the value of their land rents. It's a) hyper local externalities (like unpriced street parking), b) status quo bias, c) some distaste for new residents feared to be of lower sociao-economic status, and d) failure to see or value the benefits to city coffers and to the new residents of land use and building code reforms.
I believe that the direction of causation goes the other way. Truckers see the future of trucking just as well as anybody else. (Most people are quite knowledgeable about what they do for a living.) You can't capitalize labor, so it runs now. The younger ones who can get out do so; the youngest just don't start trucking. This raises the asking price of truck labor.
I don't think that Brad understands journamalistic conventions. To a journo, an "economist" is a soothsayer consulted on the business cycle or stock market. Once consulted, you're an economist, regardless of credentials or quality of sooth. Tim Geithner and Jay Powell are NOT economists, whatever journos may say. They are smart guys who happily talk to economists and carefully talk to journos. But since they talk about the future, they are often called economists. Peter Schiff is NOT an economist. He is a grifter, happily fellating the press. (Or vice-versa.) Etc.
Too bad "economist" isn't a regulated profession like Engineering.
It took me a few years of doing regional economic analysis after my economic geography PhD to be comfortable at people calling me an economist rather than economic geographer.
Another comment. Del Maestro's point is spot-on, but incomplete. Dwellers are not trying to maximize the market value of their dwellings. They are trying to maximize the *value* of their dwellings. This means having the right neighbors and right kind of school system, if y'know what I mean. (It also means good local public services.) If all housing were rental, the stress would be pushed from zoning to increasingly subtle forms of neighbor discrimination, enforced by the landlord to maximize their market value.
Could someone please double font and bold Ed Luce's piece and post it on every mass communication channel possible?
Journalism: That New York Times article is a case of utter dereliction of duty. I don't know whether that is covered by their code of ethics. Clearly, stuff like that doesn't seem to have consequences for them.
No, you are not being cranky.
GPT-LLM-AML: Henry Farrell:
This is a good piece. While it focuses on AI and related, matters, it, perhaps unsurprisingly, fails to note that there are ways we have learned to reach the truth. The big one is the scientific method, where an experiment is used to test theories. The judicial system is another, albeit far less effective, and subject to the same biases that affect our cognition. Clearly, social output vastly exceeds any hope of using the scientific method to catch BS, but it is attempted in some forums through fact-checking. If we had some form of readily available fact-checking that could be left on, then we just might be able to overcome our susceptibility to plausible BS, sales patter, scams, etc. But just as we know that lies can smooth social interactions, such devices might well become a society-wide "Black Mirror" episode. Having said that, back in the 1990s, I found that having a laptop and an internet connection was an effective way to counter BS during coffee house discussions/arguments. It wasn't perfect and was best used for facts of science, technology, history, etc, and not for politics and other "mushy" subjects.
Without such tools, we have to fall back on group deliberation. Sadly, as our political systems here and elsewhere demonstrate, deliberative bodies are anything but these days, more like competing protest groups shouting slogans at each other, with the loudest "winning".
With AI techniques, especially those of LLMs, we fall into teh danger of having them "polluted". LLMs would be as manipulated by the "Big Lie" (ie many instances to mine and extract from) as humans. What we need is ti add GOFAI methods to extract [more] truthful responses, using the many methods we have developed as social animals. Computers can apply those methods very quickly, making Kahneman's "thinking slow" as responsive and timely as his "thinking fast".
Deranging our already imperfect ability to function as an anthology intelligence—that is a very good frame for this...
Harrison: AND "globalization" was to a very important extend just another kind of technological change, the fiver optic cable and the container ship/container ship port infrastructure.
Luce: basic agreement but I'd like to carefully distinguish 'good for 'business'" [aggregate discounted future profits or something like that] from "good for high-income people who own shares in business."
I doubt that cutting tax rates of corporations and allowing that to increase the deficit increases aggregated discounted future profits.
BDL's comment on Del Maestro
There are other less speculative reasons to have promoted home ownership that the civic virtue argument. Namely, it was practically the only vehicle for subsidizing saving (via principle pay off).
But also I do not think that NIMBYism is mainly driven by the urge by homeowners to increase the value of their land rents. It's a) hyper local externalities (like unpriced street parking), b) status quo bias, c) some distaste for new residents feared to be of lower sociao-economic status, and d) failure to see or value the benefits to city coffers and to the new residents of land use and building code reforms.
I believe that the direction of causation goes the other way. Truckers see the future of trucking just as well as anybody else. (Most people are quite knowledgeable about what they do for a living.) You can't capitalize labor, so it runs now. The younger ones who can get out do so; the youngest just don't start trucking. This raises the asking price of truck labor.