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Like a lot of things, the truth is in the middle, and for awhile the pendulum has swung in the direction of certified experts. The problem with this societal pa

Like a lot of things, the truth is in the middle, and for awhile the pendulum has swung in the direction of certified experts. The problem with this societal paradigm is that experts are often wrong, there's fads, and corruption. Responses to criticism that label the critics uninformed, unscientific, or defective (eg paranoid) are essentially ad hominem. A system like this will inevitably fail because the experts are shielded from responsibility, when if anything they should be expected to be able to tolerate greater criticism. This problem cuts across many areas at the moment. Economics isn't the only thing.

taffer 7y ago
I don't think the pendulum swung too much towards the experts. Just a few weeks ago, there was an article here on Hacker News (I can't find it at the moment), according to which climate scientists and climate change deniers get almost the same coverage in American news articles and I don't think this is a topic where the truth is in the middle.
- gyuserbti 7y ago
  I don't think the truth is always in the middle but it often is. Climate change is an interesting example; maybe too much to say via mobile but I'd argue that even though the evidence for climate change is pretty clear, climate scientists have underplayed their errors at times and the wide level of uncertainty involved. The recent retraction is a good example. I think this kind of attitude backfired, by making the blindspots that much more vulnerable. See, for example, recent discussions here about reforestation efforts using non-native monoculture, which could be seen as a similar dynamic to the experts-knows-best problem. I'm not saying reforestation is bad, only that it is another example of experts having biases going unnoticed. Also, it could be argued that the climate change problem is really a socioeconomic one. I wouldn't say this has been neglected, but berating consumers and producers for what is more of a systemic problem isn't the most helpful thing.
QuesnayJr 7y ago
Lots of critics are uninformed, unscientific, and defective. the world is full of people who make confident pronouncements about the field of economics that are ill-informed. (It's actually a bit mysterious to me why that is.)

taffer 7y ago

I don't think the pendulum swung too much towards the experts. Just a few weeks ago, there was an article here on Hacker News (I can't find it at the moment), according to which climate scientists and climate change deniers get almost the same coverage in American news articles and I don't think this is a topic where the truth is in the middle.

gyuserbti 7y ago
I don't think the truth is always in the middle but it often is. Climate change is an interesting example; maybe too much to say via mobile but I'd argue that even though the evidence for climate change is pretty clear, climate scientists have underplayed their errors at times and the wide level of uncertainty involved. The recent retraction is a good example. I think this kind of attitude backfired, by making the blindspots that much more vulnerable. See, for example, recent discussions here about reforestation efforts using non-native monoculture, which could be seen as a similar dynamic to the experts-knows-best problem. I'm not saying reforestation is bad, only that it is another example of experts having biases going unnoticed. Also, it could be argued that the climate change problem is really a socioeconomic one. I wouldn't say this has been neglected, but berating consumers and producers for what is more of a systemic problem isn't the most helpful thing.

QuesnayJr 7y ago

Lots of critics are uninformed, unscientific, and defective. the world is full of people who make confident pronouncements about the field of economics that are ill-informed. (It's actually a bit mysterious to me why that is.)