5 ms·

Michael Chrichton wrote about this syndrome. When the economist writes about my job, IT, it is usually pretty good. When it writes about my country, Finland, it

Michael Chrichton wrote about this syndrome. When the economist writes about my job, IT, it is usually pretty good. When it writes about my country, Finland, it is sometimes a bit shallow, but the facts are still right. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

fsloth 7y ago
As another Finn I don't think it's shallow - I would call it terse. The facts speak for themselves. Like when describing the rabid gambling problem our country has due to state monopoly and broken incentives on public safety versus financial gains.
nielsole 7y ago
Just to note, he writes about the exact opposite of what is happening here.
Kuiper 7y ago
This actually sounds like the opposite of what Michael Crichton described. The Gell-Mann Amnesia occurs when, due to your domain expertise, you are able to see when a publication display a complete lack of understanding on the topic they are covering, yet despite this continue to assume that the publication is qualified to cover topics outside your narrow area of domain expertise. (It is, in a certain sense, a refusal to believe the evidence of your own eyes: you see that a publication has no credibility, yet continue to assume that it has credibility for some reason.) The effect described by the poster you're responding to is the opposite of that, and actually how credibility is presumed to normally work: you see that a publication get things right in a narrow domain that you have a lot of expertise in (and thus are qualified to identify which publications are purveyors of truth), and extrapolate that and assume, "if this one story is of impressive quality, then there's a good chance the rest of the publication is held to a similar standard." This is how a publication earns a badge of trustworthiness.

5 ms·

Michael Chrichton wrote about this syndrome. When the economist writes about my job, IT, it is usually pretty good. When it writes about my country, Finland, it

by gatestone 7y ago

fsloth 7y ago
As another Finn I don't think it's shallow - I would call it terse. The facts speak for themselves. Like when describing the rabid gambling problem our country has due to state monopoly and broken incentives on public safety versus financial gains.
nielsole 7y ago
Just to note, he writes about the exact opposite of what is happening here.
Kuiper 7y ago
This actually sounds like the opposite of what Michael Crichton described. The Gell-Mann Amnesia occurs when, due to your domain expertise, you are able to see when a publication display a complete lack of understanding on the topic they are covering, yet despite this continue to assume that the publication is qualified to cover topics outside your narrow area of domain expertise. (It is, in a certain sense, a refusal to believe the evidence of your own eyes: you see that a publication has no credibility, yet continue to assume that it has credibility for some reason.) The effect described by the poster you're responding to is the opposite of that, and actually how credibility is presumed to normally work: you see that a publication get things right in a narrow domain that you have a lot of expertise in (and thus are qualified to identify which publications are purveyors of truth), and extrapolate that and assume, "if this one story is of impressive quality, then there's a good chance the rest of the publication is held to a similar standard." This is how a publication earns a badge of trustworthiness.