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Great point. Those problems are really hard to reason about, partly because without specific knowledge of the coefficients, all you can expect a well-reasoned p

Great point. Those problems are really hard to reason about, partly because without specific knowledge of the coefficients, all you can expect a well-reasoned person to conclude is that "it can go either way". And even knowing the data, most practical problems in this category would take either computer modeling or simplifying assumptions to really draw conclusions about. Worse, someone motivated to shape the story one way or the other can create a just-so story where they emphasize only one feedback path or the other, depending on what conclusion they want their audience to draw. I think the best antidote, although by no means a cure, is to teach clear and specific examples early on so that everyone at least can have a mental category for this class of problem, if not the tools to work through them. Jevons paradox is a great example of one which is both clear and counterintuitive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

TeMPOraL 6y ago
There's a danger of bad reasoning being involved, but I argue that "well-reasoned people" and just-so stories are problems either way. But I think that attaching a specific model to a problem grounds the conversation in reality. Taking the carbon exports example I pasted, the model presented structurally tells you that carbon footprint is going to grow with exports. We can haggle about "how much", but - under this model - not about "whether". You can tweak the parameters to mitigate impact, you can extend the model with extra components and tweak those to cancel out the impact (and that automatically generates you reasonable solution candidates!). Or, you can flat out say that the model doesn't simplify the reality correctly, and propose an alternative one, and we can then discuss the new model. The good thing is, at every point in the above considerations you're dealing with models and reality and somewhat strict reasoning, instead of endlessly bickering about whether A causes B or the other way around, or whether arguing A causes B is a slippery slope, or whatnot. I strongly agree with teaching examples, both real (serious) ones and toy ones, to teach this kind of thinking. Jevons paradox is indeed great to dig into and I suppose offer some sort of counterexample to what I'm talking about. The nature of the phenomenon is in a feedback loop, and whether it'll go good or bad depends on the parameters (the increased use can reduce the value of the intervention, cancel it out, or even make it worse than doing nothing). But from what I hear, people sometimes pick one of the possible outcomes and use it as thought stopper (e.g. "we shouldn't do X because obviously Jevons paradox will make things worse!").

TeMPOraL 6y ago

There's a danger of bad reasoning being involved, but I argue that "well-reasoned people" and just-so stories are problems either way. But I think that attaching a specific model to a problem grounds the conversation in reality. Taking the carbon exports example I pasted, the model presented structurally tells you that carbon footprint is going to grow with exports. We can haggle about "how much", but - under this model - not about "whether". You can tweak the parameters to mitigate impact, you can extend the model with extra components and tweak those to cancel out the impact (and that automatically generates you reasonable solution candidates!). Or, you can flat out say that the model doesn't simplify the reality correctly, and propose an alternative one, and we can then discuss the new model. The good thing is, at every point in the above considerations you're dealing with models and reality and somewhat strict reasoning, instead of endlessly bickering about whether A causes B or the other way around, or whether arguing A causes B is a slippery slope, or whatnot. I strongly agree with teaching examples, both real (serious) ones and toy ones, to teach this kind of thinking. Jevons paradox is indeed great to dig into and I suppose offer some sort of counterexample to what I'm talking about. The nature of the phenomenon is in a feedback loop, and whether it'll go good or bad depends on the parameters (the increased use can reduce the value of the intervention, cancel it out, or even make it worse than doing nothing). But from what I hear, people sometimes pick one of the possible outcomes and use it as thought stopper (e.g. "we shouldn't do X because obviously Jevons paradox will make things worse!").