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From https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-... > When [an outsider

From https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-... > When [an outsider] asserts an opinion, he has only one thing he's optimizing for - being right. > When the Director of the CDC asserts an opinion, she has to optimize for two things - being right, and keeping power. If she doesn't optimize for the second, she gets replaced as CDC Director by someone who does.

andy_ppp 6y ago
This is a complete straw man, we’ve no idea of the complex layers and motivations of person one and two. The outsider could be a troll and the Director of the CDC probably got there on merit, looking after their power might not be an issue at all; people could just respect and like her as a talented leader. You just don’t know, but simplifying things like this does make “proving” yourself right a lot easier.
- nlitened 6y ago
  > looking after their power might not be an issue at all; people could just respect and like her as a talented leader This does sound good, though I have seen zero examples of this fairy tale coming true in the real life around me.
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
    Okay so Elon Musk, Collison brothers, even people like Bezos (while immoral on the tax stuff) are all extremely effective. The management at the pension fund I work at are very good at their jobs too... there’s plenty of examples of one is willing to look.
    - nlitened 6y ago
      Yes, I am 100% sure they are great at their jobs, but _also_ they know how to play the politics games. For sure you have to be a good doctor to become a head of CDC, but also you have to masterfully balance that with politics.
rwallace 6y ago
The second statement is unfortunately true. But be careful of taking the first one at face value. The outsider might be optimizing for being right. He might also be optimizing for looking good in his social circle, confirming some self-image in his own mind, establishing himself as a prudent person who holds sensible beliefs, or establishing himself as a daring person who holds antiestablishment beliefs. The process that brought him to your attention, might also have selected him for noteworthiness by all sorts of criteria, only one of which is being right; that counts as an optimization process in and of itself. Which doesn't mean the outsider isn't right. Maybe he is. But be careful of just assuming it.
- hardwaregeek 6y ago
  Exactly. The Rational movement is well optimized for signaling their intelligence. Everything from the fanfiction to the explicit partitioning of people into rational and non-rational groups is meant to signal how smart they are. Sometimes that means they encourage genuinely smart practices. Autodidactism is great. Learning math and computer science is great. But the game is fundamentally to appear smart, often via contrarian views. That doesn't always align with safe medical practices.
- chillee 6y ago
  In the article, he was mentioning one specific outsider (Zvi Mowshowitz) that he trusts. I changed it to "[an outsider]" more generally since it didn't make sense without context.
jonathanstrange 6y ago
The Director of CDC has to be right for the right reasons, not just by coincidence, and carries the whole weight of the responsibility about his decision, both politically and in drastic cases maybe even legally. That is a completely different business than voicing your opinion, and apparently the blogger you cite completely misses that point. Organizations like WHO and CDC make their recommendations based on studies which are in turn based on evidence. If you compare that procedure to 2 bloggers who happen to be right about the same topic among 98 other bloggers who happened to be wrong, selection bias alone may make those 2 outliers appear like genuises. That doesn't mean or show anything.
coolgeek 6y ago
> When the Director of the CDC asserts an opinion, she has to optimize for two things - being right, and keeping power Perhaps there is some context that you have elided, but as it stands, this is terribly cynical and almost certainly not true. Being CDC Director is an entry on a resume, albeit a prestigious one. It can only come after outstanding achievement in medical and/or scientific pursuits. Assuming one does not leave in disgrace, it is followed by even more prestigious, and highly compensated appointments. There is a strong analogy here with the obsession of finding "signaling" everywhere one looks. As if everybody is an automaton, or even a malicious actor, that behaves in a facile, self-serving manner. Occam's Razor should be your north star here.

andy_ppp 6y ago

This is a complete straw man, we’ve no idea of the complex layers and motivations of person one and two. The outsider could be a troll and the Director of the CDC probably got there on merit, looking after their power might not be an issue at all; people could just respect and like her as a talented leader. You just don’t know, but simplifying things like this does make “proving” yourself right a lot easier.

nlitened 6y ago
> looking after their power might not be an issue at all; people could just respect and like her as a talented leader This does sound good, though I have seen zero examples of this fairy tale coming true in the real life around me.
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  Okay so Elon Musk, Collison brothers, even people like Bezos (while immoral on the tax stuff) are all extremely effective. The management at the pension fund I work at are very good at their jobs too... there’s plenty of examples of one is willing to look.
  - nlitened 6y ago
    Yes, I am 100% sure they are great at their jobs, but _also_ they know how to play the politics games. For sure you have to be a good doctor to become a head of CDC, but also you have to masterfully balance that with politics.

rwallace 6y ago

The second statement is unfortunately true. But be careful of taking the first one at face value. The outsider might be optimizing for being right. He might also be optimizing for looking good in his social circle, confirming some self-image in his own mind, establishing himself as a prudent person who holds sensible beliefs, or establishing himself as a daring person who holds antiestablishment beliefs. The process that brought him to your attention, might also have selected him for noteworthiness by all sorts of criteria, only one of which is being right; that counts as an optimization process in and of itself. Which doesn't mean the outsider isn't right. Maybe he is. But be careful of just assuming it.

hardwaregeek 6y ago
Exactly. The Rational movement is well optimized for signaling their intelligence. Everything from the fanfiction to the explicit partitioning of people into rational and non-rational groups is meant to signal how smart they are. Sometimes that means they encourage genuinely smart practices. Autodidactism is great. Learning math and computer science is great. But the game is fundamentally to appear smart, often via contrarian views. That doesn't always align with safe medical practices.
chillee 6y ago
In the article, he was mentioning one specific outsider (Zvi Mowshowitz) that he trusts. I changed it to "[an outsider]" more generally since it didn't make sense without context.

jonathanstrange 6y ago

The Director of CDC has to be right for the right reasons, not just by coincidence, and carries the whole weight of the responsibility about his decision, both politically and in drastic cases maybe even legally. That is a completely different business than voicing your opinion, and apparently the blogger you cite completely misses that point. Organizations like WHO and CDC make their recommendations based on studies which are in turn based on evidence. If you compare that procedure to 2 bloggers who happen to be right about the same topic among 98 other bloggers who happened to be wrong, selection bias alone may make those 2 outliers appear like genuises. That doesn't mean or show anything.

coolgeek 6y ago

> When the Director of the CDC asserts an opinion, she has to optimize for two things - being right, and keeping power Perhaps there is some context that you have elided, but as it stands, this is terribly cynical and almost certainly not true. Being CDC Director is an entry on a resume, albeit a prestigious one. It can only come after outstanding achievement in medical and/or scientific pursuits. Assuming one does not leave in disgrace, it is followed by even more prestigious, and highly compensated appointments. There is a strong analogy here with the obsession of finding "signaling" everywhere one looks. As if everybody is an automaton, or even a malicious actor, that behaves in a facile, self-serving manner. Occam's Razor should be your north star here.