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> Once you start regarding bad news as a loss, very bad stuff happens. I like this. It's insightful, and stated in a plain way. And equally we can say, once w
by nonrandomstring 4y ago
> Once you start regarding bad news as a loss, very bad stuff happens.
I like this. It's insightful, and stated in a plain way.
And equally we can say, once we start regarding good news as a gain,
very bad stuff happens.
The idea of "confidence" rather than measurable, tangible facts as an
economic basis has been the road to many bad things. In some ways
confidence and pessimism can be seen as the ability to ignore reality.
We've been inventing ways to delude ourselves in western economies for
decades. For example, film and record companies counting copyright
infringement as if it were an actual loss, or Twitter over-counting
its users as a kind of corporate egotism.
What might really help our societies on multiple levels is a return to
fact-based economics, instead of what is essentially information
warfare directed at pulling off ever more audacious confidence
tricks.
- naveen99 4y agoNews is gain (of knowledge) good or bad. bad news is an opportunity to fix some weak links. Good news is an opportunity to reduce leverage, replenish reserves. Confidence is useful. It reduces volatility in the market.
- nonrandomstring 4y agoWe're using two different senses of a word that seem irreconcilable. You offer a very narrow, statistical definition that pertains to the goodness/accuracy of information. I am using a psychological term that reflects the feelings people have irrespective of ground truths. These are almost opposite (at least incompatible) interpretations. And yet semantically I suspect we completely agree - acting on good information is good, and acting on bad judgement is bad. As I am sure you know, a "confidence trick" is a way to defraud another by influencing their (psychological) confidence (or pessimism) against their better judgement and in spite of the objective facts.
- naveen99 4y agoConfidence is short for confidence interval. Measurement improves confidence (tightens the margin of error).