The human race has gone downhill since the 60s. No more Apollos Or Manhattans projects. This is just another example of the last 70 years culture. Taboos, abstractions, political correctness, pessimism and escapism are the symptoms of a sad era.
There are still very large project going on in the world. Libya's irrigation project (35th year and still going); various rail projects; International Space Station. I'm not so pessimistic.
Interstellar travel, colonies in space, traveling x10 faster and reversing ageing are comparable to the scale of the atomic bomb, the first space missions or the microprocessor. You drank the kool aid "everything is progressing so quickly".
Oh yes, the 60s, when racism was still written into law, the Vietnam War was raging, and the world was on the brink of nuclear apocalypse but hey, at least we went to the moon.
The Syrian war (an echo of the Iraq war) is still raging, and the world is still every day on the brink of nuclear apocalypse (With a longer-term, slower, climate apocalypse looming in the distance.)
I don't care about the Moon, and besides it, the problems in 2019 aren't much different.
'Political correctness' just means people can't be jerks to the less well off people and have to take responsibility for what they say about minorities, women, disabled people etc. Seems like the human race improving to me.
And people are pessimistic about life because of climate change that was helped to be created by the pollution of the past when we discarded crap everywhere and didn't care about the earth.
I'm kind of confused what taboos, abstractions, political correctness have to do with a sad era. Pessimism and escapism- do we have evidence they are increased today compared to the 60s?
The Manhattan project was a military WWII project, and the Apollo project was a Cold War project with military and propaganda value. We haven't done any of those lately because we aren't involved in wars of that scale right now.
There are multiple particle accelerators in operation today that are teaching us more about the universe than scientists in the 60s could imagine. Poverty is decreasing across the globe. Diseases are being wiped out. Infant mortality and child-birth deaths are trending down. We have multiple rovers on moons and planets across the solar system, and are preparing for a manned mission to mars. Different races & genders have opportunities today that they couldn't even dream of in the 60s. Freaking cars are starting to drive themselves.
I can't imagine the thought process of someone who looks at all this progress and comes away with "damn liberals are ruining the world today with their political correctness".
I don't even know who liberals are. I'm out of politics. Anyway, what you listed is all incremental improvement with the exception of computer vision (which is still in the very early days still). Interstellar travel, colonies in space, traveling x10 faster and reversing ageing are comparable to the scale of the atomic bomb, the first space missions or the microprocessor. You drank the kool aid "everything is progressing so quickly".
Immigration is an easy win for significantly reducing global poverty.
In a classic Economics and Emigration:
Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk? Michael Clemens argues that it would be a win-win-win scenario to open up our borders.
More importantly, the comparative lack of political resistance to the policy package facilitating e.g. India and Indonesia growing at ~6% a year for the last 20 years means that we already have a better way of bringing about mass catchup. Perhaps the biggest geopolitical question of the moment is whether we did too good a job of facilitating China’s rise...
The problem with focusing on big questions in economics is that it is very difficult to produce convincing evidence. Humanity is complicated and it is impossible to control for unobservables in cross country studies.
The Nobel winners see this and decided to focus on smaller, provable questions instead. I'm not saying RCTs are perfect, but they are much better than a lot of the snake oil that still comes out of the discipline. We need more of them, not less.
Wholeheartedly agree. I think the discipline in general has something to prove. For economists, it shouldn't be an alien concept to actually produce results and hard data. These particular people have done their part and more. But I feel this price is used to absolve the whole industry.
I already hear the open borders arguments again. No, if an underdeveloped nations completely opens up for trade, its domestic economy will get destroyed. And China should be the falsification of that theory anyway.
People lift themselves from poverty. Not by easily bored economists from the developed world and their insights. So don't let them experiment with your society too much.
Why is immigration good for developed countries? Maybe because you simply catch motivated individuals that have the means to migrate?
Think this comment sounds a bit hostile to the discipline? I think you would be correct.
The "randomista" revolution essentially states that we know (or knew) very little about what actually work to foster development and that RCTs are the best tool we have to obtain this knowledge. Macro-scale policies are important, but we have no tool to evaluate their effects appropriately.
The article essentially says that this approach is wrong because we know that some macro-scale policies will have a much bigger impact than all those micro interventions. In this case, reducing barriers to immigration.
But we do not know that, that's the whole point of doing RCTs in the first place.
You can make an argument that we should spend less time focusing on micro scale interventions and more on macro-scale interventions because the former will never have a large impact and thus the best way to foster development is finding which macro intervention work.
However saying that focusing on the micro scale is useless because we _already_ know about some macro intervention that work better than the micro ones is unfounded. The evidence on macro intervention is much, much weaker than the evidence from RCTs.
It's worth pointing out that economics is a fake "Nobel" prize, funded not by the Alfred Nobel foundation, but by a Swedish bank trying to cash in on the name recognition.
Economics is almost entirely ideology accompanied by linear regression, and should be ignored or at least laughed at by numerate people.
Saying _a_ Swedish bank is misleading, since it is the central bank of Sweden. If instead of "central bank" they had called it "federal money & banking administration", suddenly the negative connotation would be (mostly) gone.
This year's recipients got it for RCTs. Would you say that recipients from the real Nobel Prize in Medicine that use the same methodology should also be laughed at?
That's a pretty strong claim. I know people in accounting because they like organizing, finance because they love analysis, quant because they love math, etc. I've also met anesthetists and cardiologists who chose their speciality for financial reasons.
I should have used more accurate language 'primarily driven'.
I've known a bunch of doctors (my sister's partner is a doctor). They tend to list helping others as their primary motivation, with fulfilling a childhood dream as another big one. Financial rewards for a specialty sure, but not for why they got into medicine.
I don't know many bankers. But I'd guess their primary motivation will be different. Sure they might enjoy something like analysis. But in the end of the day, you could be an analyst for a conservation NGO. Being a banking analyst attracts people with a specific set of financial desires.
Again, would a government economist from a (hypothetical) administration dedicated to financial regulation and interest rate setting have a personal motivation for choosing economics as a career?
If no, why does it change anything that this administration is called "bank" for historical reasons rather than "federal interest rate administration"?
My assertion: Doctors are motivated by non-monetary reasons more so than economists. Doctors have the primary motivation to save lives/help people. If economists have the motivation to save lives/help people, that motivation isn't as strong as with doctors.
You can agree or not. To me it seems obvious this is true.
If you agree that the assertion is true, then 'doctors are more reliable to provide assessments that aren't based on self interest' would be a logical conclusion that would be drawn from the initial statement. Of course if you don't agree with that assertion (and it's hard to prove either way in a scientific manner, so I'm quick to admit it's just my perspective), then you obviously won't agree with the logical conclusion.
It should be noted that the Central Bank doesn't select the laureates; they're selected by the same entity that Nobel himself chose to select the Physics and Chemistry awards, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Central banks are Schrödinger institutions, both described as banks to link them to actual private banks when it suits one's argument, and also to the government agency (that they are) when it suits one's argument.
This makes me wonder:
- would there be less backlash against the econ prize had it been funded by another government agency with "bank" in its name?
- would there be less backlash if econ was like math, with no Nobel prize but a "top prize for the discipline" instead (the John Bates medal for econ, the Fields medal for math)?
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences has been established by a donation of Sweden's central bank (which is a government agency) to the Nobel Foundation. It is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which also awards the Nobel Prize for physics and chemistry.
The Nobel Foundation recognizes the economics prize as a Nobel prize.
So, yes, it is a Nobel prize because the guys in charge of Nobel prizes say it is. It's also awarded by the guys who award the other Nobel science prizes (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences).
It is my understanding that out of respect for the original establishment of the prize, they haven't amended it as an "official" prize, but have essentially fully adopted it - it's just a matter of economics not being much of a discipline when the prize was originally established, no?
‘“Nobel despised people who cared more about profits than society's well-being", saying that "There is nothing to indicate that he would have wanted such a prize", and that the association with the Nobel prizes is "a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation".’ [0]
I’ve also heard rumors that Nobel had a personal animosity towards certain academic areas because of an affair his wife had with a professor, but I can’t find any good references for that.
I'm pretty sure the latter is as you intimate, incorrect[0]. If it was correct, it apparently pertained to Mittag-Leffler, who is a very admirable human (with an amazing mustache) who was unfairly more or less forgotten[1] outside of complex analysis class.
The fact that the "economics Nobel" isn't a real one, of course, is indisputable[2].
While it's not one of the original prizes, the laureates are still selected by the same institution as those in physics and chemistry, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
> In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was given the task to select the Laureates in Economic Sciences starting in 1969.
Journalists should just say "Nobel Memorial Prize" rather than "Nobel Prize". Anybody that doesn't know about this difference won't be distracted and pedants that do will be satisfied.
I don't see how it's inflammatory. I don't see how it's unsubstantiated (except for the "trying to cash in on the name recognition", as if the Swedish central bank needed Nobel's name for PR).
Unsubstantial? Yeah, it's definitely that. Who cares what the technical name of the prize is? It is commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics.
This is like the person who keeps going on about "There is no country named America". Maybe not, but there's one called that. We're probably going to keep calling it that, since it's more convenient than the official name, and everyone knows which country we're talking about.
But that person (or those people) claim that there are people in the Americas who take offense to only one country being called "America". scottlocklin, on the other hand... why does he keep beating this particular horse?
Both of your assertions are inaccurate. First of all the economics prize, while not an original prize, is recognized by the Nobel foundation, and that 'Swedish bank' is the central bank of Sweden.
Secondly, the idea that modern academic economics is driven by ideology and linear regression is demonstrably false. Take a look at the latest edition of QJE, the highest impact factor economics journal (link: https://academic.oup.com/qje/issue/134/4). Most of those articles are use empirical evidence to answer questions with obvious policy importance (e.g., causes of food inequality, effectiveness of workplace wellness policies). And modern econometric methods do not amount to linear regression, they include things like regression discontinuity design, instrumental variables techniques, panel data methods, that can provide convincing evidence of causal effects when only quasi-random variation is available. The Nobel prize your commenting on was awarded to researchers carrying out RCTs to assess the impact of specific interventions, how is that mere ideology and linear regression?
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 98.3 ms ] threadI don't care about the Moon, and besides it, the problems in 2019 aren't much different.
And people are pessimistic about life because of climate change that was helped to be created by the pollution of the past when we discarded crap everywhere and didn't care about the earth.
I can't imagine the thought process of someone who looks at all this progress and comes away with "damn liberals are ruining the world today with their political correctness".
In a classic Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk? Michael Clemens argues that it would be a win-win-win scenario to open up our borders.
https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.25.3.83
(Archive link for those who prefer non-broken web experiences)
The Nobel winners see this and decided to focus on smaller, provable questions instead. I'm not saying RCTs are perfect, but they are much better than a lot of the snake oil that still comes out of the discipline. We need more of them, not less.
I already hear the open borders arguments again. No, if an underdeveloped nations completely opens up for trade, its domestic economy will get destroyed. And China should be the falsification of that theory anyway.
People lift themselves from poverty. Not by easily bored economists from the developed world and their insights. So don't let them experiment with your society too much.
Why is immigration good for developed countries? Maybe because you simply catch motivated individuals that have the means to migrate?
Think this comment sounds a bit hostile to the discipline? I think you would be correct.
The "randomista" revolution essentially states that we know (or knew) very little about what actually work to foster development and that RCTs are the best tool we have to obtain this knowledge. Macro-scale policies are important, but we have no tool to evaluate their effects appropriately.
The article essentially says that this approach is wrong because we know that some macro-scale policies will have a much bigger impact than all those micro interventions. In this case, reducing barriers to immigration.
But we do not know that, that's the whole point of doing RCTs in the first place.
You can make an argument that we should spend less time focusing on micro scale interventions and more on macro-scale interventions because the former will never have a large impact and thus the best way to foster development is finding which macro intervention work.
However saying that focusing on the micro scale is useless because we _already_ know about some macro intervention that work better than the micro ones is unfounded. The evidence on macro intervention is much, much weaker than the evidence from RCTs.
Economics is almost entirely ideology accompanied by linear regression, and should be ignored or at least laughed at by numerate people.
This year's recipients got it for RCTs. Would you say that recipients from the real Nobel Prize in Medicine that use the same methodology should also be laughed at?
The massive conflict of interest in that set up is something I didn't know. It does greatly affect how I view it.
In terms of Medicine, that's different. Doctors aren't only financially driven. Bankers are.
I've known a bunch of doctors (my sister's partner is a doctor). They tend to list helping others as their primary motivation, with fulfilling a childhood dream as another big one. Financial rewards for a specialty sure, but not for why they got into medicine.
I don't know many bankers. But I'd guess their primary motivation will be different. Sure they might enjoy something like analysis. But in the end of the day, you could be an analyst for a conservation NGO. Being a banking analyst attracts people with a specific set of financial desires.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank
I should have used more accurate language and said 'primary' instead of 'only'.
If no, why does it change anything that this administration is called "bank" for historical reasons rather than "federal interest rate administration"?
You can agree or not. To me it seems obvious this is true.
If you agree that the assertion is true, then 'doctors are more reliable to provide assessments that aren't based on self interest' would be a logical conclusion that would be drawn from the initial statement. Of course if you don't agree with that assertion (and it's hard to prove either way in a scientific manner, so I'm quick to admit it's just my perspective), then you obviously won't agree with the logical conclusion.
1. Bankers are primarily interested by money, which includes employees of the Swedish central bank
2. There is a conflict of interest because the prize is funded by a bank
to:
3. Economists are more motivated by money than doctors.
1 and 2 are not relevant because the central bank is not a bank in any meaningful sense.
I fail to see how 3 has any impact on how one should view the economics prize. Could you elaborate?
This makes me wonder: - would there be less backlash against the econ prize had it been funded by another government agency with "bank" in its name? - would there be less backlash if econ was like math, with no Nobel prize but a "top prize for the discipline" instead (the John Bates medal for econ, the Fields medal for math)?
So, yes, it is a Nobel prize because the guys in charge of Nobel prizes say it is. It's also awarded by the guys who award the other Nobel science prizes (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences).
‘“Nobel despised people who cared more about profits than society's well-being", saying that "There is nothing to indicate that he would have wanted such a prize", and that the association with the Nobel prizes is "a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation".’ [0]
I’ve also heard rumors that Nobel had a personal animosity towards certain academic areas because of an affair his wife had with a professor, but I can’t find any good references for that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econom...
The fact that the "economics Nobel" isn't a real one, of course, is indisputable[2].
[0] http://almaz.com/nobel/why_no_math.html
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6sta_Mittag-Leffler
[2] for example https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/11/nobel-...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econom...
> In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was given the task to select the Laureates in Economic Sciences starting in 1969.
[0] - https://www.nobelprize.org/the-nobel-prize-organisation/priz...
Unsubstantial? Yeah, it's definitely that. Who cares what the technical name of the prize is? It is commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics.
This is like the person who keeps going on about "There is no country named America". Maybe not, but there's one called that. We're probably going to keep calling it that, since it's more convenient than the official name, and everyone knows which country we're talking about.
But that person (or those people) claim that there are people in the Americas who take offense to only one country being called "America". scottlocklin, on the other hand... why does he keep beating this particular horse?
Secondly, the idea that modern academic economics is driven by ideology and linear regression is demonstrably false. Take a look at the latest edition of QJE, the highest impact factor economics journal (link: https://academic.oup.com/qje/issue/134/4). Most of those articles are use empirical evidence to answer questions with obvious policy importance (e.g., causes of food inequality, effectiveness of workplace wellness policies). And modern econometric methods do not amount to linear regression, they include things like regression discontinuity design, instrumental variables techniques, panel data methods, that can provide convincing evidence of causal effects when only quasi-random variation is available. The Nobel prize your commenting on was awarded to researchers carrying out RCTs to assess the impact of specific interventions, how is that mere ideology and linear regression?