Archive for 2020
May 9, 2020
SO FAR, EXPERTS AND EXPERTISE HAVE NOT PERFORMED EXACTLY BRILLIANTLY IN THIS CENTURY: The fallen state of experts: How can governments learn from their expert failings?
Today we have the “rule of experts.” Monopoly experts have the power to choose for you in one field after another, including child protective services, economic policy, and pandemic response. But if you give some humans the monopoly power to choose for other humans, you have created some dangerous incentives. The rule of experts gives you the highest chance of expert failure. We should value expertise, but fear expert power. Whenever possible, then, we should do away with the rule of experts by empowering the people. Let each person choose for themself, and let the experts compete with each other to provide advice. That’s a call for ramping down the power of government bureaucrats and ramping up personal freedom. But you can push that idea only so far with pandemic policy.
Whatever the best policy might have been, at least some restrictions were clearly needed. In the moment of danger, governments cannot avoid turning to experts to help them craft policy. When confronting a pandemic, then, is there nothing a government can do but listen to the epidemiological experts and obey their wizardly words? There may be a few things governments can do to limit “expert failure” in moments of crisis.
Governments should recognise that their experts are, all of them, giving a partial perspective. Apparently, British and American policy was driven primarily by a report whose lead author was Neil Ferguson. That report seems to have considered only one danger: Covid. The one-sided analysis of that report may have left governments in the US and UK insensitive to the possibility that that lockdown itself might create its own fatalities, which might even end up larger than the number of Covid deaths. As economists never tire of reminding us, we are always facing tradeoffs and must adjust along all margins.
Governments should also be more diligent in the pursuit of competing opinions. In his essay, “What is science?” Richard Feynman remarked “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” A government that respects science should be sceptical of experts and, perhaps, more diligently seek out multiple viewpoints. In other words, when governments cannot leave the matters in the hands of the people, it should do what it can to simulate a competitive market for expert advice. A simulation is not the real thing, and we may grimly expect that in future crises governments will again fall victim to expert failure. But a greater effort to engage diversity of expert opinion within and across areas of expertise and a livelier scientific scepticism toward experts and their expertise may at least make expert failure less frequent and less severe.
I would feel better if experts had more skin in the game. Neil Ferguson had a history of being spectacularly wrong in the past, but that cost him nothing.
BAD STATE DECISIONS ABOUT NURSING HOMES ARE HEAVILY DRIVING THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK.
Related: Did the Lockdown Model Cause Half the Coronavirus Deaths in New Jersey? Instead of coronavirus overwhelming hospitals, it overwhelmed nursing homes.
NEVER LET A PANDEMIC GO TO WASTE: Only the Greens and separatists could find ‘opportunity’ in a pandemic.
I THINK WE NEED A MULTIFRONT OFFENSIVE TO ROLL BACK THE KARENS’ INFLUENCE: Don’t let Karen kill your community: If our leadership wants us to listen to them, they should discourage Karens.
It occurs to me that after prohibition — which was very much a project of the Karens of its day — there was a 50 year period in which bossy, officious, interfering middle-aged white women were systematically mocked, from Margaret Dumont to Gladys Kravitz. That ended and we got the reign of the Karens. Start mocking again. They can’t take mockery.
May 8, 2020
IT’S EASIER TO START THE FIGHT THAN TO FINISH IT: Was sand dumping at Pittsburgh City Hall in retaliation to shuttered skateboard park?
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WELL, IF “RULE OF LAW” IS A SYNONYM FOR “CRIMINAL CONSPIRACIES OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION,” THEN YES: Exclusive: Obama says in private call that ‘rule of law is at risk’ in Michael Flynn case.
Actual rule of law is the thing Obama’s circle dreads most at this point. Which is why he’s scattering chaff.
UPDATE: From the comments: “Mr Cool is losing his cool? Someone must be over the target.” Yep.
IT WASN’T AN ACCIDENT, AN ERROR, A BOTCH, OR A STUMBLE: IT WAS A CONSCIOUSLY COORDINATED DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN, WITH THE MEDIA AS WILLING ACCOMPLICES. And its purpose was to overturn an American election via illegal means.
OPEN THREAD: Roll your cart back up the aisle, kiss the checkout girls goodbye.
CHANGE: Miami-Dade malls are not reopening yet. When they do, it will be a different world.
Though I heard Knoxville’s West Town mall was crowded last weekend.
HE KNOWS HE’S SCREWED HIS POLITICAL CAREER, AND HE KNOWS IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE: Murphy snaps: Unhappy with the guy in charge of N.J. unemployment? “Go to another state.”
As I’ve noted before, Trump has wrecked an entire slate of future Democratic Party presidential and vice-presidential candidates, just by letting them govern as they think best.
SEND THE BILL TO THE CDC: Hospitals are losing billions. Industry leaders say the aftermath could be ‘apocalyptic.’
TED CRUZ GETS HAIRCUT AT DALLAS’S SALON A LA MODE AFTER OWNER SHELLEY LUTHER RELEASED FROM JAIL.
UPDATE: A Look At The Democrat Dallas Judge Who Jailed A Salon Owner.
(Updated and bumped.)
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Don’t miss the importance of this. The left/media (but I repeat myself) used to be able to make people so radioactive that even serious right politicians would shy away. Not anymore. This, and her half-million-dollar GoFundMe account, are serious blows to its power. Or maybe signs that that power is shrinking. Or both.
RUSH LIMBAUGH QUOTES PJM CO-FOUNDER ROGER SIMON ON THE LEFT’S MORAL NARCISSISM.
INDUSTRIES IN SUSPENSE: Satellite Images Show Armadas Of Vacant Cruise Ships Huddling Together Out At Sea. “Although there are no passengers aboard these ships, some of which cost well over a billion dollars to build, there are plenty of people still on board. Much of their crews are literally trapped on these vessels. As the world cut back travel due to COVID-19’s explosive spread around the globe and cruise ships became very unwanted guests at long-established ports of call, cruise line workers were trapped at their floating workplaces far from home.”
AT AMAZON, spring savings in Car Care.
EMPOWERMENT:
NOW GOVERNMENT MUST MAKE MICHAEL FLYNN WHOLE: Documents made public this week by Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell made crystal clear that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was setup by the FBI, then falsely charged and unjustly prosecuted by the Department of Justice (DOJ). So the prosecution has been dropped.
But in the years since he was charged, Flynn’s life has been wrecked. His savings are gone, he has to sell his house, and who knows when he will be able to get a job. In a searing editorial, Issues & Insights poses the next question that justice demands be addressed:
“OK, but after having his life turned upside-down, where does Flynn go from here? And not just to get his good name back. He also deserves restitution for all that was taken from him by what increasingly looks like a criminal conspiracy, as we noted last week.”
If Flynn is not made whole, justice will still be incomplete.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Is Pandemic Anxiety Changing Your Sex Drive?
PLASTIC TURKEY: THE NEXT GENERATION. NYT, NBC Reporters Parrot Jimmy Kimmel’s False Accusation that Pence Delivered Empty Boxes of PPE.
(Classical reference in headline.)
WELL, THAT SHOULD STOP THE VIRUS, THEN: San Antonio City Council Bans ‘Chinese Virus’ as Hate Speech.