Thanks, Jeff! This helps a lot, though ideally a summary of my conclusions would acknowledge the tentativeness/uncertainty thereof, as I aim to do in the post (perhaps, “concludes that things may be bad and getting worse”).
Hm, I’m not sure how I would have read this if it had been your original wording, but in context it still feels like an effort to slightly spin my claims to make them more convenient for your critique. So for now I’m just gonna reference back to my original post—the language therein (including the title) is what I currently endorse.
Hmm..., sorry! Not trying to spin your claims and I would like to have something here that you’d be happy with. Would you agree your post views “currently negative and getting more negative” as more likely than not?
(I’m not happy with “may” because it’s ambiguous between indicating uncertainty vs possibility. more)
I’m still confused by the perceived need to state this in a way that’s stronger than my chosen wording. I used “may” when presenting the top line conclusions because the analysis is rough/preliminary, incomplete, and predicated on a long list of assumptions. I felt it was appropriate to express this degree of uncertainty when making my claims in the the post, and I think that that becomes all the more important when summarizing the conclusions in other contexts without mention of the underlying assumptions and other caveats.
I think we’re talking past each other a bit. Can we first try and get on the same page about what you’re claiming, and then figure out what wording is best for summarizing that?
My interpretation of the epistemic status of your post is that you did a preliminary analysis and your conclusions are tentative and uncertain, but you think global net welfare is about equally likely to be higher or lower than what you present in the post. Is that right? Or would you say the post is aiming at illustrating more of a worst case scenario, to show that this is worth substantial attention, and you think global net welfare is more likely higher than modeled?
Given the multiple pushbacks by different people, is there a reason you didn’t just take Kyle’s suggested text “concludes that things may be bad and getting worse”?
“May” is compatible with something like “my overall view is that things are good but I think there’s a 15% chance things are bad, which is too small to ignore” while Kyle’s analysis (as I read it) is stronger, more like “my current best guess is that things are bad, though there’s a ton of uncertainty”.
Thanks, Jeff! This helps a lot, though ideally a summary of my conclusions would acknowledge the tentativeness/uncertainty thereof, as I aim to do in the post (perhaps, “concludes that things may be bad and getting worse”).
Sorry for all the noise on this! I’ve now added “likely” to show that this is uncertain; does that work?
Hm, I’m not sure how I would have read this if it had been your original wording, but in context it still feels like an effort to slightly spin my claims to make them more convenient for your critique. So for now I’m just gonna reference back to my original post—the language therein (including the title) is what I currently endorse.
Hmm..., sorry! Not trying to spin your claims and I would like to have something here that you’d be happy with. Would you agree your post views “currently negative and getting more negative” as more likely than not?
(I’m not happy with “may” because it’s ambiguous between indicating uncertainty vs possibility. more)
I’m still confused by the perceived need to state this in a way that’s stronger than my chosen wording. I used “may” when presenting the top line conclusions because the analysis is rough/preliminary, incomplete, and predicated on a long list of assumptions. I felt it was appropriate to express this degree of uncertainty when making my claims in the the post, and I think that that becomes all the more important when summarizing the conclusions in other contexts without mention of the underlying assumptions and other caveats.
I think we’re talking past each other a bit. Can we first try and get on the same page about what you’re claiming, and then figure out what wording is best for summarizing that?
My interpretation of the epistemic status of your post is that you did a preliminary analysis and your conclusions are tentative and uncertain, but you think global net welfare is about equally likely to be higher or lower than what you present in the post. Is that right? Or would you say the post is aiming at illustrating more of a worst case scenario, to show that this is worth substantial attention, and you think global net welfare is more likely higher than modeled?
Given the multiple pushbacks by different people, is there a reason you didn’t just take Kyle’s suggested text “concludes that things may be bad and getting worse”?
“May” is compatible with something like “my overall view is that things are good but I think there’s a 15% chance things are bad, which is too small to ignore” while Kyle’s analysis (as I read it) is stronger, more like “my current best guess is that things are bad, though there’s a ton of uncertainty”.