Thanks for the post. I’m not sure this work is not super important… I mean, I think someone should be concerned with cases like those precisely before they become “super important”—which might entail a larger counterfactual impact.
Sometimes a liar becomes a biotech CEO, or a powerful financier, and then a journalist (or a short seller, or an investigator, or a whistleblower) will be interested in exposing the lie—because only then it will have repercussion enough to make it worth it (or to find people in the internet who have fun in doing it—anyway, repercussion & incentives is the key). So here is the mismatch of incentives: only when the lie has spread far, someone will show up and expose the liar. Investigative journalists won’t dig into a politician’s life before the latter becomes powerful or famous; short sellers won’t earn much by shorting a pooor new startup; a researcher won’t care exposing the methodological problems of someone else’s paper before it has started influencing other people... … But then a tipping point might have been passed, and either the liar or the lie will become resilient and remain. A politician becomes President—and then no matter what you dig, their supporters will give them a free pass and they become almost impervious to the truth. Or an ineffective treatment will continue to be prescribed or advocated for, because more people have heard of it than of the corresponding research has shown it to be bogus. I don’t think we should count only on individuals to do it (or on organizations focused on making a profit from exposing the truth). As I said above, it’d be cool to have some sort of organization concerned with killing lies in the cradle, while it’s easier, before it becomes “super important” to do so. But it is probably very hard to estimate the corresponding impact of preventing the harm that could have been caused by a rare event.
Thanks for the post. I’m not sure this work is not super important… I mean, I think someone should be concerned with cases like those precisely before they become “super important”—which might entail a larger counterfactual impact.
Sometimes a liar becomes a biotech CEO, or a powerful financier, and then a journalist (or a short seller, or an investigator, or a whistleblower) will be interested in exposing the lie—because only then it will have repercussion enough to make it worth it (or to find people in the internet who have fun in doing it—anyway, repercussion & incentives is the key). So here is the mismatch of incentives: only when the lie has spread far, someone will show up and expose the liar. Investigative journalists won’t dig into a politician’s life before the latter becomes powerful or famous; short sellers won’t earn much by shorting a pooor new startup; a researcher won’t care exposing the methodological problems of someone else’s paper before it has started influencing other people...
… But then a tipping point might have been passed, and either the liar or the lie will become resilient and remain. A politician becomes President—and then no matter what you dig, their supporters will give them a free pass and they become almost impervious to the truth. Or an ineffective treatment will continue to be prescribed or advocated for, because more people have heard of it than of the corresponding research has shown it to be bogus.
I don’t think we should count only on individuals to do it (or on organizations focused on making a profit from exposing the truth). As I said above, it’d be cool to have some sort of organization concerned with killing lies in the cradle, while it’s easier, before it becomes “super important” to do so. But it is probably very hard to estimate the corresponding impact of preventing the harm that could have been caused by a rare event.