You’re quite right that if this post were arguing that there is an overall pattern, it would quite clearly be inadequate. It doesn’t define the universe of cases or make clear how representative these cases are of that universe, the two main studies could be criticised for selecting on the dependent variable, and its based primarily on quotes from two books.
However, I didn’t set out to answer something like the research question “which is more common in 20th century history, mistakenly sprinting or mistakenly failing to sprint?”—though I think that’s a very interesting question, and would like someone to look into it!
My intention for this blog post was for it to be fairly clear and memorable, aimed at a general audience—especially perhaps a machine learning researcher who doesn’t know much about history. The main takeaway I wanted wasn’t for people to think “this is the most common/likely outcome” but rather to add a historic example to their repertoire that they can refer to—“this was an outcome”. It was supposed to be a cautionary tale, a prompt to people to think not “all sprints are wrong” but rather “wait am I in an Ellsberg situation?”—and if so to have some general, sensible recommendations and questions to ask.
My aim was to express a worry (“be careful about mistaken sprints”) and illustrate that with two clear, memorable stories. There’s a reasonable scenario in the next few decades that we’re in a situation where we feel we need to back a sprint, prompted by concern about another group/country’s sprint. If we do, and I’m not around to say “hey lets be careful about this and check we’re actually in a race” then I hope these two case studies may stick in someone’s mind and lead them to say “OK but lets just check, don’t want to make the same mistake as Szilard and Ellsberg...”
Hi Stefan,
Thanks for this response.
You’re quite right that if this post were arguing that there is an overall pattern, it would quite clearly be inadequate. It doesn’t define the universe of cases or make clear how representative these cases are of that universe, the two main studies could be criticised for selecting on the dependent variable, and its based primarily on quotes from two books.
However, I didn’t set out to answer something like the research question “which is more common in 20th century history, mistakenly sprinting or mistakenly failing to sprint?”—though I think that’s a very interesting question, and would like someone to look into it!
My intention for this blog post was for it to be fairly clear and memorable, aimed at a general audience—especially perhaps a machine learning researcher who doesn’t know much about history. The main takeaway I wanted wasn’t for people to think “this is the most common/likely outcome” but rather to add a historic example to their repertoire that they can refer to—“this was an outcome”. It was supposed to be a cautionary tale, a prompt to people to think not “all sprints are wrong” but rather “wait am I in an Ellsberg situation?”—and if so to have some general, sensible recommendations and questions to ask.
My aim was to express a worry (“be careful about mistaken sprints”) and illustrate that with two clear, memorable stories. There’s a reasonable scenario in the next few decades that we’re in a situation where we feel we need to back a sprint, prompted by concern about another group/country’s sprint. If we do, and I’m not around to say “hey lets be careful about this and check we’re actually in a race” then I hope these two case studies may stick in someone’s mind and lead them to say “OK but lets just check, don’t want to make the same mistake as Szilard and Ellsberg...”