Gradual changes in institutional norms and traditions in other domains can provide transferrable lessons. For example, economists and politicians handled the 2008 Financial Crisis far better than the 1930s Great Depression. Perhaps if they hadn’t disregarded the lessons from the depression they could have prevented the financial crisis altogether. I’ve been reading Arguing with Zombies by Paul Krugman and the long-term challenges with “No More Pandemics” (great branding, btw) sound similar.
Scott Alexander nicely summarizes this tension between tradition and rationality in his review of Joseph Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success :
Rationalists always wonder: how come people aren’t more rational? How come you can prove a thousand times, using Facts and Logic, that something is stupid, and yet people will still keep doing it?
Henrich hints at an answer: for basically all of history, using reason would get you killed.
Gradual changes in institutional norms and traditions in other domains can provide transferrable lessons. For example, economists and politicians handled the 2008 Financial Crisis far better than the 1930s Great Depression. Perhaps if they hadn’t disregarded the lessons from the depression they could have prevented the financial crisis altogether. I’ve been reading Arguing with Zombies by Paul Krugman and the long-term challenges with “No More Pandemics” (great branding, btw) sound similar.
Scott Alexander nicely summarizes this tension between tradition and rationality in his review of Joseph Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success :