What lessons can be drawn from these events for how much to trust governments, mainstream experts, news sources, EAs, rationalists, mathematical modelling by people without domain-specific expertise, etc.? What lessons can be drawn for debates about inside vs outside views, epistemic modesty, etc.?
E.g., I think these events should probably update me somewhat further towards:
expecting governments to think and/āor communicate quite poorly about low-probability, high-stakes events.
trusting inside-views that seem clever even if theyāre from non-experts and I lack the expertise to evaluate them
But Iām still wary of extreme versions of those conclusions. And I also worry about something like a āstopped clock is right twice a dayā situationāperhaps this was something like a āflukeā, and āearly warningsā from the EA/ārationalist community would typically not turn out to seem so prescient.
(I believe thereās been a decent amount discussion of this sort of thing on LessWrong.)
What lessons can be drawn from these events for how much to trust governments, mainstream experts, news sources, EAs, rationalists, mathematical modelling by people without domain-specific expertise, etc.? What lessons can be drawn for debates about inside vs outside views, epistemic modesty, etc.?
E.g., I think these events should probably update me somewhat further towards:
expecting governments to think and/āor communicate quite poorly about low-probability, high-stakes events.
believing in something like, or a moderate form of, āRationalist/āEA exceptionalismā
trusting inside-views that seem clever even if theyāre from non-experts and I lack the expertise to evaluate them
But Iām still wary of extreme versions of those conclusions. And I also worry about something like a āstopped clock is right twice a dayā situationāperhaps this was something like a āflukeā, and āearly warningsā from the EA/ārationalist community would typically not turn out to seem so prescient.
(I believe thereās been a decent amount discussion of this sort of thing on LessWrong.)