I think we are disagreeing in a general sense about the usefulness of imprecise and unreliable, but systematically obtained answers to big questions, when trying to answer smaller sub-questions. If we think these answers are less useful, we are less likely to decide that ‘technocracy vs populism in general’ is a crucial consideration. If we think these answers are more useful, we are more likely to decide that ‘technocracy vs populism in general’ is a crucial consideration.
I do agree the conclusion of Acemoglu’s paper (admittedly, it is too long for me to read) is only weak evidence in favour of more technocracy, but if other papers were able to identify more natural experiments and came to similar conclusions, in theory I think that could generate enough evidence for ‘more technocracy’ (or ‘more populism’) to be a sufficiently strong prior / heuristic to be useful when looking at individual cases, which is why I still think ‘technocracy vs populism’ is a crucial consideration.
Update: Having read another comment, it seems likely that expert opinion most replaces other expert opinion in the context of policymaking. That changes my mind on whether technocracy vs populism is a crucial consideration, since it is only relevant to ‘promoting evidence-based policy’, a very minor EA cause area.
Thank you for explaining all of this.
I think we are disagreeing in a general sense about the usefulness of imprecise and unreliable, but systematically obtained answers to big questions, when trying to answer smaller sub-questions. If we think these answers are less useful, we are less likely to decide that ‘technocracy vs populism in general’ is a crucial consideration. If we think these answers are more useful, we are more likely to decide that ‘technocracy vs populism in general’ is a crucial consideration.
I do agree the conclusion of Acemoglu’s paper (admittedly, it is too long for me to read) is only weak evidence in favour of more technocracy, but if other papers were able to identify more natural experiments and came to similar conclusions, in theory I think that could generate enough evidence for ‘more technocracy’ (or ‘more populism’) to be a sufficiently strong prior / heuristic to be useful when looking at individual cases, which is why I still think ‘technocracy vs populism’ is a crucial consideration.
Update: Having read another comment, it seems likely that expert opinion most replaces other expert opinion in the context of policymaking. That changes my mind on whether technocracy vs populism is a crucial consideration, since it is only relevant to ‘promoting evidence-based policy’, a very minor EA cause area.