Do you think that the West’s disastrous experience with Coronavirus (things like underinvesting in vaccines, not adopting challenge trials, not suppressing the virus, mixed messaging on masks early on, the FDA’s errors on testing, and others as enumerated in this thread- or in books like The Premonition) has strengthened, weakened or not changed much the credibility of your thesis in ‘Against Democracy’, that we should expect better outcomes if we give the knowledgeable more freedom to choose policy?
For reasons it might weaken ‘Against Democracy’, it seems like a lot of expert bureaucracies did an unusually bad job because they couldn’t take correction, see this summary post for examples:
For reasons it might strengthen the argument, it seems like the institutions that did better than average were the ones that were more able to act autonomously, see e.g. this from Alex Tabarok,
I think it has in some ways strengthened my overall philosophy. I’ve been pushing public choice ideas for a while, and the FDA and CDC seemed to band together this year to make that look right.
Epistocracy should not be confused with technocracy. In a technocracy, a small band of experts get lots of power to manipulate people, nudge them, or engage in social engineering. Many democrats are technocrats—indeed, the people I argue with, like Christiano, Estlund, and so on, are pretty hardcore technocrats who have been in favor of letting alphabet agencies have lots of dictatorial power during this crisis.
Instead, epistocracy is about weighing votes during elections to try to produce better electoral or referendum results. For instance, I favor a system of enlightened preference voting where we let everyone vote but we then calculate what the public would have supported had it been fully informed. And there is decent evidence that if we used it, one thing that would happen is that the resulting voting public would be more aware of the limitations of technocrats and would be more in favor of civil liberties.
In a technocracy, a small band of experts get lots of power to manipulate people, nudge them, or engage in social engineering.
the limitations of technocrats and would be more in favor of civil liberties.
Is it possible for you to elaborate more on this or easily provide links to a writeup?
Technocracy to me just means having experts with decision making power or influence, maybe in some institution, presumably with good governance and other checks.
This concept doesn’t immediately lead to thoughts of manipulation, or social engineering.
I’m trying to get educated here—I’m not being contentious, if this is the “Truth” about technocracy and the general mainstream belief, I want to learn about it
Many democrats are technocrats—indeed, the people I argue with, like Christiano, Estlund, and so on, are pretty hardcore technocrats who have been in favor of letting alphabet agencies have lots of dictatorial power during this crisis.
Do you mean Thomas Christiano and David Estlund?
I guess related to the above, it seems like the object level argument really depends on some assumptions.
It is just not clear what is being debated here in this subthread to me and I guess to many other readers of your AMA.
Again, is it possible for you to write just a little bit more on this or provide links to something to get novices up to speed?
I don’t want to get caught up in words. We can use new words:
Schmoop: Small bands of experts in bureaucracies get lots of power to unilaterally decide policy which controls citizens, businesses, etc.
Vleep: During elections, use some sort of knowledge-weighted voting system.
I am in favor of Vleep but oppose Schmoop. Lots of democrats favor Schmoop despite opposing Vleep. The recent failures of various regulatory agencies are failures of Schmoop but not Vleep. Against Democracy defends Vleep but not Schmoop.
Thanks for this reply. Would you say then that Covid has strengthened the case for some sorts of democracy reduction, but not others? So we should be more confident in enlightened preference voting but less confident in Garett Jones’ argument (from 10% less democracy) in favour of more independent agencies?
You may want to specify in what sense Western countries’ experience with Covid has been disastrous, in your view (and how you think policy should have been different).
It’s clear the agencies did a bad job, as expected, because they had perverse incentives. For instance, the FDA knows that if it approves something that works badly, it will be blamed. If it doesn’t approve something or it is slow to do so, most people won’t notice the invisible graveyard.
That said, it’s not clear to me whether making this a more open or democratic decision would have made it any better. Citizens are bad at long-term thinking, cost-benefit analysis, seeing the unseen, and so on. You’ve probably seen the surveys showing citizens were systematically misinformed about facts related to COVID and the vaccines.
Ideally we’d structure the bureaucracies’ incentives so that they get punished for the invisible graveyard, but it’s unclear how to do that. I’m really not sure what to do other than trying to streamline the process of approval or requiring that any drug approved in, say, Germany, the UK, Japan, and a few other countries is automatically approved here.
Do you think that the West’s disastrous experience with Coronavirus (things like underinvesting in vaccines, not adopting challenge trials, not suppressing the virus, mixed messaging on masks early on, the FDA’s errors on testing, and others as enumerated in this thread- or in books like The Premonition) has strengthened, weakened or not changed much the credibility of your thesis in ‘Against Democracy’, that we should expect better outcomes if we give the knowledgeable more freedom to choose policy?
For reasons it might weaken ‘Against Democracy’, it seems like a lot of expert bureaucracies did an unusually bad job because they couldn’t take correction, see this summary post for examples:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dYiJLvcRJ4nk4xm3X#Vax
For reasons it might strengthen the argument, it seems like the institutions that did better than average were the ones that were more able to act autonomously, see e.g. this from Alex Tabarok,
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/06/the-premonition.html
Or this summary
I think it has in some ways strengthened my overall philosophy. I’ve been pushing public choice ideas for a while, and the FDA and CDC seemed to band together this year to make that look right.
Epistocracy should not be confused with technocracy. In a technocracy, a small band of experts get lots of power to manipulate people, nudge them, or engage in social engineering. Many democrats are technocrats—indeed, the people I argue with, like Christiano, Estlund, and so on, are pretty hardcore technocrats who have been in favor of letting alphabet agencies have lots of dictatorial power during this crisis.
Instead, epistocracy is about weighing votes during elections to try to produce better electoral or referendum results. For instance, I favor a system of enlightened preference voting where we let everyone vote but we then calculate what the public would have supported had it been fully informed. And there is decent evidence that if we used it, one thing that would happen is that the resulting voting public would be more aware of the limitations of technocrats and would be more in favor of civil liberties.
Is it possible for you to elaborate more on this or easily provide links to a writeup?
Technocracy to me just means having experts with decision making power or influence, maybe in some institution, presumably with good governance and other checks.
This concept doesn’t immediately lead to thoughts of manipulation, or social engineering.
I’m trying to get educated here—I’m not being contentious, if this is the “Truth” about technocracy and the general mainstream belief, I want to learn about it
Do you mean Thomas Christiano and David Estlund?
I guess related to the above, it seems like the object level argument really depends on some assumptions.
It is just not clear what is being debated here in this subthread to me and I guess to many other readers of your AMA.
Again, is it possible for you to write just a little bit more on this or provide links to something to get novices up to speed?
I don’t want to get caught up in words. We can use new words:
Schmoop: Small bands of experts in bureaucracies get lots of power to unilaterally decide policy which controls citizens, businesses, etc.
Vleep: During elections, use some sort of knowledge-weighted voting system.
I am in favor of Vleep but oppose Schmoop. Lots of democrats favor Schmoop despite opposing Vleep. The recent failures of various regulatory agencies are failures of Schmoop but not Vleep. Against Democracy defends Vleep but not Schmoop.
Thanks for this reply. Would you say then that Covid has strengthened the case for some sorts of democracy reduction, but not others? So we should be more confident in enlightened preference voting but less confident in Garett Jones’ argument (from 10% less democracy) in favour of more independent agencies?
You may want to specify in what sense Western countries’ experience with Covid has been disastrous, in your view (and how you think policy should have been different).
It’s clear the agencies did a bad job, as expected, because they had perverse incentives. For instance, the FDA knows that if it approves something that works badly, it will be blamed. If it doesn’t approve something or it is slow to do so, most people won’t notice the invisible graveyard.
That said, it’s not clear to me whether making this a more open or democratic decision would have made it any better. Citizens are bad at long-term thinking, cost-benefit analysis, seeing the unseen, and so on. You’ve probably seen the surveys showing citizens were systematically misinformed about facts related to COVID and the vaccines.
Ideally we’d structure the bureaucracies’ incentives so that they get punished for the invisible graveyard, but it’s unclear how to do that. I’m really not sure what to do other than trying to streamline the process of approval or requiring that any drug approved in, say, Germany, the UK, Japan, and a few other countries is automatically approved here.