Re Krugman - I think the fair defense on him is that he's *capable* of going against tribal narrative (e.g. he consistently said that left-leaning globalist types were overestimating the likely economic harms of Brexit). So while he does very frequently do the empty tribalist gestures, he does *also* sometimes think for himself, so he actually does beat the Blue Tribe Rock.
> When I put out On Bounded Distrust, one commenter suggested Paul Krugman as an unusually good source that wasn’t looking to distort things to favor his own team, and the rest of us had to contain our laughter.
That commenter was me, and I said no such thing.
What I _actually_ said was that Krugman has a pretty good record for economic predictions.
Here are my actual posts…sorry for the length, but I think it’s important to reread…perhaps a little more carefully.
>>>#1
I’ve been following economist Paul Krugman for 20+ years, and have found he has an excellent track record for predictions…even for things that are out of his lane, like the misinformation used to justify the Iraq war.
He explains his reasoning, shows his data, and admits when he was wrong (like when he predicted the Internet would not be important).
Yeah yeah…he’s best known as a columnist for the dreaded NYT, but he’s also on Twitter, if anyone wants to give him a fair shake.
>>>#2
Well, he’s very obviously and adamantly on the Blue Team…I should have noted that.
But…other than a couple of times when he made a bad call based on a knee jerk reaction, and quickly retracted…I can’t think of any cases where he was obviously wrong.
What would be examples of him batting 0 when it doesn’t match his narrative?
>>>#3
That was one of the knee jerk incidents I was referring to. He admitted as much within a day or two (not that he had much choice, being so flagrantly wrong. But as Zvi says, points should be given when people admit mistakes)
More recently, he is in the process of climbing down from his prediction that inflation will only last a few months, because he underestimated supply chain issues.
I was really hoping you would be able to point to something more substantial. If you think of anything, please share.
In the meantime, off the top of my head, here’s a list of successful predictions he’s made.
1. Warnings about the dot com bubble around 1999 -2000 (though I may be confusing him with Schiller here)
2. Warnings about the mis-information being spread to justify the Iraq war
3. Warning about the real estate bubble circa 2008
4. Correctly predicting the course of the 2008 Great Recession. I.e. It would be long and deep, and that the stimulus measures would NOT lead to inflation and “debasement of the currency”
Pretty good track record, IMO.
>>> end quotes
So, TLDR - good predictions, blue team, list of accurate predictions. That’s all. And nobody really refuted those points.
I was merely trying to evaluate whether my level,of trust in Krugman based on his good predictions was justified, in the context of your bounded trust article. But I didn’t say that explicitly - so, my bad.
Look, I enjoy some good Internet snark as much as the next guy (well,…maybe not so much when it’s at my expense), but it’s disappointing to be so badly misinterpreted.
Still,love your Covid stuff, but I’ll be updating my Bounded Distrust levels on other topics.
I've been reading these posts for a couple months now and if I recall correctly you've fairly consistently predicted that cases will continue to decline for a while. That seems pretty reasonable and you've linked to other people predicting the same thing so it seems like there's something to it, but I'm wondering why you don't think an early-spring bump in case rates like we saw last year is more likely than not. Obviously seasonal viruses tend to just have one season but we've seen much more frequent spikes than that with covid, and it's not like everyone has gotten omicron. I assume some people are making that prediction because they want it to be true and don't remember the spring bump last year since that was when they got their vaccines, but I can't imagine that's your thought process.
Most of the CDC thing you list appear things a reasonable M.D. interested in your wellbeing should say.
There is nothing nonsensical about avoiding exposing fetus/baby to alcohol. No amount of alcohol in mother's bloodstream is beneficial to fetus. If the plan is to not have a baby, there are options to make the fetus "go away" (to use an euphemism), but side-stepping the ethics of the questions, use of birth control is the way to avoid babies that has least hassle.
And I wouldn't eat a medium-rare ground burger if I have doubts about the whole meat processing pipeline from cow to patty. It is just common sense about the physical reality of how burger patties are made: it is not a steak cut. I suppose CDC's has made a judgement about the general level food safety.
Maybe there is an argument, but that argument is not to found in this blog post.
The article could do with some actual arguments instead of the fiery words.
"Rogan is wrong about vaccines, but that doesn’t mean his facts above were wrong. His mistake was that he did the cost-benefit calculation wrong."
Could you please do a deep dive on your mental model of vaccine safety? While the benefits clearly outweigh the risks for the elderly, the risks seem to outweigh the benefits for most people under ~30, especially young males. I'd love to hear your thought process. Most analyses I've seen (including one you linked to a few months ago) make large basic errors, like
1. Assuming that "cases of side effect X that have been confirmed by the FDA" is the same as "all cases of side effect X" instead of a very small subset
2. Basing vaccine risk on 1 dose instead of 3
3. Comparing the risk of the vaccine to the risk of a case of Covid, not taking into account the remaining Covid risk after vaccination
4. Not age-stratifying the analysis at all
Some Fermi estimates and Bayesian reasoning on VAERS data suggests to me that the risks are significant.
Thanks for writing, this has as much useful information as any 5 other posts I've read today put together
Re Krugman - I think the fair defense on him is that he's *capable* of going against tribal narrative (e.g. he consistently said that left-leaning globalist types were overestimating the likely economic harms of Brexit). So while he does very frequently do the empty tribalist gestures, he does *also* sometimes think for himself, so he actually does beat the Blue Tribe Rock.
> When I put out On Bounded Distrust, one commenter suggested Paul Krugman as an unusually good source that wasn’t looking to distort things to favor his own team, and the rest of us had to contain our laughter.
That commenter was me, and I said no such thing.
What I _actually_ said was that Krugman has a pretty good record for economic predictions.
Here are my actual posts…sorry for the length, but I think it’s important to reread…perhaps a little more carefully.
>>>#1
I’ve been following economist Paul Krugman for 20+ years, and have found he has an excellent track record for predictions…even for things that are out of his lane, like the misinformation used to justify the Iraq war.
He explains his reasoning, shows his data, and admits when he was wrong (like when he predicted the Internet would not be important).
Yeah yeah…he’s best known as a columnist for the dreaded NYT, but he’s also on Twitter, if anyone wants to give him a fair shake.
>>>#2
Well, he’s very obviously and adamantly on the Blue Team…I should have noted that.
But…other than a couple of times when he made a bad call based on a knee jerk reaction, and quickly retracted…I can’t think of any cases where he was obviously wrong.
What would be examples of him batting 0 when it doesn’t match his narrative?
>>>#3
That was one of the knee jerk incidents I was referring to. He admitted as much within a day or two (not that he had much choice, being so flagrantly wrong. But as Zvi says, points should be given when people admit mistakes)
More recently, he is in the process of climbing down from his prediction that inflation will only last a few months, because he underestimated supply chain issues.
I was really hoping you would be able to point to something more substantial. If you think of anything, please share.
In the meantime, off the top of my head, here’s a list of successful predictions he’s made.
1. Warnings about the dot com bubble around 1999 -2000 (though I may be confusing him with Schiller here)
2. Warnings about the mis-information being spread to justify the Iraq war
3. Warning about the real estate bubble circa 2008
4. Correctly predicting the course of the 2008 Great Recession. I.e. It would be long and deep, and that the stimulus measures would NOT lead to inflation and “debasement of the currency”
Pretty good track record, IMO.
>>> end quotes
So, TLDR - good predictions, blue team, list of accurate predictions. That’s all. And nobody really refuted those points.
I was merely trying to evaluate whether my level,of trust in Krugman based on his good predictions was justified, in the context of your bounded trust article. But I didn’t say that explicitly - so, my bad.
Look, I enjoy some good Internet snark as much as the next guy (well,…maybe not so much when it’s at my expense), but it’s disappointing to be so badly misinterpreted.
Still,love your Covid stuff, but I’ll be updating my Bounded Distrust levels on other topics.
(Posted to Wordpress and Substack comments)
I've been reading these posts for a couple months now and if I recall correctly you've fairly consistently predicted that cases will continue to decline for a while. That seems pretty reasonable and you've linked to other people predicting the same thing so it seems like there's something to it, but I'm wondering why you don't think an early-spring bump in case rates like we saw last year is more likely than not. Obviously seasonal viruses tend to just have one season but we've seen much more frequent spikes than that with covid, and it's not like everyone has gotten omicron. I assume some people are making that prediction because they want it to be true and don't remember the spring bump last year since that was when they got their vaccines, but I can't imagine that's your thought process.
Most of the CDC thing you list appear things a reasonable M.D. interested in your wellbeing should say.
There is nothing nonsensical about avoiding exposing fetus/baby to alcohol. No amount of alcohol in mother's bloodstream is beneficial to fetus. If the plan is to not have a baby, there are options to make the fetus "go away" (to use an euphemism), but side-stepping the ethics of the questions, use of birth control is the way to avoid babies that has least hassle.
And I wouldn't eat a medium-rare ground burger if I have doubts about the whole meat processing pipeline from cow to patty. It is just common sense about the physical reality of how burger patties are made: it is not a steak cut. I suppose CDC's has made a judgement about the general level food safety.
Maybe there is an argument, but that argument is not to found in this blog post.
The article could do with some actual arguments instead of the fiery words.
"Rogan is wrong about vaccines, but that doesn’t mean his facts above were wrong. His mistake was that he did the cost-benefit calculation wrong."
Could you please do a deep dive on your mental model of vaccine safety? While the benefits clearly outweigh the risks for the elderly, the risks seem to outweigh the benefits for most people under ~30, especially young males. I'd love to hear your thought process. Most analyses I've seen (including one you linked to a few months ago) make large basic errors, like
1. Assuming that "cases of side effect X that have been confirmed by the FDA" is the same as "all cases of side effect X" instead of a very small subset
2. Basing vaccine risk on 1 dose instead of 3
3. Comparing the risk of the vaccine to the risk of a case of Covid, not taking into account the remaining Covid risk after vaccination
4. Not age-stratifying the analysis at all
Some Fermi estimates and Bayesian reasoning on VAERS data suggests to me that the risks are significant.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355581860_COVID_vaccination_and_age-stratified_all-cause_mortality_risk