An expert class that thinks of itself as protective parents *is* an enemy, at least of anyone whose lives will be materially affected by those outcomes which to the expert class are just lines in an academic paper. It's amazing to me that you could admit such a pattern of distortion without coming to the obvious conclusion: that this behavior is dispicable.
Thanks on Fauci; he has been too much above criticism. I read a riveting account, whose source alas I don't remember, saying that the reason east Asia, including Australia and New Zealand did well in controlling COVID, and all the West poorly, is that in the East they adopted the goal of eliminating COVID, and in the West tried to manage it. Fauci I believe championed the 'manage' and 'flatten the curve' idea, which was responsible—aside from the huge contribution of Trump—for our mess up.
"they decided to push a simplified fable in order to push back against what they saw as society’s innate tendency toward protectionism. They decided America couldn’t handle the truth."
Agree with the overall message of the piece.
One contention is that protectionism is innate. It seems to be more cyclical than innate. COVID accelerated the trend towards more protectionism, but a more open trade stance could very well materialize beyond the current trend.
This is excellent writing! Is China still given an exception as far as obeying WTO rules? Maybe if they'd been forced to play fair it would've been different. Too late now.
What a great post! Of course it won't change anything though.
What surprises me is how obvious these lies are to a reasonable semi-intelligent person. I found multiple studies demonstrating the benefits of masks back in Feb 2021. It was really shocking how many pundits fell in lockstep with it.
I'm sure the free trade arguments are similar to most major political issues. Immigration, police, gun control, etc... everything is dumbed down for the great good.
I must say the whole "we lied about masks on purpose to avoid people hoarding them" argument never sounded very convincing. There are lots of things we successfully ensure only government can purchase. Uranium would be a possibly silly example, but if you don't like that one, think of guns in most European countries. Governments could have said "Sure, PPE works, but first we must ensure that medical staff has them so it wouldn't be possible to by it in your local pharmacy for the next 3 weeks. In the meantime, make your own mask using some old clothes or something, it's better than nothing." What I think is a much more plausible explanation is that scientists really were not sure if the simple non-N95 masks help, and instead of saying "we are not sure at this moment" they said "they don't work".
The free trade example lets economists of way too easy. There was a ~60 year period where economists didn't entire careers lying either to themselves or the public about taxes and regulation. Where total BS "science" was invented, pretending economics was physics and they were discovering God's truth that their laughably fantastical libertarian ideology didn't in fact make life dramatically worse than it could be for nearly everyone in society. Because if you invent structural equations from whole cloth, it's the same as Einstein, right? Mankiw and the fresh waters continue to carry the legacy, but at least now the profession as a whole is starting to emerge from the fantasy world.
This is so spot-on. I am an economist by training and can see in retrospect how this all played out.
Here's another point: I think open-border Ds are now making the same mistake. Free trade and open borders have similar effects on workers...not exactly, but similar. Free immigration, for whatever benefits it has to mankind, makes some people worse off. And we don't compensate those people and never will. They tend to be the most marginal folks in the labor market....people with criminal records, substance problems, behavioral or cognitive problems...the worst-off in the free-market system. Employers bring these folks on board only when they basically have to, and an abundant pool of immigrant workers makes this unnecessary. So, open borders, when it comes to Americans, makes the worst-off worse off. That violates a Rawlisan rule for how the just society should work. And it's really bad politics. Open borders advocates should be held accountable for this and not allowed to gloss over it.
Yeah, I feel like our experts do not give the public the opportunity to live up to expectations. Like, if Fauci, Birx, Redfield, etc, could have presented a united front, every time they had the opportunity to speak, to say, "Home-made masks work, and we encourage you to use them. We're going to work with manufacturers to ramp up production of surgical masks and N95 masks, but please, please don't buy them right now unless you really need them, because you wouldn't want to end up denying that mask to a nurse who needs it more than you. We promise we will be out here to let you know when there's enough supply." And yeah, some people would've taken an "I've got mine and screw you" attitude. Some people would've tried to buy up the supply to re-sell it for a quick buck (at which point you'd be justified in coming in with anti-price-gouging measures to confiscate the supply and distribute it to healthcare providers, using the authority of the DPA and other laws pertaining to emergencies). But I think _most_ people would've been able to handle that message.
I think the idea that medical professionals were engaged in coordinated deceit over the value of masks in order to protect the PPE supply chain is an after-the-fact rationalization. The CDC had made the same recommendation in the years before Covid.
- What study do you think has the most accurate representation of estimated job loses because of trade liberalization (broken down by country ideally)? Just trying to quantify the extent to which job lose is a function of trade and not other factors (automation, right to work, etc.).
In regards to Donald Trump, you might be getting the cause and the effect backwards. We might not have gotten Donald Trump had there been some honesty around the losers of our free trade agreements. We might’ve gotten some government action to help the people in need. Electing Donald Trump was probably in part a reaction to low wages and lack of jobs.
Thanks for a great article. From a public communications perspective another casualty is a general loss of trust in experts. This is captured by Michael Gove's comment that people have 'had enough of experts' (this was during the UK's referendum on whether to leave the EU in which nearly all economists were ardent remainers vs the majority of voters who wanted to leave). When experts are economical with the truth on trade it can have consequences for all experts (and the government policies they advise) including on whether people believe experts that vaccines are safe. At the level of tabloid headlines people don't really distinguish between economists, scientists, epidemiologists etc. My old boss used to ask audiences how long you have to wait to win back a (bank) customer's trust once you've lost it (answer, till you die).
This is cool and all, but from the perspective of trying to figure out what's going on in the world, the primary question is "when should I believe experts?"
And recent events have led me to the rule of thumb "there is no link between expertise and truth that isn't verifiable with small to medium effort from a smart and thoughtful layperson" and COVID has led me to "usually I am smart and thoughtful enough; certain twitter ppl are better" (I guess those ppl are expertise experts??)
As an example of when to believe expertise: I have absolutely no idea how vaccines are made -- that expertise is far beyond me -- but I can understand the data pretty well (https://xkcd.com/2400/), and I have enough general context to think that the auditing/study/etc was conducted well/rigorously. Yay experts! Experts are straight up wizards in this case afaict.
On the other hand, to keep things current, I would consider the general attempt to minimize/ignore/deny fact that some vaccines (e.g. Moderna, Pfizer) appear to be a lot better than others (e.g. J&J -- still really great) a recent noble expert lie in public health -- here is a well-made (but ultimately dishonest in my opinion) case that argues for this lie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3odScka55A. The real case, I assume, is that herd immunity is reached faster if we roll the vaccines out ASAP (which J&J helps with), even if some are less good, rather than having to wait for more Moderna/Pfizer -- and this makes everyone better off collectively. But asking some people to sacrifice for the greater good feels kind of bad and maybe they won’t, so let’s go with the noble lie instead. [EDIT: also possibly actually it's better to be vaccinated now with a less good but still amazing vaccine than to wait I guess? But this seems highly variable depending on personal behavior w.r.t COVID risk].
Like, if a proper comparative study were done in the US, I would bet a lot on Moderna/Pfizer doing better; would bet a pretty large amount on M/P doing better with only one dose; would bet a moderate amount on Moderna/Pfizer doing better even on other strains. I don't really know what the experts would do; I don't know why they say the things they say — I honestly would guess a lot of experts would be happy taking J&J, in line with their words!
With economics, [EDIT] actually thinking about it again, I don't know much, but I also will assume that expert speak on economics is more or less noise if I don't understand it. Like I do not believe what economists say is consensus, or what people say economists say is consensus. I am not a mind reader, I can't tell when they will and won't lie. With free trade, it seemed intuitively clear that there would be and were bad consequences to lots of people in the US -- I've heard like overall maybe 5-10 hours (?) worth of like theoretically-based everyone-wins-with-free-trade content from economists, and it didn't make much sense to me, which makes me believe it less.
Also re: the last bit, it maybe doesn't apply super well (tyranny is a bit of a strong word), but the vibe of old CS Lewis quote is apt:
> Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
An expert class that thinks of itself as protective parents *is* an enemy, at least of anyone whose lives will be materially affected by those outcomes which to the expert class are just lines in an academic paper. It's amazing to me that you could admit such a pattern of distortion without coming to the obvious conclusion: that this behavior is dispicable.
Thanks on Fauci; he has been too much above criticism. I read a riveting account, whose source alas I don't remember, saying that the reason east Asia, including Australia and New Zealand did well in controlling COVID, and all the West poorly, is that in the East they adopted the goal of eliminating COVID, and in the West tried to manage it. Fauci I believe championed the 'manage' and 'flatten the curve' idea, which was responsible—aside from the huge contribution of Trump—for our mess up.
This sophistry is nauseating
"they decided to push a simplified fable in order to push back against what they saw as society’s innate tendency toward protectionism. They decided America couldn’t handle the truth."
Agree with the overall message of the piece.
One contention is that protectionism is innate. It seems to be more cyclical than innate. COVID accelerated the trend towards more protectionism, but a more open trade stance could very well materialize beyond the current trend.
It's really a shame that you don't have a title that describes this as being about lies about free trade.
This is excellent writing! Is China still given an exception as far as obeying WTO rules? Maybe if they'd been forced to play fair it would've been different. Too late now.
What a great post! Of course it won't change anything though.
What surprises me is how obvious these lies are to a reasonable semi-intelligent person. I found multiple studies demonstrating the benefits of masks back in Feb 2021. It was really shocking how many pundits fell in lockstep with it.
I'm sure the free trade arguments are similar to most major political issues. Immigration, police, gun control, etc... everything is dumbed down for the great good.
I must say the whole "we lied about masks on purpose to avoid people hoarding them" argument never sounded very convincing. There are lots of things we successfully ensure only government can purchase. Uranium would be a possibly silly example, but if you don't like that one, think of guns in most European countries. Governments could have said "Sure, PPE works, but first we must ensure that medical staff has them so it wouldn't be possible to by it in your local pharmacy for the next 3 weeks. In the meantime, make your own mask using some old clothes or something, it's better than nothing." What I think is a much more plausible explanation is that scientists really were not sure if the simple non-N95 masks help, and instead of saying "we are not sure at this moment" they said "they don't work".
The free trade example lets economists of way too easy. There was a ~60 year period where economists didn't entire careers lying either to themselves or the public about taxes and regulation. Where total BS "science" was invented, pretending economics was physics and they were discovering God's truth that their laughably fantastical libertarian ideology didn't in fact make life dramatically worse than it could be for nearly everyone in society. Because if you invent structural equations from whole cloth, it's the same as Einstein, right? Mankiw and the fresh waters continue to carry the legacy, but at least now the profession as a whole is starting to emerge from the fantasy world.
This is so spot-on. I am an economist by training and can see in retrospect how this all played out.
Here's another point: I think open-border Ds are now making the same mistake. Free trade and open borders have similar effects on workers...not exactly, but similar. Free immigration, for whatever benefits it has to mankind, makes some people worse off. And we don't compensate those people and never will. They tend to be the most marginal folks in the labor market....people with criminal records, substance problems, behavioral or cognitive problems...the worst-off in the free-market system. Employers bring these folks on board only when they basically have to, and an abundant pool of immigrant workers makes this unnecessary. So, open borders, when it comes to Americans, makes the worst-off worse off. That violates a Rawlisan rule for how the just society should work. And it's really bad politics. Open borders advocates should be held accountable for this and not allowed to gloss over it.
Yeah, I feel like our experts do not give the public the opportunity to live up to expectations. Like, if Fauci, Birx, Redfield, etc, could have presented a united front, every time they had the opportunity to speak, to say, "Home-made masks work, and we encourage you to use them. We're going to work with manufacturers to ramp up production of surgical masks and N95 masks, but please, please don't buy them right now unless you really need them, because you wouldn't want to end up denying that mask to a nurse who needs it more than you. We promise we will be out here to let you know when there's enough supply." And yeah, some people would've taken an "I've got mine and screw you" attitude. Some people would've tried to buy up the supply to re-sell it for a quick buck (at which point you'd be justified in coming in with anti-price-gouging measures to confiscate the supply and distribute it to healthcare providers, using the authority of the DPA and other laws pertaining to emergencies). But I think _most_ people would've been able to handle that message.
I think the idea that medical professionals were engaged in coordinated deceit over the value of masks in order to protect the PPE supply chain is an after-the-fact rationalization. The CDC had made the same recommendation in the years before Covid.
Slate Star Codex directly addressed this point a while back: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/04/14/a-failure-but-not-of-prediction/
One Thing:
- What study do you think has the most accurate representation of estimated job loses because of trade liberalization (broken down by country ideally)? Just trying to quantify the extent to which job lose is a function of trade and not other factors (automation, right to work, etc.).
Hey Noah, great article!
In regards to Donald Trump, you might be getting the cause and the effect backwards. We might not have gotten Donald Trump had there been some honesty around the losers of our free trade agreements. We might’ve gotten some government action to help the people in need. Electing Donald Trump was probably in part a reaction to low wages and lack of jobs.
Thanks for a great article. From a public communications perspective another casualty is a general loss of trust in experts. This is captured by Michael Gove's comment that people have 'had enough of experts' (this was during the UK's referendum on whether to leave the EU in which nearly all economists were ardent remainers vs the majority of voters who wanted to leave). When experts are economical with the truth on trade it can have consequences for all experts (and the government policies they advise) including on whether people believe experts that vaccines are safe. At the level of tabloid headlines people don't really distinguish between economists, scientists, epidemiologists etc. My old boss used to ask audiences how long you have to wait to win back a (bank) customer's trust once you've lost it (answer, till you die).
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14846995.michael-gove-was-right-the-public-are-sick-of-experts-research-suggests/
This is cool and all, but from the perspective of trying to figure out what's going on in the world, the primary question is "when should I believe experts?"
And recent events have led me to the rule of thumb "there is no link between expertise and truth that isn't verifiable with small to medium effort from a smart and thoughtful layperson" and COVID has led me to "usually I am smart and thoughtful enough; certain twitter ppl are better" (I guess those ppl are expertise experts??)
As an example of when to believe expertise: I have absolutely no idea how vaccines are made -- that expertise is far beyond me -- but I can understand the data pretty well (https://xkcd.com/2400/), and I have enough general context to think that the auditing/study/etc was conducted well/rigorously. Yay experts! Experts are straight up wizards in this case afaict.
On the other hand, to keep things current, I would consider the general attempt to minimize/ignore/deny fact that some vaccines (e.g. Moderna, Pfizer) appear to be a lot better than others (e.g. J&J -- still really great) a recent noble expert lie in public health -- here is a well-made (but ultimately dishonest in my opinion) case that argues for this lie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3odScka55A. The real case, I assume, is that herd immunity is reached faster if we roll the vaccines out ASAP (which J&J helps with), even if some are less good, rather than having to wait for more Moderna/Pfizer -- and this makes everyone better off collectively. But asking some people to sacrifice for the greater good feels kind of bad and maybe they won’t, so let’s go with the noble lie instead. [EDIT: also possibly actually it's better to be vaccinated now with a less good but still amazing vaccine than to wait I guess? But this seems highly variable depending on personal behavior w.r.t COVID risk].
Like, if a proper comparative study were done in the US, I would bet a lot on Moderna/Pfizer doing better; would bet a pretty large amount on M/P doing better with only one dose; would bet a moderate amount on Moderna/Pfizer doing better even on other strains. I don't really know what the experts would do; I don't know why they say the things they say — I honestly would guess a lot of experts would be happy taking J&J, in line with their words!
With economics, [EDIT] actually thinking about it again, I don't know much, but I also will assume that expert speak on economics is more or less noise if I don't understand it. Like I do not believe what economists say is consensus, or what people say economists say is consensus. I am not a mind reader, I can't tell when they will and won't lie. With free trade, it seemed intuitively clear that there would be and were bad consequences to lots of people in the US -- I've heard like overall maybe 5-10 hours (?) worth of like theoretically-based everyone-wins-with-free-trade content from economists, and it didn't make much sense to me, which makes me believe it less.
Also re: the last bit, it maybe doesn't apply super well (tyranny is a bit of a strong word), but the vibe of old CS Lewis quote is apt:
> Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.