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The Limits of Expertise

quillette.com

11–20 of 66 posts

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#11
"suffice it to say, the complex manoeuvring of some extremely bright and learned people unwittingly triggered the financial crisis." So it wasnt the bad loans that were given to people who couldnt repay at variable interest rates prone for increases in the future? If everyone involved was truly educated, they likely would nothavs taken those loans in the first place...

Dont confuse free market behavior (all people involved in the market) with that of a highly learned population

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#12
I'm committing the sin of commenting w/o having read the article yet, so this might be duplicative or orthogonal, but:

Without feedback, there is no real expertise. Most experts are in domains w/o feedback, so they are mostly full of shit.

Good blog posts exploring this topic a bit:

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/05/dominic-cummings-on-fi...

(above is a summary/intro to following:)

https://dominiccummings.com/2018/05/22/effective-action-4a-e...

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#13
post #4
post #2

The limits of expertise seem to be due to the lack of skin in the game for these so called experts. Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/beware-fau...

The executives at Blockbuster had skin in the game, they were experts, they got their asses kicked. Last election the Democrats had skin in the game, they were experts, they got their asses kicked. Recently the institutional Tesla shorts had skin in the game, they are experts, they got their asses kicked. So what does having skin in the game have to do with anything? Not much. I have a feeling you didn't read the art…

The point isn't that skin in the game causes better decision-making, the point is that the losers exit the gene pool. If you walk into any restaurant in the United States, you can bet the food is of better quality than that of a Soviet-era cafeteria. The difference? One group has skin in the game and must compete or die. One group doesn't. Skin in the game ensures the health of the restaurant industry (as measured by, say, quality of food), not the health of any one restaurant.

As for your assertion re: experts in "closed" vs "open" systems, the issue is less one of "open" systems requiring humility, and more that "open" systems are statistically filled with BS artists. Why? Because they don't have the filtering mechanism that gets rid of those people. A fake dentist can't pull the wool over patients' eyes for long, but a macroeconomist can do just that for his entire career.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#14
post #12

I'm committing the sin of commenting w/o having read the article yet, so this might be duplicative or orthogonal, but: Without feedback, there is no real expertise. Most experts are in domains w/o feedback, so they are mostly full of shit. Good blog posts exploring this topic a bit: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/05/dominic-cummings-on-fi... (above is a summary/intro to following:) https://dominiccummings.com/201…

Yes! I did read the article, and was about to say something similar. The article makes the following argument:

> In short, people value expertise in closed systems, but are distrustful of expertise in open systems. A typical example of a closed system would be a car engine or a knee joint.

What about economics or investments? That's a massively open system on which people trust experts all the time. The true deciding factor is whether following (or rejecting) expert advice costs you something. If you have a brain tumor, an incompetent neurosurgeon is going to cost you a lot more than an incompetent president.

In the parlance of Antifragile (which I cannot recommend highly enough for anyone who works with people & systems—so, most of us), the question turns on whether you have 'skin in the game'.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#15
post #10

This headline speaks for itself: > Ask Your Baby's Permission Before Changing Diaper, > Says Sexual Consent Expert[1] That person is what I would consider the opposite of an expert. [1] http://www.newsweek.com/diaper-ask-baby-permission-changing-...

Wow, that is a crazy headline! I wonder what the article actually says? > “We work with parents from birth...Just about how to set up a culture of consent in their homes. ‘I’m going to change your nappy now, is that OK?’ Of course a baby’s not going to respond ‘yes mum, that’s awesome I’d love to have my nappy changed'. > "But if you leave a space and wait for body language and wait to make eye contact then you’re le…

I appreciate you looking at the article, but we should consider the effects headlines have on people.

The intentions can't be dismissed just because the article is more reasonable than the headline.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#16
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The executives at Blockbuster had skin in the game, they were experts, they got their asses kicked. Last election the Democrats had skin in the game, they were experts, they got their asses kicked. Recently the institutional Tesla shorts had skin in the game, they are experts, they got their asses kicked. So what does having skin in the game have to do with anything? Not much. I have a feeling you didn't read the art…

The point isn't that skin in the game causes better decision-making, the point is that the losers exit the gene pool. If you walk into any restaurant in the United States, you can bet the food is of better quality than that of a Soviet-era cafeteria. The difference? One group has skin in the game and must compete or die. One group doesn't. Skin in the game ensures the health of the restaurant industry (as measured by…

People who have been 'weeded out of the gene pool' are non-experts. I don't classify them as experts to begin with. Even with open systems, to qualify as an expert in any sense, you need to have some kind of a track record, otherwise you're not an expert, you're just a bullshit artist, and your opinion is immaterial (immaterial to me at least, they may have a great deal of influence on others, which I guess is something that needs to be factored in to any predictions you make re: cult of Elon vs. Tesla shorts). Someone claiming to be an expert is not necessarily an expert, that's the first distinction that needs to be made.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#17
> Engineers, surgeons, pilots, all these kinds of ‘trusted’ experts operate in closed systems.

Unfortunately, the prosperity of the "traditional medicine" industry is evidence that people don't even trust their surgeons/doctors.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#18
post #4
post #2

The limits of expertise seem to be due to the lack of skin in the game for these so called experts. Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/beware-fau...

The executives at Blockbuster had skin in the game, they were experts, they got their asses kicked. Last election the Democrats had skin in the game, they were experts, they got their asses kicked. Recently the institutional Tesla shorts had skin in the game, they are experts, they got their asses kicked. So what does having skin in the game have to do with anything? Not much. I have a feeling you didn't read the art…

You’re making unjust light of the phrase “skin in the game”. Your version is more like “potential monetary gains in the game”. To overlook the difference is to undermine the utility of the phrase. Simply, risking one’s own skin is anything but equivalent to risking potential monetary gains, and all the more so when the remainder of your life’s financial needs are secure and the profits at stake is mere bonus.

My understanding of the Democrats in the last election is precisely that they were unwilling to have “skin in the game”. It appears that if they had embraced class politics, (the tradition of the American Democratic Party) the election would have been theirs. Because they were unwilling to take that risk, which so many with undeniable “skin in the game” demanded of them, they would have won. Or in other words, they did not have “skin in the game”. Maybe if such a risk were necessary to enter the race, they would have sat it out, in which case we could be quite certain.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#19
> Nobody says, “I want someone unqualified to be my president, therefore I also want someone unqualified to be my surgeon.” Nobody doubts the value of the expertise of an engineer or a pilot.

If planes were crashing every other day, you'd better believe people would be doubting pilots. Trust is earned, not owed. And the reason people have trouble trusting our political and economic elites is because they keep crashing the damn plane.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#20
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The executives at Blockbuster had skin in the game, they were experts, they got their asses kicked. Last election the Democrats had skin in the game, they were experts, they got their asses kicked. Recently the institutional Tesla shorts had skin in the game, they are experts, they got their asses kicked. So what does having skin in the game have to do with anything? Not much. I have a feeling you didn't read the art…

You’re making unjust light of the phrase “skin in the game”. Your version is more like “potential monetary gains in the game”. To overlook the difference is to undermine the utility of the phrase. Simply, risking one’s own skin is anything but equivalent to risking potential monetary gains , and all the more so when the remainder of your life’s financial needs are secure and the profits at stake is mere bonus. My und…

To make any claim at all you have at the very least wagered your integrity. At the other extreme you've got someone like the free soloist Alex Honnold, who wagers his life every time he scales a cliff without safety equipment. So what does 'skin in the game' even mean? It's kind of irrelevant. Although when Taleb talks about it, he makes it clear he refering largely to financial risk.
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