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Daniel Kahneman has died

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#211

Post by tonymet »

Lots of praise for this man. He was obviously very influential. His theory enabled the broad paternalistic state we are all suffering from today. Too many policy makers read his book and thought they could tax every person into "good" behavior. That's way beyond the scope of how governments should be involved.

Now that "soft paternalism" has been so successful, the same policymakers are pivoting into hard paternalism .

I learned a lot from Thinking Fast and Slow, but it's also a cynical book. In the same vein as Skinner's behavioralist view of people.

Principles must always come first.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#212

Post by daymanstep »

kbenson wrote: post #178
foobiekr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had exactly this reaction to Malcolm gladwell. It is completely obvious that gladwell across multiple books has never once read one of his references and consistently misrepresents what they say.

I have a slightly different take on him, which comes to the same ultimate end on how I view his work. As he's shifted from primarily a journalist to primarily a storyteller, he's chosen to sacrifice additional information and accuracy in lieu of telling a consistent and compelling narrative that support what he thinks is the important thing to take away, not necessarily what you would take away were you to review all…

But once you fact-check him a few times, then you won't be able to trust that his sources support his points anymore, which then raises the question: Is there ANY evidence that supports what Gladwell is trying to say?

If the best evidence that Gladwell could find to support his points, don't support his points, then it really makes me question the utility of trying to find evidence to support Gladwell's points.

It may be that, the reason why no subject matter expert makes the points that Gladwell does is because Gladwell's points are either wrong or not even wrong.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#213

Post by ls612 »

tonymet wrote: post #211

Lots of praise for this man. He was obviously very influential. His theory enabled the broad paternalistic state we are all suffering from today. Too many policy makers read his book and thought they could tax every person into "good" behavior. That's way beyond the scope of how governments should be involved. Now that "soft paternalism" has been so successful, the same policymakers are pivoting into hard paternalism…

“Should” matters little in politics and war. What works for power will be done regardless of your morals. This is how the world works.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#214

Post by tonymet »

ls612 wrote: post #213
tonymet wrote: post #211

Lots of praise for this man. He was obviously very influential. His theory enabled the broad paternalistic state we are all suffering from today. Too many policy makers read his book and thought they could tax every person into "good" behavior. That's way beyond the scope of how governments should be involved. Now that "soft paternalism" has been so successful, the same policymakers are pivoting into hard paternalism…

“Should” matters little in politics and war. What works for power will be done regardless of your morals. This is how the world works.

not all men think like this

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#215

Post by mistermann »

btilly wrote: post #187
mistermann wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fun question especially considering the topic of the thread : are propositions that lack proof necessarily false?

Not necessarily false. But such a small fraction of possible propositions are true that it is unlikely to be worthwhile to waste much time on propositions with no evidence.

Does this particular proposition have no evidence (none is in existence)?

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#216

Post by narnarpapadaddy »

radu_floricica wrote: post #82
mattpavelle wrote: post #65

For those who don't know who he is: Professor Kahneman, who was long associated with Princeton University and lived in Manhattan, employed his training as a psychologist to advance what came to be called behavioral economics. The work, done largely in the 1970s, led to a rethinking of issues as far-flung as medical malpractice, international political negotiations and the evaluation of baseball talent, all of which h…

"advance" and "groundbreaking work" is far from enough. Those two basically invented a couple of new sciences. "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" is the paper that made them famous, and it's still a damn good read: https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/Psyc590Readings/TverskyK...

Yes, two new sciences. To those criticizing his work: I’m not saying the magnitude of the impact is the same, but have all of Darwin’s ideas about evolution stood the test of time? Clearly not.

Each of us sees the world through our own sets of biases. None of us is immune. Any of us that can see clearly enough to move humanity’s body of knowledge forward even a smidgen is a rarity and a treasure. Even among that group this man (and his collaborators) did more than most. I don’t believe _I_ will be counted among those. I can’t fault Kahneman for making some mistakes. Finding and fixing those is part of the process, and requires others with a different set of perspectives and biases. At a future date, weighed against his contributions, I believe they will appear relatively small.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#217

Post by mistermann »

ilya_m wrote: post #134
mistermann wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fun question especially considering the topic of the thread : are propositions that lack proof necessarily false?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Or, in less dramatic terms, if you cannot reject the null, you should operate on the assumption that the null holds.

If evidence exists (failed studies) of lack of causality, is it a proof that no causality exists?

I suspect I may not be the first person to entertain this question, perhaps there is some literature on the matter.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#218

Post by Retric »

fastandslow wrote: post #199
Retric wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some methods of psychlogical and behavoural manipulation I think you may be objecting to the idea of manipulation here rather than his point. Influence is not necessarily bad, if a dentist notices some poster which causes his patients to floss more shouldn't he keep it up? Suggesting all manipulation is bad implies we shouldn't do public health education etc if it happens to be effective.

But it never stops at "this thing we want to encourage is obviously good with absolutely no downsides". After all, floss is a single-use plastic, generally made of PTFE, the production of which requires all sorts of nasty forever chemicals.

You can buy biodegradable PTFE & PFAS Free dental floss made from natural ingredients.

Or even go old school and use a teeth-cleaning twig etc.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#219

Post by 7thaccount »

This is one reason why I feel like economics is still in its infancy and I find a lot of policy recommendations are built off ideology rather than actual reality. That doesn't stop people from being very confident though about their statements.

I understand that sometimes you need assumptions to make the math work, but the fact that it took so long for behavioral economics and bounded rationality to be recognized is crazy. Just because the math is convenient doesn't mean people work that way at all.

I say this as someone who has taken a lot of econ classes, so I understand its value, but it is still very much a set of principles and ways of thinking about problems involving people, rather than something as exact as it's made out to be.

I got slightly off topic here, but seeing as how Daniel got the nobel prize in 2011 (pretty recent) and the work occurred in the 70s, it made me think again about how young the field is.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#220

Post by YeBanKo »

coyotespike wrote: post #83

Although many of the results in Fast and Slow didn't hold up, Kahneman was always refreshingly open and honest about that, and keen to identify the limits of knowledge. Which surely is one of the best things you can say about a scientist.

Do you have resources on what specific results did not hold up?
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