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The Limits of Expertise

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Re: The Limits of Expertise

#51

Post by foobarchu »

throwawaymath wrote: post #35
gowld wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really comparing the availability of a fleet minimally skilled servers and a moderately skilled line cooks, to a single medical doctor's appointment?

As a matter of fact yes, I am. I am unmoved by your implicit appeal to supply and demand. I am also expressing a complete and utter lack of sympathy for their inability to respect patients' time. A doctor refusing to schedule me in the near term because he knows he can't fit me in is an unfortunate artifact of an inefficient healthcare system. But a doctor who knows this and still tries to fit me in - just so he can…

Plus, it's well known that the supply of doctors is artificially restricted by the limited number of residency slots available each year. I can't have much sympathy on lack of doctors until the industry does something to stop strangling their own supply.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#52

Post by andyidsinga »

sna1l wrote: 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...

I think the point of the article doesn't have anything to do with skin in the game .. it has to do with which kind of system the expertise applies, and then how to value that expertise in light of that system.

So, if its an open system (which I believe businesses are): value and encourage diverse expert viewpoints. What follows, if some level of success is attained, is a less dramatic fall into chaos of that open system.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#53

Post by mcguire »

nateabele wrote: post #14
dilap wrote: 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 decidin…

"What about economics or investments?"

Those are exactly the experts who are being most strongly questioned. They are the ones who predicted economic disaster from Brexit and Trump's bizarro-land policies, and yet the wheels have not come off. (Yet.) Therefore, they must not know what they're talking about, right?

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#54

Post by mcguire »

dilap wrote: 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…

Feedback might be exactly the differentiator between the "open" and "closed" systems to which they refer.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#55

Post by mcguire »

whitepoplar wrote: post #13
Fricken wrote: 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…

Are you asserting that all economists and financial goobs are "BS artists," or merely most? Is there a way to tell the difference better than "he hasn't gone belly up yet"?

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#56

Post by Retra »

mcguire wrote: post #55
whitepoplar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you asserting that all economists and financial goobs are "BS artists," or merely most? Is there a way to tell the difference better than "he hasn't gone belly up yet"?

They're only asserting that some economists could get away with being "BS artists," so inevitably, some do. Obviously that hurts the study of economics as a whole, because if you can get away with BS, that means people can't tell what is and is not BS, so non-BS looks like BS and has to compete on points other than merit.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#57

Post by Retra »

dabbledash wrote: post #39
throwawaymath wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't conclude that. On the other hand, based on my experience I did conclude that the American healthcare system is designed to favor those who can afford to value their time over their money. It's not much comfort that a doctor has the right knowledge if they're too apathetic, overworked or inexperienced to get results that are any better than essential oils. At least with essential oils I know they won't work i…

Interesting. I would think the opposite is true in the US. If you have money you can pay to get to the front of the queue.

That's what they said. Valuing time over money means spending money to save time.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#58

Post by Latteland »

rsj_hn wrote: post #46
s3m4j wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's almost a rhetorical question, but... How do you define " crashing the plane " here ? There's only one plane and it's still going. History hasn't ended.

There is a way to measure economic and political performance other than "I have not yet annihilated the planet" -- I mean, that's a pretty low bar. In Italy, GDP per capita is below what it was since the Euro was introduced[1] in 2000. In the U.S., In 2014 the middle class was poorer than it was in 1989[2]. Real median household income has been flat for since 1965, increasing by only $4000 in chained 2016 dollars ove…

Comparing those two years is a little misleading, but I do agree with the concept we haven't done that well as a society in growing wealth for average people. You have to look at longer term trends than comparing one year with the post-stagnation a few years after the worst crash in 80 years. Indeed the chart in that story comparing 1989 through 2013 shows that in most of those years it was better than 1989. I'd like to see the moving 3 or 4 year average comparing the 1980s to the last few years.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#59

Post by Latteland »

mannykannot wrote: post #47
s3m4j wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's almost a rhetorical question, but... How do you define " crashing the plane " here ? There's only one plane and it's still going. History hasn't ended.

"Crashing the plane" is not the best metaphor. In the case of politics and economics, we have, broadly speaking, two tribes of experts who disagree, at a fundamental level, on many things. Furthermore, they have both been repeatedly blindsided by events - their expertise seems to consist mostly of being able to explain, in great detail and certainty, but always after the event, why the opposing tribe's fundamental be…

Both sides have used some amount of science, logic and fair observations over many of their years of observation, but recently one side has stopped doing that. today we really don't have "just disagreeing tribes". We have science and logic vs opinion.

Re: The Limits of Expertise

#60

Post by innagadadavida »

rsj_hn wrote: post #46
s3m4j wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's almost a rhetorical question, but... How do you define " crashing the plane " here ? There's only one plane and it's still going. History hasn't ended.

There is a way to measure economic and political performance other than "I have not yet annihilated the planet" -- I mean, that's a pretty low bar. In Italy, GDP per capita is below what it was since the Euro was introduced[1] in 2000. In the U.S., In 2014 the middle class was poorer than it was in 1989[2]. Real median household income has been flat for since 1965, increasing by only $4000 in chained 2016 dollars ove…

Despite all the statistical skew, life for the middle and low income people is _drastically_ better in America than most other countries.
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