But understanding human limitations does not mean we can overcome them. It only means we can’t pretend they don’t exist. It should point us toward humility, not hubris. And in politics and policy, understanding the limitation that Klein highlights should point us away from technocratic overconfidence and toward an idea of a government that enables society to address its problems through incremental, local, trial-and-error learning processes rather than centrally managed wholesale transformations of large systems.
I suggest reading the whole thing. I could have picked about any paragraph at random to excerpt.
I joked that not being able to think up one balanced budget example wasn’t good enough for dpk.
Isn’t it technocratic overconfidence that incremental local trial-and-error learning processes can solve problems, just of a different order.
That’s an odd definition of technocratic, then.
As Andrew noted, Technocracy and trial and error are usually quite opposed. Technocrats tend to think that technical knowledge is a substitute, and even trumps, experience.
The more I think about reasoning like Levin’s the more confused I get.
Part of my problem is that the inference in the last sentence seems to be a non sequitur. A greater appreciation of our ignorance seems to entail that we should have less confidence in our opinions, but not that we should have particular opinions or take particular actions.
Another part is that although “incremental, local, trail-and-error [let’s not beg the question by calling them “learning”] processes” sounds appealing, I’m not sure what this amounts to in practice. Suppose a city “tries” banning large sugary drinks. (Nothing turns on this particular example.) Considered as a trial, presumably Levin, et al. approve of this. Is there a strong presumption in favor doing anything people haven’t done before, so we can see what happens? What would it be like to follow through on this idea?
Is the city’s action an “experiment”? I doubt it would satisfy Jim Manzi.
What happens when we come to draw conclusions from the trial? Could we then institute a nationwide ban? I get the impression that Levin, et al. tend to be against drawing this conclusion from almost any results. This illustrates a tension in this line of reasoning. Attracted by the vague idea of different people doing different things and living in harmony, one justifies it based on the notion of experimentation. But attracted by this idea, one doesn’t like the thought of people deciding that some things are true and others false and acting accordingly. But there is no point in performing experiments if you are not going to draw conclusions from the results and implement them.
It is strange that all this was set off by a discussion of confirmation bias, which has so little to do with what follows. Increasing the number of experiments doesn’t fix the problem of our inability properly to evaluate any of them.
I think the confusion lies around the many times you use “we” and “our” in your comment.
For the authors of the Constitution, “we” are majorities and supermajorities of many differently emergent political constructs and coalitions. If a local experiment is successful, more people from more constructs and coalitions would recognize or be convinced of that success and would work to implement the change — or at least be less resistant to it — in their localities and, if required and constitutionally allowed, at the federal level.
For you, “we” are technocrats who under this formula have the chore of evaluating experiments instead of just making stuff up.
Did Blomberg collect any data in his human trial?
Please use a different example.
Blomberg has only been signalling his willingness to do almost the opposite of both sides of this debate.
What Bloomberg did doesn’t even qualify as technocracy.
What would ” working” even mean? I mean the thing got overturned. It didn’t even pass the low bar.
I’ll assume most readers understood most of the points I was trying to get across, but I’ll clarify one small one.
I am not sure what Levin’s conclusions amount to in practice–there is a fair amount of rhetoric and persuasive definition in his characterization of the positions he favors and opposes. Of course I intentionally chose as an example something viscerally disliked on the Right. One of my questions about it is this: After all the boosting of trial-and-error, the experimental, the local, the incremental, why isn’t a soda ban the sort of thing Levin should favor?
There is a Hayek-inspired line of thought that suggests that we can draw sweeping substantive conclusions from such truisms as that we are ignorant and irrational. I don’t think I’ve seen a good presentation of that view. It may be possible to develop one, but that won’t happen as long as people are satisfied with what’s already out there.