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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30043 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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Frankly, I think this is a terrible theory of mind.

Well... I disagree that it is a terrible theory of mind. In line with the main theme of this discussion, people just don't tend to think very deeply about most issues. And I don't believe that the average person who supports, say, rent control laws, understands the economic argument against them but still supports them because they have a different moral philosophy from economists, even though I agree that in theory there could be such a person with such a philosophy. I just think most voters go by "gut instinct", so if something sounds bad, they want a law against it, and if it sounds good, they want a law promoting it.

I think the issue is most people in favor of rent control policies don't understand the economic arguments against them. They have mistaken factual beliefs. They correctly perceive the first order effects of reducing rent for people covered by such policies and think it is desirable. I think it takes a pretty specific kind of economics education to see the prices as outputs of a system, rather than inputs, and reason from the implications of that.

I think there is a confusion in this discussion between people being irrational and people lacking specific technical knowledge or perspective.It's like the xkcd Average Familiarity comic but for moral philosophy or economics.

I think the issue is most people in favor of rent control policies don't understand the economic arguments against them. They have mistaken factual beliefs. They correctly perceive the first order effects of reducing rent for people covered by such policies and think it is desirable. I think it takes a pretty specific kind of economics education to see the prices as outputs of a system, rather than inputs, and reason from the implications of that.

The issue here, to me, is that then the obvious follow-up question is, Why do they have mistaken factual beliefs? Surely some of them are just stupid and others are just in situations of forced ignorance, but I doubt that that covers more than a tiny fraction of them. So that would leave most people who are choosing to remain ignorant of the truth, which leads them to false conclusions; but why would they do that? My pet theory isn't "gut instinct" about what sounds good or what sounds bad to oneself, but rather another sort of "gut instinct" about what belief makes one more praised and less punished in one's social world. And thus people figure out what to remain ignorant of, so as to control one's own beliefs in a way that is beneficial to their social well-being (this may look like Bulverism, but in this case, the fact that these people in this hypothetical are mistaken, i.e. wrong, was taken as the baseline, so talking about how and why they landed on this wrongness rather than whether they're wrong seems appropriate).

That said, my pet theory might just be equivalent to the original assertion about what "sounds good," since one of the most common ways that I can tell of someone learning how to control one's own beliefs in such a way as to increase praise and reduce punishment socially is to modulate what "sounds good" (in an intuitive, ethical sense) to oneself.

I think you overestimate how much people are motivated to seek out the truth about something that's not interesting or important to them, especially if it means getting in long online debates and understanding technical arguments and possibly reading academic papers. It's not that people are aware of their ignorance and consciously choosing to be ignorant, it's that they were told incorrect things by some source they trust and have rarely been presented with counter evidence or reasoning. Or worse, have ended up in some epistemic closure that prevents them from considering alternative reasons and evidence. They are ignorant of their ignorance! I think certain kinds of arguments having certain social status attached might make sense as a cause for why people come to form particular beliefs but I think it is rarely a reason, in the sense of something subjectively experienced.

It's not that people are aware of their ignorance and consciously choosing to be ignorant, it's that they were told incorrect things by some source they trust and have rarely been presented with counter evidence or reasoning. Or worse, have ended up in some epistemic closure that prevents them from considering alternative reasons and evidence. They are ignorant of their ignorance!

I'd agree with this, but, again, I think just moves things a step back - why are they ignorant of their own ignorance? Most of it is, I think, that it's really hard to pay attention to your own ignorance; given that it's so hard, it's natural that they would make that choice not to do it and just remain ignorant of it. The cost-benefit calculation, compared to the far less costly and usually more beneficial strategy of just following the "does it give me social praise/punishment" measurement just doesn't work out. So they choose - a good choice in most cases, almost certainly - not to put in the hard work necessary to confront their own ignorance, and so they remain ignorant of their own ignorance, causing them to land at wrong conclusions. But they do land at conclusions somehow - it might be a bit too pithy to call it "gut instinct" or "what feels good," but if it is, I don't think it is by much.

I think certain kinds of arguments having certain social status attached might make sense as a cause for why people come to form particular beliefs but I think it is rarely a reason, in the sense of something subjectively experienced.

I haven't thought of this sort of distinction between "cause" versus "reason," but if you break it up that way, I think what you wrote here makes sense. It's just, I think the "reason" in the sense of something subjectively experienced is one of the least interesting and least impactful factors when it comes to exploring the way people think about things, because the flexibility that people have for using anything they want as a reason to support anything they want is effectively infinite.

I haven't thought of this sort of distinction between "cause" versus "reason," but if you break it up that way, I think what you wrote here makes sense. It's just, I think the "reason" in the sense of something subjectively experienced is one of the least interesting and least impactful factors when it comes to exploring the way people think about things, because the flexibility that people have for using anything they want as a reason to support anything they want is effectively infinite.

I wonder if this is at the heart of our disagreement. When I read a sentence like "how X thinks about Y" I interpret it less like "what all kinds of causal forces act on X's beliefs about Y" and more like "what kind of subjective state does X have when considering Y." So when I read the claim that people come to conclusions based on what "feels good" in a social status sense I interpret is a claim about their subjective reasons to believe Y.

According to one survey, two-thirds of people in the US believe that the law of supply and demand does not apply to housing.

This seems perfectly compatible, indeed supportive, of my thesis that people have false factual beliefs about the housing market.

Yes, that's why I posted it.

According to one survey, two-thirds of people in the US believe that the law of supply and demand does not apply to housing.

Or perhaps they're correctly noticing that the places with the most supply are often the places with the highest prices.

That isn't how the survey was worded.

Imagine that {State} passes a law to ensure that suburban homes may be developed on farmland and open space near cities. The new law overrides local zoning restrictions. It causes a building boom. In five years, the number of homes and apartments in your metropolitan region is 10 % larger than it otherwise would have been. For example, a region that would have had 1,000,000 residential units in five years without any change to development restrictions will instead have 1,100,000 units. This is three times the rate of housing growth in the nation as a whole.

How would this affect the market value of typical {Home Type} in {City}? It would...

  • substantially increase their market value
  • somewhat increase their market value
  • have no effect on their market value
  • somewhat decrease their market value
  • substantially decrease their market value

Literally 60 to 70 percent of respondents chose "substantially increase", "somewhat increase", or "have no effect on".

I don't see how that addresses what I said.

People recognize that large, booming cities have high housing prices despite huge amounts of stock, so of course they'll respond to such a poll with that in mind. The median respondent isn't analyzing this question in the way economists or even just people on a rationalist forum would. They don't assume "ceteris paribus" the way it's become second nature for economists and generally educated people. They don't recognize what the question is "getting at".

They read that poll question and call upon their general knowledge of what they know happens to housing prices when a city is booming. And they're right insofar as housing prices in booming cities increase more than housing prices in non-booming cities. That the poll has difficulty herding them into the thought experiment the poll wishes to herd them into does not mean they're imbeciles who don't think supply and demand is a thing, for housing or otherwise.

That the poll has difficulty herding them into the thought experiment the poll wishes to herd them into does not mean they're imbeciles who don't think supply and demand is a thing, for housing or otherwise.

More questions from the same survey:

Imagine that a new high-school program for training students to be plumbers causes a large increase in the number of plumbers in a city. Would wages for other residential plumbers in the city increase, decrease, or stay the same?

A free trade agreement is a pact between two or more nations to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them. Do free trade agreements make the price of products sold in the U.S. higher, lower or not make a difference?

For each of these questions, there was a 50/50 split between "lower" (correct) and "higher or no difference" (incorrect). I have no qualms with calling these respondents "imbeciles who don't think supply and demand is a thing".

I concede!

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