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The virus crisis is happening because there is a critical deficit of quantitative reasoning in our media & political class.
Here, Brian Williams of MSNBC and Mara Gay of the NYT Editorial Board divide $500M into 327M to get...$1M? https://twitter.com/BadEconTakes/status/1235810967746793472
Here, Brian Williams of MSNBC and Mara Gay of the NYT Editorial Board divide $500M into 327M to get...$1M? https://twitter.com/BadEconTakes/status/1235810967746793472
If you can’t do division, if you think it’s a an “incredible way of putting it” and “true” that $500M/327M = $1M, then you won’t understand exponents, compounding, probabilities.
This goes for elected officials too, by the way. Very little STEM. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/06/msnbcs_brian_williams_new_york_times_editorial_board_member_mara_gay_five_divided_by_three_equals_one_million.html
This goes for elected officials too, by the way. Very little STEM. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/06/msnbcs_brian_williams_new_york_times_editorial_board_member_mara_gay_five_divided_by_three_equals_one_million.html
What I’ve realized over the last few weeks is that you can’t give media and political elites an intuition for math and science overnight.
Purely verbal people tend to discount any kind of exponential projection as unrealistic, *even if* shown data. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-03/how-fast-will-the-new-coronavirus-spread-two-sides-of-the-debate
Purely verbal people tend to discount any kind of exponential projection as unrealistic, *even if* shown data. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-03/how-fast-will-the-new-coronavirus-spread-two-sides-of-the-debate
This is partly our fault too.
The reason for the deficit of STEM in our media & political class is that people *with* that training have gone into tech or finance.
Leaving the state to people who rule by gut and the press to art history majors with an ax to grind.
The reason for the deficit of STEM in our media & political class is that people *with* that training have gone into tech or finance.
Leaving the state to people who rule by gut and the press to art history majors with an ax to grind.
The train crash we are observing in the US is due to the fact that we are governed by lawyers and journalists and politicians, people who specialize in political rather than technical truths.
Is it true if others think it’s true? Or is it true regardless of what people think?
Is it true if others think it’s true? Or is it true regardless of what people think?
Political truths
These are true if everyone believes them to be true — money, status, borders.
You can change these by rewriting facts in people’s brains: what is a dollar worth, who is the president, where is the border?
This is what our establishment is set up to manipulate.
These are true if everyone believes them to be true — money, status, borders.
You can change these by rewriting facts in people’s brains: what is a dollar worth, who is the president, where is the border?
This is what our establishment is set up to manipulate.
Technical truths
These are true even if no one believes them to be true — genetics, math, biochemistry.
They exist independent of what’s in people’s brains: what’s this virus made of, will it spread, can this drug work?
This is where our establishment is out of its depth.
These are true even if no one believes them to be true — genetics, math, biochemistry.
They exist independent of what’s in people’s brains: what’s this virus made of, will it spread, can this drug work?
This is where our establishment is out of its depth.
Those are the two extremes. Political truths that you can change by rewriting the software in people’s brains, and technical truths that exist independent of that.
Political truths do matter. But we are over-rotated towards them as a society. Now we are seeing the consequences.
Political truths do matter. But we are over-rotated towards them as a society. Now we are seeing the consequences.
The virus is highly non-compliant with regulations, isn’t demoralized by negative news coverage, doesn’t care about the polls, and has no budget to seize or bank account to freeze.
None of the political tools work.
It’s an inhuman adversary that can only be met with technology.
None of the political tools work.
It’s an inhuman adversary that can only be met with technology.
