Looking back on the economic collapse

[Igel]

4. I find that the facts usually have a "me" bias.

Hard to get past that.

Feynman in a commencement lecture at CalTech talked about science and progress. (Something that progressives revel in.)

In doing good science, he said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that."

Oddly, most people I know--right, left, center--are of the exactly contrary opinion. They believe themselves the hardest person to fool. "Momma didn't raise no fool" is precisely wrong.

For many, the default hypothesis for economics is that we get high levels of technology and economic growth, high levels of economic equality and prosperity, as a matter of nature. It's just what happens whenever there's no interference. It's like saying "peace" is the natural state of man. It's all very early-Rousseauian. Even Rousseau managed to get past his foolishness, even if it took years.

When you look out over human history and the full range of human geography, you find that lifespans are typically short, levels of technology low with nearly zero economic growth, large boom and bust cycles, and you only get "economic equality" when, pretty much, everybody's is close to zero. Unfortunately, since our scale is from 1-10 and those societies are all at 1 or less, those inequalities seem pretty trifling and we pronounce such society as more egalitarian because from our outsider POV and ways of measuring things they must have been. Momma didn't raise no fool.

However, they've still resolved ways, often bloody, of dealing with social inequality. If between communities, there were feuds that had economic resolutions, and wars that levelled the playing field in terms of territory, accumulated wealth, and population. One Tamil social custom that the British (and Mughals) fought for years before exterminating it involved having a wealthy family buy a child from a poor family; after raising him as their own for years, the rich family would then sacrifice the child. It reduced the economic burden on the poor family and redistributed a large percentage of the wealth from the rich family. The sacrifice was seen as a social good by the community, and the outcome of social and economic inequality was straightforward: While limiting loss of life, the money was redistributed while causing financial and emotional grief to the wealthy family. This helped maintain social order and reduce economic inequality, which prevented more widespread bloodshed.

Feynman wasn't a fool, at least not in some ways. (Of course, the most impressive kind of foolishness is precisely that which we think of as wisdom, esp. wisdom that makes us better than them. We codify methods of dealing with that particular kind of idiocy, that way of not fooling ourselves, as critical thinking, but then most self-styled critical thinkers studiously avoid applying that technology to themselves. Because we all believe that "momma didn't raise no fool.&quot