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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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I think this is an interesting topic. I try not to believe in conspiracy theories much, but sometimes complex systems can take on aspects that seem like conspiracy. One thing I'm wondering about, and I'm not sure if anyone would really know the answer here, is what incentives do the experts who are telling us that everything's great have for telling us that? What incentives do they have for telling us that things are not great?

Here would be some guesses, but they're really just guesses. I know nothing about these systems and positions, and I don't even know who the "usual suspects" are, besides the Treasury Secretary and/or former Treasury Secretary who you listed above.

Incentives for telling us that things are great:

  • if people believe it then it's more likely that Biden will get reelected (though this sort of then raises the question of whether these experts are incentivized to get Biden reelected. I know little enough about the system to know whether that's the case either way)
  • avoiding panic that could lead to more crisis

Incentives for telling us that things are bad:

  • if things are truly bad, and they tell us things are great, people will lose trust in them as an institution
  • if things are truly bad, then they can start enacting policies to make things better

Any other incentives people can think of?

Any other incentives people can think of?

I think it's kinda "I want to get Biden reelected", but as a kind of epiphenomenal second-order effect. Even if you are not a leftist ideologue, you may perceive that your superiors / friends / funding board members are leftist ideologues, and you suspect you will get more social capital (or actual capital) if you tell these people what they want to hear, so you cherrypick your metrics in order that they show what these people want to hear, and, lo, "Statistics show the economy is doing great actually".

There was an opposite-valence situation in the UK a year or so ago, where the economic indicators were good but all the leftist journos were going "How can the economy be good under this Conservative Brexit government, they must be gaming the metrics somehow"?! Perhaps the civil servants who staff the Treasury Department / Office of National Statistics are just good at statistical brown-nosing, whatever country it is and whatever party's in power.