The Judgement of Time

Truth isn't unkind.  It's just the truth.

By Rich Kozlovich 

We need to abandon our penchant to accede all thinking, reasoning, and conclusions about life to the "experts", all of whom are highly educated.  Many of whom are seriously flawed human beings.  I'm an autodidact, and as I've often noted that I'm not formally educated in any of the subjects I pontificate about, and I think done with well sourced information and reasoned intelligence. Often in opposition to the "experts". Often with the theme - "if the bugman knows this, how can these "experts" not know it?"

I've always been insatiably curious, and that's proven to be good, and bad.  It's been my experience that being insatiably curious is its own reward, and its own punishment.  The reward is, "you know".  The punishment is, "you know". 

• The reward is the satisfaction of digging into a subject in order to see it farther, deeper and wider than others, and then end up "knowing" that which is true and right.
  
• The punishment is knowing that which is true and right, and finding yourself at odds with everyone else. 

Which brings me to traditional wisdom versus conventional wisdom.  What are they and which is right?  How do you "know"?  There's a difference between traditional wisdom and conventional wisdom. Traditional wisdom has stood the test of time. Conventional wisdom is merely what everyone believes at the moment, and may only last until the next philosophical flavor of the day appears.

We have the desire to “know” things, to have the right answers, but that requires an understanding of a great many things. It has also been my experience that most things aren’t as complicated as they appear on the surface.  We just fail to understand the root problem properly.  We fail in definition.   As a result, we increase the difficulty of problem solving. 

There has always been an amazingly intricate interplay between people that has been at the heart of it all.   It's a fact that everything in life is about paradigms (the values of a society) and demographics (the make up of that society) as a result, paradigms create demographics and demographics create paradigms.  That can make things complicated in a multicultural society such as ours. 

So many demand perfection, yet history has shown that the “best we can hope for us the most tolerable imperfection”. A man once said that if you ever find the perfect organization, join it! However, he said, remember the minute you've joined, it has now become somewhat less than perfect! Why?  Because people will be people, and people act in their own self interest.

It is also true that ignorance is the natural state because we all start our lives ignorant. And for all of our lives we will remain ignorant about a great many things, because there is so much to learn about so many subjects, therefore a varying degree of ignorance is part of our lives and completely understandable. Ignorance simply means we don’t know. That's fixable by learning about things, many things, then we reduce our level of ignorance continually, but "never" totally! 

However, if we choose to remain ignorant, that's stupidity.  It's the stupidity I hate.

Reading history is one way of avoiding being more ignorant than everyone else. Mostly because history is the fruitage of the work of millions of people over thousands of years.  History is the source of traditional wisdom.   Unfortunately it only matters when we read it. It only works if we understand it, remember it correctly, and then apply it positively.

History has all the answers. There is really nothing new under the sun.  Everything that exists today has its foundation in man’s history.  The technology may become more advanced, but the application of all things is still based on that intricate interplay between human beings.  The correct information and necessary understanding to make the right decisions are all there, if we read it.   

We have at our disposal more information from more sources, all at our finger tips, than any society in the history of the world. Yet we, as a society, don’t read, we don't understand, and we don't understand because we lack sufficient information to properly define things.  And it seems to me we don't care about our history as a society, or the history of those who present challenges to our society.  That's a sure fire way of getting lost in time.  

That makes us easily fooled by those who twist and manipulate history and reality for their own ends.  And so many times those ends are in direct violation of traditional wisdom. I find those who twist history seem to have one thing in common.  Their interpretation of events usually denigrates or diminishes traditional wisdom and the values those traditions created.

That doesn’t necessarily make what they're promoting wrong by the way.  But it should at least ring a warning bell in the back of our minds that should make us want to dig deeper into the subject to find out the truth for ourselves.

We need to understand that if we don’t bother to read, and develop the correct understanding of history, we will be like the waves being washed back and forth by every new wind that blows our way.  

Definition leads to clarity.  Clarity leads to understanding.  Wisdom is the application of knowledge and understanding.  Without correct knowledge we can't define things as they are, which leads to an lack o understanding.  From that point on we have no anchor for our thinking, no touchstone by which to gauge our values.  We are then incapable of any real direction, as a result we fail in our judgments.   Judgments that will have a negative impact on our lives and society over the long haul. That society is our children and our grandchildren.

Some things really are right and some things really are wrong.  There really is such a thing as good and evil in the world.

There, now, that is a good start for foundational thinking, but you first have to abandon ignorance and arrogance.  

De Omnibus Dubitandum.  Everything is to be questioned.

Too Many Experts, Too Little Knowledge

David Waugh   Byron B. Carson, III – January 27, 2021 @ American Institute for Economic Research 

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 We are all epidemiologists now. But we have lost an appreciation for the personal, intimate knowledge acquired from our own experiences. Our decisions are increasingly guided by expert recommendations and scientific data, with less reliance on local conditions and individual experience. 

We now know what a coronavirus is and how it spreads. We have all tracked changes in prevalence and mortality rates, or, perhaps, we have become inured to them. And we know the length of a coronavirus (measured in nanometers) and whether that paisley bandana allows the virus to pass through. And then there’s the average age of people who die from Covid-19, as well as the statistical likelihood of death given a relevant comorbidity.

In our efforts to learn more about Covid-19 and limit its transmission, however, we ignore local knowledge. This is the kind of knowledge where we make plans to obtain a goal and continually, marginally adjust those plans. Only individuals can access this knowledge, e.g., whether you prefer apples to oranges, your normal activities and behaviors, what your goals are for the day and your life aspirations; who your close friends and family are, where you can buy a cheaper lunch, which café has nicer chairs, etc.

Both scientific and local knowledge influence the choices we make every day—even choices related to health and how we spread infectious diseases.

Scientific and Local Knowledge Complement Each Other

Scientific and local knowledge are useful in many ways but particularly because they can identify causal mechanisms that enable individuals to improve some aspect of their life. Whether it is scientific or local knowledge, individuals strive to acquire relevant knowledge — where individuals define what is and what is not relevant — to better pursue their plans.

Dan Klein makes a related point that when individuals make decisions they actively seek relevant information: “In small simple social settings including the family, club, church, or shop, the decision maker is usually the one most motivated to ensure that her decisions will have the results intended, and consequently she is most motivated either to know herself what course of action will best serve her intentions or to search out and appoint an agent with such knowledge.” The discerning, choosing individual is the key part here.

Imagine that we wanted to lessen anxiety and depression, and you learned that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol might be an appropriate scientific prescription. With just that knowledge however, it is unclear how any one person will subsequently act. Should we start subsidizing alcohol consumption? That would probably lead to some unpalatable and unintended consequences.

As an individual, however, you might start logging more hours at your local brewery if you really liked their new raspberry wheat beer. Alternatively, beer might be harder to find in places with fewer bars, so you might try to find substitutes. Of course, you might not even like beer so you might try your hand at bourbon. The context of your situation, your plans, and your knowledge influences what is appropriate. For example, you will have a tougher time getting bourbon if you live in a state that maintains a monopoly over the sale of alcohol. For people who live under state-run alcohol monopolies, they might resort to enlisting friends in other, more economically liberal states to do some shopping.

Still, there is a complementarity between scientific and local knowledge. The science about moderate alcohol consumption is of limited use in some cases; at the same time, science informs a person’s decision so they can pursue their goals as they see fit.

Joel Mokyr and Rebecca Stein (here and here) show a part of this logic in their work on the changing norms of hygiene and mortality rates during the latter part of the 19^th century. As the germ theory of disease developed, people began to understand more and more about infectious diseases and germs and, more importantly, how their own choices influenced health. How individuals went about making use of that scientific knowledge depended on their own circumstances. Many people, women in particular, began to clean more; others improved the quality of baby food; others improved their diet.

All of these choices helped to improve private and public health outcomes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but they were choices informed by local and scientific knowledge.

Covid-19 and Knowledge

The complementarity between scientific and local knowledge even matters for our private and public responses to Covid-19. 

Scientists, epidemiologists, and public health scholars often produce important work identifying causal mechanisms regarding the spread of infectious diseases, especially under predetermined conditions. That scientific knowledge is necessarily of limited use, however, when individuals alter those predetermined conditions and especially when individuals make choices based on their local knowledge.

For example, suppose you live with someone who is immunocompromised. In this situation it would make sense for you to skip the gym, limit grocery visits, etc., because you recognize the risk contracting Covid-19 would have on your roommate’s health. On the other hand, if you are a healthy young person who lives alone, it would make less sense for you to drastically alter your lifestyle in order to avoid a virus. 

That people have plans and make choices based on expected costs and benefits as they perceive them are extremely undervalued notions, but they are essential to understand why and how people respond to changing circumstances and to changing prevalence and mortality rates. Allison Schrager and Jessica Hullman recognize the importance of individual choices when they advocate for improvements in how prevalence and mortality data are presented. To the extent such data convey objective measures of risk, they should be intelligible measures of risk.

Furthermore, Charles Kenny argues that people engage in various kinds of preventative behavior in response to Covid-19, among other diseases. Such responses occur because it is human nature to choose and to alter behavior in response to incentives — even when prevalence and mortality rates change — not necessarily because government officials say so. Importantly, how people alter their behaviors in response to infectious diseases depends on local knowledge.

Jenin Younes also recognizes how local knowledge influences behavior: “…epidemiologists are no better equipped to weigh the competing values that inform how one chooses to live during the coronavirus era than individuals are to make their own choices.” And so does Roger Koppl: “The knowledge we need in normal times and crisis times alike is distributed. It’s out there in thee and me and in all our habits practices and experience. It is not a set of instructions and doctrines coming from on high. It arises of its own from our many decentralized interactions.”

Such approaches to knowledge ultimately suggest caution about what we imagine science alone can help us achieve.

Going Forward with Science and Local Knowledge

Will sweeping restaurant and school closures save lives? Are country-wide mask mandates effective? Do large gatherings of people cause super spreader events? The science and evidence is still developing (here, here, here). Regarding super spreader events, for example, we can easily observe these mass gatherings, imagine how diseases could spread, and then empirically assess the magnitude of such events (here and here), but we should also imagine how people might alter their preventative behaviors given local knowledge.

The kind of information people acquire in their myriad interactions with others is often undervalued as a means of preventative behavior. As helpful as science is for understanding causal mechanisms — and it is — it should not be the only source of knowledge that informs your behavior, let alone policy. 

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David Waugh

David Waugh joined AIER in 2020 on the editorial team and is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College where he received a BA in Economics.

While at Hampden-Sydney, he was a Senior Fellow with the Center for the Study of Political Economy and worked in the Economics department as a teaching assistant.

David previously held internships with the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal and Seven Cedars Financial.

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Byron B. Carson, III

Byron Carson is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Business at Hampden-Sydney College, in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia. He teaches courses on introductory economics, money and banking, development economics, health economics, and urban economics.

Byron earned a Ph.D. in Economics in 2017 from George Mason University and a B.A. in Economics from Rhodes College in 2011. His research interests include economic epidemiology, public choice, and Austrian economics.

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The Judgment of Time

By Rich Kozlovich

It has been my experience that being insatiably curious is its own reward and its own punishment.

The reward is the satisfaction of “knowing” that which is true. The punishment can be finding yourself at odds with everyone else. Make no mistake about this; there is a difference between traditional wisdom and conventional wisdom. Traditional wisdom has stood the test of time. Conventional wisdom is merely what everyone believes at the moment and may only last until the next philosophical flavor of the day appears.

We have the desire to “know” things; to have the right answers, but that requires an understanding of a great many things. It has also been my experience that most things aren’t as complicated as they appear on the surface; we just fail to understand the root problem properly. As a result, we increase the difficulty of problem solving. There has always been an amazingly intricate interplay between people that has been at the heart of it all.

It is a fact that everything in life is paradigms and demographics.

Paradigms create demographics and demographics create paradigms. So many demand perfection when history has shown that the “best we can hope for us the most tolerable imperfection”. A man once said that if you ever find the perfect organization; join it! However, he said, remember that the minute you have joined, it is now somewhat less than perfect!

It is also true that ignorance is the natural state because we all start our lives ignorant. And for all of our lives we will remain ignorant about a great many things, because there is so much to learn about so many subjects, therefore a varying degree of ignorance is understandable. Ignorance simply means we don’t know. That is fixable! By learning about things, many things, we can reduce our level of ignorance continually, but never totally! However, if we choose to remain ignorant, that is stupidity.

It's the stupidity I hate.

Reading history is one way of avoiding being more ignorant than everyone else. Mostly because history is the fruitage of the work of millions of people over thousands of years. Unfortunately it only works when we read it. It only matters if we understand it and remember it correctly.

History has all the answers. There is really nothing new under the sun, everything that exists today has its foundation in man’s history.  The technology may become more advanced, but the application of all things is still based on that intricate interplay between human beings.

The correct information and necessary understanding to make the right decisions is there, if we read it. Yet we don’t read, understand or care about history as a society. That makes us easily fooled by those who twist and manipulate history for their own ends; and so many times those ends are in direct violation of traditional wisdom. I find that those who twist history seem to have one thing in common. Their interpretation of events usually denigrates or diminishes traditional wisdom. That doesn’t necessarily make it wrong by the way, but it should at least be a warning bell that should make us want to dig deeper into the subject to find out for ourselves.

We need to understand that if we don’t bother to read and have the correct understanding of history we will be like the waves being washed back and forth by every new wind that blows our way.  Wisdom is the application of knowledge and understanding.  Without correct knowledge and understanding we have no anchor for our thinking, no touchstone to gauge our values by.  We then are incaplable of any real direction, as a result we fail in our judgments; judgments that will have a negative impact on society over the long haul. That society is our children and our grandchildren.

Some things really are right and some things really are wrong.  There really is such a thing as good and evil in the world.  There!  That's a good start for foundational thinking.

The Judgment of Time

By Rich Kozlovich

It has been my experience that being insatiably curious is its own reward and its own punishment.

The reward is the satisfaction of “knowing” that which is true. The punishment can be finding yourself at odds with everyone else. Make no mistake about this; there is a difference between traditional wisdom and conventional wisdom. Traditional wisdom has stood the test of time. Conventional wisdom is merely what everyone believes at the moment and may only last until the next philosophical flavor of the day appears.

We have the desire to “know” things; to have the right answers, but that requires an understanding of a great many things. It has also been my experience that most things aren’t as complicated as they appear on the surface; we just fail to understand the root problem properly. As a result, we increase the difficulty of problem solving. There has always been an amazingly intricate interplay between people that has been at the heart of it all.

It is a fact that everything in life is paradigms and demographics.

Paradigms create demographics and demographics create paradigms. So many demand perfection when history has shown that the “best we can hope for us the most tolerable imperfection”. A man once said that if you ever find the perfect organization; join it! However, he said, remember that the minute you have joined, it is now somewhat less than perfect!

It is also true that ignorance is the natural state because we all start our lives ignorant. And for all of our lives we will remain ignorant about a great many things, because there is so much to learn about so many subjects, therefore a varying degree of ignorance is understandable. Ignorance simply means we don’t know. That is fixable! By learning about things, many things, we can reduce our level of ignorance continually, but never totally! However, if we choose to remain ignorant, that is stupidity.

It's the stupidity I hate.

Reading history is one way of avoiding being more ignorant than everyone else. Mostly because history is the fruitage of the work of millions of people over thousands of years. Unfortunately it only works when we read it. It only matters if we understand it and remember it correctly.

History has all the answers. There is really nothing new under the sun, everything that exists today has its foundation in man’s history.  The technology may become more advanced, but the application of all things is still based on that intricate interplay between human beings.

The correct information and necessary understanding to make the right decisions is there, if we read it. Yet we don’t read, understand or care about history as a society. That makes us easily fooled by those who twist and manipulate history for their own ends; and so many times those ends are in direct violation of traditional wisdom. I find that those who twist history seem to have one thing in common. Their interpretation of events usually denigrates or diminishes traditional wisdom. That doesn’t necessarily make it wrong by the way, but it should at least be a warning bell that should make us want to dig deeper into the subject to find out for ourselves.

We need to understand that if we don’t bother to read and have the correct understanding of history we will be like the waves being washed back and forth by every new wind that blows our way.  Wisdom is the application of knowledge and understanding.  Without correct knowledge and understanding we have no anchor for our thinking, no touchstone to gauge our values by.  We then are incaplable of any real direction, as a result we fail in our judgments; judgments that will have a negative impact on society over the long haul. That society is our children and our grandchildren.

Some things really are right and some things really are wrong.  There really is such a thing as good and evil in the world.  There....that is a good start for foundational thinking.