I'm only slightly familiar with R Hanson's writings---though i am familiar with some of the other people's writings at GMU he's sort of affiliated with--and i once checked out GMU for grad study and decided against it. One paper by Hanson i did find interesting was in physics--- his approach to derivation of 'Born's rule' in quantum theory---this 'rule' i think is is one of the largest mysteries in physics--but it works. Hanson's approach among many others seems to be a candidate for explaining it (but there is no consensus in physics--i also tend to think many of the different approaches will turn out to be basically the same--quantum theory already had 2 or 3 different versions or more (Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Dirac, maybe Feynman (much later)... ) before they were basically shown to be equivalent.
Some of these debates are sort of like going to one of the BLM protests which we have locally (i go mostly as a tourist or observer though i'm aquainted with a few of the protestors--i basically don't like activism or protesting since i grew up around that --tired of repeating hallelujah or BLM or no justice no peace. If you say it once, dont say it again.) At these protests sometimes you have anti-BLM people---some are explicit and just as militant as some of the BLM people, some are 'infiltrators' or 'provacateurs'--sort of try to get trouble started. You also have a few people who appear to be opportunists---looking for 'free stuff'.
I dont really align with either the BLM (sometimes derisively called SJWs) people or their opponents. I think the issues they bring up are as complex as figuring out which interpretation of 'Born's rule' is the correct one, or the best one and neither the SJWs, 'proud boys' or 'alt-right' seem to have thought this through (and guns and slogans i dont think will do.) As a side note Born lost his job under Hitler(he was jewish), went to UK and i think hitler actually invited him back (wthout his wife --didnt want him to reproduce, but did want him to working on making a bomb)--born declined (maybe in Uk they already had enough bombs falling from the sky).
I rarely read slate but the article on Hanson has an amusing title. I view slate as sort of the modern equivalent of the New Yorker, NY Review of Books, Atlantic, Vox, and maybe 'on the left' Jacobin and on the right 'National Review' or 'American Conservative'. I think this is what is called part of 'civil society' and forums for 'public intellectuals'. In the past, Einstein, B Russell, E B Dubois, maybe Emma Goldman and many more were public intellectuals , but some had a bit more background than the current ones.
My view is at current time there are 3 main and overlapping issues going on ---COVID, global warming, and civil unrest about racism and policing (which sort of started in USA but now is global).
These all will impact 'mental health'.
I agree with another comment that some of the graphs are not that easy to decipher. Its interesting that while most of the 'mechanical ' and 'intuitive' measures agree or correlate, at the end of the list you have some mental interventions in which the mechanical scores are like -1 (unlike the other interventions) while the intuitive ones are still around 7--similar to the other intuitive scores --- (so they anti-correlate ). I wonder why these studies are so different (i can guess).)
I have seen 2 recent very well researched and hence convincing studies regarding the effect of social interventions on COVID pandemic (from teams of researchers in UK--imperial college, oxford, Stanford, Harvard, etc.) which came to opposite conclusions regarding the effect of 'lockdowns'. One study said lockdowns had no effect; the other said they prevented possibly 100,000s of deaths. The graphs in these studies were not easy to interpret either, for me.
Since i dabble in 'complexity theory' , I dislike the use of the term 'mechanical model' here though its well defined---( cost X effectiveness) . i just don't view it as what i call mechanical--though it can be interpreted that way. .
i view 'mechanical ' as referring to a newtonian classical physics type model. Many people into complexity theory (some experts and some amateurs) reject what they call 'mechanical models'. They prefer what they call nonequilibrium, open system models with emergent properties . I personally don't think there is any difference between these. Terms like 'mechanical', 'emergent' or 'intuitive' almost become like labels, brand names, ideologies, or 'races'. Its a fuzzy concept unless you agree on the definitions---like mental illness.
I've been following some of the literature (and also blogs ) on MMT off and on for about 3 years. I sort of agree with Brad Delong (economic historian at UC Berkeley) that its 'warmed over keynesianism' (as noted in OP it it could also be called 'keynsianism on stilts'. (Unlike Keynes, MMT people say just keep printing money, all day, everyday since you can never run out. Although I mostly disagree with Niall Ferguson he pointed out this was tried in the past, and Ferguson argues in his first, and one reasonable book that it was this view that led to the collapse of the British Empire.)
MMT partly owes its creation to Arthur Laffer (of the 'laffer curve' under Reagen ('supply side economics') who argued that by cutting taxes (especially on the rich) the government raises more revenue due to economic growth---which in my view has been disproven by many mainstream economists (although Trump is following that policy).
MMT 's main founder is W Mosler --friend of Laffer--- is a wealthy hedge fund owner/manager who keeps his money off shore in tax free accounts. He more or less funded the 'economists' (eg R Wray of U Mo and S Kelton now in NYC ) who are MMT's main figure heads.
Neither has much of a background in quantitative economics---they are primarily economic historians. You won't find a single mathematical formula in most of their papers. (Instead you will find many discussions of 1800's economics --they remind me of many marxists and free market and libertarian economists who try to analyze the US or world economy of 2020 in terms of adam smith ('division of labor', 'the invisible hand', the person who makes a safety pin cooperating with someone who brings food from the farm in a horse and buggy) and marx (e.g. an example of someone exchanging 4 pounds or iron for 3 sacks of corn is supposed to explain silicon valley) .
My view is the main ideas or rationals behind MMT is to
1) stop taxing the rich (this is why they say taxes have no affect on the government budget --and there is a small element of truth in that --Mosler doesn't want to pay taxes--he says rather than take his money, government should just print more.)
2) 'help the poor' , ' people with no or low income', and the 'unemployed', by giving them a 'guaranteed job' paid for not with money from progressive taxes, but just printed by the govt. These jobs could be something like FDR's new deal , Sanders-AOC's green new deal, or they could be like indentured servitude on some billionaire's such as Mosler's plantation. (My impression is the MMT'ers like the plantation idea the best.)
MMTers are adamantly against a Universal basic Income---they feel it makes people feel better to 'work for a living' even if its on a plantation picking cotton than to just get 'free money' ---hedge fund managers have to work for their money (eg collect interest).
'Economists' like Wray and Kelton also work--they regurgitate ancient economic literature, relabel it as MMT, make podcasts, do TED talks, write blog posts, write papers in non-mathematical economic history journals , and become media stars. I don't view what they do as a very productive job.
Unfortunately mainstream economists' critiques of MMT (eg Krugman) come from a perspective which is equally flawed.
(I support a Universal Basic Income (uBI--not exactly the same as Unconditional basic income, or UBI, promoted by Yang , though the 2 can be made equivalent if viewed as a negative income tax---Hayek and Friedman) but unfortunately proponents of BI in general also have almost no quantitative analyses. Most of them just make general --but valid-- arguments that if people have a basic income they are less likely to go into a life of crime and can spend more time dealing with local issues--eg family, community improvement , etc. Studies have shown also that people with a BI actually work more than those without one---but they choose which jobs to take--and they keep them---if you are forced to work a job you don't like, you likely will quit very soon.)
The discussions around MMT, UBI or BI, and mainstream neoclassical economic theory are all ideologically biased. They all preach to their respective choirs and echo chambers--and they all have big 'megachurches' with devout followers.
I was only commenting on the particular wording of the 'smell test' in devlopemntal economics---i use a smell test to decide if i need to throw food away which i try not to do, or wash clothes , or if somehow a dead mouse is in my apt --i leave mice alone but they are poisoned by what they eat or die of old age--i dont think they live very long--maybe 2 years
developmental economics (definately not my area) i associate with jeffrey sachs, william easterly, amartya sen, and partha dasgupta. one can add jagdish baghwati and more than i can remember. there are more recent ones. i just know these from books and articles. (there are math modelers, anti-globalization/neoliberalism activists, etc --they all have books and articles).
That article has a good reference list but these are mostly of historical interest . I do reccomend reading the article and looking at the references . (it might take 80,000 hours to read them all in full so i do not reccomend that --just read the abstracts , and if you want look at the intros, conclusions, scan main text --especially equations----one can say in 1 equation more than in 1000 words, but the equation has 1000 words behind it, and references. )
Michael Taylor's 1976 book 'the possibility of cooperation' discussed this theme, but he used a sort of outmoded game theoretic approach which has been mostly replaced by a different formalism (which derives from physics and theoretical and evolutionary biology--behavioral economics and Rawlsian utilitarianism or other variants doesn't come close to that formalism.)
The conclusion to the article does come to the correct conclusion. EA movement could easily just do the greatest good for the smallest number. In ancient europe the educated and better off classes barricaded themselves into forts, castles and mansions. There was the bubonic plague. But this in the long term in a sense saved many others in the future --created the 'enlightenment'.
I think with current modern knowledge that approach is unnecesary. i cannot wholeheartedly reccomend this group because they also have limited view of cooperation but they do have more currrent thought in this area. www.santafe.edu or https://www.santafe.edu
https://sciencehouse.wordpress.com has a more recent study and discussion of 2 other studies at imperial college london and oxford. Science Magazine AAAS also has a whole issue (march 27) on topic. COVID-19 appears to be a real problem but time will tell. (My area has many scientists, but also many poor and uneducated people, so there are lots of 'conspiracy theories' floating around --'viruses of the mind' --there are academic papers on these as well, mostly written by physicists.)
My point 4 i actually view as the main one, unless you are actually developing vaccines in a laboratory or testing them in the field. I have done a tiny bit of lab biology and field biology as a student a but its not my area )
In that sense my comment was 'off topic'---i was talking about prevention, not cures. A term commonly used now is to avoid 'hot spots' --the temperature or incidence of the virus is not the same everywhere, so while it may seem biased, avoid the hot spots . You can say hi to your neighbor, but you cant hug them.
there was a free online copy and there may still be. its a collection of 100 essays by people associated with various social movements (some of which have been around for decades) mostly dealing with the global south, environmental issues and also ones relevant to 'developed countries' such as USA .
i think it overlaps with the Oxford handbook. both of these to me are like reading an encyclopedia or history book.
(There are more social movements than the 100 in the book, but they overlap alot, so in a sense even if the 'missing' movements are not in the book they are mostly implicity there. I think there may have been some favoritism into who was included in the book, and who was excluded.
Many of these 'movements' or groups are fairly short lived --they last for a few years and dissapear, often partly due to internal conflicts. )
I never joined any social movements except for the green party, and i no longer attend their events due to internal strife. These small groups tend to attract certain individuals who try to take them over and turn them into cults of personality, though they do it using the rhetoric of social justice, intersectionality, ecology, democracy, etc.
Jacobin magazine (now sort of affiliated with DSA and a big supporter of Bernie S., though it had its roots in ISO , and has had a sort of constantly shifting ideology ---they can't decide which form of socialism they prefer ) was among the groups involved in the local political or 'social movement' scene--sort of by mistake i get their magazine .
(it has interesting histories of leftist movements in USA and internationally--written by academics and grad students primarily (almost never in sciences), but some of it i view as redundant leftist drivel.) Its a younger version of the nation mag, and a high brow version of CPUSA (i've seen old copies of that) , with excellent production and graphics. Their articles are usually written by various academics affiliated with universities that range from fairly 'low level' city colleges to the ivy league. )
This book and the Oxford one are also relevant to a May 2019 discussion on the EA forum about 'leftist critiques of EA movement'---which i thought was fairly thorough. ( i looked at that partly since i'm 'self-quarantining'. My area is sort of on 'lockdown' , so i skim various math models of this issue, and then look at lighter stuff.)
The may 2019 discussion pointed out both criticisms of EA as well as its defenses. eg 'leftists' dislike the word 'charity'--it sounds paternalistic; and in the area i live, 'US imperialism' and 'capitalism' are sort of code or trigger words, or phrases, or rallying crys.
'Earning to give' does remind one of Andrew Carnegie (I had a relative who went to CMU which is a top school for AI research--carnegie and mellon gave their money away) , the Rockefellors (Rockefellor U), , the Sackler family (art gallerys, and credited in part for the US opiate epidemic) , and Henry Paulson (plans to donate his 4 Billion $ wealth to environmental causes which he earned on wall street. )
(I knew someone who made a fair amount of money on wall street, who also gave away a large fraction of it, but part of it was based on cigarette companies. He simply seperated his money making investment decisions from his values, so he invested in whatever was most profitable. And then he gave alot of that money away to good causes. He also didnt approve of smoking even though he invested in the companies. ).
(he was actually from a small town background, so didn't have a 'systems' point of view-he was just a good stock picker. I.e. he didn't notice he may have been 'stealing from the poor to get rich', and then acting as a kind of 'robin hood' to 'take from the rich and give to the poor'. (he also donated to bernie's 1st campaign against Hilary). )
I'm not really affiliated with any 'leftist movements' anymore (though i used to attend protests organized by many of these groups, which range from 'moderate DSA', green party, or 'progressive democratic ' groups , and environmentalist and anti-poverty groups , to ones with more 'radical views' (all kinds of socialists, anarchists, and others---many of whom did not get along with each other) .
However since i think i am familiar enough with many of these 'leftist' groups i would say for every criticism of EA one can make there is another one equal to that can be made of many of these groups.
(I actually view some of them as sort of modern versions of stalinists--i call them 'stalinists- lite'.
Just as i view the 'alt-right' as the 'lite' versions of nazis and kkk. (they don't dresss in white hoods and gowns anymore, or as storm troopers--they dress in khakis and suits and ties--look like college students or government buerocrats.
The stalinist-lite 'leftist' critics of US imperialism, etc. seem to have strong affiliations with RT state sponsored media 'russia today' and its 'Sputnik' radio version--they have their own radio shows or appear as guests on those stations, as well as with China. They are big critics of US presence in Afghanistan but never mention Russia also invaded Afghanistan. )
I think the differences between EAs, 'leftists' and people like myself are cultural and educational primarily. Many EA's seem to have a philosophy bacground, so for example they use the philosophical definition of Utilitarianism rather than the ones i've seen in economics , which are mathematical (Hilary Greaves of Oxford and associated with EA, who also has a background in physics, uses the formalism of utilitarianism closest to the one i try to use--though I am not at her mathematical level.) 'Leftists' tend to get their information more from either 'radical media' or in college classes in humanites or semi-social sciences like 'cultural marxism' and 'intersectionality studies'. I get my views from my backgroun in ecology and lived experiences in fairly diverse environments--so you have to keep your language simple, even if you are familiar with technical dialects. (There are in my view at least 3 or 4 different dialects for 'systems science' or 'systemic approaches'--i view them as equivalent but they range in mathematical complexity.)
I've seen and liked that book. But i don't think there really is enough information about risks (eg earth being hit by a comet or meteor that kills everything) to really say much---maybe if cosmology makes major advances or in other fields one can say somerthing but that might takes centuries.
I can't really tell what the article is about, but it appears to be saying that devoting alot of resources and talent to academic economists to do rigorous RCT evalutions of programs is 'innefective' or 'inneficient' (a waste). (I think the recent noble econ prizes were for this---so this might be critique of them.) I think the same point is often made of alot of rigorous economics---many view these as primarily aesthetic or mathematical excercizes which some economists value more than developement or economic policy.
I think there is a place for aesthetics, mathematics, RCTs and evaluations of them, as well as other forms of policy research and interventions.
But you sort of have to figure out what mix is the best.
I also don't think the 'smell tests' are well worded. I think academic specialties often have their own dialects (as does EA) and they are often mutually almost incomprehnsible. Ecological economists and neoclassiclas often have different dialects, and the same theorem in math can be proven at times many ways, but people can only understand some of them,.
The article by D Meissner (original post) , the comments on it, and the expanded set of articles on the website utilitarianism , all make good points.
My comments:
1. Specieism. I knew people who lived on farms and raised animals and also grew corn, wheat, and vegetables for food, and also to sell to get cash so they could buy things they couldn't produce on their farm which they decided they either needed or wanted. (For example a car, truck , phone, or a college education for their children (eg my grandparents, or some of the families in small rural towns i used to live in).
While they were definately not vegans or even vegetarians, many were often not exactly 'specieist---they valued very much the welfare of their cows, chickens, and the wildlife (such as deer , turkeys, trout, bears, bobcats, skunks, weasels, hedgehogs, snakes, etc.) , flora (eg forests), and ecosystems (eg trout stream valleys and the mountains above them) . They took very good care of their animals until they killed or sold them, and they would not tolerate people doing illegal logging to cut down forests to sell as lumber to make paper for newspapers , or use their creeks and valleys as trash dumps and sewers.
Some of the people (even in the same families) decided the only thing that mattered was money--so they permitted illegal dumping, logging, etc. in return for cash, and basically left (with their cash) the areas they grew up in as ecological wastelands , and moved to the city to get a 'better life' including a college education and a 'good job'. the book book 'hillbilly elegy' by j d vance shows that perspective.
Some people from cities who do have money have bought up alot of that land and abandoned properties in small towns and now are creating organic farms and vegan restaurants in those areas (while those areas were not really suitable for the kind of large scale 'factory farming' except for chickens--there were some cattle but it was nothing like the industrial feedlots of the midwest USA; there were a few (tiny) fish farms--people had a trout pond which was the fish farm equivalent of a small vegetable ---they also had small vegetable gardens and sold the produce in front of their homes---and it was a 'trust system'---they just left the vegetables and the 'cash register' on a table (where you put your money---they sold really cheap produce and almost nobody stole anything ( a few teens and preteens might steal stuff, and also break into houses, but it was unusual, and in general people knew who thy were ad just talked to the parents to tell them to 'behave').
I heard that has changed now, partly because hard drugs (methamphetamine, heroin) have been introduced into those areas. The level of trust has gone down. (ts near to what is called the 'heroin highway'). its possible the new organic farms and vegan restaurants can entice the local people to start caring about things beyond drugs, chicken and money, but thats an open question---some of the old time local people resent people they do not know who have alot of money buying up all the property.
while i know most EAs probably hate hunting, the 'old timers from that area (eg anyone over age 20 though it goes up to over 80) hunted and fished for food in part ---bass, trout, deer, grouse, turkeys, squirrels, etc. Its brutal, but so is buying a car and driving 60 miles round trip to work in a recycling plant so they can make cash and eat burgers at a Mcdonald's .
I view Thoreau and Albert Schweitzer as promoting vegetarianism and anti-specieism long beofre p singer.
2. This article and website appears to be written from a philosophical POV. I learned the little i know about utilitarianism from my background as a student in biology---which turned into physics (to study modern biology, you have to take physics, which i did, all the way up into quantum theory and statistical mechanics and a bit of QFT. Once you take those, you realize from a literature search that many of the famous physicists actually wrote papers on utilitarianism (as well as biology). As did economists (who studied biology and physics).
I consider myself a utilitarian--but maybe i should use a different term. (In USA this is like saying you are a 'socialist' (some people interpret this as meaning you support Bernie Saunders for president, while others say this means you worship Stalin.
I also consider myself a darwinist (though many interpret this to mean what is called 'vulgar darwinism' which is not what darwin said---ie the idea that we are the 'additive' sum of our genes.). In a sense i'm also a marxist (but not a vulgar marxist---who are common--who think the world is explained as 'class struggle'. The LTV has a kernel of truth to it--eg bitcoin).
The 4 postulates of utilitarianism are not what is meant by the term for last 20-40 years though some economists still use that formalism--both 'left wing' and 'right wing' ones. The first 1 and the 4th are the most explcitly outdated---'additivity' in physics went out decades ago, as did 'consequentialism' (ther e is a newer term (which actually goes way back but became more popular or rediscovered after 1990-2000).
I'm only slightly familiar with R Hanson's writings---though i am familiar with some of the other people's writings at GMU he's sort of affiliated with--and i once checked out GMU for grad study and decided against it. One paper by Hanson i did find interesting was in physics--- his approach to derivation of 'Born's rule' in quantum theory---this 'rule' i think is is one of the largest mysteries in physics--but it works. Hanson's approach among many others seems to be a candidate for explaining it (but there is no consensus in physics--i also tend to think many of the different approaches will turn out to be basically the same--quantum theory already had 2 or 3 different versions or more (Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Dirac, maybe Feynman (much later)... ) before they were basically shown to be equivalent.
Some of these debates are sort of like going to one of the BLM protests which we have locally (i go mostly as a tourist or observer though i'm aquainted with a few of the protestors--i basically don't like activism or protesting since i grew up around that --tired of repeating hallelujah or BLM or no justice no peace. If you say it once, dont say it again.) At these protests sometimes you have anti-BLM people---some are explicit and just as militant as some of the BLM people, some are 'infiltrators' or 'provacateurs'--sort of try to get trouble started. You also have a few people who appear to be opportunists---looking for 'free stuff'.
I dont really align with either the BLM (sometimes derisively called SJWs) people or their opponents. I think the issues they bring up are as complex as figuring out which interpretation of 'Born's rule' is the correct one, or the best one and neither the SJWs, 'proud boys' or 'alt-right' seem to have thought this through (and guns and slogans i dont think will do.) As a side note Born lost his job under Hitler(he was jewish), went to UK and i think hitler actually invited him back (wthout his wife --didnt want him to reproduce, but did want him to working on making a bomb)--born declined (maybe in Uk they already had enough bombs falling from the sky).
I rarely read slate but the article on Hanson has an amusing title. I view slate as sort of the modern equivalent of the New Yorker, NY Review of Books, Atlantic, Vox, and maybe 'on the left' Jacobin and on the right 'National Review' or 'American Conservative'. I think this is what is called part of 'civil society' and forums for 'public intellectuals'. In the past, Einstein, B Russell, E B Dubois, maybe Emma Goldman and many more were public intellectuals , but some had a bit more background than the current ones.
comments:
My view is at current time there are 3 main and overlapping issues going on ---COVID, global warming, and civil unrest about racism and policing (which sort of started in USA but now is global).
These all will impact 'mental health'.
I agree with another comment that some of the graphs are not that easy to decipher. Its interesting that while most of the 'mechanical ' and 'intuitive' measures agree or correlate, at the end of the list you have some mental interventions in which the mechanical scores are like -1 (unlike the other interventions) while the intuitive ones are still around 7--similar to the other intuitive scores --- (so they anti-correlate ). I wonder why these studies are so different (i can guess).)
I have seen 2 recent very well researched and hence convincing studies regarding the effect of social interventions on COVID pandemic (from teams of researchers in UK--imperial college, oxford, Stanford, Harvard, etc.) which came to opposite conclusions regarding the effect of 'lockdowns'. One study said lockdowns had no effect; the other said they prevented possibly 100,000s of deaths. The graphs in these studies were not easy to interpret either, for me.
Since i dabble in 'complexity theory' , I dislike the use of the term 'mechanical model' here though its well defined---( cost X effectiveness) . i just don't view it as what i call mechanical--though it can be interpreted that way. .
i view 'mechanical ' as referring to a newtonian classical physics type model. Many people into complexity theory (some experts and some amateurs) reject what they call 'mechanical models'. They prefer what they call nonequilibrium, open system models with emergent properties . I personally don't think there is any difference between these. Terms like 'mechanical', 'emergent' or 'intuitive' almost become like labels, brand names, ideologies, or 'races'. Its a fuzzy concept unless you agree on the definitions---like mental illness.
I've been following some of the literature (and also blogs ) on MMT off and on for about 3 years. I sort of agree with Brad Delong (economic historian at UC Berkeley) that its 'warmed over keynesianism' (as noted in OP it it could also be called 'keynsianism on stilts'. (Unlike Keynes, MMT people say just keep printing money, all day, everyday since you can never run out. Although I mostly disagree with Niall Ferguson he pointed out this was tried in the past, and Ferguson argues in his first, and one reasonable book that it was this view that led to the collapse of the British Empire.)
MMT partly owes its creation to Arthur Laffer (of the 'laffer curve' under Reagen ('supply side economics') who argued that by cutting taxes (especially on the rich) the government raises more revenue due to economic growth---which in my view has been disproven by many mainstream economists (although Trump is following that policy).
MMT 's main founder is W Mosler --friend of Laffer--- is a wealthy hedge fund owner/manager who keeps his money off shore in tax free accounts. He more or less funded the 'economists' (eg R Wray of U Mo and S Kelton now in NYC ) who are MMT's main figure heads.
Neither has much of a background in quantitative economics---they are primarily economic historians. You won't find a single mathematical formula in most of their papers. (Instead you will find many discussions of 1800's economics --they remind me of many marxists and free market and libertarian economists who try to analyze the US or world economy of 2020 in terms of adam smith ('division of labor', 'the invisible hand', the person who makes a safety pin cooperating with someone who brings food from the farm in a horse and buggy) and marx (e.g. an example of someone exchanging 4 pounds or iron for 3 sacks of corn is supposed to explain silicon valley) .
My view is the main ideas or rationals behind MMT is to
1) stop taxing the rich (this is why they say taxes have no affect on the government budget --and there is a small element of truth in that --Mosler doesn't want to pay taxes--he says rather than take his money, government should just print more.)
2) 'help the poor' , ' people with no or low income', and the 'unemployed', by giving them a 'guaranteed job' paid for not with money from progressive taxes, but just printed by the govt. These jobs could be something like FDR's new deal , Sanders-AOC's green new deal, or they could be like indentured servitude on some billionaire's such as Mosler's plantation. (My impression is the MMT'ers like the plantation idea the best.)
MMTers are adamantly against a Universal basic Income---they feel it makes people feel better to 'work for a living' even if its on a plantation picking cotton than to just get 'free money' ---hedge fund managers have to work for their money (eg collect interest).
'Economists' like Wray and Kelton also work--they regurgitate ancient economic literature, relabel it as MMT, make podcasts, do TED talks, write blog posts, write papers in non-mathematical economic history journals , and become media stars. I don't view what they do as a very productive job.
Unfortunately mainstream economists' critiques of MMT (eg Krugman) come from a perspective which is equally flawed.
(I support a Universal Basic Income (uBI--not exactly the same as Unconditional basic income, or UBI, promoted by Yang , though the 2 can be made equivalent if viewed as a negative income tax---Hayek and Friedman) but unfortunately proponents of BI in general also have almost no quantitative analyses. Most of them just make general --but valid-- arguments that if people have a basic income they are less likely to go into a life of crime and can spend more time dealing with local issues--eg family, community improvement , etc. Studies have shown also that people with a BI actually work more than those without one---but they choose which jobs to take--and they keep them---if you are forced to work a job you don't like, you likely will quit very soon.)
The discussions around MMT, UBI or BI, and mainstream neoclassical economic theory are all ideologically biased. They all preach to their respective choirs and echo chambers--and they all have big 'megachurches' with devout followers.
I was only commenting on the particular wording of the 'smell test' in devlopemntal economics---i use a smell test to decide if i need to throw food away which i try not to do, or wash clothes , or if somehow a dead mouse is in my apt --i leave mice alone but they are poisoned by what they eat or die of old age--i dont think they live very long--maybe 2 years
developmental economics (definately not my area) i associate with jeffrey sachs, william easterly, amartya sen, and partha dasgupta. one can add jagdish baghwati and more than i can remember. there are more recent ones. i just know these from books and articles. (there are math modelers, anti-globalization/neoliberalism activists, etc --they all have books and articles).
That article has a good reference list but these are mostly of historical interest . I do reccomend reading the article and looking at the references . (it might take 80,000 hours to read them all in full so i do not reccomend that --just read the abstracts , and if you want look at the intros, conclusions, scan main text --especially equations----one can say in 1 equation more than in 1000 words, but the equation has 1000 words behind it, and references. )
Michael Taylor's 1976 book 'the possibility of cooperation' discussed this theme, but he used a sort of outmoded game theoretic approach which has been mostly replaced by a different formalism (which derives from physics and theoretical and evolutionary biology--behavioral economics and Rawlsian utilitarianism or other variants doesn't come close to that formalism.)
The conclusion to the article does come to the correct conclusion. EA movement could easily just do the greatest good for the smallest number. In ancient europe the educated and better off classes barricaded themselves into forts, castles and mansions. There was the bubonic plague. But this in the long term in a sense saved many others in the future --created the 'enlightenment'.
I think with current modern knowledge that approach is unnecesary. i cannot wholeheartedly reccomend this group because they also have limited view of cooperation but they do have more currrent thought in this area. www.santafe.edu or https://www.santafe.edu
https://sciencehouse.wordpress.com has a more recent study and discussion of 2 other studies at imperial college london and oxford. Science Magazine AAAS also has a whole issue (march 27) on topic. COVID-19 appears to be a real problem but time will tell. (My area has many scientists, but also many poor and uneducated people, so there are lots of 'conspiracy theories' floating around --'viruses of the mind' --there are academic papers on these as well, mostly written by physicists.)
My point 4 i actually view as the main one, unless you are actually developing vaccines in a laboratory or testing them in the field. I have done a tiny bit of lab biology and field biology as a student a but its not my area )
In that sense my comment was 'off topic'---i was talking about prevention, not cures. A term commonly used now is to avoid 'hot spots' --the temperature or incidence of the virus is not the same everywhere, so while it may seem biased, avoid the hot spots . You can say hi to your neighbor, but you cant hug them.
https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com may have more discussion that is more relevant to your post.
On the same theme https://radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/pluriverse .
there was a free online copy and there may still be. its a collection of 100 essays by people associated with various social movements (some of which have been around for decades) mostly dealing with the global south, environmental issues and also ones relevant to 'developed countries' such as USA .
i think it overlaps with the Oxford handbook. both of these to me are like reading an encyclopedia or history book.
(There are more social movements than the 100 in the book, but they overlap alot, so in a sense even if the 'missing' movements are not in the book they are mostly implicity there. I think there may have been some favoritism into who was included in the book, and who was excluded.
Many of these 'movements' or groups are fairly short lived --they last for a few years and dissapear, often partly due to internal conflicts. )
I never joined any social movements except for the green party, and i no longer attend their events due to internal strife. These small groups tend to attract certain individuals who try to take them over and turn them into cults of personality, though they do it using the rhetoric of social justice, intersectionality, ecology, democracy, etc.
Jacobin magazine (now sort of affiliated with DSA and a big supporter of Bernie S., though it had its roots in ISO , and has had a sort of constantly shifting ideology ---they can't decide which form of socialism they prefer ) was among the groups involved in the local political or 'social movement' scene--sort of by mistake i get their magazine .
(it has interesting histories of leftist movements in USA and internationally--written by academics and grad students primarily (almost never in sciences), but some of it i view as redundant leftist drivel.) Its a younger version of the nation mag, and a high brow version of CPUSA (i've seen old copies of that) , with excellent production and graphics. Their articles are usually written by various academics affiliated with universities that range from fairly 'low level' city colleges to the ivy league. )
This book and the Oxford one are also relevant to a May 2019 discussion on the EA forum about 'leftist critiques of EA movement'---which i thought was fairly thorough. ( i looked at that partly since i'm 'self-quarantining'. My area is sort of on 'lockdown' , so i skim various math models of this issue, and then look at lighter stuff.)
The may 2019 discussion pointed out both criticisms of EA as well as its defenses. eg 'leftists' dislike the word 'charity'--it sounds paternalistic; and in the area i live, 'US imperialism' and 'capitalism' are sort of code or trigger words, or phrases, or rallying crys.
'Earning to give' does remind one of Andrew Carnegie (I had a relative who went to CMU which is a top school for AI research--carnegie and mellon gave their money away) , the Rockefellors (Rockefellor U), , the Sackler family (art gallerys, and credited in part for the US opiate epidemic) , and Henry Paulson (plans to donate his 4 Billion $ wealth to environmental causes which he earned on wall street. )
(I knew someone who made a fair amount of money on wall street, who also gave away a large fraction of it, but part of it was based on cigarette companies. He simply seperated his money making investment decisions from his values, so he invested in whatever was most profitable. And then he gave alot of that money away to good causes. He also didnt approve of smoking even though he invested in the companies. ).
(he was actually from a small town background, so didn't have a 'systems' point of view-he was just a good stock picker. I.e. he didn't notice he may have been 'stealing from the poor to get rich', and then acting as a kind of 'robin hood' to 'take from the rich and give to the poor'. (he also donated to bernie's 1st campaign against Hilary). )
I'm not really affiliated with any 'leftist movements' anymore (though i used to attend protests organized by many of these groups, which range from 'moderate DSA', green party, or 'progressive democratic ' groups , and environmentalist and anti-poverty groups , to ones with more 'radical views' (all kinds of socialists, anarchists, and others---many of whom did not get along with each other) .
However since i think i am familiar enough with many of these 'leftist' groups i would say for every criticism of EA one can make there is another one equal to that can be made of many of these groups.
(I actually view some of them as sort of modern versions of stalinists--i call them 'stalinists- lite'.
Just as i view the 'alt-right' as the 'lite' versions of nazis and kkk. (they don't dresss in white hoods and gowns anymore, or as storm troopers--they dress in khakis and suits and ties--look like college students or government buerocrats.
The stalinist-lite 'leftist' critics of US imperialism, etc. seem to have strong affiliations with RT state sponsored media 'russia today' and its 'Sputnik' radio version--they have their own radio shows or appear as guests on those stations, as well as with China. They are big critics of US presence in Afghanistan but never mention Russia also invaded Afghanistan. )
I think the differences between EAs, 'leftists' and people like myself are cultural and educational primarily. Many EA's seem to have a philosophy bacground, so for example they use the philosophical definition of Utilitarianism rather than the ones i've seen in economics , which are mathematical (Hilary Greaves of Oxford and associated with EA, who also has a background in physics, uses the formalism of utilitarianism closest to the one i try to use--though I am not at her mathematical level.) 'Leftists' tend to get their information more from either 'radical media' or in college classes in humanites or semi-social sciences like 'cultural marxism' and 'intersectionality studies'. I get my views from my backgroun in ecology and lived experiences in fairly diverse environments--so you have to keep your language simple, even if you are familiar with technical dialects. (There are in my view at least 3 or 4 different dialects for 'systems science' or 'systemic approaches'--i view them as equivalent but they range in mathematical complexity.)
I've seen and liked that book. But i don't think there really is enough information about risks (eg earth being hit by a comet or meteor that kills everything) to really say much---maybe if cosmology makes major advances or in other fields one can say somerthing but that might takes centuries.
I can't really tell what the article is about, but it appears to be saying that devoting alot of resources and talent to academic economists to do rigorous RCT evalutions of programs is 'innefective' or 'inneficient' (a waste). (I think the recent noble econ prizes were for this---so this might be critique of them.) I think the same point is often made of alot of rigorous economics---many view these as primarily aesthetic or mathematical excercizes which some economists value more than developement or economic policy.
I think there is a place for aesthetics, mathematics, RCTs and evaluations of them, as well as other forms of policy research and interventions.
But you sort of have to figure out what mix is the best.
I also don't think the 'smell tests' are well worded. I think academic specialties often have their own dialects (as does EA) and they are often mutually almost incomprehnsible. Ecological economists and neoclassiclas often have different dialects, and the same theorem in math can be proven at times many ways, but people can only understand some of them,.
The article by D Meissner (original post) , the comments on it, and the expanded set of articles on the website utilitarianism , all make good points.
My comments:
1. Specieism. I knew people who lived on farms and raised animals and also grew corn, wheat, and vegetables for food, and also to sell to get cash so they could buy things they couldn't produce on their farm which they decided they either needed or wanted. (For example a car, truck , phone, or a college education for their children (eg my grandparents, or some of the families in small rural towns i used to live in).
While they were definately not vegans or even vegetarians, many were often not exactly 'specieist---they valued very much the welfare of their cows, chickens, and the wildlife (such as deer , turkeys, trout, bears, bobcats, skunks, weasels, hedgehogs, snakes, etc.) , flora (eg forests), and ecosystems (eg trout stream valleys and the mountains above them) . They took very good care of their animals until they killed or sold them, and they would not tolerate people doing illegal logging to cut down forests to sell as lumber to make paper for newspapers , or use their creeks and valleys as trash dumps and sewers.
Some of the people (even in the same families) decided the only thing that mattered was money--so they permitted illegal dumping, logging, etc. in return for cash, and basically left (with their cash) the areas they grew up in as ecological wastelands , and moved to the city to get a 'better life' including a college education and a 'good job'. the book book 'hillbilly elegy' by j d vance shows that perspective.
Some people from cities who do have money have bought up alot of that land and abandoned properties in small towns and now are creating organic farms and vegan restaurants in those areas (while those areas were not really suitable for the kind of large scale 'factory farming' except for chickens--there were some cattle but it was nothing like the industrial feedlots of the midwest USA; there were a few (tiny) fish farms--people had a trout pond which was the fish farm equivalent of a small vegetable ---they also had small vegetable gardens and sold the produce in front of their homes---and it was a 'trust system'---they just left the vegetables and the 'cash register' on a table (where you put your money---they sold really cheap produce and almost nobody stole anything ( a few teens and preteens might steal stuff, and also break into houses, but it was unusual, and in general people knew who thy were ad just talked to the parents to tell them to 'behave').
I heard that has changed now, partly because hard drugs (methamphetamine, heroin) have been introduced into those areas. The level of trust has gone down. (ts near to what is called the 'heroin highway'). its possible the new organic farms and vegan restaurants can entice the local people to start caring about things beyond drugs, chicken and money, but thats an open question---some of the old time local people resent people they do not know who have alot of money buying up all the property.
while i know most EAs probably hate hunting, the 'old timers from that area (eg anyone over age 20 though it goes up to over 80) hunted and fished for food in part ---bass, trout, deer, grouse, turkeys, squirrels, etc. Its brutal, but so is buying a car and driving 60 miles round trip to work in a recycling plant so they can make cash and eat burgers at a Mcdonald's .
I view Thoreau and Albert Schweitzer as promoting vegetarianism and anti-specieism long beofre p singer.
2. This article and website appears to be written from a philosophical POV. I learned the little i know about utilitarianism from my background as a student in biology---which turned into physics (to study modern biology, you have to take physics, which i did, all the way up into quantum theory and statistical mechanics and a bit of QFT. Once you take those, you realize from a literature search that many of the famous physicists actually wrote papers on utilitarianism (as well as biology). As did economists (who studied biology and physics).
I consider myself a utilitarian--but maybe i should use a different term. (In USA this is like saying you are a 'socialist' (some people interpret this as meaning you support Bernie Saunders for president, while others say this means you worship Stalin.
I also consider myself a darwinist (though many interpret this to mean what is called 'vulgar darwinism' which is not what darwin said---ie the idea that we are the 'additive' sum of our genes.). In a sense i'm also a marxist (but not a vulgar marxist---who are common--who think the world is explained as 'class struggle'. The LTV has a kernel of truth to it--eg bitcoin).
The 4 postulates of utilitarianism are not what is meant by the term for last 20-40 years though some economists still use that formalism--both 'left wing' and 'right wing' ones. The first 1 and the 4th are the most explcitly outdated---'additivity' in physics went out decades ago, as did 'consequentialism' (ther e is a newer term (which actually goes way back but became more popular or rediscovered after 1990-2000).