One difference in my model of a modest-epistemologist vs a person who isn’t, is that when they both read Eliezer’s passing remark in the Macroeconomics papers (saying that Japan’s econ polict is deranged) the modesty person says “I believe you are wrong because the Bank of Japan are experts” and the other person says “I do not have a strong belief here”. I feel the modest epistemologist is quicker to make judgements about what you can’t know, whereas the other person thinks you may indeed know better than the Bank of Japan, because this isn’t that far out of sync with how the world generally is.
I think the reasonable reaction upon reading the statement that the Bank of Japan’s macroeconomic policy is deranged, made by someone who lacks formal credentials in the area and who appears to have a less-than-stellar track-record of defying expert consensus, is indeed to be skeptical. By contrast, that position becomes much more reasonable if one learns that Nobel laureates, prestigious economists and smart econbloggers agree with it.
So the claim “I believe you are wrong because the Bank of Japan are experts” seems to be a caricature of modest epistemology, based on an equivocation between
“In the absence of other information, I would rather trust the Bank of Japan than Eliezer Yudkowsky here” and
“It’s reasonable to side with Nobel laureates, prestigious economists and smart econbloggers if they disagree with the Bank of Japan.”
One difference in my model of a modest-epistemologist vs a person who isn’t, is that when they both read Eliezer’s passing remark in the Macroeconomics papers (saying that Japan’s econ polict is deranged) the modesty person says “I believe you are wrong because the Bank of Japan are experts” and the other person says “I do not have a strong belief here”. I feel the modest epistemologist is quicker to make judgements about what you can’t know, whereas the other person thinks you may indeed know better than the Bank of Japan, because this isn’t that far out of sync with how the world generally is.
I think the reasonable reaction upon reading the statement that the Bank of Japan’s macroeconomic policy is deranged, made by someone who lacks formal credentials in the area and who appears to have a less-than-stellar track-record of defying expert consensus, is indeed to be skeptical. By contrast, that position becomes much more reasonable if one learns that Nobel laureates, prestigious economists and smart econbloggers agree with it.
So the claim “I believe you are wrong because the Bank of Japan are experts” seems to be a caricature of modest epistemology, based on an equivocation between
“In the absence of other information, I would rather trust the Bank of Japan than Eliezer Yudkowsky here” and
“It’s reasonable to side with Nobel laureates, prestigious economists and smart econbloggers if they disagree with the Bank of Japan.”