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Figuring out how to manage COVID individually turned out to be much easier for Rationalists than figuring out how to convince others to follow along. And as my post implies, what convinces a Rationalist of some COVID policy is very different from what would convince most people.
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Figuring out how to win the Brexit referendum proved MUCH easier than persuading critical people of what to do. Ditto in constitutional crisis july-december2019. And similarly March & Sep 2020 re covid
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Main problem viz politics is the incentives program critical institutions NOT to learn & to reject Rationalism. One of biggest mistakes v smart/accomplished ppl make re politics is they assume senior politicians are trying to solve problem X sort of rationally. No! Almost never
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I'm humbled to hear that. It's interesting to think what I'd advise if I was back in February 2020 forgetting all I learned about COVID but not what I learned about institutional psychology and how the desire not to appear weird is as strong for "big experts" as for teenagers.
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I'd probably get independent teams of superforecasters like those involved in epidemicforecasting.org, ensure their anonymity forever, have them predict the outcomes of different interventions, and pay them in retrospect based on accuracy. Call them "a panel of in-house experts".
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