if you want to understand why people consistently get upset at you, I think this thread nails the core of it.
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I don't think the context helps Robin. There is still very too much moral hazard in how casually you're approaching this.
This is not a case I would attempt to make based on twitter polls for example. I'd only feel comfortable if I leveled up to a properly designed survey.
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If it is okay for people to express their individual opinions, I don't see why it is worse to collect 1000 folks opinions and express those. I don't see the "moral hazard" of asking why people aren't bothered by A Star is Born.
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The moral hazard exists because you, as a prominent male academic, are not in fact the highest-risk stakeholder in this conversation. That's still all the women out there who work in male-dominated workplaces. So burden of care is higher for you.
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So "moral hazard" is code for saying men shouldn't talk about bad things that can happen to women?
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Moral hazard means exactly what it normally means. It means you have power without commensurate risk exposure. It means if you get your analysis *wrong*, especially in a casual blog/twitter quick-and-dirty take, others suffer the consequences more.
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Almost always when academics study things that can go wrong, those are things that mainly go wrong to other people, not especially us. Should we stop studying such things, because we are not the folks at max risk?
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This is not generally true. Such risks are not attendant on say questions of studying supernovas or comparing battery material performance. Where this is true, steps can be taken in proportion to the moral hazard.
See my thread linked several tweets above where I was tagged in
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Okay, I've read your thread, and I seriously disagree with the claim that you should not talk about a topic unless you are in the group most at risk. I agree one should be more careful the more is at stake, but practically it is criticism keeps error in line, not care plans.
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I do not make that claim. I point out that this is the logical transposition of Perrow's conclusions from Normal Accidents theory and point out that I don't go that far. I simply say: either add care, or add more direct risk.
You said don't talk about sex unless you are in a sociology dept dominated by women. That's way too strong a restriction.
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That's *one* example of how you could add risk commensurate to the potential fallouts of your thinking here. There might be many other ways. For example: just do this as a paper, not on blog+twitter. Or run it by a female economist colleague first.
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I am absolutely fine with anybody studying anything. Just don't expect me to hold them all to the same standards. I adjust my expectations and standards based on demonstrated care and visible risk to the thinker.
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Where VR lost this:
Hanson as prominent white male academic.
He's an outlier. A weirdo gadfly.
We have plenty of room for white male weirdo gadflies.
If VR doesn't like it, he can pound sand.



