What’s w/ these people w/ the horridly mismatched eyes around here lately?

Ever wonder how financial experts could lead the world over the economic cliff?

Why, no, Nick, I never did. I didn’t for a minute think it had anything to do w/ “experts,” as opposed to the “wisdom of crowds.” (Does he get to that one? ‘Cause I’m not reading any MOAR!) I figured it was simply blinding avarice. You have a better excuse for Wall Street?

Unavailable for comment.

Struth. If you can pervert Berlin’s intellectual-style distinction between Specialists and Generalists into an ideologue / pragmatist dichotomy, then the sky’s the limit — WHATEVER ferkin’ distinction you feel like making, you might as well cite him to show that your dichotomising skill is a sign of intellect. “As my good friend Sir Isaiah Berlin said about period-inside-the-quotes people versus period-after-the-quotes people,…”

To never see one’s reflection in the mirror… What a strange world Kristof lives in.

So… Kristof is a furry?

Exactly.

He a hedge-fox furry?

To never see one’s reflection in the mirror… What a strange world Kristof lives in.
If the present example is any guide, the problem is more that Kristof sees his reflection in everything, whether it was intended as a mirror or not.

I don’t want to waste too much time defending Kristof, but the Isaiah Berlin reference and the hedgehog / fox distinction are from the Expert on Experts he quotes from, Pr. Phillip Tetlock.

The expert on experts is Philip Tetlock, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His 2005 book, “Expert Political Judgment,” is based on two decades of tracking some 82,000 predictions by 284 experts. The experts’ forecasts were tracked both on the subjects of their specialties and on subjects that they knew little about.

The result? The predictions of experts were, on average, only a tiny bit better than random guesses — the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board.

“It made virtually no difference whether participants had doctorates, whether they were economists, political scientists, journalists or historians, whether they had policy experience or access to classified information, or whether they had logged many or few years of experience,” Mr. Tetlock wrote.

Indeed, the only consistent predictor was fame — and it was an inverse relationship. The more famous experts did worse than unknown ones. That had to do with a fault in the media. Talent bookers for television shows and reporters tended to call up experts who provided strong, coherent points of view, who saw things in blacks and whites. People who shouted — like, yes, Jim Cramer!

Mr. Tetlock called experts such as these the “hedgehogs,” after a famous distinction by the late Sir Isaiah Berlin (my favorite philosopher) between hedgehogs and foxes. Hedgehogs tend to have a focused worldview, an ideological leaning, strong convictions; foxes are more cautious, more centrist, more likely to adjust their views, more pragmatic, more prone to self-doubt, more inclined to see complexity and nuance. And it turns out that while foxes don’t give great sound-bites, they are far more likely to get things right.

This was the distinction that mattered most among the forecasters, not whether they had expertise. Over all, the foxes did significantly better, both in areas they knew well and in areas they didn’t.

This is not exactly a view complementary to the establishment punditariat. You know, the ones who gather together all the Daniel Pipes-style ‘experts’ to talk about the Middle East and how we should definitely be right on the edge of bombing Iran if not doing it right now, or the ‘experts’ on economics to declare that the stock market going down surely means that Obama is a failure.

And, really, people across the ideological spectrum, including us fringe crazy freak lefto-anarcho-nutbags, have been calling for something like this for years:

So what about a system to evaluate us prognosticators? Professor Tetlock suggests that various foundations might try to create a “trans-ideological Consumer Reports for punditry,” monitoring and evaluating the records of various experts and pundits as a public service. I agree: Hold us accountable!

What Kristof probably wouldn’t want done is to have his views on Sudan / Darfur examined in this light, given his absolute commitment to both defining the activities as genocide and for Western-backed military intervention which — like the Iraq war he opposed — is agreed by most experts and people living there alike to cause a horrible situation to get even worse.

I really don’t think this column is a defense of establishment centrism. Establishment ‘centrism’ (within the forever center-hawk / right wing consensus of the major corporate news producers) depends upon the cult of the Expert, the Insider Who Knows Things.

Without such implied knowledge and reverential worship of supposed expertise, they’d have a harder time selling the flatly ridiculous. (‘Banking laws from the Great Depression era are so luddite! Heck, it’s 1999! Let’s get rid of ’em and then we’ll sail into Future Happy Financial Fun Times forever!!! All the Kool Kids say we should! Listen to Larry Summers! He knows!’)

The more famous experts did worse than unknown ones. That had to do with a fault in the media.
Heh. Dunning-Kruger Syndrome by Proxy.

the Isaiah Berlin reference and the hedgehog / fox distinction are from the Expert on Experts he quotes from
So although Kristof lays claim to Berlin as his favourite philosopher, he still gives more credence to Tetlock’s misunderstanding of Berlin’s argument than to his own reading. Tetlock is, after all, an Expert.

So although Kristof lays claim to Berlin as his favourite philosopher, he still gives more credence to Tetlock’s misunderstanding of Berlin’s argument than to his own reading. Tetlock is, after all, an Expert.

Yes. But then, Tetlock himself predicted that Experts were no more likely to be right than non-experts, and those Experts championed by the media even less so.

It’s an ouruboros of irony.

Of course, Kristof never really said he read or understood Berlin, just that Berlin was his favorite.

If we’re looking for specific examples to prove Kristoff’s point, we might start with Thomas Sowell, AKA “Exhibit A”, who has popped up just this morning in the OP-ED section of our local Wall Street Journal wannabe rag the Springfield (MA) Republican, blatting on for the third week running about how our economic crisis was brought on by poor people getting into mortgages they couldn’t afford, banks being forced at gunpoint by the eeevil gummint to lend money to poor people, and Liberals scapegoating the rich in order to curry favor with…you guessed it…the poor. Of course, Sowell, as The Official Black Conservative Curmugeonly Contrarian, has a niche to protect.

We’re gonna look scary when we come out today. Hopey McChange better have his teleprompter ready.

Learning how to think.

Learning how to think?

Learning how to motherfucking THINK!!1!!!evelynty!!1!!

It’s. Your. Fucking. “Job.” You. Pedantic. Asshole.

You certainly don’t contribute anything else worthwhile to a society careening off a cliff you so blithely led it to with your soft bullshit “consensus” politics.

You’re paid exorbitant sums of money to think about problems.

Now you’re saying you need to learn how?

That’s what we all did in college when we sat around the disc smoking industrial quantities of dope while trying to figure out if an entire universe existed in an atom on our fingernail (it doesn’t).

Then, when adulthood came calling, we all wised up and now sit around smoking industrial quantities of dope trying to figure out sane solutions to the increasing insanity peddled by overpaid fuckwads like yourselves in the hope that you too might be let into the bacchinal of booze, broads and billions.

Judging by your photos, it ain’t happening for the lot of you “pundits.”

The stupid has been exposed for years by DFHs all across the spectrum, from economists to intelligence analysts to physicians.

You. Chose. Not. To. Listen.

Hate to break it to you, but there’s not that much thinking involved when cold, hard reality reveals your entire thought process to be bullshit and the light of reason illuminates the fact that people will do and say anything for money.

Your worthless ilk more so than anyone.

The AIG guys are saints compared to you Kristofs. At least they they look in the mirror and see the hedgehog.

You Kristofs are masturbatory, hallucinatory mandacities, seeing foxes where only hedgehogs exist.

Suck. On. That.

The best example of the awe that an “expert” inspires is the “Dr. Fox effect.” It’s named for a pioneering series of psychology experiments in which an actor was paid to give a meaningless presentation to professional educators.

Afterward, those in attendance were given questionnaires and asked to rate “Dr. Fox.” They were mostly impressed. “Excellent presentation, enjoyed listening,” wrote one. Another protested: “Too intellectual a presentation.”

Mathematical game theory as applied to physicial education. So that was what Colin Powell was talking about at the U.N. on 02/05/2003.

I’m, like, a million billion times smarter than Mr. OS Ptosis there.

He might want to get that looked at…

20 eyes in my head
20 eyes in my head
20 eyes in my head
They’re all the same, they’re all the same

When you’re seeing 20 things at a time
You just can’t slow things down, baby
When you’re seeing 20 things in your mind
Just can’t slow things down

Then all those eyes
They’re just crowding up your human face
Then all those eyes
Take an overload

20 eyes in my head
20 eyes in my head
20 eyes in my head
They’re all the same, they’re all the same

I prefer to think of geopolitical analysis in terms of the mole vs. vole dichotomy. The mole viewpoint is close to the ground, making allowances for small variations in conditions. On the other end of the spectrum, the vole is using his sight advantage high in the tree and rapidly tapping his little beak on the wood to dig out information…what? shit.

I find it funny that backers of BO have the audacity to attack someone for being a clueless lightweight. Seeing as they backed an unqualified, clueless lightweight for President mostly on the basis of white liberal guilt and MSM brainwashing.

BTW, GDP plunged 6.3% in the last quarter.

Makes sense. The stock market and corporations stopped trying to make a profit back in September, heh.

Aw, cute, the righties are still crying because Obama whooped their asses and only the typical ignorant bastion of white Southerners don’t approve of his work.

They’re really going to start peeing their pants when we actually begin putting the Bush Jr. catastrophe behind us.

Therefore I encourage you all to make as much noise as you can right now. No one outside the dumbass brigades in the reactionary redneck territories gives a damn, but we want you to know that you gave it your all a’for’in you get your asses whooped again.

HAVE YOU SEEN THESE GDP NUMBERS, LIBERALS? THEY’RE CERTAINLY…. SOMETHING….

“BTW, GDP plunged 6.3% in the last quarter.”

I want to go on record in saying that feeding trolls is not a good idea.

But sometimes the troll is so motherfucking stupid that its claims need to be rebutted in order to keep the earth from spinning off its axis due to the gravity of the particular stupid of the particular troll.

The last quarter for which data are available is the final quarter of 2008, entirely under the previous (p)resident George W. Bush’s administration.

Even in “facts,” they are in stupid.

No matter what subject Kristof ostensibly writes about it’s really all about Kristof. He once did a story about forced prostitution in Cambodia and somehow made it about what a great guy he is.

“The last quarter for which data are available is the final quarter of 2008, entirely under the previous (p)resident George W. Bush’s administration.”

But everyone knew BO would win since late September, and his proposals (big government, higher taxes, more regulation) put fear and uncertainty into the market place.

Great. Another ‘spoof’ troll. Hey — it’s not funny. Please stop thinking it is.

Ahh yes, the big GDP hit at the end of 2008 was because “everyone knew SOCIALESTEST OBAMMY WHAMMY LENIN was going to win” and had nothing to do with that thing with the banks and such.

Troll is dropping DFH bait. Don’t take the brown acid, man! God knows where it’s been.

Kristof fails to take the next step in his argument, which is “Stop me before I kill again!” He points out that there is a class of pundits (which might or might not include himself) that is little more likely to be correct in their assertions than random pedestrians at the intersection of High Street and International Boulevard. With that in mind, let us draw the obvious conclusion for him, and cease to purchase the paper that employes him, preferring instead to venture into East Oakland to ask our neighbors their opinions.

At least you’ve got a chance of hearing something original on International Boulevard.

Ahh yes, the big GDP hit at the end of 2008 was because “everyone knew SOCIALESTEST OBAMMY WHAMMY LENIN was going to win” and had nothing to do with that thing with the banks and such.

Which is why the stock market is up today, after announcement of said news.

Which is central to his point.

Which is, PENIS.

Hey, DocAmazing, another Oaklander!

“Oakland, where the weak are killed and eaten.”

While Kristof is a smug self-aggrandizing prick of Epic proportions – for a guy with a regular op-ed column in any major media outlet, he’s actually not that bad.

Yeah, yeah – grading on a curve. Damning with faint praise. Even the most brilliant pooh-flinging monkey is still a pooh-flinging monkey.

Indeed, the one thing he’s crowing about here – well when you read it, it’s pretty fucking shitty. It’s actually a classic “competence dodge” maneuver – but here’s the thing – it’s dated Aug. 27, 2002.

And although he didn’t get to the important points until #3 and #5, he did eventually get to them.

Two (2) things:

1) Berlin didn’t invent the hedgehogs and foxes game. It had been around a long long time, he just took the concept and ran with it in one of the 20th century’s best essays.
2) Anyone whose “favorite philosopher” is Berlin should know that the entire point of his essay was that the hedgehog/fox dichotomy was insufficient to categorize truly nuanced thinkers like Tolstoi (who famously was a fox who imagined himself a hedgehog).

I am a schnauzer who imagines himself a different schnauzer.

I’m a PENIS who imagines himself a PENIS.

I am a turd who imagines himself a stool.

Kristof doesn’t know how to think. Specifically, he doesn’t know how experts think about their subject of expertise.

First, the expert learns as much as possible about the subject. Learns, as in knows all about it, understands it in depth, keeps up with the latest information. (That’s what makes her an expert.)

Then, the expert formulates a hypothesis about some aspect of the subject that is not well understood, or that she thinks has been misinterpreted.

Then, the expert seeks information that supports or disproves that hypothesis. That might be through experiment, or literature research, or research “on the ground.”

Then, the expert shares her findings with other experts and sees what criticism or support comes from her colleagues.

Then, the expert might make some public announcement of the hypothesis and an estimate of its validity.

Otherwise, when asked for her opinion on a subject in her area of expertise, she may offer her best informed view of that subject.

The expert does not go on TV or write to the NYT and blather about shit she knows little or nothing about in order to be admired by other “experts” who ceaselessly opine about things they know nothing about.

Kristof’s “experts” aren’t foxes or hedgehogs, they’re Ignoramamuses.

It’s not a misunderstanding of Berlin on Tetlock’s part — it’s a deliberate and careful appropriation of useful terms, for a different argument, that Berlin had used. Whatever massive flaws Kristof might have, you clearly haven’t read Tetlock — and really, really ought to. Your takedowns are usually funny, but this one is painful & embarrassing. Reading that book should be a prerequisite for commenting publicly about politics.

fellow: fair enough. you’re right, i’ve never read tetlock, but i will. i was under the impression that it was kristof mis-reading berlin, or rather not reading any of berlin at all beyond the jacket blurb.

hedgehogs are Manichean, loudmouth hacks like Jim Cramer; meanwhile, the foxes are sensible and centrist like… yes, like Nick Kristof

Fuckin’ furries.

Professor Tetlock suggests that various foundations might try to create a “trans-ideological Consumer Reports for punditry,” monitoring and evaluating the records of various experts and pundits as a public service. I agree: Hold us accountable!

Where do you want it, in the belly or the head?

The only ones who can truly hold pundits accountable are the HR staff of major media, & since even signal failures (see Kristol, William) can rely on their connections, outrageousness & gift-o’-the-gab to wangle endless gigs, methinks Lyle Lovett’s long lost clone is talking out of his arse.

http://www.counterpunch.org/tripp06302004.html

prosecution rests comfortably.

What’s w/ these people w/ the horridly mismatched eyes around here lately?

Yeah, he’s got that Wes Vernon look- and to think, these are the headshots they picked to post.

As funny as the cross-eyed pic at the top of the post is, the “real” pic on his NYT page is funnier – because it’s the one he chose himself, and he either looks stoned, or like he just lifted a cheek and it felt so-o-o good.

It’s actually Hedgehogs/Foxes/Intestinal Worms

Good thoughts, but caution isn’t necessarily “conservative” in the American political sense, and certainly movement conservatives are not cautious. Conservatism is more about defending the existing power structure than a habit of mind. In modern conservatism, caution is an excuse, not a reason for inaction.

I dunno. I have trouble being too hard on Kristof–he’s done a lot more than anyone else with a position like his to raise awareness of Darfur, among other things. That really outweighs any wishy-washyness on philosophical matters, at least by my sights.

What the hell is this? Actual, direct, fairly-stated and well written argumentation? I don’t come here to be confronted by that kind of thing. I am offended.

HOLD US ACCOUNTABLE! Accept for that anthrax libel case:

http://which-ways-up.com/2009/03/about-the-same-length-nicholas-d-kristof/