A result the media loves to report is that people who study economics are more likely to react like jerks when asked to respond to game theoretic predicaments like the prisoners’ dilemma. Are economists naturally mean? I can’t rule it out, but I always thought a more likely explanation was that they have just thought about these puzzles ahead of time, and simply respond with a memorised ‘correct’ answer, such as the Nash equilibrium. So I was glad to see
This doesn't show that being cooperative leads to good outcomes, but I suspect you are right that our calculating self underestimates the long term benefits of being nice.
You are idealizing, saying how things should be, but that's not how they are. In the real world economists continuosly make recommendations that may work in the short term but are disastrous in the long term: they aren't exactly at the forefront of environmental/sustainibility activism and most are satisfied to maintaining the status quo (3% growth within neoliberal capitalism, placating the whimsical gods of "the market"), never asking why. There are of course exceptions, but having a few exceptions is not a good enough result for a university level field that calls itself a science.
An analogy: most American deontologists (i.e., religious people) believe "killing is wrong" yet support "just wars." You might say they reject "naive deontology," or you might say they refuse to be consistent when it's inconvenient. Most of us would say the second. Why refuse to apply the same logic to your supposedly not "naive" utilitarians?
I would argue so - if my preferences value nice things for my grand children, then the utility function should give a higher value if that preference is satisfied.
Just because average joe does not understand the concept of utility does not mean it's any different within economics.
This is kind of like my beef with the usual criticism of shareholder value - shareholder value, when evaluated properly, takes other stakeholders into account as well. If customers value sustainable production, the company that satisfies this will ceteris paribus do better than the polluting one... If they don't, well though luck, then probably pollution is the way to go.
Higher than I estimate you think, given that you've asked that question. Note that according to the survey only 22.1% choose torture over dust specks (the naïve utilitarian answer).
I don't know how much emphasis you are putting on the word 'naive' above, but according to the latest survey, 62% of Less Wrongers self-identify as consequentialists (http://lesswrong.com/lw/fp5.... This figure is extremely high relative to the general population, and quite high even relative to the population of professional philosophers (http://philpapers.org/surve....
Does it, every time? I'm not so sure about that. Sure, you could modifiy your definition of utility to account for sustainability issues, but too often that does not happen and that's the source of a lot of friction between economists and average Joe (and also scientists).
Given that cooperation is the right choice in so many situations, this result should perhaps be filed under "people don't know how to use deliberative reasoning to make better decisions than they would make by going with their instincts". (Cf. the standard advice not to "overthink" SAT questions.)
As for economists being jerks, I suspect that's one of those false stereotypes -- like Less Wrongers being (naïve) utilitarians -- that result from a combination of overestimating the homogeneity of a group and misunderstanding salient examples. Economists are also somewhat weird, and people tend to confuse weird people with jerks.
Humans are social animals. In general, when making a quick decision, cooperating with your tribe is a safe default choice. When you have more time to evaluate, you may decide that defection serves your interests better, after all.
Intuition is far; calculation is near; far is generous, near is stingy. Economists are trained to be stingy, and economics attracts near-mode thinkers.
Near-far analysis suggests you might get different results with different branches of economics. Macroeconomics is far relative to microeconomics. My guess is that Paul Krugman is more generous than, say, Robin Hanson.
As TV Tropes puts it, Dumb Is Good.
This doesn't show that being cooperative leads to good outcomes, but I suspect you are right that our calculating self underestimates the long term benefits of being nice.
You are idealizing, saying how things should be, but that's not how they are. In the real world economists continuosly make recommendations that may work in the short term but are disastrous in the long term: they aren't exactly at the forefront of environmental/sustainibility activism and most are satisfied to maintaining the status quo (3% growth within neoliberal capitalism, placating the whimsical gods of "the market"), never asking why. There are of course exceptions, but having a few exceptions is not a good enough result for a university level field that calls itself a science.
An analogy: most American deontologists (i.e., religious people) believe "killing is wrong" yet support "just wars." You might say they reject "naive deontology," or you might say they refuse to be consistent when it's inconvenient. Most of us would say the second. Why refuse to apply the same logic to your supposedly not "naive" utilitarians?
I would argue so - if my preferences value nice things for my grand children, then the utility function should give a higher value if that preference is satisfied.
Just because average joe does not understand the concept of utility does not mean it's any different within economics.
This is kind of like my beef with the usual criticism of shareholder value - shareholder value, when evaluated properly, takes other stakeholders into account as well. If customers value sustainable production, the company that satisfies this will ceteris paribus do better than the polluting one... If they don't, well though luck, then probably pollution is the way to go.
Higher than I estimate you think, given that you've asked that question. Note that according to the survey only 22.1% choose torture over dust specks (the naïve utilitarian answer).
What proportion of consequentialist Less Wrongers are not utilitarians, in your estimate?
"Consequentialist" is not the same thing as "utilitarian"!
I don't know how much emphasis you are putting on the word 'naive' above, but according to the latest survey, 62% of Less Wrongers self-identify as consequentialists (http://lesswrong.com/lw/fp5.... This figure is extremely high relative to the general population, and quite high even relative to the population of professional philosophers (http://philpapers.org/surve....
Does it, every time? I'm not so sure about that. Sure, you could modifiy your definition of utility to account for sustainability issues, but too often that does not happen and that's the source of a lot of friction between economists and average Joe (and also scientists).
Given that cooperation is the right choice in so many situations, this result should perhaps be filed under "people don't know how to use deliberative reasoning to make better decisions than they would make by going with their instincts". (Cf. the standard advice not to "overthink" SAT questions.)
As for economists being jerks, I suspect that's one of those false stereotypes -- like Less Wrongers being (naïve) utilitarians -- that result from a combination of overestimating the homogeneity of a group and misunderstanding salient examples. Economists are also somewhat weird, and people tend to confuse weird people with jerks.
Humans are social animals. In general, when making a quick decision, cooperating with your tribe is a safe default choice. When you have more time to evaluate, you may decide that defection serves your interests better, after all.
A focus on the quantifiable short changes the unquantifiable.
Nice things
Utility encompasses the idea that grand kids should have nice kids too
Intuition is far; calculation is near; far is generous, near is stingy. Economists are trained to be stingy, and economics attracts near-mode thinkers.
Near-far analysis suggests you might get different results with different branches of economics. Macroeconomics is far relative to microeconomics. My guess is that Paul Krugman is more generous than, say, Robin Hanson.