[FRIAM] “Don’t they have grandchildren?” was The case for universal basic income UBI

[Frank Wimberly]

Did I already post this here?


https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228446085_Simulation_validation_using_Causal_Inference_Theory_with_morphological_constraints#fullTextFileContent
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Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, May 21, 2021, 3:03 PM uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, to be clear, it wasn't (I don't think) Russ' rhetoric but Weintrobe
> via McKibbon. Russ was simply pointing it out to us.
>
> But further, Weintrobe's argument seems to be (I haven't read the book,
> only a couple of reviews of it) a mechanistic explanation for how we in the
> northern hemisphere have become inured to externalities. She's proposing
> neoliberalism (and/or it's ancillary appendages) is causal. It's fine to
> disagree with that. But it's an entirely different thing to propose a
> fact-accumulating, fitted *hull* of a model like Epstein's as equivalent
> ... or even similar in kind.
>
> Whether it's beyond any human's ability to *make* the assertion she made
> is obvious. It is within any human's ability to make such assertions. The
> question is, if we take her hypothesis seriously, how do we *test* it? What
> measures can we take that stand a chance of falsifying this causal role of
> neoliberalism?
>
> And, I think, asking that question ... Can we test it? ... helps
> distinguish between purely descriptive and mechanistic models. If it's your
> claim that Weintrobe is making an untestable hypothesis, that's fine. But
> in order to lift up Epstein's just-so story to the same level as
> Weintrobe's, we'd have to also ask how can we test Epstein's (implicit)
> hypothesis?
>
> So, again, my answer is: No, Epstein's case is unhinged in some crucial
> variables, fragile to the inclusion of ignored facts. And regardless of
> whether Weintrobe's turns out false or too weak, because it's mechanistic,
> isn't fragile in that same way.
>
> On 5/21/21 1:44 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> > I agree with you. It's very challenging to make sense of the world, and
> the human mind is amazing at building generative models of the world and
> those models become the reality for the mind. With the models we can make
> conclusions and explain how the world actually works. Now the clincher, to
> make progress, the conclusions must have clear explanations that are
> independant of the different layers that we used to generate the model to
> get to the conclusion.
> >
> > I repeat, sure, use a complex layered approach to get to an
> understanding. But after you have formed your conclusions, don't rely on
> the complex layered model to explain the phenomena, distil it and get to a
> clear conclusion and back it up with good explanations. Always try to
> verify it using evidence.
> >
> > For example, in the narrative of Russ, it is assumed that they have
> knowledge of the effects of Reagan and Thatcher on the world. I argue that
> it is impossible to have any level of confidence in that. The world is a
> chaotic complex system and we have some knowledge about what different
> actors (eg Reagan and Thatcher) did and what consequently happened, but
> nobody has a clue what the causal relationships were. It is simply
> impossible to know that. Sure, one can speculate, but tag it as
> speculation. ABM generative models show some promise in helping humans to
> understand such complex systems, but it's early days and current ABM models
> are not even close to answer questions like that.
> >
> > I don't know the answers and I speculate it's beyond any human's
> capability to make statements like */“The self-assured neoliberal
> imagination has increasingly revealed itself to be not equipped to deal
> with problems it causes,”/* and have any level of confidence in this. Yes,
> it's a good process to speculate that, but be real and admit that it's only
> speculation and/or the result of a generative model in your mind and not
> rooted in the real world. I tag it as "opinion" and respect the person to
> have that opinion.
>
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
>
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