Hay Horace
-
You’ve mentioned Robin Hanson’s views on wasteful medical spending.
I came across his views on the subject maybe 15 years ago or so, perhaps Obamacare was the reason he was talking about it.
I remember finding it very interesting (as he always is) but even then I thought the studies he was relying on had their limitations, not least their age. I think the first was a Rand study from circa 50 years ago, IIRC.
Does he have newer things to point to now? Not asking you to google it, just thought you might remember
-
He's had recent go-arounds with an expert in the field, who started by attempting to rhetorically dunk on him (and his colleague Bryan Caplan). From memory, the expert's quote was something about how he feels bad about criticizing someone who nobody takes seriously, except maybe his friend Bryan, who is also not taken seriously by anybody. But this expert decided to push back on Hanson's lunacy just the same. Hanson engaged, they had a back and forth, and the expert came away with a better and more respectful understanding of Hanson's points, while still maintaining some minor disagreements.
Hanson still refers back to the original argument against our cultural belief in health care, made in Elephant in the Brain. I think he believes it still stands.
He has tweeted about it recently.
And here is the exchange with the expert, who gets just slightly put in his place, IMO. I continue to believe Hanson has a good chance of being remembered by history as an important thinker. Hanson definitely thinks his output warrants that.
-
Scott Alexander isn’t really a health economics expert he’s an old buddy of Robin’s from the self-described but aptly-named Rationalist Community (back when they hung out at Less Wrong). He’s just smart AF and does very deep dives into issues. He’s pretty well respected among a certain type of thinker of which there are many in Silicon Valley.
I think he’s the one that introduced the ‘motte and Bailey’ analogy to an (albeit small and specialized) American audience, quoting the British academic that coined it.
-
By the way he used to blog anonymously though his name was discoverable if you tried. He was fearless and would deeply analyze any topic including verboten things like IQ and group differences. Then the NYT was going to run a hit piece on him as part of their anti-Silicon Valley campaign. He got wind of it and deleted his old blog (‘slate star codex’, like Astral Codex Ten, an anagram of his name).
Then NYT never published the piece because the blog was gone minus a cover piece explaining how shitty the Times reporter was.
Then he ‘cancel proofed’ his life. He quit his institutional position (he’s a phsychiatrist I believe) and started ‘better help’ online. Then he reintroduced his blog under the new name and I believe undeleted his original blog.
