This is shockingly comprehensive and valuable; thank you. One minor suggestion is to generate a single-page or PDF version. I manually created one although of course this will go stale:
I think the meta-point is that betting on intellectual ideas is an underused tool in the toolbox of decision making. Endless academic journal debates don't seem to help much in moving people across ideological divides.
For all of those that disagree with his methodology or conclusions, if you can reach him, I recommend putting your money where your mouth is and proposing a different bet with Dr. Caplan.
I see a lot of people in the comments offended by his tone. I see his tone as analogous to a soccer player celebrating after a goal. We should socially encourage such behavior for those who win fair intellectual bets. (Although there is such a thing as unsportsmanly gloating, although I don't think this is such an example.)
The point is that these are bets between people who disagree with each other. They negotiate the data and terms and hopefully learn from the result and change their minds. This is one way to help tune bayesian priors about what ideas and people to trust and investigate further.
Dr. Caplan is a big proponent of betting. Disputes in academic journals are endless and inconclusive. Betting gets people to put their money where their mouth is. I think this is the best part of the economics profession and needs to be applied to more parts of society.
> Second, he never addresses any other value than the unemployment rate as a number (for example, I can easily imagine an "apologist" being uninterested in his bet if they think he might be right about the numbers, but they value the regulation for other reasons). In never addressing their views, he dismisses them as unworthy.
Dr. Caplan reached out to the other economists and they didn't respond (which could have included proposing a different bet with different values). He is very judgy about public intellectuals that don't bet on their claims. I wouldn't call that dismissive because said intellectuals impose massive costs on society if they're wrong. It's not enough to hide behind unquantifiable hopes.
> I know nothing of the people or personalities involved...but this does not give me a good impression of the author. First, he never refers to anyone with a contrary opinion in any way other than "apologist".
Apologist is a bit of a brash word, but it's a possible conclusion if a public intellectual is unwilling to put their ideas to tests and revise if necessary.
He includes a link to data connecting unemployment to unhappiness.
His so-called smugness derives from betting: putting his ideas on the line and winning. I think he's the opposite of smug because he's humble enough to put his ideas to the test. Maybe he gloats, but I think we should socially encourage victors gloating (in fair competitions).
“Science is a noble endeavor, but it’s also a low-yield endeavor,” he says. “I’m not sure that more than a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes and quality of life. We should be very comfortable with that fact.”
Actual quote from Linus as opposed to the click-bait title:
> I still wish we were better at having a standardized desktop that goes across all the distributions. There's been some progress there. I mean, this is not a kernel issue, so this is just more of a personal annoyance how the fragmentation of the different vendors have, I think, held the desktop back a bit. But there has been some progress on that front too with Flatpak and things like that, so I'm still optimistic, but it's been 25 years. It's going to be another few years at least.
It's a short(ish) and somewhat thought-provoking read, although it has the questionable value of most analogies, and is light on details; however, I enjoyed this line:
> One of my biggest personal fears is working in the wrong field to achieve the goal I care about.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jKepii1hL9e-gkAsz906nRtgssz...