"“Hoover did not handle the depression especially well.”
Hoover followed essentially the same policy as FDR, a rapid increase in federal spending. I think that was a mistake — compare the initially similar episode a decade earlier — but I wouldn't expect you to.
Perhaps I'm not quite following, but tending to promote more of the same doesn't seem like a great reason for understating negatives in general. One then promotes negatives. A kinder gentler world may well be worth the cost, but isn't that a case-specific, category-specific, or, perhaps, severity-specific inquiry and, if so, doesn't the rule of thumb collapse into the middle category of "calibration" -- i.e., go easy on minor negatives, not so much on major ones, let the tone fit the crime, as it were? One could say the same about the humility point, whereby a habit of understatement guards against mistaken overstatement. But might not a habit of calibration with respect to confidence level suffice without simultaneously inviting too many pulled punches?
Perhaps the ultimate message should be to calibrate more sensitively and not just as to the truth of the matter, and not only as to severity/importance and confidence level besides, but as to social context and effectiveness. Even quite accurate negativity well aligned with the importance of the issue is unwelcome in many contexts (e.g., discussions of politics with the otherwise lovely strangers seated at your table on the cruise ship), and, even in appropriate contexts, in can become tiresome and thus ineffectual.
Another thought: rather than understate negatives, foreground positives. I recall reading many a Sunstein book review in the past where the long first section of the review was devoted to explaining the author's points in a generous manner. If you just read the first part, you'd think it was a rave. The second part would then bring the hammer down, you know, but nicely.
My subscription auto-renewed last week. If this is the only Cass's Substack essay I read over the next 12 months, I probably got my money's worth. This is a helpful framework for (a) problem-solving when many voices have to be considered, (b) self-calibration, and (c) who to turn to for advice.
"“Hoover did not handle the depression especially well.”
Hoover followed essentially the same policy as FDR, a rapid increase in federal spending. I think that was a mistake — compare the initially similar episode a decade earlier — but I wouldn't expect you to.
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/two-great-depressions-6b8
Perhaps I'm not quite following, but tending to promote more of the same doesn't seem like a great reason for understating negatives in general. One then promotes negatives. A kinder gentler world may well be worth the cost, but isn't that a case-specific, category-specific, or, perhaps, severity-specific inquiry and, if so, doesn't the rule of thumb collapse into the middle category of "calibration" -- i.e., go easy on minor negatives, not so much on major ones, let the tone fit the crime, as it were? One could say the same about the humility point, whereby a habit of understatement guards against mistaken overstatement. But might not a habit of calibration with respect to confidence level suffice without simultaneously inviting too many pulled punches?
Perhaps the ultimate message should be to calibrate more sensitively and not just as to the truth of the matter, and not only as to severity/importance and confidence level besides, but as to social context and effectiveness. Even quite accurate negativity well aligned with the importance of the issue is unwelcome in many contexts (e.g., discussions of politics with the otherwise lovely strangers seated at your table on the cruise ship), and, even in appropriate contexts, in can become tiresome and thus ineffectual.
Another thought: rather than understate negatives, foreground positives. I recall reading many a Sunstein book review in the past where the long first section of the review was devoted to explaining the author's points in a generous manner. If you just read the first part, you'd think it was a rave. The second part would then bring the hammer down, you know, but nicely.
I believe it is well-calibrated to say that this essay is in the running for the Memorial Andy Rooney Award.
My subscription auto-renewed last week. If this is the only Cass's Substack essay I read over the next 12 months, I probably got my money's worth. This is a helpful framework for (a) problem-solving when many voices have to be considered, (b) self-calibration, and (c) who to turn to for advice.