I should also note that there was a Matt Levine article sometime within the last... 5 years? that observed a natural experiment in which some regulation was passed trying to make banks less risky, and a comparison was drawn between traders hired under the old regime but trading under the new regime, and traders hired under the new regime and trading under the new regime. Risky trading, however it was defined, was down compared to before the passage of the legislation. It was even down among the old traders who had been hired under the more pro-risk approach, but among them it was down by trivial levels. Matt Levine draws the inference that yes, incentives can affect the way you perform your job... "by, like, 2%".
I wish I could find the article; I'm having to go off my memory for this.
On the topic of going to see the doctor because you want someone to care about you, rather than because you're hoping to have your health improved...
In China there is a practice of stopping by the hospital for a hookup of intravenous saline solution. It is widely believed that this practice is healthful, and Chinese doctors don't bother telling anyone that it isn't.
I knew a Chinese girl who went to study in the United States. And there was a time she got sick and went to the (American) hospital for some intravenous saline. [As a side note, while this was a response to being sick, it is in general also something that people do while they feel perfectly fine, just because it's "good for your health".]
They told her that saline solution wouldn't do anything for her and the best thing she could do would be to get some rest and recover on her own.
And she posted an angry rant to wechat about how, when she was feeling poorly, the doctors weren't there for her. They made her feel like they didn't care that she was sick!
It didn't seem to matter to her whether or not getting intravenous saline would have helped with her illness. The point was to know that somebody cared about her. Which obviously they didn't.
Thanks! It was a very enjoyable episode for me too. I think 'statistician' fits better than 'rationalist' although many rationalists think of me as one. The difference between myself and many rationalists is approach. It's much easier for me to say that someone is incapable of reason and that it is a design constraint to remove them from power. I get into this a lot with my next guests :>
I should also note that there was a Matt Levine article sometime within the last... 5 years? that observed a natural experiment in which some regulation was passed trying to make banks less risky, and a comparison was drawn between traders hired under the old regime but trading under the new regime, and traders hired under the new regime and trading under the new regime. Risky trading, however it was defined, was down compared to before the passage of the legislation. It was even down among the old traders who had been hired under the more pro-risk approach, but among them it was down by trivial levels. Matt Levine draws the inference that yes, incentives can affect the way you perform your job... "by, like, 2%".
I wish I could find the article; I'm having to go off my memory for this.
On the topic of going to see the doctor because you want someone to care about you, rather than because you're hoping to have your health improved...
In China there is a practice of stopping by the hospital for a hookup of intravenous saline solution. It is widely believed that this practice is healthful, and Chinese doctors don't bother telling anyone that it isn't.
I knew a Chinese girl who went to study in the United States. And there was a time she got sick and went to the (American) hospital for some intravenous saline. [As a side note, while this was a response to being sick, it is in general also something that people do while they feel perfectly fine, just because it's "good for your health".]
They told her that saline solution wouldn't do anything for her and the best thing she could do would be to get some rest and recover on her own.
And she posted an angry rant to wechat about how, when she was feeling poorly, the doctors weren't there for her. They made her feel like they didn't care that she was sick!
It didn't seem to matter to her whether or not getting intravenous saline would have helped with her illness. The point was to know that somebody cared about her. Which obviously they didn't.
Thanks! It was a very enjoyable episode for me too. I think 'statistician' fits better than 'rationalist' although many rationalists think of me as one. The difference between myself and many rationalists is approach. It's much easier for me to say that someone is incapable of reason and that it is a design constraint to remove them from power. I get into this a lot with my next guests :>