
Telling the whole truth in a post-truth environment - zhengiszen
http://oecdinsights.org/2017/02/01/telling-the-whole-truth-in-a-post-truth-environment/
======
alphonsegaston
I think the ultimate success of the reaction to Trump is dependent on the Left
positing a new, viable economic alternative. Neoliberal Capitalism has failed
to create the circumstances necessary for large swathes of the population to
survive, and any attempt to return to it is just going to create the same
crisis of democratic institutions we have now. Marginally cheaper consumer
goods, easy access to opiates, and temp work as an app-directed member of a
servant class can't replace being able to afford a place to live, healthcare,
or to take care of your children.

Right now, I don't see anything like a new vision of the future coming out of
the Left, just (in my view)a justified horror at the direction the country is
heading. I've been trying to think about what something better might look
like, and I hope people more versed in these subjects than I are doing so as
well.

~~~
qnix
If you go look, you will have a hard time picking a 50 year period in history,
where everything was going well, a nice clean "vision" was neatly laid out and
everyone got on board and did their bit. Just ask your parents and
grandparents. It never happened.

And they didn't have to deal with zillion different over-optimized, hyper
efficient propaganda machines pumping fear into the ether 24*7, and they will
still tell you times were chaotic. But they survived and things got better.

~~~
api
You are excluding the middle. It wasn't perfect back then by any stretch, but
it was possible to make a good living and all economic growth and innovation
was not hyper concentrated in less than five unaffordable coastal cities.

If you live in one of these places and have not spent time in the interior you
don't get it.

For an example look into the first, say, ten companies to offer viable home
computers. They were in places like Albaquerqie (MITS), Dallas (Tandy),
Philadelphia (Commodore), Atlanta (Compucolor), Boca Raton (IBM's PC group),
etc. as well as Apple and a few others in the Bay Area. Today they would just
about all be in SF/SV with maybe one token in Seattle.

Everything is like that. Regular jobs leave the interior for other countries
or are replaced by automation, while high end jobs all go to to LA, NYC, SF,
Seattle, and Boston.

I am in LA and grew up in Cincinnati and am as guilty as the next person. It's
hard to swim against a torrent. When I go back there I see people stockpiling
guns and talking about the new record for heroin deaths. Young people talk
about escaping.

This is also bad to a degree for people in rich coastal cities since all this
is driving real estate hyperinflation there. No jobs or unaffordable housing:
pick one.

For average people things have become tangibly worse. It started in the 70s,
accelerated after 2001, and became a visceral downward spiral after 2008.
Trump and Sanders talked about this. Nobody else cares or even sees the
problem.

~~~
breatheoften
Colorado is pretty nice.

You are oversimplifying and by doing so basically disguising an argument that
seems to be that more wealth should be transferred from coastal cities to the
interior.

How about the interior elects some reasonable governments, engages in trying
to educate their populace, put some regulations in so they can build some
decent communities and try to attract talent -- how about the interior starts
trying to compete rather than blaming their woes on the federal government
while seeking to increase their outsized (and poorly managed) federal handouts
(which gets funneled disproportionately toward their tiny economic elite
because of their states rights motivated insistence on the freedom to form
corrupt local governments.)

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>How about the interior elects some reasonable governments, engages in trying
to educate their populace, put some regulations in so they can build some
decent communities and try to attract talent -- how about the interior starts
trying to compete rather than blaming their woes on the federal government
while seeking to increase their outsized (and poorly managed) federal handouts
(which gets funneled disproportionately toward their tiny economic elite
because of their states rights motivated insistence on the freedom to form
corrupt local governments.)

Well, this also requires that the Feds enforce antitrust law.[1]

[1] -- [http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/bloom-
and-...](http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/bloom-and-bust/)

------
zeteo
> we have been happy to rely on economic models that work with comfortingly
> quantitative facts on GDP, income per capita [...] If we go beyond averages
> and GDP per capita and look at the distributional impact of our economic
> decisions for instance, the picture is devastating. Up to 40 percent of
> people [...] have not seen their situation improve in the last decades [...]
> lower income groups accumulate disadvantages

> The NAEC agenda is ambitious, calling for a new growth narrative that
> recognises the complexity of human behaviour and institutions, and calls on
> sociology, psychology, biology, history, and other disciplines to [...]
> build better models to inform economic decisions

So the issue is growing inequality, and the solution is to muddy the waters
with unproven models (potentially mixing dozens of disciplines)? The OECD
collected data on growing inequality all along [1], but apparently they chose
to recommend policies based on GDP averages instead.

There's nothing "post-truth" and "emotional, not rational" about people who
"have not seen their situation improve in the last decades" and "accumulate
disadvantages". What's disconcerting is throwing out the whole concept of
rationality instead of admitting they should have recommended policies based
on different data (which they had).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#Gini_coeffici...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#Gini_coefficients_of_income_distributions)

~~~
ethbro
_> Our “truths” did not capture very relevant dimensions that inform people’s
decisions (including recent political decisions), and particularly those that
are intangible or non- measurable concepts. This is why such important issues
as justice, trust or social cohesion were just ignored in the models. Indeed,
neoliberal economics taught us that people are rational, and that they will
always take the best decisions according to the information they have to
maximize utility._

"Particularly those that are intangible or non- measurable concepts" doesn't
sound like a retreat from rationality to me. It sounds like a belated
acceptance (or more likely, an internal power shift in a debate that's been
going on a while) that their rational models had substantial blind spots.

------
mercurialshark
Sadly "post-truth" rhetoric misses the point entirely and manages to endorse
ignorance of reality.

When was society ever persuaded by "facts" alone? It's more than intellectual
cowardice and naivety - it's lazy thinking.

You still need to convince people that certain facts presented are of such
significance as to supersede preconceived notions, prejudices or personal
opinions.

Throwing a temper-tantrum and feigning shock when people don't agree with you
is like speaking louder at someone who doesn't speak your language. Try
instead to learn how to communicate effectively and persuasively.

~~~
neptr
I don't think the term post truth refers to frustration that society is not
persuaded by your version of truth. I think its refers to the fact that
individuals can intentionally make untrue statements and that these mistruths
catch on and spread. The fact that untrue statements spread through
communities regardless of the ease of refuting them, that easily confirmed
refutations are often disregarded if they come from out groups, and that there
seems to be little to no consequence to spreading mistruths all seem to me to
be factors interesting enough at least for a term to be coined for them.

------
refurb
When did adding "post-" in front of different nouns become a thing? "Post-
money", "Post-rational", "Post-liberty". It never ends.

It just comes across as an attempt at sounding clever by claiming the world
has changed and you're the only one that's realized it.

~~~
codehusker
We currently live in the post-post, of course.

------
Neputys
Sorry, but using such terms as "Populism, the backlash against globalization"
is exactly what I call "deliberate misrepresentation of the facts and
realities".

------
didibus
The real issue is that no one actually cares about others. We're all
pretending like we're trying to find the best system to give everyone equal
opportunity and a better quality of life, but in practice this is not
happening.

Government serves itself, and voters serves themselves.

This is true of Trump and it would have been true of Hilary.

There, I just laid down the whole truth, now what? Can we really escape our
human condition?

~~~
zeroer
Yes. You can die.

~~~
didibus
I'm not really seeing a rebuttal. Are you disagreeing with my axiom that we
are all inherently self-centred and selfish?

If not, I'm actually asking for suggestions as to what societal model could
account for it, and still succeed at providing equal opportunity and enhanced
quality of life for all. I guess I'm open to anything except the
"Savior/Champion will rise" type of models.

~~~
zeroer
I'm not rebutting anything. I mostly agree with you that we have inherent
tendencies to be self-centered and selfish.

I was just giving you the straightforward answer to your question. You asked
if we can escape the human condition. I think it's pretty easy and we'll all
accomplish it; we'll die. That's the escape.

------
omegaworks
Happy to see this sentiment echoed in places with influence. Nancy Pelosi gave
a surprisingly similar answer (quoting the same Adam Smith reference
material!) in her town hall.[0] The gap between rich and poor is widening
massively, the middle is dissolving and they're (finally) acknowledging that
such a process inevitably leads to the destabilization of the entire system.

Whether it's too little, too late remains to be seen.

0\.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MR65ZhO6LGA&ebc=ANyPxKoh0L2swq...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MR65ZhO6LGA&ebc=ANyPxKoh0L2swqxM8qc5wNhhZqiMY3GbhM2-FKfYNS5uyABHlm7qFTE6agt7Q4Vuun_7led7KBKsym9Zl6Tgt-
uCm2CPmoGSew)

~~~
marknutter
Wouldn't globalism be the main cause of the middle class dissolving?

~~~
maxerickson
Depends on whether you think policy could be effective in preventing other
countries from developing and offering cheap exports.

International trade also has a big competitor in mechanization and automation.
For example, big machinery ate up small farms and mining jobs.

------
programminggeek
It's ironic that in a world that teaches and believes in relativism and no
objective knowledge, truth, and morality people are all of a sudden worried
about objective truth.

~~~
KirinDave
I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to, but it is not inconsistent to
suggest that previously held "objective" truths being revealed as social
constructs is not a de-objectivication (forgive me for that) of these concepts
but an acceptance of their reality.

In general, this helps people who want to argue on ideological grounds rather
than hurting them. It's bad for people who want to treat somewhat arbitrary
concepts as objective to stifle debate.

A good example: gender roles vary so much culturally and possess so many
outliers in the data that attempting to argue for an objective ground truth
almost invariably ignores or dismisses numerous counter examples.

~~~
Shubley
The thing is, in a lot of ways those gender roles actually are universal. Not
among individuals, of course, but among societies, there are no exceptions to
these:

"M&F seen as having different natures" "F->M direct child care" "M->F more
competitive" "M->F greater spatial range" etc

Steven Pinker talks about this (and much else) in this speech. Skip to 26:56
for this particular point.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw)

An objective truth doesn't have to apply to every individual without
exception, to be an objective truth. It just has to be a consistent trend. So
M/F differences like the above really are objective truths, the same as "men
are taller than women" or "cougars are more dangerous than goats".

(edit: this is not to say anything _prescriptive_ about what ought to be done;
it's simply a descriptive statement. Of course Pinker covers all this ground;
I recommend the whole talk)

~~~
KirinDave
> An objective truth doesn't have to apply to every individual without
> exception, to be an objective truth.

I agree with this. We can objectively say, for example, that in the US many
women end up as primary care providers for children. We can even note that
because of breastfeeding & postnatal recovery we expect to see women become
primary care providers.

But what I'm hinting at is that a lot of people are using "objective facts" as
a code for extremely prescriptive speech right now on the grounds that the
observation of majority means that that majority is correct, hence my mention
of gender roles.

A lot of criticism of the notion of "post-modern" thought is that it questions
norms previously thought to be purely objective. The degree to which one does
this is of course an individual thing and we need to constantly affirm the
boundary beyond which it no longer makes sense to erode the pretense of
objective truth (e.g., the Sokal paper).

------
kome
oh, OECD, tu quoque! After having been the lapdog to some economicist /
reductionist vision of the world and having contributed to serious damage -
are you waking up? It's too late. And you are still part of the problem, not
of the solutions.

------
enraged_camel
Over the past few decades, we have seen the slogan "a rising tide lifts all
boats" thoroughly debunked.

Indeed, it is possible for macroeconomic measurements to improve without large
segments of the population seeing the fruits of those improvements.

That's why it's incredibly important for political leaders to connect with
people from all walks of life. Bill Clinton understood this very well.
Hillary, unfortunately, did not. She was content with relying on polls and
numbers, which of course could not capture many truths that, by their nature,
cannot be quantified.

~~~
facepalm
Not even sure if that is true, as most measurements seem to be relative, like
"x% are poorer than y%". Even if income has stagnated, it seems possible that
buying power has increased. I guess many measures try to correct for that, but
maybe it is not enough.

I was impressed when I visited a medieval castle, where the luxuries of the
lord included an automatically served table (that is, it would be manually
lifted up from the kitchen). That required a whole castle with who knows how
many employees.

These days, everybody can just Microwave their food, for a few bucks. Even
though (almost) everybody is poorer than the medieval landlord in relative
terms, in absolute terms everybody is richer.

