Great Moderation

2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

When Lysenkoism had to be dismantled it fell to physicists (eg, Kapitsa & Sakharov). To whom will fall the theory of the 'great moderation'?

11:41 PM · Dec 16, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

New Topic: "What's your vision of true academic freedom?" [Asks @Philip_Girvan.]

8:04 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

An old joke about the diference between the Soviet and US constitutions. Both give freedom to dissent. The US gives freedom the day after.

8:10 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom is about making secure heroes out of Margot O'toole, Doug Prasher & Nassim Taleb instead of pushing them to the periphery.

8:17 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom is freedom to invite a senior colleague to self-copulate for inserting himself before your name on YOUR paper..and survive.

8:22 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom comes from the academic *obligation* to schedule lectures if you have even the possibility of strong disruptive results.

8:24 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom entails a right for a non-expert theorist of high ability to cross boundaries and live on merit without seeking permission.

8:27 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom is the insulation from threat or want to continue in good standing for *any* and *all* contributions & reasoned dissent.

8:31 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

What few people admit is that opposing "String Theory", "The Great Moderation", "Scientist Shortages" etc...leads to excommunication.

8:37 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

This was best put by @BretWeinstein: "Selection is to be feared only when just individuals are prevented from returning costs."

8:48 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So @ahaspel asks what institutional reforms are needed (which was where I was headed when a birthday party occured in physical reality).

10:55 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

First of all, I am focused primarily on science. If universities can't provide academic freedom, science needs to move homes.

11:42 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Next: Basic research in science is a public good (inexhaustible and inexcludible). Therefore we need higher levels of public funding.

11:43 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

To maintain academic freedom we need to move resources from what is falsely called 'scientific training' to the compensation of researchers.

11:48 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

To get strong individuals, our target for researchers should be something like MA by 21-22 PhD by 25-26, permanent job by 26-28 (approx.).

11:57 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Graduate training is actually much shorter than assumed. Typically one is a graduate 'student' in year 1,2 of a PhD and working thereafter.

12:04 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Raising PhDs should be Eusocial. Giving students to PI's in a 1 on 1 relationship is like parking choir boys with priests. Better in theory.

12:06 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

We must also fund entirely different sorts of people. Without Huxleys, Grossmans, & Hardys you don't get Darwins, Einsteins, & Ramanujans.

12:14 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

A central point: scientists are supposed to be K-selected but universities are hell bent for leather to r-select PhDs.

Yet that's insane.

1:40 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Research & Teaching in Universities are as perfectly linked as Skiing & Shooting in the Biathalon: tenuously for all but Professors / Finns.

1:53 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Last point for now: Freedom for academics is precisely freedom from academics. A real marketplace of ideas beats the pants off peer review.

1:59 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Something occurs to me. If you've never had reason to test your own academic freedom, you may have absolutely no idea what animated me.

1:55 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

On May 23, 2003 an extraordinary talk at NAS called “Exactly Backwards: Scientific Manpower Theory” was given.There is no record of this.

2:29 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The talk was so extraordinary that it was repeated again at NAS 11 days later on June 3, 2003. Again there is no meaningful record of this.

2:33 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The talk presented evidence to the National Academy of Sciences that NAS & @NSF partnered to manipulate markets over scientist salaries.

2:38 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Now ask yourself why would @NSF be trying to weaken American scientists? Why would NAS help? How would NSF dependent scientists self-defend?

8:11 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Gauge theoretic economics interest has come recently from @mathpunk @dabacon @diffeomacx @riemanmzeta @tylercowen @ahaspel etc... Loving it.

3:02 AM · Dec 21, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I should say that Gauge theoretic economics is also all about academic freedom, quashed as it was by the rennegade Boskin Commission idiocy.

3:11 AM · Dec 21, 2009

2010

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

T. Geithner 2010: "Welcome to the Recovery!" http://nyti.ms/aItmzd T. Geithner 2004: "Welcome to the Great Moderation!" http://bit.ly/anJ3Ax

7:50 PM · Aug 3, 2010

2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Something is becoming clearer to me. There‘s an academic “disappeared” class: for every massive expert failure (e.g. “the great moderation”, “WMD”, dietary fat) those who best called it generally can’t be fully seated at the table afterward & we’re stuck w the enabling ‘experts’.

3:31 PM · Dec 19, 2017

2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Except that our institutional mainstream is *pure* fringe:

FreeTrade w/o Kaldor Hicks Transfers
“Great Moderation”
Student Loans w/o Bankruptcy
Employer Tethering of H1B
Invasion of Iraq for WMD
Multimillionaire ex-Civil Servants
Black Incarceration
Etc.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/paypal-ceo-grapples-with-fringe-groups-11551016800

9:46 PM · Feb 24, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I know of no truly working profession.

Medicine: broken. Law: broken. Research: broken. Banking: broken. Mgmt consulting: broken.

You’ll say “STEM, Tech and CS FTW losers!! Woot!!”

And I’ll whisper “Bro, thou dost protest way way too much.” Me thinks.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/columbia-had-little-success-placing-english-ph-d-s-on-the-tenure-track-alarm-followed-and-the-university-responded/

3:11 AM · Sep 3, 2019

Noah Smith

@Noahpinion

How are we still such a rich country, then? Apparently having every institution in the country be "broken" isn't that catastrophic??

3:16 AM · Sep 3, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I didn’t know you did impressions! Not really sure. Guessing Timothy Geithner explaining the great moderation of pre-2007? Marty Feldstein on laissez faire? Greenspan on self correcting markets? Brad Delong on NAFTA? Madoff on investing? Krugman on internet commerce? I give. Who?

5:21 AM · Sep 3, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

C’mon Noah. Enough.

5:25 AM · Sep 3, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

People tell me that news has now become commercial and that stories are simply constructed to sell papers/get clicks. This is just nonsense.

Nothing would get clicks, boost circulation or sell papers for a NYT/CNN/NPR like aggressively getting to the bottom of the Epstein story.

1:20 PM · Sep 5, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

As I learned uncovering an immigration conspiracy to use visas to tamper with the free market for STEM labor by our national science complex, no news organization is trying to sell us the actual true stories that move news product organically. The stories we want are held back.

1:20 PM · Sep 5, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

News is a lot like college admissions: it’s an insiders game. We know it’s rigged but can’t quite figure out how.

Why take that kid/run that story? Why do you consistently have zero interest in the most interesting kids/stories?

We’re just now learning *how* rigging works.

1:20 PM · Sep 5, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Take the current totally synthetic & transparent push for “authoritative sources”. Such sources would be the ones warning in 2005 that the “Great Moderation” was a lie & that a crash loomed. Someone like @nntaleb. Yet they mean the opposite. They mean cheerleaders like @nytimes.

1:29 PM · Sep 5, 2019

2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

1/ Let me say more clearly what I’ve been intimating. I am suspecting we may risk a colossal public health disaster because we have a terrible paternalistic expert public health culture of ‘managing’ and ‘nudging’ populations. And also lying to control public panic & shirk duty.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

2/ In essence we developed a culture of magical thinking ‘experts’ who should have been keeping a deeper system for “bottleneck events”, but who for ages have been focused on luck-based “efficiency” because for the longest time our luck was amazing. Hence fragility is everywhere.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

3/ These folks are our expert class in all areas: finance, policing, firefighting, etc. and they don’t plan for suddenly correlated needs. They don’t really plan for disasters. They say they do, but they lie to themselves. And then us. Thus we don’t have depth to handle crisis.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

4/ These people do not generally want to level with us. So they send 2 messages mixed together:

A) Don’t overreact/panic and don’t blame us. Take personal responsibility and you will be fine.

B) Follow our draconian instructions as if this Armageddon. Martial law minus epsilon.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

5/ So many smart agentic people are unnecessarily bewildered because the message is meant for the masses who the elites treat as children. What I surmise is that people in the know think this may be much much worse than they’ve leveled with us about. Hence the severe reaction.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

6/ Many are now worried about an under focus in official communication on the threat to young people in terms of morbidity & permanent or long term loss of function. But we aren’t hearing much about that yet. We are being told to take personal responsibility for expert failure.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

7/ So don’t touch your face or go outside and you’ll be fine because we don’t have close to the beds, reagents, oxygen and masks that actual experts who deal with tail risk would have *insisted* upon in a correlated need event. And do note the word ‘recovered’. Are they 100%? Ha.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

8/ I think the subtext is: “We, your experts, massively screwed you all. But you’ll panic if you hear how bad this could get. So let’s play a game called ‘just use common sense and a little martial-law-lite’ and we may not lose too many of us to what is a very serious threat.”

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

9/ So the “don’t panic” message disguises the “we experts *massively* screwed up & know a lot of things that are potentially terrifying that we are not fully openly sharing w/ you yet.” just like the financial crisis in 2008. Hence the number of people saying “it’s just the flu.”

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

10/ This has been my message: “Stop calming us down and sugar coating. You *experts* take the personal responsibility on that you dole out to us and fire yourselves if you downsized our emergency reserve requirements to make quick efficiency gains anytime in the last 40 years.”

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

11/ In short, we have the wrong expert class and they are likely now finally telling us through their *actions* how serious the risk may be. My advice: toughen up & stop listening to public-health-speak wherever and whenever it conflicts with drastic actions you see being taken.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

12/ If you‘re young, think about recovery differently. Think about partial recovery that may never come fully back. Push government for answers on what reserves we have & how we can all pitch in to get depth back that has been removed for profit under efficiency & globalization.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

13/ I know many agentic technology folks who would leap at the chance to solve problems. People of deep creativity and heroic resolve. Push government to stop with the Public health BS, level with us, and call up the science & tech geeks to leap into action as a brain trust.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

14/ I’m sorry but I‘ve been afraid to think this aloud. This is a second version of 2008. Same stupid mindset. The last many years have been a health version of the so-called “great moderation”. Take new draconian measures as the most likely indicator of the scale of the failure.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

15/ In short, start tuning out exoteric public health if you have the ability to tune in to esoteric communication between the experts now scrambling to wake up from their failure. If the mixed messages are making you stupid, turn off the audio meant to calm you & watch actions.

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

End/ I thank several people who I may name later for contributing. As always, my colleague @nntaleb has made versions of these points his life’s mission. That’s not called being an asshole. That’s called heroism. But, I grant you, sometimes they look very similar. Even to me. 🙏

8:17 AM · Mar 17, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I didn’t follow “Flatten the curve!”

I can’t grasp the mask instructions.

I don’t grok “Herd Immunity.”

I don’t follow the “It’s not the Wuhan Lab!” logic.

I don’t get the vaccine target dates.

NB: I also didn’t get “The great Moderation”, NAFTA or “The STEM Labor Shortage”.

3:33 AM · May 15, 2020

CNN Breaking News

@cnnbrk

The CDC has released six "decision trees" aimed at helping businesses, communities, schools, camps, day cares and mass transit decide on whether it's safe to reopen https://www.cnn.com/webview/us/live-news/us-coronavirus-update-05-14-20#h_621046cd0ac22fb4e65953265da78130

10:20 PM · May 14, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Here’s the thing: I think this is all proxy speak. I don’t think any of this is real. No one is making real sense.

We‘re simply repeating incantations to each other. This isn’t science or normal public health. This is what you do when you are pretending too hard to be competent.

3:33 AM · May 15, 2020

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So women of color are above white males? And immigrants increasingly voted for Trump? And WHO lied about Masks? And the Fed Lied about The Great Moderation?

Let’s be honest: no authoritative institutions are reliably honest. There are no authoritative institutional sources left.

2:59 AM · Dec 24, 2020

2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Vaccines are not 100% safe.

Climate science is not simply “settled science”.

The COVID virus may well have come from the Wuhan Lab.

Not everything @JamesOKeefeIII publishes is automatically false.

@AndrewYang was never covered fairly by @msnbc.

Masks help.

Your move AP.

6:51 PM · Jan 17, 2021

AP

@AP

Podcasts rife with misinformation remain on social platforms like Apple and Google as extremists exploit a loophole left after the tech companies cracked down on other mediums. https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-conspiracy-theories-media-misinformation-social-media-b7bb0ace8a617af733357f6ee15aca03

8:37 PM · Jan 15, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

If you want to discuss cloud formation and non-linearity in climate models, or the fact that even pure water isn’t 100% safe, or the issues in determine COVID’s origin, you are welcome to come through the “Loophole” that is my podcast.

You simplistic corporate sons of bitches.

6:55 PM · Jan 17, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@jason_pontin @JamesOKeefeIII @AndrewYang @MSNBC Ok. The “overwhelming consensus” on the etiology of ulcers? Economists on The “Great Moderation”?

I mean I thought that the idea of Pentagon videos of UFOs was total bullshit.

Life just isn’t about consensus. And overwhelming does nothing for this American STEM PhD.

6:59 PM · Jan 17, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

A weird way to describe String Theory, Neoclassical Economics, Critical Theory, The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, Public Health, Trust & Safety, Mainstream Media, The Fed, Peer Review, The Great Moderation, Cancel Culture and Political Polling...but ya know what? He’s right. It works!

Neil deGrasse Tyson

@neiltyson

Evidence you might be in a Cult::

When you stop thinking for yourself and you’ve empowered a select few others in your group to do your thinking for you.

3:12 PM · Jan 19, 2021

9:51 AM · Jan 20, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Student Debt, PATRIOT Act, Diversity & Inclusion Oaths, Rollback of Mandatory Requirement, Epstein Suicide, Andrew Yang primary coverage, 1619 Project, Coordinated Bans by Tech Platforms, University Tuition Hike Explanations, STEM worker shortages despite wage mechanism..

#GOLD!

9:59 AM · Jan 20, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Thanks for the invitation. I can try to explain my concern.

There really *is* a problem w MAGA, Trump, Qanon & conspiracy theories running rampant. And it will result in death & destruction if it spins out of control.

However it is being fueled by those who claim to fight it.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

CBR_wick

@CBR_wick

Hi @EricRWeinstein. Can you please explain to the public why you would be preemptive like this in a way that seems to contradict your value system? 🙏

12:42 AM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The entire war over fact checking is a war of 2 low resolution teams.

One team wants absolute freedom to spread wild eyed theories that just about everything is a psyop or a false flag.

The other team wants to impose institutional consensus reality on everyone via media & tech.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Unfortunately, I can’t live under either. So each of the warring parties thinks I’m against them & for the other team. In their mentalities if you aren’t on their simplistic team you are, de facto, working for the other side. There’s no basic concept of *responsible* heterodoxy.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

No the Freemasons do not run everything on behalf of pedophile reptilians who faked Sandy Hook with crisis actors.

Yes there are/were conspiracies behind Epstein, H1B, @MSNBC, PPE, climate science, the “Great Moderation”, Great Reset...everywhere institutions want a “consensus”.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Having spent a good portion of my 20s at Harvard, I know *exactly* how this game works. Our betters sit down and try to figure out how to control others behind closed doors. They see themselves as the intrinsically enlightened people who need to do the thinking for all of us.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

When they wanted to cut our Social Security payments & raise our taxes they opted to try to change the CPI rather than pass legislation. When they wanted to pay less for scientists they knew to keep *silent* about NSF Labor Shortage claims even though such shortages don’t exist.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

These are the folks who tell you “masks don’t work” rather than “save masks for doctors as we forgot to restock them and moved all manufacturing to China like morons”. They will then spin on a dime to tell you “Only bad dumb people don’t wear masks”. This is the worst of Harvard.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So I don’t want Alex Jones and Qanon nor do I want @TwitterSafety, @msnbc and @Harvard. I see them as very different forms of the same thing: people who want to take away our ability to see clearly.

And, I assure you, @Harvard tries to paint anyone it can’t control as dangerous.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So, my belief is that anyone who rejects/questions Davos, Consensus Reality, Institutional Narrative, Public Health Campaigns, High Immigration, Peer Review, Primary Election Coverage, Trust & Safety...will be treated as Alex Jones sooner or Later.

This is Managed Reality ™.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I cannot live in Managed Reality ™ because I think it defeats the purpose of being a human being. It negates being an American. It abdicates responsibility for our children.

I have defeated Harvard about half the times we have fought. How? Because they just aren’t that good.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Managed Reality ™ has a weak spot. It’s not run by our A-team anymore. Fauci isn’t Francis Crick. Biden isn’t Elon. Janet Yellen isn’t Satoshi.

In general, the A-Team is going independent because tech/media/Ed are enforcing way too much conformity through personal destruction.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So why am I worried?

Well, I’ve been trying to save the institutions. It’s probably doomed, but almost no one is trying to do what I do: rescue the institutions from their death spiral by reinserting their critics in positions of prominence (eg Chomsky at MIT).

Hence my fear.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

If I were a tech guy I’d retreat into wealth. If I were a professor I’d shut up and collect my salary with job security. If I was a politician or journalist I’d follow the other sheep.

But I’m a science guy, an American and a dad. And I want my kids to have a particular future.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Thanks.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The Year is 2005. A tiny number of heretics are yelling that the entire economics profession & all major central bankers are wrong.

“There is no Great Moderation. All the ‘Experts’ are wrong. They have built a financial time bomb.”

Q: Would Twitter ban & downrank the heretics?

4:56 PM · Feb 22, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I was one of them. So was @nntaleb. I remember Nassim being publicly ridiculed by the most prestigious people in finance at Cannes.

@jack: Would @TwitterSafety know that everything was flipped? That the bad guys were the Fed and the Professors. The good guys were the gadflies??

4:56 PM · Feb 22, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Jack: your team is failing. You are endangering us all by confusing dissenters with safety concerns. Wake up. You don’t have the wisdom for Twitter to play god with our ability to talk to each other and suppress heterodox dissent.

This isn’t Twitter’s right as a platform.

4:56 PM · Feb 22, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

My 1st paper on Mortgage Backed Security Valuation problems was peer reviewed in 2001. After 4-5 years of constant “chicken little” style ridicule at conference after conference, I gave up.

Thank god @nntaleb did not. @jack: your team is out of control.

https://risk.net/sites/risk/files/import_unmanaged/risk.net/data/Investor/pdf/june/technical.pdf

5:10 PM · Feb 22, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Sadly, My tweets reach my detractors but not as much my colleagues. But no one knows why certain tweets are hidden. Please RT

Cc: @BretWeinstein @esaagar @joerogan @SamHarrisOrg @jordanbpeterson @MsMelChen @benshapiro @clairlemon @cvaldary @seanonolennon @PiaMalaney @timurkuran

5:15 PM · Feb 22, 2021

Related Pages

• CPI
• Consensus
• The Idealism of Every Era Is the Cover Story of Its Greatest Theft
• What is Occupy Wall Street about?

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