New knowledge on a public forum

[CharonY]

18 hours ago, Barmaley said:

Will it be accurate to say that the main reason that people are not trying to discuss important topis that the discussions would not be fruitful since of truth discovery is not achievable through such means as professional public collaborative forum?

Considering that the majority of discussions you found point to an anti-tariff slant, doesn't it suggest that for some topics there is, in fact, consensus? I.e. if there is little contra it is likely that there are simply no good models to support it. That is ultimately how consensus look like. If that is not what you are looking for, could you elaborate?

[Barmaley]

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

Considering that the majority of discussions you found point to an anti-tariff slant, doesn't it suggest that for some topics there is, in fact, consensus? I.e. if there is little contra it is likely that there are simply no good models to support it. That is ultimately how consensus look like. If that is not what you are looking for, could you elaborate?

I realize my initial question may not have been communicated clearly, which likely explains why I didn’t receive insightful suggestions. Let me rephrase it:

In a public forum restricted to qualified experts, is it possible to reach a definitive conclusion—even on a narrowly defined topic—without lingering reasonable doubts? I’ll use Trump’s tariffs as an example of such a focused subject.

Defining Success: The First Hurdle
A logical starting point would be to establish criteria for success. One straightforward proposal might be: Tariffs are successful if they increase the aggregate wealth of the United States. However, critics could argue that since tariffs function as a regressive tax (disproportionately affecting lower-income groups), a scenario might arise where the top 1% grows richer while 5% of Americans face severe deprivation to the point of starvation—even if total wealth rises. Would we still deem this a "success"? Other complexities (too numerous to list here since I suspect that the posts here have allocated a limited space) further complicate the selection of the criteria. Even defining the core objective of the discussion proves difficult, and each tangential issue would branch into exponentially more subdivisions, rendering conclusive agreement unlikely. This, I suspect, is why many discussions are performative—participants engage without expecting resolution.

[CharonY]

50 minutes ago, Barmaley said:

In a public forum restricted to qualified experts, is it possible to reach a definitive conclusion—even on a narrowly defined topic—without lingering reasonable doubts? I’ll use Trump’s tariffs as an example of such a focused subject.

In a narrowly defined topic, for sure. Take medical health experts and ask them whether there is a net benefit of population-wide measles vaccination in terms of overall health burden, you will get very clear answers from actual experts. The reason is that this question is a) anchored on a set of metrics that are well defined (health burden is perhaps a bit vague but is used here as a proxy of a whole range of measures that can be used) b) is based well-understood mechanisms, and c) has a host of both, research as well as empirical data that clearly point at a conclusion.

 

50 minutes ago, Barmaley said:

Defining Success: The First Hurdle
A logical starting point would be to establish criteria for success. One straightforward proposal might be: Tariffs are successful if they increase the aggregate wealth of the United States. However, critics could argue that since tariffs function as a regressive tax (disproportionately affecting lower-income groups), a scenario might arise where the top 1% grows richer while 5% of Americans face severe deprivation to the point of starvation—even if total wealth rises. Would we still deem this a "success"? Other complexities (too numerous to list here since I suspect that the posts here have allocated a limited space) further complicate the selection of the criteria. Even defining the core objective of the discussion proves difficult, and each tangential issue would branch into exponentially more subdivisions, rendering conclusive agreement unlikely. This, I suspect, is why many discussions are performative—participants engage without expecting resolution.

This is not a good example of an attempt at a very narrow space. The issue here is "success". You could instead ask the question: how do tariffs impact aggregate wealth? This could result in much more targeted arguments. Also, while I do not have specific expertise, I doubt that there are many economists who would argue that broad tariffs are somehow going to increase aggregate wealth. The negative impact on the economy are fairly well-known but I have not seen an honest argument how it would increase wealth.

Also, things are usually not a just a simple pro and con, but about what possible mechanisms are there and what the impacts of these issues are. As mentioned already, the more we know, the easier it is to form a consensus. There is no good reason to assume that a consensus can never be formed, we have in fact many of those.

[iNow]

Ask hundreds and you’ll often find consensus, but you’ll also often find a handful of outliers who feel differently. Those individuals are referred to as unrepresentative.