FET #15: Can a "fuck up levy" stop our experts failing us?
FET #15: Can a "fuck up levy" stop our experts failing us?
We dive into why so much research and policy advice is wrong and the perverse incentives at play in the "expertise industry"
Appears in this episode
The Economist magazine recently wrote about the “worrying amount of fraud in medical research” and the former editor of The BMJ medical journal, Richard Smith, asked if it is “Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?”
Too many designated experts in our society are anything but. They get things wrong, and when they do, they impose enormous costs on others.
Is a “fuck up levy” a solution?
Experts would pay a levy so that when they inevitably screw up we can use the money collected to compensate those who bear the costs. This is the idea that kicks off the conversation this week.
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Theme music: Happy Swing by Serge Quadrado Music under Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC 4.0
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FET #15: Can a "fuck up levy" stop our experts failing us?
Very important topic not only for academia. In my work as a town planner, I’ve found planners have no incentives to speak truth to power. Why would they when it would adversely affect their job or business prospects?
Case in point is the false groupthink that infrastructure charges increase housing prices. No amount of logic will get most planners to look into why this proposition is wrong.
So almost all planners go along with the groupthink.
Providing an ongoing forum for experts of all kinds to provide anonymous feedback on research and policy may help
Brian