Gradual Change Messes With Rationality
When situations change gradually, people become boiled crabs
A line of questioning I would often employ while talking about covid early in the pandemic (March/April 2020), whether talking to people either for or against lockdowns and government restrictions, was whether they would change their mind if the death rate changed by a factor of 10 in either direction.
Most of my reasonable friends said that they would. Numbers, they claimed, were very important to their argument about why we did or didn’t need to slow the spread with policy. This was comforting to me, and I actually mused that it was pretty cool how society could have frank and statistical discussions about policy since we had a new, not obviously partisan, issue to deal with.
I was caused to reflect on this thought experiment recently since it is pretty clear now that the death rate from covid is at least a factor of ten less than it was at the beginning of the pandemic. Yet I know a lot of people that early in the pandemic agreed that if the death rate reached this level then it would be time to remove regulations that are still just as staunchly in favor of covid caution.
Why this inconsistency? I blame two factors — identity and information overload.
(1) Identity — my beliefs are who I am and who I am does not change
Taking on a covid-conscious and pro-lockdown perspective became an identity for a lot of people that I knew. This identity aligned with generally noble principles like protecting the weak, listening to scientists and public health experts, and being a responsible and self-sacrificing citizen.
This identity was forged by caricaturing (possibly fairly, at first) the covid-negligent as people that ignored or berated science and more or less believed in a fend-for-yourself morality.
This caricature of the covid ambivalent is so lasting that it actually prevents new information from entering into many people’s calculus. Most new evidence seems to me to show that covid regulations hurt the weak more than the strong, for example:
school closures unequivocally hurt less advantaged students more than privileged students
the stay-at-home economy was easier for white-collar workers to thrive in
violence is up (covid restrictions are a part of this for a multitude of factors), which disproportionately affects less affluent people
These facts have been stressed recently in the news, though I sense that it has had only a small impact on the covid alarmists I know who attribute their alarmism to protection of the weak.
(2) Information Overload — I track daily changes but miss the trend
At dozens of intervals throughout each day, the random variable that is the news cycle pops out either positive or negative news about the danger of getting covid. One day, covid cases are increasing on suspicion of a new variant. The next day, a study comes back documenting promising results from a recent drug trial. The day after, someone in your life tells you they think they have long covid.
After a few thousand dips or rises like this, it makes sense why people sort of figure that about half the information they heard was positive and half was negative and therefore they don’t have to meaningfully adjust their prior beliefs. Of course this is a logical fallacy — news must be weighed and put in context.
You can know that it is a fallacy to think this way and still fall into the trap of insufficiently adjusting your opinions because of information overload, though. I do it all the time when I don’t have enough interest to thoroughly examine something or when my news consumption bleeds from thinking to scrolling. Furthermore, as a trap of omission, even smart and intentionally unbiased people might not check their opinions frequently against evidence to be immune from this.
Beyond Covid Talk
I came to wonder…are there other places in the economy or in the world where these sorts of things are happening? The answer to me seems like OH MY GOSH DEFINITELY YES. So I thought of some examples.
The following are situations where an underlying rate has changed by a large factor but markets or cultures have failed to adapt prices or policies yet:
US treasuries have been considered safe investments for so long that although inflation and national debt have gradually but continually become bigger concerns, rates have barely budged.
Renewable energy prices have gradually and continually come down to the point where they are cost-competitive with dirtier fuels, yet I get the feeling that people haven’t much changed their mind about whether subsidies and preferential treatment is necessary to spur their adoption.
Communication technology has gradually and continually improved, yet the FAA has not changed policies around when you are allowed to use your phone on planes.
Gun technology has gradually and continually improved, yet regulations have not popped up to generally ban more powerful weapons.
Perspectives that were gradual and continuous but then “broke” suddenly:
China gradually and continuously got more powerful and more authoritarian without the United States adjusting its stance significantly on China until 2016.
Information was uncovered that gradually and continuously revealed that the United States did not have strong reasons to stay militarily involved in the Middle East, yet we did for roughly two decades.
Most people who start out religious but then become atheist gradually and continuously build up evidence for their atheism before identifying themselves as atheists.
My takeaway from this reflection is that what seems like the correct perspective on something can be proven dead wrong with the introduction of new evidence and, crucially, this can be missed if such evidence pops up stochastically yet with a gradual and common trend.