i mean, i’d say we have demonstrated the claim about as well as anything is demonstrated in its domain! which, yes, is very far from perfect. 1/

but that imperfection extends to the full domain of social affairs (i try to avoid “social science”), because even where you think you have a big sample, you almost never have construct and external validity. 2/

you get data generated from processes that might be completely different if apparently distant aspects of context would change. 3/

our condition with respect to social affairs is we have to make actual choices under deep forms of uncertainty. there is no kind of formal procedure that can adequately guide us, although it can be useful to use formal procedure to inform our judgment. 4/

(even with the most quantitative social-science-paper-y forms of evidence, it is ultimately a matter of judgment whether applying the evidence will “work” in the slightly new social context the present is, or whether it would be better to take some action that would overthrow the context anyway.) 5/

the thesis economic liberalism -> social dysfunction -> backlash to tribalism/fascism can’t be demonstrated in a way that someone whose priors are adamantly opposed has to defer to, sure. in midcentury Hayek et al objected to it, which played some role in our arguably rerunning the experiment. 6/

let’s concede that. we are in a world where our judgment must be responsible for more than what we can with any certainly fully understand. 7/

what does your judgment take from the historical arc, triumphalist-turn-of-20th-c globalism/liberalism, war-depression-fascism, social democratic trente glorieuses, great inflation, triumphalist-1990s-globalism/liberalism, war-and-economic-crises, resurgent fascism? 8/

your take won’t be science, as neither is mine, but we have little choice but to have one, because the next stage is on us to perform, optimistically on us at least to some degree to choose. /fin