Andrew Little

May I tap this sign 😉

I don’t think this should primarily be described as autocratic rather just extremely stupid and embarassing. Not autocracy, clownocracy.

Ok - so I'm going to do a real context+write up but for now, here's what some of these things look like.

To start my data reference is DCinbox which is ~208,000 official e-newsletters over the past 15 years.

The CCP’s triumph over the KMT shocked the world—even the Soviets bet on the KMT with more aid. My book, Domination and Mobilization, asks: how did the CCP survive and prevail?

Domination and Mobilization offers three fresh arguments that explain the reversal of the century. 👇

cup.org/3G6WKB2

Definitely some discussion of this in global games papers but blanking on specific cites :)

Sorry just saw this! I think this idea could be strategic in a strict sense: e.g., if I want to participate in political movements that succeed even though I'm not pivotal ("warm glow" effects, etc.), beliefs about whether it will succeed may drive participation.

For a shorter description of the key idea with some toy models applying it to persuasion and whether "thinking" leads to more or less confidence, we also have a companion AEA P&P piece here:
anthlittle.github.io/files/augenb...

In sum, the world is complicated and we need to make simplifying assumptions to understand it. This is a key driver (if not the key driver) of both overconfidence and disagreement in beliefs. My hunch is that this also explains much disagreement in politics.

The observational data: the Survey of Professional Forecasters lets us test some other predictions from the theory. As predicted, “excess” MSE above what variance alone would imply equals twice the disagreement in individual forecasts. (Honestly we were shocked at how well the data fits the theory!)

Here is a graphical version of the key result. Participants are unresponsive to changes in across-model uncertainty (left & middle panels), but reasonably responsive to within-model uncertainty (right panel).

A nice thing about this design is that we can also independently vary across-model uncertainty by changing the prediction date when the trend-line is hidden, and within-model uncertainty by changing the noise when it is shown.

The experiment: participants predict future “sales” data generated by a linear trend plus noise, and report their uncertainty. Sometimes they see the trendline (so only within-model uncertainty matters). Sometimes they don’t (introducing across-model uncertainty).

The theory produces many predictions, but the core one is that under broad conditions, across-model uncertainty, overprecision, and disagreement move together. Under stronger conditions, they exactly coincide.

In particular, we assume people account for uncertainty given their assumptions (“within-model uncertainty”) but neglect the fact that other assumptions could imply different beliefs (“across-model uncertainty”).

The theory: forming beliefs requires assumptions (or a "model") about how data map to outcomes. We develop a model with strong simplifying assumptions to explore how using models to make simplifying assumptions affects beliefs.

Very happy to share this paper: Like it says on the tin, we study how simplifying assumptions drive overprecision (excessive certainty) and disagreement (divergence in beliefs), using theory, an experiment, and observational data.

Draft here: osf.io/preprints/os...

Quick thread below.

Sure but for that goal we could just arbitrarily delay making all decisions, and if you want to make that case you are on your own 😉

Using LLMs as a sounding board has helped me solve a lot of technical problems, or at least solve them faster than I would have otherwise. But when you do this on a topic you know well you realize they make a ton of mistakes (while exhibiting 100% confidence) that a non-expert wouldn't catch.

I've seen editors of journals say this before but being on the other side can confirm: the easiest zero-cost way to speed up the review process is to quickly turn down requests to review that you can't do.

The FBI Said It Busted A Plot To Kidnap Michigan’s Governor. Then Things Got Complicated. The case seemed like a lock — until an informant and one FBI agent were charged with crimes, another was accused of perjury, and a third was found promoting a private security firm. And that wasn’t al...

Some earlier reporting on problems with the case www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kenb...

The GOB presidency
youtu.be/APWXorE6h8U?...

The Michigan Plot I 1. The Man in the Vac-Shack Basement Podcast Episode · Chameleon: Dr. Miracle · S7 E1 · 41m

Maybe a good day to recommend this podcast on the Whitmer kidnapping plot. Those convicted were far from blameless, but closer to "jokers strung along by government informants" than criminal masterminds. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Also apologies to @edogrillo.bsky.social for accidentally demoting him to second author!

Yeah i've also had moments of "sounds like Grillo and Prato's AJPS," I think for the same reason Adam thought of it

I’m generally on team “talking about Abrego Garcia is good both politically and morally” and this is clever but I’d want to see if the treatment durably shifts beliefs before reading too much into it. Would guess this is mostly changing how people interpret the Q.

American Journal of Political Science | MPSA Journal | Wiley Online Library We propose a theory of democratic backsliding where citizens' retrospective assessment of an incumbent politician depends on expectations that are endogenous to the incumbent's behaviour. We show tha...

Prato and Grillo? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Exactly! Thanks.

Yeah I think so, probably saw it on bluesky about 6 months ago

Yes I think it was symmetric

Bumping in case anyone has leads?