This was going to happen eventually.
Una advertencia: el lector desprevenido podrá suponer que el contenido de este artículo es irónico, exagerado o hasta apócrifo. Han sido recurrentes las ironías acerca de los efectos letales de los planes de ajuste que han impulsado e impulsan ciertos economistas. Marcelo Matellanes, el fallecido filósofo y economista, sostenía que a los economistas se les debería exigir, como a los médicos, el juramento hipocrático, pero con un detalle adicional: la mala praxis de los médicos tiene efectos más acotados que los programas de ajuste estructural que algunos economistas han puesto en práctica en las economías latinoamericanas. En otras palabras, los malos médicos matan de a uno; los malos economistas hacen un daño generalizado.
The article, in Spanish obviously, is here. (Google translate is at your service.) My translation: two evil economists from the center countries (??) named Sandeep Baliga and Jeffrey Ely have written a paper which demonstrates how to use torture optimally. They, and all economists for that matter, should report at once for ethical reprogramming.
Gat grope: Santiago Oliveros.
Cheap Talk 
16 comments
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March 9, 2011 at 10:46 pm
gcoa
he probably means evil economists from the midwest
March 9, 2011 at 10:52 pm
twicker
But wait … your whole point was that torture is wrong, correct? Maybe the language barrier kept the Page 12 person from understanding … ????
Yikes! Taken out of context indeed …
March 10, 2011 at 9:35 am
Rajiv Sethi
To quote from the Google translated header above the title:
“PECULIAR WAY YOU HAVE TAKEN THE ECONOMIC SCIENCE STUDIES”
March 10, 2011 at 9:49 am
Anonymous
i’m not sure what your premises and conclusions are in the paper, but the two spanish moralists raise an old but important issue on the limits of scientific research.
in a nutshell (pardon me for the abuse of notation): do you see yourselves as technicians, prepared to develop whatever you fancy or “boss” asks you to develop (e.g. optimal torture methods, optimal mass murdering techniques etc.) or you see yourself as a intellectuals, having a political role and therefore trying to make the world a better place?
with all due (and large) differences, it reminds me of the nuclear bomb story. what is your position in this world? do you accept responsability or do you see yourself a kid playing around?
March 10, 2011 at 12:31 pm
twicker
Anonymous – two things:
1) The paper’s available – on this very website. Thus, since you don’t know what the premises or conclusions are, you have no one to blame but yourself for not clicking a couple of links and, you know, reading said premises and conclusions.
2) As k points out below, one of the conclusions is that, from a purely economic/game theoretic perspective, torture is either worthless or damn close to it. If you know anything about the torture debate, then you’ll know that its proponents typically try to hide from the moral implications of their actions by pretending that it has value. What Jeff & Sandeep did was to blow a huge freakin’ hole in that argument – thus acting to reduce (or, hopefully, destroy) torture.
In what way is acting to remove something that is morally repugnant somehow simply being “a kid playing around?”
March 10, 2011 at 12:31 pm
jeff
it’s a good question. i will try to answer it but i want to think a bit first.
March 10, 2011 at 12:51 pm
twicker
@jeff: Out of curiosity, what do you see Anonymous’s question as being? Because s/he decided to avoid reading your article so that s/he could attack you and Sandeep as developing “optimal torture methods, optimal mass murdering techniques etc.” — being blissfully unaware (through Anonymous’s pure, unadulterated laziness) that you were, indeed, “having a political role and therefore trying to make the world a better place.”
Both Anonymous and Page12 seem to believe that torture shouldn’t be studied, but neither seem very clear as to why it is somehow unimportant (obviously, neither Anonymous nor the Page12 folks have been tortured; I’d think they’d then believe it to be far more important).
Not to mention, at least for the Page12 folks, there are legions of economists studying international development and the other issues the Argentinians value – which the writers point out. If they so dislike you and Sandeep, and think your reasoning is so flawed, exactly why do they want you to be studying things they believe to be important?
March 10, 2011 at 2:17 pm
jeff
yours is a good question too twicker. i will think on it.
March 10, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Anonymous
twicker, you should calm down. I never intended to denigrate anyone.
I just asked how Jeff sees himself as a researcher.
I don’t really care whether he finds torture useful or not. That is not the point. I’m sure that if their equations said that torturing was optimal, they would have not tortured the equations enough to get a different conclusion. Otherwise what’s the point?
March 10, 2011 at 7:50 pm
twicker
@Anonymous: ok, I’ll go easy on you and assume that your choice of “optimal torture methods” as something you set up as the opposite of “trying to make the world a better place” was just an unfortunate choice and not a judgment against someone who was being accused of studying, well, optimal torture methods.
That said, I find it extremely odd that you stated,
“I’m sure that if their equations said that torturing was optimal, they would have not tortured the equations enough to get a different conclusion. Otherwise what’s the point?”
First, I’m not at all sure that Jeff & Sandeep “would have not tortured the equations enough to get a different conclusion.” [All quotes sic.] Admittedly, I haven’t asked them myself, so I can’t be sure they would or wouldn’t have – though, having read a good bit of their writing, I suspect they would have tried to come to any conclusion other than showing that torture is effective. Out of curiosity, how is it that you are so sure they would not have?
Second, if the point is to make the world a better place, and if one believes that torture is wrong and makes the world a worse place, then of course one would want to attempt to come up with alternate explanations, or severely constrain the findings, or maybe even avoid publishing the research (it’s not like Jeff & Sandeep don’t have enough other research). In fact, that would be 100% the point.
Which is one of the main problems with how you’ve set up your question. You set up two things as binary, exclusive choices (“develop whatever you fancy or “boss” asks you to develop” vs. “see yourself as a intellectuals, having a political role and therefore trying to make the world a better place”; “accept responsability” vs. “a kid playing around”). However, these aren’t binary, and they’re not mutually exclusive. When I was a teacher, I absolutely loved my job and was amazed that people paid me to do it (I was “a kid playing around,” if you will”) – and a primary reason I loved my job was that I felt I was “trying to make the world a better place” and I was acting responsibly towards the world. These aren’t either/or kinds of things.
Further, your original question also conflates things (“see yourself as intellectuals,” “having a political role,” and “trying to make the world a better place”) that aren’t mutually inclusive. Any one of the three can exist without the other two. Some people who see themselves as intellectuals don’t really give a flip about politics (other than in their social circles) or about the world. Some people who are heavily into politics seem to care more about themselves than anyone else and are, if anything, extremely anti- intellectual (see, “Palin, Sarah”). Some see themselves as trying to make the world a better place but don’t see themselves as either intellectuals or as being particularly political (teachers, nurses, most doctors, etc.). And some people who are extremely political and apparently see themselves as at least somewhat intellectual don’t “therefore” seem to be trying to make the world a better place (Qaddafi comes to mind at present).
You seem to be trying to ask about whether Jeff believes that work needs to be more than simply interesting or rigorous, but whether it needs to be relevant – and specifically relevant in a morally, ethically positive way.
The dichotomy isn’t whether the research is enjoyable or does it make the world a better place; it’s not about whether it’s what your job requires or is for the benefit of mankind; it’s not a question of whether it’s responsible or fun. The dichotomies are:
1) Should we limit research to areas that stand a strong chance of making the world a better place, or should we engage in research on potentially non-beneficial areas? (Related question: for the areas that stand a strong chance of making the world a better place: does this need to be the 100%, round-the-clock, exclusive focus, or just the primary focus (and one can go along with the occasional whim)?)
2) Should we limit research to exclude areas that might make the world worse (the nuclear bomb question), or should we allow research on everything?
3) If one conducts research and discovers troubling findings, is one obligated to try to limit their impact by any of the methods available (e.g., carefully detailing all the mediators/moderators, embargoing the results, etc.), or does one have a duty to publish what one found as it was found – pure and unameliorated?
Those are the real questions.
March 10, 2011 at 8:31 pm
twicker
btw, in my discussion of the “real questions,” I missed one key point (I should’ve taken a few moments to think back to these discussions, given that the general issue is one that has been cussed and discussed and dis-discussed time and time again, ad nauseam).
There’s a level-of-analysis issue with the questions.
For example, if most people who are insert-type-of-researchers-here try to do good well, then I would argue that it’s fine for some of them to do frivolous stuff (e.g., some of the cuter studies in econ, psych, etc.). Not everyone wants to be serious all the time. Thus, the level of analysis can be the profession/discipline/field of study, and you can be fine.
However, if even one individual finds and publicizes a novel way to engage in effective and cost-efficient torture, everybody loses. Thus, the level of analysis for questions 2 and 3 would be the individual, since the important piece is the action of the individual.
Personally, I’m on the side of:
1) A little frivolity is fine (both on a personal and on a discipline/field of study level)
2) I’m deeply disturbed by ethically dubious research, though there’s an awful lot of gray there (for example, with the atomic bomb question, mutually-assured destruction arguably kept us from experiencing far more violence and death than we otherwise would have)
3) Tricky. In some instances, I can see how researchers would not want to publish morally-questionable findings. Example 1: if a devout Roman Catholic doctor suddenly comes up with a way of making abortions cheaper, easier, and more readily-available, just because she notices something, I don’t see that she is morally obligated to publish it. Example 2: If a climate researcher comes up with results that contradict his previous viewpoint, and he can’t see a way of disconfirming those results, he probably should publish them.
I guess that, in case #1, underlying question is theological and the research won’t change the moral debate; therefore, there’s no reason for the researcher to act contra to her morals/values. In case #2, the underlying question is scientific and the research might change the debate; therefore, the research should be published both because the research directly addresses the underlying question and because it has the potential to affect the debate one way or another (though I can see that the researcher might qualify his findings considerably).
March 10, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Anonymous
twicker, you write too much for my taste and i have no time to articulate a reply.
i went black or white in the first place because i did not want to write pages.
my point is not whether or not torture (or slavery, WMD, etc.) makes the world better (it might arguably be so, i don’t know), or about what J&S have to say about it. my point is about whether scientists should think about the finality of what they are doing, or rather refrain from it and leave to the practical guys the handle. somethings which seems to be especially relevant when some delicate subjects are studied, for example torture (or genetics, etc).
finally, when i say that they would not torture the equations i just mean that J&S would not act disonesty, which is something i’m willing to assume until substantial evidence to the contrary
March 10, 2011 at 9:31 pm
twicker
@Anonymous:
Re: write too much – I do, indeed, tend to do that; very fair call.
Re: your question: An interesting question. There’s a lot in that one, ain’t there? For example, what if I think about “the finality of what [I] am doing,” and my hypothesis is that I’ll find that torture is a wonderful way of getting highly accurate information that can potentially save millions of lives (a la John Yoo)? Since I’ve thought about the finality of what I’m doing, does that now make it OK for me to search for better ways to torture? Or would it be better for humanity if, instead, I were to study the market for Twizzlers in middle school kids?
Re: J&S being honest – I obviously misinterpreted your remarks, for which I’m sorry – my apologies. And I concur that they’d be honest in their reporting.
March 10, 2011 at 12:10 pm
k
from the abstract:
“We show that these commitment problems dramatically reduce the value of torture and can even render it completely ineffective.”
March 10, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Daniel
The authors of the Pagina 12 article are two economists who work as directors of public sector financial firms in Argentina. They don’t really go into detail on the article. Instead, they use it as a straw man to dismiss mainstream Economics as evil and distanced itself from the suffering of real people.
This is a part of a heated public debate in many Latin American countries (and especially Argentina, where the bank crisis of the last decade brought a large fraction of the population below the poverty line). I think the two economists who wrote the article wanted to use the torture topic as a way to justify why heterodox economists with no link to academia are better to formulate and implement policies in institutions like the ones they direct.
March 12, 2011 at 2:35 pm
k
think now, of what might have been, if the title instead said
“why torture is ineffective”
…