Diary

Since finishing Daniel Kahneman's book, I haven't read much. I have been waterproofing the basement, touching up the paint on the house, watering the tomatoes, cutting the grass, repairing a broken window and tinkering with my large telescope. The telescope is very good for seeing faint objects, but that can only be done if the viewing conditions are excellent. So far this year there have been very few clear nights. Furthermore, faint objects require an absence of other light sources, and even though we have relatively little light pollution here, the moon has been up, making the viewing of faint objects difficult. Some amateur astronomers eventually give up and concentrate on the moon, since it's much easier to see than anything else, but I find it boring. I've considered getting a solar telescope for looking directly at the sun, another easy target, but I prefer the night sky and more distant objects.

I've been thinking about Kahneman and don't know quite what to make of his take on the relevance of his research. On the one hand, he is publicizing the particular shortcomings of human reason that have been discovered by research, and on the other hand he seems to want to haphazardly attach this information to traditional economics, including economics that uses rational models. I may be missing something here, or perhaps this has been discussed elsewhere, but it seems as if Kahneman, rather than taking rationalism in economics off its pedestal, is elevating it to yet a higher level than it occupied previously, creating a caste of super-economists who are able to incorporate his findings into even more sophisticated models than the ones that they had been using. With Kahneman in mind, I am aware of no writings that bring into question the legitimacy of economics as an unbiased field or that question its validity as a predictive tool with respect to broad social outcomes. To my knowledge, Kahneman's work has merely added a branch to economics, and it is not perceived as a threat to the logical integrity of the field. Since Kahneman doesn't take up this topic in his book, I am forced to think either that he has been lazy about analyzing the implications of his work or that he is intentionally obfuscating the incongruities between his research and the traditional practices of economics. It's impossible for me to say for certain, but it may be that Kahneman is reluctant to attack economics, because his best known and most cited works have been tied to that field rather than to psychology. I saw no indication in his book that he had any criticisms of the economic and political models currently followed in the developed world, and therefore it seemed that the book finished well before taking up any topics that I would have found interesting.

Although I'd rather not pay attention to politics, I feel at least some responsibility to follow what is going on with Trump, because this always has the potential to develop into a perilous situation. It seems now that, even if he is an absurd fit, he may actually be able to grow into the job. The whole trick for a president is to get elected, which does not necessarily have to do with anything else. It would be possible for him to do nothing for the remainder of his term and remain in office if collusion with the Russians can't be proven. The irony is that what should be considered the hardest job in the world can be done by almost anyone who has the equivalent of a high school education. You can get by with little knowledge of history, politics, law, economics or science, and you don't have to write or speak in complete sentences or spell properly. You can even lie blatantly and fire people whom you don't like for any reason without any consequences. You can shock and offend other world leaders with impunity. No one will care if you fill top positions with friends and family members. If you set things up well enough, all you will have to do is make a few public appearances and sign documents. Others can come up with policies, write speeches for you and represent you in various functions, so you don't really have to do anything if you don't want to. You may in the end be considered an ineffectual, incompetent or corrupt president, but that may not become the consensus until after you've left office. This seems funny to me after Obama, who always seemed very busy and under stress: if he had just acted busy and stressed-out, he could have been exactly like Trump behind the scenes and no one would have known the difference. The mythology that has built up around the presidency of the United States of America is ludicrous by any reckoning.