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> The dilemma they face is no matter what they do, some people will lose trust and won’t comply. This is speculation. There are an infinite set of approaches for complex situations, that we have not found an approach that is consistently effective in no way proves that "no matter what they do, some people will lose trust and won’t comply", it only proves that they won't trust & comply under the approaches we have tested. Such things seem to be easy to conceptualize when we are performing computer system analysis, but it seems like when we are embedded within the system being analyzed, we lose this ability. > So the process inevitably involves some mixture of politics and data, and multiple points of view that differ. There's no getting away from it. This seems true. But it seems to me that when making strategic decisions about how to go about this, we make plausibly unnecessary mistakes on a regular basis. One problem might be though: if we start discussing some topics in an objective, truthful manner (more facts & logic oriented, less "truthy" narrative oriented), the public might expect us to start discussing all things in this manner. > public health policy people face this dilemma, and are not just incompetent, blunt instruments, or trying to hoodwink everyone If the government, media, and health professionals would explicitly acknowledge the fallibility and errors of institutions, perhaps people would have more trust. But instead of describing reality as it is, we seem determined to stick with the simplistic fantasy land approach. This approach was extremely effective prior to the internet, but it seems insufficient now (except sometimes, like politics - here it continues to work like a charm, albeit with fairly disastrous outcomes). |