[firesteelrain]

"That happens every once in a while..."

Are we looking at this moment as one of those times? It sounds like he is unsure if it is truly tariff impacts or not if he has seen it before.

[refulgentis]

Idk the whole discussion is hard for me to parse.

- Any one-off data point could be just random decrease or tariff impacts and we do not have a forward-looking time machine to accumulate more data

- It doesn't really shed any light at all if volumes are less or more: both outcomes can be spun as a success (if they're less, great, American Juche continues unimpeded, if they're more, great, then we just debate if the manufacturers ("China") are "paying for" the tariffs by decreasing list prices to the importer enough that the importer can maintain the same price for customers) ("China" cannot literally pay for the tariffs, they are paid for by the US company or individual accepting the shipment from the dock)

It's sort of like if it was February 2020, Wuhan was overrun and Italy was exploding, and people spent a lot of time in the nuances of if the US double digit case was up more this week than it was last week or two weeks ago

[firesteelrain]

Spot on. Micro-analyzing week-to-week data in a system with lags, noise, and strategic behavior doesn’t help.

People crave conclusions with early, messy data.

[redserk]

There is also the other extreme of deliberately ignoring indicators that something is amiss.

Often people in pseudo-intellectual circles conflate aligning with that extreme with intelligence when it’s equally as foolish.

[refulgentis]

Yeah you're right, and ultimately it's important to discuss and bring up.

Just because I can invent a reason someone else can write it off...well, that doesn't shed any light either.

It's clear you can always find at least 15% of some group who will find a reason to write anything off.

(I'm basing that off of some stats I saw re: moon landing denial recently)

[aspenmayer]

> Just because I can invent a reason someone else can write it off...well, that doesn't shed any light either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens's_razor

> Hitchens's razor is an epistemological razor that serves as a general rule for rejecting certain knowledge claims. It states:

>> What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

> The razor is credited to author and journalist Christopher Hitchens, although its provenance can be traced to the Latin Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur ("What is asserted gratuitously is denied gratuitously"). It implies that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it. Hitchens used this phrase specifically in the context of refuting religious belief.

[habinero]

I think it's pretty self-apparent? He's saying it occasionally happens but it's rare and the fact that it's happening now is a concerning data point.

It's like climate change: sure, historically you naturally get years with lots of hurricanes or really strong ones.

But if you get, on average, more and more hurricanes and the hurricanes themselves are stronger? That's a trend.