It is a fact of life that should be always, always kept in mind: good things successfully created for a purpose instantly become a purpose unto themselves and, thereby and only too often, an obstacle to further improvement and growth.
Such was the fate of affirmative action, and so much else.
Very much enjoying the general application of your 'culture-pilled' epistemic. I think your analysis of IRBs is also true of formal hiring and university admissions processes. From experience behind the curtain, formality is designed to obfuscate the necessary, albeit 'uncomfortable', value decisions about what traits and personalities to select.
Could we change things? Here are two pictures:
(1) Bureaucratic obfuscation is currently load-bearing. If we abolished it we'd have to re-create it. Formal-rationality ('legalism') is necessary in an ultra low-risk society where (a) public appetite and trust for costs are low; (b) mature acceptance of trade-offs, and systemic thinking, is rare; and (c) institutional legitimacy is low, due to a mixture of genuine elite incompetency and a reflexive, corrosive distrust of any authority. Optimistically, this culture can be changed (e.g., like drink-driving acceptability). Pessimistically, it is a structural effect of an ageing population; a sensationalist media; and the paradox that greater equality, falling crime, and lower risk, make us ever more sensitive to remaining disruptions.
(2) It's just mission-creep inherent in the logic of all bureaucratic structures. The growth begins with some legal regime created contingently to meet a passing concern and then outlives its origin. Rules beget more rules, and create rule-followers. Multiply by 1000. If we cut it all back it wouldn't re-grow. If we can get the right people into the right positions of power, structural change can occur.
As an incorrigible optimist, I tend to (2), or, if (1), that cultural change is possible. We took a wrong turning but still have fuel.
If I or my relative suffer from unethical experiment and researchers got fired and maybe even imprisoned over it (which is unrealistic in corrupted institution) it doesn’t at all remove my personal suffering and partially compensate it in best case. Monetary compensation doesn’t revert damage done to health no matter how high it is.
Reason for such regulation exists is preventing terrible things instead of judging it later. And while Ginsburg’s experience was terrible and unacceptable you probably agree that it is not as terrible as case of Tuskegee study. Also you may notice that there were no consequences for dean of Harvard nor compensation for her.
This is a very recent example of what happens when an academic stirs the pot. Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist on Youtube was fired from her university for openly criticizing the utility/validity of others research.
Are there people in China, Japan, or S. Korea involved in biotech/pharmaceuticals who would be interested in these ideas and perhaps influential enough to implement them? Perhaps Teslo could be the Edward Demings of the life sciences industry.
As with anti-nuclear activists and Chernobyl & anti-vaxxers and thalidomide. It says something about the quality of an argument when there go to example is from decades prior and not particularly applicable
I recommend a couple of books:
The Censor's Hand (arguing that IRBs do more harm than good): https://www.amazon.com/Censors-Hand-Misregulation-Human-Subject-Bioethics/dp/0262028913
Ethical Imperialism: https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Imperialism-Institutional-Sciences-1965-2009/dp/0801894905
Scott Alexander has a depressing but hilarious story of his attempt to deal with the IRB.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/
Yeah, it's in the post already
It is a fact of life that should be always, always kept in mind: good things successfully created for a purpose instantly become a purpose unto themselves and, thereby and only too often, an obstacle to further improvement and growth.
Such was the fate of affirmative action, and so much else.
Very much enjoying the general application of your 'culture-pilled' epistemic. I think your analysis of IRBs is also true of formal hiring and university admissions processes. From experience behind the curtain, formality is designed to obfuscate the necessary, albeit 'uncomfortable', value decisions about what traits and personalities to select.
Could we change things? Here are two pictures:
(1) Bureaucratic obfuscation is currently load-bearing. If we abolished it we'd have to re-create it. Formal-rationality ('legalism') is necessary in an ultra low-risk society where (a) public appetite and trust for costs are low; (b) mature acceptance of trade-offs, and systemic thinking, is rare; and (c) institutional legitimacy is low, due to a mixture of genuine elite incompetency and a reflexive, corrosive distrust of any authority. Optimistically, this culture can be changed (e.g., like drink-driving acceptability). Pessimistically, it is a structural effect of an ageing population; a sensationalist media; and the paradox that greater equality, falling crime, and lower risk, make us ever more sensitive to remaining disruptions.
(2) It's just mission-creep inherent in the logic of all bureaucratic structures. The growth begins with some legal regime created contingently to meet a passing concern and then outlives its origin. Rules beget more rules, and create rule-followers. Multiply by 1000. If we cut it all back it wouldn't re-grow. If we can get the right people into the right positions of power, structural change can occur.
As an incorrigible optimist, I tend to (2), or, if (1), that cultural change is possible. We took a wrong turning but still have fuel.
Another psych resident IRB story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTaUa2HAQCo&lc=UgztG-ADqDAvYQulEfF4AaABAg
He wanted to do a study on something waiting room related, still has to go through the same IRB as a drug or treatment protocol study.
A good idea, but perhaps instead of branding it as affirmative action, we could brand it as whistleblower protection for bad regulation
If I or my relative suffer from unethical experiment and researchers got fired and maybe even imprisoned over it (which is unrealistic in corrupted institution) it doesn’t at all remove my personal suffering and partially compensate it in best case. Monetary compensation doesn’t revert damage done to health no matter how high it is.
Reason for such regulation exists is preventing terrible things instead of judging it later. And while Ginsburg’s experience was terrible and unacceptable you probably agree that it is not as terrible as case of Tuskegee study. Also you may notice that there were no consequences for dean of Harvard nor compensation for her.
This is a very recent example of what happens when an academic stirs the pot. Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist on Youtube was fired from her university for openly criticizing the utility/validity of others research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5u3V6LJuM
Are there people in China, Japan, or S. Korea involved in biotech/pharmaceuticals who would be interested in these ideas and perhaps influential enough to implement them? Perhaps Teslo could be the Edward Demings of the life sciences industry.
Even Tuskegee is overblown: https://www.spiked-online.com/2004/01/08/tuskegee-re-examined/
As with anti-nuclear activists and Chernobyl & anti-vaxxers and thalidomide. It says something about the quality of an argument when there go to example is from decades prior and not particularly applicable
I wrote this piece a few weeks ago. I think it relates.
https://individualistsunite.substack.com/p/dei-done-right