What's the information value of government hearings?

post by Kenny · 2022-06-18T17:13:48.820Z · LW · GW · No comments

This is a question post.

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  Answers
    4 Charlie Steiner
    3 jmh
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Background:

I'm curious about both:

My own model (roughly):

  1. Hearings are, by default, political theater.
  2. Political/legal rhetoric has a very low information density.
  3. Information from the hearings might be true; but definitely not all of it.
  4. At least some of the people compelled to participate in hearings will lie.
  5. Most hearings are run by partisans from multiple coalitions.
  6. The leaders of hearings are NOT generally trustworthy or honest.
  7. Even if we assume that we can determine [2] (what info is true), we should expect to be manipulated, if nothing else, the distribution of true info that is made public.
  8. It is – somewhat – possible, still, given [1-7], for some people to extract some true info from government hearings.
  9. It is hard to identify the people of [8], even if you're one of them.

There's a particular concrete example that inspired this. I was implored by someone to watch the 'January 6th' hearings. I replied that it didn't seem worth doing and that I would instead just rely on my own network of [8] that I have accumulated. I did get a nice update from someone outside my network, but I don't think I can 'operationalize' that kind of serendipity.

My current model of 'January 6th' (roughly):

  1. Trump might have had a plan to disrupt the 'vote certification'[1].
  2. If the vote certification had been disrupted, it very probably would have resulted in an extremely 'undefined' state of the presidency and the executive branch.
  3. If the system had reached that undefined state, Trump (maybe) could have remained President.[2]
  4. [Normative] [3] would have been terrible.

Most of the above is relatively new for me! I did not know those details a few weeks ago. I even considered those 'classes' of possibility before then, but believed they were too implausible. I did feel very confused. I was (and am) curious about better understandings and more details.

But I didn't think me directly watching the hearings about Jan-6 would be a particularly valuable use of my time. Was I wrong (in your own estimation)?

Am I wrong about the information value of government hearings in general?

Do you think I should watch more of them myself directly (based on either my values or your own, or anyones/someones)?

  1. It was depressing to learn that this is, very probably, an actual gaping hole in the overall security of U.S. presidential elections! I think it's also very strong evidence of some kind of malfeasance that what you would think are the relevant authorities have not already sealed this actual gaping hole in the system's security. WTF?! ↩︎

  2. I do not in fact think that he would have NOT been 'thrown out', somehow, even had this happened, for even a brief moment. ↩︎

Answers

answer by Charlie Steiner · 2022-06-18T18:16:49.250Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

If you just believe their conclusions, or the conclusions of people you know who are digesting it all, with high confidence, you don't need to watch (or listen, or skim written formats).

If you believe that everyone there is a total fraud and that only Trump will tell it to you straight, you don't need to watch either. But you do probably need to reduce your media intake and do some serious self-reflection.

If you're not sure whether to believe them but you don't care to reduce your uncertainty, you don't need to watch. I would opine that if you're materially unsure about whether Trump was a bad actor or not ("not" ranging from him actually being right to him being self-deluded), it's probably worth an hour or so to at least get a little more info.

If none of the above apply, maybe check it out until you feel more satisfied.

Personally, I've heard a random sample of about 45 minutes of the Jan 6th committee, and was pleasantly surprised by the meaningfulness to meaninglessness ratio.

↑ comment by Kenny · 2022-06-20T12:59:55.721Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

This seems like sensible 'meta advice'; thanks!

I'm not sure that listening-to/watching the hearings themselves, in this or other cases, would be of sufficient 'info profit' to me to justify not just 'triangulating' on the info/evidence I pickup thru my 'secondary sources'.

I would have been surprised had the 'primary sources' NOT seemed meaningful! I think they're optimizing for meaningfulness! But I think the means by which they're doing that is crafting a Narrative, which I do distrust. (I expect reality to be generally much messier than a relatively simple story, especially any Morality Play.)

I think a big part of my judging the 'primary source material' not being of sufficient 'info profit' (for me) is that there's so much of it. It also doesn't seem like the kind of info that can be easily, and 'representatively', 'sampled'. I'm sure I'd learn of lots of (supposed) details were I to listen to "a random sample of about 45 minutes" of something like this. But I wouldn't expect to be able update my beliefs in the right (true) direction. But maybe that wouldn't matter if I was also still 'triangulating' overall.

I'm definitely open to some info from 'secondary sources' about this kind of thing. I've already revised my beliefs a good bit from that kind of thing.

answer by jmh · 2022-06-18T23:56:26.055Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I might think "framing" is what it is about. I don't really see that as an different than what occurs when academics are writing papers where perhaps other schools of thought have a different take and are coming to different conclusions.

↑ comment by Kenny · 2022-06-19T15:46:06.585Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Do you find, even just personally, that there's a particular high 'info profit' from you getting access to "framing" from watching government hearings?

'Framing' – assuming I understand what you mean by that precisely enough – doesn't seem like the kind of thing that I feel like I'm missing before these hearings start. The framing is, AFAICT, always 'pre-released'.

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