Meditations and Learnings

Meditations and Learnings

What The Great Depression Can Teach Us About Humility

Arguably, an exacerbating factor in The Great Depression’s destruction was that economists of the time didn’t understand the tools available to them to shorten a recession. At the time, it’s almost certain those in the economic field would never have owned their ignorance, perhaps citing governmental failure to follow their advice as the reason the recession was so disastrous. The lack of epistemic humility is common even now, as we humble through the infinite unknown with a lantern illuminating a tiny part of it. Our knowledge has grown considerably, and human capability is as close to a miracle as we’ve seen. However, we are far from experts in any domain, and scientists must stay open-minded to the “unknown unknowns”.