Self-reinforcing Bias

Every now and then, I read a Megan McArdle blog post. It's never truly an accident. Her masthead is a caution to all who read below that they will encounter tepid thoughts drowned in muddy analogy.


She is illustrative of self-reinforcing bias, in her case, one born of ideology:

Other readers will likely differ, but while the advice parts may generate more lifetime utility for me, the history and economics lessons in the book captured my interest more. In particular, Cowen's history of how American food came to be so mediocre is a strong counterargument to those who look to blame the phenomenon on commercialization, capitalism, and excess of choice. In contrast to the usual narrative, Cowen tells us how bad laws have played an important role in shaping our food ecosystem for the worse over time. This includes prohibition's negative and long lasting impact on restaurants, and the government aggressively limiting one of our greatest sources of culinary innovation: immigration. This is not to lay the blame entirely on the government. Television and a culture that panders to the desires of children have also incentivized poor culinary trends. 

There's a nice dodge in here that speaks either to how McArdle views the world, or how she manages to self-censor her thoughts to support libertarian outcomes. See the last sentence:

Television and a culture that panders to the desires of children have also incentivized poor culinary trends. 

Americans have a culture that panders to childish tastes in food? That's an awfully squishy claim. I don't know how McArdle arrived at this conclusion, and she doesn't attempt to provide any evidence or logic to lay this at the feet of Culture. Let's try an alternate hypothesis:

Television and a market that panders to the desires of children have also incentivized poor culinary trends. 

I'll leave it to you to decide which hypothesis has more intuitive appeal. I think that deep down, however, McArdle believes that the "poor culinary trends" were "incentivized." That origin story sounds more like capitalism to me than cultural development.