A little reflection to Lu Ming’s speech at China Econ Annual Conference. Now the Chernobyl (the HBO miniseries) becomes relatable:
At the trial of deciding who is responsible for the explosion, the scientist Legasov, instead of taking it easy by blaming the explosion to individual’s mistake, tried to point out the real flaw, which faces warning and threat from the official:
[Judge] Professor Legasov, if you mean to suggest the ussr is somehow responsible for what happened then I must warn you that you are treading on dangerous ground.
[Legasov] I already trod on dangerous ground, we’re on dangerous ground right now. Because of our secrets and our lies. They’re practically what define us. When the truth offends we lie and lie until we can no long remember it’s even there but it is, still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth, sooner or later that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor explodes.
Same, when an assumption looks nasty we ignore and ignore it until we can no longer remember it’s even there. But it is. And wwap ’truth’ for assumptions — the above argument sounds a lot familiar to the 2008 financial crisis, isn’t it?
It’s seldom, if never, a dominant strategy to tell the truth isn’t it?
Watch the snippet of the speech from Chernobyl (2019) Episode 5 (ending) of the trial: