Larry Summers: prediction

Transcript context

…What is the rate of productivity improvement in table tennis amongst the very best players? Someone like Jan-Ove Waldner or Ding Ning? Are they a lot better than the best players of 20, 30 years ago or just a little better? [laughter] I don’t know. Look, obviously I don’t know. I am struck in general by the fact that a good college track athlete can now run a four-minute mile, and nobody in the world had ever run a four-minute mile before 1954. That the world record in swimming events in 1964 wouldn’t qualify you for the NCAA championships in 2017. In the sports where we can measure things, there’s vast and rapid improvement, huge improvement. I’m not sure why people debate whether Shaq is better or worse than Wilt Chamberlain, or whether people debate whether today’s best baseball players compare with Willie Mays, or whether they debate whether Rafael Nadal could beat Bill Tilden. My assumption is that, of course, Rafael Nadal could beat Bill Tilden, even with the same equipment. I would assume that the same thing is true in table tennis. Better learning about technique, better training approaches, greater intensity, and better equipment, I assume mean that the quality of play in all these things is much higher than it used to be. I think it’s a mistake that people generally make, to acknowledge progress in the places where it can be readily and concretely measured, and then be in doubt about whether there is progress in the spheres where it can’t be measured. The right first approximation is to think that there’s progress in all spheres. To take it to some place that’s outside of athletics, where I’ve been very struck, I think the evidence is overwhelming, or at least very strong, in favor of the so-called Flynn Effect, which suggests that all over the world, if you administer any kind of constant IQ test, averages in populations have been getting smarter for a long time. I think that’s probably right, as well. We’re here in Washington, DC. I’m going to ask you some short bullet questions about super current policy issues. Feel free to pass. You can give just a sound bite answer, but if you want to go on, please do. Right now on the Fed, there are only three seats being held. It seems, if things go according to plan, by the beginning of 2019 everyone on that board will have been appointed by President Trump. You’ve been a lifelong Democrat, so probably your dream candidates are not the ones who are going to be appointed. But if you could give advice to the Republicans that they possibly might listen to, what would that advice be for filling these seats?…

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