Understanding doesn’t help; that’s a personal thing.

Knowledge can help, but isnt needed in itself. People must be prompted to seek knowledge, and at the moment they are simply assuming they dont have to. The awareness of lack of knowledge is what is important.

We are social creatures, and social position means a lot to us. Fear of humiliation is a better prompt than anything else.

Knowledge and understanding, as Dunning and Kruger’s work suggests.

How better to promote humility than through humiliation?

Getting people to publicly admit they were wrong is difficult but that’s a leap beyond helping people to understand their ignorance. I’m not sure that offensive shaming is the best way to overcome people’s intransigence either, although clearly their are a wide range of opinions on the matter.

Call a spade a spade, and laughable ignorance a spade too.

The softly softy approach wont have as much impact as the point and laugh approach. How much education  will it take to get Mishra to admit he was wrong? How much would it take to have the people who read and agreed with his position to admit they were wrong?

Far more than they would be willing to engage in.

People dont KNOW that its possible they dont know as much about economics as they think they do. You will advance the cause more by simply making them aware of their possible ignorance as opposed to correcting the record.

I think the entire economics profession should go on the offensive. Make it very obvious where someone is talking crap. Let shame be their guide.

Nobody said being a modern hero would be easy 😉

Some people do not want to challenge their own beliefs – they only want you to share theirs 😉