The Data Delusion
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
When certain people make important decisions on a global scale, it doesn't matter what the data says. The decisions may be so impactful that they will make all historical data worthless as that data was only ever relevant within a specific environment. When you fundamentally change the environment, you invalidate the data which was gathered in that environment. Decisions on a global scale tend to change the environment in fundamental ways. Common sense is the most important factor, not data.
You would need a prove for the statement that higher car insurances are themselves a cause of poverty. Maybe higher car insurances make poor people less likely to get a car, and they end up richer because they don't waste time in useless holidays that would've made them poorer.
I'm not claiming this is what happens, just that your logic even if it makes sense in some abstract sense, may be separated from reality.
Insurance in the UK varies dramatically from area to area and younger people have much higher rates. It's not pennies per year, we're talking significant sums. Not having a history of owning a car comes at a cost too.
Public transport is slower and more expensive on a per trip basis, meaning without a car you often have both higher per-trip costs and less time. You are more restricted in where you can go and what you can do.
The idea that the poorest would be much worse off if they had a car because they would go on frivolous holidays is bizarre.
This is the only thing that matters, not whether you personally find something bizarre or not or the non sequitur about young people and different areas in UK.
I definitely didn't make such a claim. If I communicated unclearly I apologise.
I merely made the point that insurance premiums are regressive, in that you'll generally pay less as a richer person, as you (and others like you) do not need to claim for small issues with your car. More claims = higher premiums.
The most important in the UK is third party (insuring against damage and injury caused to others). Does high insurance help avoid those outcomes? If not that feels like a good government level solution. Insuring your own property is your own business.
Data provides the reputation to an analysis or interpretation that it is grounded enough to be considered correct. If the data is bad or doesn't warrant the interpretation, nobody will know. It stays hidden with the data.
Something important I was thinking of the other day is the power dynamics that come into play with data as the new currency. Those with access to more data (money) and better tools for analysis (investment) of it end up having an unfair advantage.
I remember watching Colin Powell on TV in 2003 explaining to congress, "You see these trucks here? These are clearly carrying weapons of mass destruction. Only bad trucks would leave tire marks and move around like this." Clearly this was a bad read, and the whole of humanity has suffered for this agenda being sold to us as an irrefutable, data-backed truth.
Has anyone read it?
These companies want to convince us of their superhuman insight & abilities, and rather than sustain a skeptical counter-outlook, the prevailing counter-narrative is to drastically over-subscribe their hype & to radically over-project their capabilities, is freaking the frell out & panicking about it.