I like how Mankiw, Tyler Cowen, and RH express their disagreement on this issue. It just seems more sophisticated.

Bordeaux comes across to me as violently thrashing and–ironically–I feel nauseous reading his words.

I certainly have a tendancy towards a double standard. When PZ Myers or Taleb are purposely insulting, I find it amusing and sometimes insightful. Though–the post you link is really rather extreme. I guess he really does basically see them as white collar criminals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

“Of course the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand caused WWI. Of course the attack at Pearl Harbor instigated American entrance into WWII. Of course the rise of contraceptive use during the late colonial period led to the decrease in birth rate in census data.”

I think the problem, of course, is not that narratives are untrue, just that we are not nearly skeptical enough about them. Especially in history studies, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy reigns supreme.

I think the better alternative is that they give it to me. I’m going to start the Anti-Neo-Post-Pseudo-Keynesian school. The formula will be:

Y = C + I + X + O – M – G

I wonder what the “O” term is…

See this Wikipedia article for some perspective…

That is to say, probably few of the protesters holding signs mentioning ‘capitalism’ are anarchocapitalists.

I have a friend who might be pretty knowledgeable about the various anarchist positions: I may have her clarify and then talk about what I’ve learnt in a later post.

I think it’s pretty clear that unless human value for life changes drastically, we will continue to experience net growth. We’ll be more able to prevent undesirable death, and people in general will still like to have children (however it’s done at that point).

–anyway, I read Robin’s post differently: I think he’s saying that we may preserve nature, but a lot of it will end up becoming, more or less, parks or managed ecosystems.

I don’t think it will escape the attention of capitalist that they rely on the earth for natural resources and that technological advanced will decrease, not increase, our reliance and impact on nature and not the other way around.

Reliance: sure, they’ll try to decrease reliance. Impact? Really skeptical that most people will act to minimize impact. I don’t see it as overwhelmingly likely that enough technological progress will be put in that direction. It can, and I don’t think we can completely wipe ourselves out in this regard, but at least a few possible changes environmentalists envision as horrible permanent disasters may actually be done deals.

Since when have you become a supporter of the American tradition of stick-up the ass hyperseriousness?

I was vaguely hoping the “You lie” interjection might move Congress *slightly* towards the atmosphere of the House of Commons. Comments on pop culture are a move in the right direction!

…is what I would say if I were to humor this bad slippery-slope arg–I’M GONNA LET YOU FINISH BUT FALSE SYMMETRY IS THE BEST BLOG EVER.

Going back to your grandfather, yes, it is rational to expect that life will never be the same again after we lose someone who’s been part of out lives for many years. Yes, it’s rational to believe that those who have passed away are gone for good. And it may be rational to infer that with no one to take of him, his health will rapidly deteriorate.

It might, just might be a rational calculation that says, “Given these things, it might be better for me to die than to continue to live a life in physical pain.”

But: depression. What justifies feeling bad now? Depression espouses an implicit assumption that given a very bad future, present disposition must also be proportionally negative. Yes, I’m implying that is a link that can be broken.

But it is hard. To ask your grandfather to be completely rational on his own about how he forms his subjective attitudes towards reality is akin to asking him to become a Zen or Stoic master overnight.

Depression always, always impairs rationality. Facts themselves are neutral. Our basic attitudes about reality may be based on sound reasoning from values. Despair and depression requires *something* that manifests as an extra inferential step in order to modify utility terms it has no business touching.

Depression and the distortions that give rise to them are, for very present, prominent parts of the human condition. This is an awful fact that I hope in the future we are able to change.

I’m not sure how common it is though. I’ll do more research.

The closest thing I’ve heard to an evolutionary explanation of depression is an evolutionary explanation of sadness: sadness signals to other members of our tribe that we are injured and need help. Furthermore, when we sympathize with someone else’s suffering, we are actually simulating it in our own minds, to a certain extent, which causes is to be more likely to help others.

Depression, though, strikes me as either a pathological expression of that tendancy (similar to genetic predisposition towards morbid obesity) or something completely different.

You might know more about this–what is the evolutionary explanation of individuals in animal populations starving themselves to death?

Evolution, though is not morality and I am pretty committed to opposing depression.

Suffering may not be something we can choose to avoid outright. Things happen which can cause us to suffer. Nevertheless, there is no rational basis for suffering.

I am not saying it is easy, and I am absolutely not blaming people for their own suffering. It is hard, and sometimes it seems almost impossible.

We empathize with people who suffer, and sometimes situations are almost hopelessly depressing.

Do you think it is correct for your grandfather to feel depressed and hopeless about his situation? Is it right from any moral standpoint? Other elements of his situation being constant, would it improve his situation if he were not depressed?

You might be claiming that depression is people responding irrationally to a bad situation – they come to fallacious conclusions about the severity of their situation.

But this doesn’t seem to include (and correct me if I’m wrong) people who’s situations are truly hopeless. Why is it considered irrational for there to be no light at the end of the tunnel, and be truly depressed about it?

My grandfather is experiencing severe depression after his wife, my grandmother, died last year. Is he irrational for believing that his life will never be the same again, and that my grandmother is never coming back? Is he irrational for believing that his own life is not worth living and his own health will deteriorate (he’s a severe and unhealthy diabetic) without his wife to take care of him?

While the depressive response may not help solve his situation, I don’t think its stemming out of fallacious reasoning.

I’m wondering if you know of an evolutionary explanation for depression… how could depression improve one’s fitness? (or is it a modern expression of some other trait that expresses itself more helpfully in nature?)

My concern is not that Stossel associates himself with people with similar views… it’s that he thinks the Fox business people have similar views. I believe this is a false face Fox (which I assume are tied into the RNC in general) is presenting now that it is convenient to do so.

I will predict that your answer will be that human capitalism will engineer ways around the for these species (does anybody really need to eat a rare fish species, for example?).

To that, I say, we really don’t know how ecological networks affect us. We’ll be sorry if these networks are disrupted so that they (however temporarily) affect our own standards of living.

This… is of course just what I gather from still not having read any of Cass Sunstein’s stuff.

Jct: That’s how a LETS timebank works.
“IOU-1-Hour” is given based on mutual respect (whether its for a job well down or a good conversation). “IOU-1-Hour” is used as the de facto currency, and will buy you anything you need, but it also seems to be self-reproducing. In other words, I don’t have to give up my own “IOU 1 Hour” to give some to another.

And in Africa, you can transfer “I(IOU-1-Minute) by cellphone already!

I used “whether” because there seems to be a dichotomy of choice here.

My problem with this is that I hear a lot of complaining about “opportunity cost” of not spending on more police, but not much data to support the claim. Or that civil liberties/ privacy has really been violated, for that matter.

And yes, the last question was a quiz. I was thinking of enforcement of property rights, but also providing social stability so that fiat currency stays trustworthy. I disagree somewhat about this last point – not that the gov’t. does this, but that its necessary (are central banks really necessary to maintain liquidity?)

And yes, the MSM media takes studies out of context, but this was a direct quote from the scientist (not his research paper) so I can’t help but wonder…

*Whether* is the too-obvious question word to use in this case, unless you’re actually asserting that the money could *not* have been spent in a better way.

You are right about monetary value, but is your last question a quiz? I think almost everyone agrees that government is important for maintaining the liquidity of the money supply.

…which I’m wasn’t able to verify: could you fix the link?

At any rate, I don’t believe Higgs’ article touches on this either.

Thanks for your comments.

I think this is a legitimate use of government power.

Since people like to live on coasts, perhaps insurance companies will arise to cover people in case of natural disasters associated with the coast. But if we consider this scenario, imagine some insurance company “covers” a massive disaster, but when the disaster actually happens, it turns out the insurance company is bankrupt. I can’t think of a non-governmental solution to the problem. Either the government would be needed to regulate insurance companies out of bad practices, or the government would be needed as the “backup insurance” when the disaster happens.

I ask as this is starting to sound a lot like what happened in the financial markets.

I definitely agree with you that it is difficult to not privatize gains while socializing losses. Though perhaps in the long run this produces a very volitile economy but has larger average, maybe it has larger average growth in the long run?

The only note I have is that most natural disasters are not Black Swan events in of themselves. They have complex payoffs, but are very predictable.

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami is a good example of a Black Swan event. But something like the 1859 Solar Flare is perhaps the best.

Taleb has qualified several times that the recent financial crisis was not a Black Swan (though it gained his work a lot of attention).

I seem to set this trap for myself fairly often. I’m glad you’re around to call me on it.

I believe Frodo Baggins preferred video blogging.

You would still think that American politicians would want to distance themselves from Che/Castro’s bloody record of political ascension, not to mention denial of rights, etc. Go down to Florida and ask some Cuban refugees what these leaders are really like, and you’ll get a very different story than what you’re hearing from liberal politicians.

My point wasn’t about specific ideology, but the commonality in the methods of the totalitarian to remain in power and how its easy to villainize long lead dictators and ignore how other dictators where just as violent and wrong in their methods… even if it happened decades ago.

I still think the congresswoman makes a difficult case to make – that we should pattern our health care reforms from communist cuba – because it sounds like she has no idea what other things cubans have to give up for this one little benefit. She would have been better off invoking the canadian or british systems.

Meanwhile, she comes off sounding like an ignoramus (but not to those legions of people with Che t-shirts, who are just as ignorant as her.

This is important because people are being killed.

I wonder: If the US disengages from this conflict (we know this is not going to happen soon) how will the refugee situation be handled, if at all?

Why aren’t these words political suicide anymore? Has the media forgotten, and thereby legitimizing, the ruinous methods these dictators came to power?

First, it’s not political suicide because we’re over a decade past the end of the Cold War.

Second, I really doubt you can put Castro/Che on the same page as Rommel/Mussolini. You could do a fair comparison to Mao, but you’re in a bind there because some people actually revere Mao. And, hmmm, many more people revere Che. Maybe with a skewed perspective on the actual events.

We have a potentially very mixed audience here. In this case –call me ignorant– even I am not sure what justifies the comparison you’ve made.

I’m not clear which comparison you’re actually trying to make.

That’s the minor objection– the major objection I’d express by crying “Ludic fallacy!” But please address the minor objection first, if you would.

Have you discounted the possibility that someone else is conducting a social experiment about people who blindly follow instructions? Or that some crazy person with a need for power has wondered into your cafeteria?

I’ll check out that post, thanks.

As time goes by, the opportunity cost can change dramatically. At the time of the ticket purchase, the opportunity cost of buying the ticket was the possibility of a world where Scott had $10 more in his pocket. At the time of the concert, the opportunity cost of seeing the concert was a possibility of a world where Scott had $50 more in his pocket.

I think a good way to calculate opportunity cost is to use a 2 step calculation. Calculate the net costs and benefits for each possible action, and then compare the results of each action. The net benefit of the second best action is the opportunity cost. It’s rather strange to call a forgone benefit a cost, and I think the terminology has confused a lot of people, but we’re stuck with it now. This blog has a good discussion of ways to look at opportunity cost, even though I disagree with the author’s conclusion. http://divisionoflabour.com/archives/001666.php

But the framing effects are important here. If I’m considering the day of the concert, the opportunity cost is indeed $50 (price of ticket scalping only). But, if I’m thinking intertemporally, including both the time of the ticket purchase and the concert, then the sunk costs are $10 and the profit opportunity given up is $40… bringing the total costs up to $50.

Is there something wrong with this line of thinking?

Mankiw’s definition of opportunity cost is “what you give up to get that item.” Since you must give up having $50 to go into the concert, that is your opportunity cost. The opportunity cost would not change if you got the ticket for free or if you originally paid $500 for the ticket. The original price of the ticket is sunk and must be ignored.

I don’t think I’m disagreeing with anything you say, I just found your explanation a little confusing and thought perhaps your readers would appreciate a restatement.

I agree with you about ‘decentralizing corrective economic forces’, so long as that goes equally for breaking up government and corporate power.

You’re right about market forces as well, but I don’t think free market forces are the source of problems, so much as the exploitation of these forces. I’m not against business and for goverment, I’m against oligopolization of markets, be it by private or public interests.

You’re also right about government incentives, but the question is, who are they incenting? Big business, that chokes out entrepreneurialism and alternative, non-corporate business models.

I’m not really a democrat in any meaningful sense. I’m interested in Obama as a cultural phenomenon, I like a few of his positions, and I’m generally more convinced by his sort of pseudo-Keynesianism than I am with an variant of strong Friedmanism.

You think?

r

Non-Americans seem to be more interested in U.S. politics than Americans are in the politcs of other countries, or even international affairs.

And why exactly is this the case? When did this start, and when might this change (if ever)?