House of Eratosthenes

He’s almost certainly wrong, of course. It’s just been given a fair try, and in my own experience I’ve yet to get a job from an unemployed person or hear of anyone else get a job from an unemployed person. Tattoo parlors don’t usually have employees, no matter how much business they’re doing that they weren’t doing the month before. The same goes for the grocery stores moving the milk, cereal, malt liquor and cat food; if they’re in a depressed area and their cashiers are taking in lots of food stamps and unemployment checks, they’re not to go out and hire a lot of people just because the benefits have been extended.

But of course, none of that is really proof; Carney could still be right. Thing is, it’s when we consider that Carney might be right, right there & then it’s vividly illustrated how badly he’s mishandling this could-be-right theory of his. He swerves off deeply in to Argumentum Ad Plausible territory: “My theory is plausible, or at least it sounds plausible when I describe it, that proves anyone who doesn’t support it is a dumbass.”

It is a Vibranium Adamantium Lightsaber theory that cuts through anything & everything. It is the wildcard in the paper-scissors-rock game, burning through the paper, smelting the scissors and atomizing the rock. Mine beats yours, haha! Proof? Evidence? What are those? You only show your ignorance by asking, mortal!

I’m impressed by the civility of the many liberals with whom I’ve discussed these things — they give me one chance to reform my ways, by walking through the plausible Vibranium theory from beginning to end as if I’ve never heard it before. Unlike the reporter-babe in the video though, often I don’t pose the question as a “how” about the whole thing, my pattern is to ask a “what happens when” about some specific detail within. What happens next is almost cute: They magically zip back up to the thirty-thousand foot level and recite the litany all over again. That’s my one chance. I’m supposed to genuflect on the spot and mend my ways. When, instead, I point out “yeah I’ve heard that a whole lot of times before, we just gave that a shot and it didn’t work” suddenly I’m a moron.

But we did give it a shot. Wasn’t that the complaint about trickle-down? Gave it a shot and it didn’t work?

But the weirdness is how they apparently can’t distinguish between a question about a detail within the plan…and a complete lack of knowledge about the plan itself. The remedy is always the “Our Theory 101” lecture with lots of pontificating and piousness. It reminds me of how they’re always saying we “need to raise awareness about global warming.” Seriously? In 2011, you think there’s someone out there who has yet to hear about it?

I wonder if this clip is what inspired Sonic:

As I alluded to over on this EconLog post, economic discussions often reduce to two camps:

People who think of the economy in a very simplistic (essent[ia]lly cartoonish) way, abstracting away all details and likening it to a machine you can control and tune – tweaking dials, pulling levers, opening valves, priming pumps.

People who don’t, and who instead think the economy is pretty complicated, and details matter.

Now, fine. Two approaches, to each his own, right? But here’s what I find astonishing:

The former group thinks they are Smart and they look down with sneering contempt on the intelligence of the latter group.

This is quite inexplicable. I am at a loss to understand it. Trying to explain this curious role-reversal phenomenon almost belongs neither to economics nor even to the study of politics. I am convinced it belongs to the realm of psychology. [emphasis mine]

I’m getting there myself.

I’m a little bit down on the discipline of psychology here. It tends to be a source of confusion, rather than enlightenment, when we get into those fault lines where a mental feebleness lazily & hazily borders on a natural but unfortunate personality attribute. In this case, simply being a dick.

One of the personality attributes of dicks is a complete lack of humility: It’s this way, there can be no doubt about it, because I just said it’s that way. I have my Vibranium Adamantium Lightsaber with me, I’m incapable of making mistakes because if I ever make a mistake it stops being a mistake and becomes the right thing to do, so that settles that.

Okay fine, you’re a dick. But is it too much to ask that dicks be able to complete a thought logically, and figure out what’s going on — sort of bend their preconceived notions to fit reality rather than the other way around? We expect doctors to do that. Anybody who’s spent as much time as I have working with doctors as I have, want to tell me there’s a shortage of dicks in that field? Sure not all doctors are dicks. But they’ve got their rep. There’s something to it, I can tell you that. So yes, you can be a dick and still find out in a reasoned, methodical and scientific way what’s going on. Sort of earn the privilege of your dick-ish-ness, as it were.

These people don’t do that. They don’t so much as make an initial or precursory gesture in that general direction; not even close. They know what they know and anybody who gets in the way must be an ignoramus. And sadly, that includes whatever muse you choose to represent reality itself — reality must bend and yield, and if she does not, then she’s a stupid idiot too.

No — really.

Just a bunch of voodoo-speak. It illustrates the Left’s complete lack of understanding of the essential components of a free market. All this posturing…”everyone knows” stuff…makes me ill. One, because it’s wrong. Two, these nimrods get away with it most of the time. Since their version of how to “fix” things is failing for all to see, let’s hope that the correction sends us back, speedily, in the other direction.
- BillW. | 08/26/2011 @ 09:37
These people don’t do that. They don’t so much as make an initial or precursory gesture in that general direction; not even close. They know what they know and anybody who gets in the way must be an ignoramus

It’s because they don’t use words the way we do. (Almost wrote “the way normal people do,” but of course for them, this is normal). For us, a theory is something which can be confirmed or falsified with evidence, and we don’t know if it’s right until we have some empirical data. For them, Theory — with the capital-T — is something entirely different.

Capital-T Theory is like one of those old Soviet five-year plans — the plan comes down, and it will be fulfilled, simply because the government will a) imprison or shoot anyone who says it isn’t working, and b) simply declare “the plan has been fulfilled!” at the end of five years regardless of what happens, and c) shoot or imprison anyone who says it didn’t actually work.

In other words, the leftist naturally thinks in huge, abstract categories — they call this “intelligence” or “being smart” or sometimes “nuance” — and since huge, abstract categories are necessarily artificial, it doesn’t bother them in the slightest that these categories never match up, even approximately, to real-world conditions. It all works on paper, so who cares if it works in reality? Smart People developed the Theory, the Theory is implemented by Technocrats (all of whom are, of course, Good People), and therefore it must be what’s best for The Workers, full stop. If The Workers don’t like it or are worse off than before, it’s not The Theory’s fault — it can’t be the Theory’s fault by definition — so it must be the work of “false consciousness” or “saboteurs” or “wreckers” or “right deviationists” or any other buzzword from that weird, twisted dictionary of communist calumny.

n.b. this is also why they’re so frustrating to argue with sometimes. They assume that we think this way too, so whenever conservatives say “we need to lower taxes,” they assume we’re making some kind of metaphysical, ex cathedra claim that Taxes are Bad. Or, when we suggest reforming welfare, they immediately jump to “so, you want to see orphans sold for spare parts and old people kicked into the street to die, eh?” They’re not just being hyperbolic; they assume we’re arguing on some abstract, Platonic level that Helping People is Bad.

Whether the tendency to think this way is a psychological aberration is above my pay grade. I sure hope not, as it seems to afflict somewhere around 30% terminally, and occasionally up to 60-70%. But it sure is annoying…..
- Severian | 08/26/2011 @ 10:39
As I alluded to over on this EconLog post, economic discussions often reduce to two camps:
•People who think of the economy in a very simplistic (essent[ia]lly cartoonish) way, abstracting away all details and likening it to a machine you can control and tune – tweaking dials, pulling levers, opening valves, priming pumps.
•People who don’t, and who instead think the economy is pretty complicated, and details matter.

Now, fine. Two approaches, to each his own, right? But here’s what I find astonishing:

The former group thinks they are Smart and they look down with sneering contempt on the intelligence of the latter group.

Actually, it’s pretty explicable.

They think economics is a “science”. It really isn’t, for the same kinds of reasons psychology is not a science. If it were, and the “scientists” (economists) were correct, then of course the Economy should be run by “experts” through the State. Anyone who believes otherwise is obviously “unscientific” in their eyes.

It goes further. “Experiments” in economics look like the USSR, Cuba, the New Deal, The Raw Deal (Obama 😉 ) China, North Korea, and to a bit lesser extent … Europe. So what do we have here (theoretically) in America?

The fact of the matter is is that Economics is a part of human behavior. It cannot be dictated any more than our huger or other drives. Economics is a study in what people value, how much and how much they value it compared with other things. You can’t dictate that. It just is. And when you mess with it, well … how’d that old ad go? It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!

Capitalism is not so much an economic plan, but a recognition that there can be no economic plan that is compatible with Liberty. It’s more like an economic “lack of plan”, or more accurately, millions and millions of micro-economic plans working together in symbiosis on their own, creating and breaking associations as each sees fit in the persuit of happiness. It is an “ism” to economics as nihilism is an “ism” to philosophy.

Of course, the don’t get any of that. It’ s much more reassuring to believe there is, or can be, someone with an Economic Plan™ than will “work” than it is to believe that the best economic plan is to Let It Be. Our plan is to have no plan, or to plan to let everyone plan their own plan.

Now that is a true “collective” plan!
- philmon | 08/26/2011 @ 11:47
“hunger”. not “huger”. 😛
- philmon | 08/26/2011 @ 11:48
This belongs in category 1 of “Movies You Ought Not to Spoil”, but you’re no longer taking comments there: Criminal
- luly | 08/27/2011 @ 00:06
Criminal negligence and not criminal intent…

In WordPress, pages are not posts; they exist outside the chronology of the blog as standalone objects, and do not allow comments by default. That particular page would be most appropriately maintained as a page that happens to allow comments; we definitely want reader comments on that one. It seems enabling comments only for specific pages is possible, and merely involves some fiddling-around with the PHP code. I’ll take that on as a project this weekend. Meanwhile, you’re always welcome to e-mail.
- mkfreeberg | 08/27/2011 @ 06:03
The socialist mind is our primitive and natural mind. It wants and craves certainty, not truths, and seeks the power necessary to decree its certainties into truths.

Free market capitalism cannot be understood, only observed. Hayek’s great encapsulation was this:
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. The astonishing fact revealed by economics and biology is that order generated without design can far outstrip plans men consciously contrive.

The less we “understand” the economy, the better it does.
- xlibrl | 08/27/2011 @ 10:28
Ok. But “Criminal” is a movie I would add to your list, that’s all.
- luly | 08/27/2011 @ 12:23
Name any micro text where transfer payments are described as increasing GDP.

Any. Macro. Text.
.
- TMI | 08/27/2011 @ 20:12
Obvious. Macro re:”micro”

Sorry for the error.
- TMI | 08/27/2011 @ 20:14

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Vibranium Adamantium Lightsaber TheoryFriday, August 26th, 2011

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Friday, August 26th, 2011