Author Topic: Why I am an Austrian Economist [BLOG POST]  (Read 8099 times)

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Offline jae208

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Sorry, it wasn't meant to be rude or negative towards you personally.

No problem.

It was meant to convey, as one meaning, that violence and coercion are now at an evolutionary dead end. There is an evolving part of life on earth, humanity, and there is an evolving part of humanity - those willing to forgo violence and coercion in attempting consensus.

I really wish I could believe that. I really do. Unfortunately I do not.

And I do recognize that statistics show that violent crime has gone down over the years. But I don't believe that is because of any innate biological changes in humanity via evolution, but because of the way our civilization has changed and been structured. And I am hopeful that this trend will continue, but I believe severe violence would return if some of these structures were removed from our society. Thus, I am incredibly cautious and skeptical regarding arguments that favor radically changing some of these basic structures with the noble intent of reducing violence and coercion further.

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Offline onceuponatime

OK, here's another feeble attempt at a poetic response:

Either the meek will  inherit the earth - or cockroaches will.

Oh, thanks, now your previous quote clicked.

Yes, it seems every day as technology improves, humanity's existential risk increases. This scares me.

Can human culture change in the right direction and fast enough to act as a counterbalancing force to this effect? I don't know, but I hope so.

Can bitshares be in place fast enough to mitigate some of the suffering from the world-wide fiat collapse? I don't know, but I hope so.

Offline arhag

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OK, here's another feeble attempt at a poetic response:

Either the meek will  inherit the earth - or cockroaches will.

Oh, thanks, now your previous quote clicked.

Yes, it seems every day as technology improves, humanity's existential risk increases. This scares me.

Can human culture change in the right direction and fast enough to act as a counterbalancing force to this effect? I don't know, but I hope so.

Offline onceuponatime

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be rude or negative towards you personally.

No problem.

It was meant to convey, as one meaning, that violence and coercion are now at an evolutionary dead end. There is an evolving part of life on earth, humanity, and there is an evolving part of humanity - those willing to forgo violence and coercion in attempting consensus.

I really wish I could believe that. I really do. Unfortunately I do not.

And I do recognize that statistics show that violent crime has gone down over the years. But I don't believe that is because of any innate biological changes in humanity via evolution, but because of the way our civilization has changed and been structured. And I am hopeful that this trend will continue, but I believe severe violence would return if some of these structures were removed from our society. Thus, I am incredibly cautious ad skeptical regarding arguments that favor radically changing some of these basic structures with the noble intent of reducing violence and coercion further.

OK, here's another feeble attempt at a poetic response:

Either the meek will  inherit the earth - or cockroaches will.



Offline arhag

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Sorry, it wasn't meant to be rude or negative towards you personally.

No problem.

It was meant to convey, as one meaning, that violence and coercion are now at an evolutionary dead end. There is an evolving part of life on earth, humanity, and there is an evolving part of humanity - those willing to forgo violence and coercion in attempting consensus.

I really wish I could believe that. I really do. Unfortunately I do not.

And I do recognize that statistics show that violent crime has gone down over the years. But I don't believe that is because of any innate biological changes in humanity via evolution, but because of the way our civilization has changed and been structured. And I am hopeful that this trend will continue, but I believe severe violence would return if some of these structures were removed from our society. Thus, I am incredibly cautious and skeptical regarding arguments that favor radically changing some of these basic structures with the noble intent of reducing violence and coercion further.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2015, 12:41:44 am by arhag »

Offline onceuponatime

@arhag

"The hydrogen bomb is history's exclamation mark"
                                          Marshall McLuhan


Evolve or die.

I don't understand what you are trying to say with that statement. Can you expound on that?

It obviously seems like a negative statement towards me. Probably a disagreement in philosophy, which is fine, but there are better ways of voicing your personal disagreements to others' philosophy than the quite rude statement "evolve or die."

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be rude or negative towards you personally. And it was meant to be poetic rather than philosophical - but obviously I am an even worse poet than philosopher.

It was meant to convey, as one meaning, that violence and coercion are now at an evolutionary dead end. There is an evolving part of life on earth, humanity, and there is an evolving part of humanity - those willing to forgo violence and coercion in attempting consensus.

I suppose that is not philosophical but rather an observation/opinion from an admittedly imperfect observer.


Offline arhag

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@arhag

"The hydrogen bomb is history's exclamation mark"
                                          Marshall McLuhan


Evolve or die.

I don't understand what you are trying to say with that statement. Can you expound on that?

It obviously seems like a negative statement towards me. Probably a disagreement in philosophy, which is fine, but there are better ways of voicing your personal disagreements to others' philosophy than the quite rude statement "evolve or die."

Offline onceuponatime

@arhag

"The hydrogen bomb is history's exclamation mark"
                                          Marshall McLuhan


Evolve or die.

Offline arhag

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Your Take 2 blog post was a nice improvement initially. I wouldn't even call it judging it by its conclusions but rather disagreeing with the initial definition of "wealth of society" used as a premise in the theory. In your definition, you put a lot more weight on the degree of non-coercion aspect of society than many other mainstream economists. And so by that definition, any theory that concludes the "wealth of society" can increase through lots of coercion is likely logically inconsistent. But you do also accept that other people have different definitions of "wealth of society" in which such theories would not necessarily be logically inconsistent, correct? After all, a while back in the Vote thread I asked you and you said yourself you do not believe in moral universalism.

Now after "This is where I am going to get a tad philosophical for a moment" it all went downhill quickly. I found it especially cringe worthy when you related non-violence as a fundamental law comparable to law of conservation of energy! This is not scientific. You are making normative statements. And I agree with Thom, it adds nothing to this blog post. Although I disagree with him about using the logic of "universally preferred behaviors," which is nonsense to a moral relativist. The example of rape or murder never being preferred because they are by definition actions that are not preferred by the victim, ignores the preferences of the aggressor. He is making normative statements that we should only consider the preference of the victim and not the aggressor, which forces us to make value judgments of who the "victim" and "aggressor" are in each situation. There is broad consensus about this in areas such as murder and rape (although even in these situations in not so black and white), but once you get into other subtle acts of violence and coercion, it gets far more tricky to get consensus.

Offline Thom

Better, but imo you would win more people over by leaving out the reference to SR. The 3 paragraphs starting with
Quote
This is where I am going to get a tad philosophical

are unnecessary and disrupt flow and main point you were trying to make about a scientific basis for your position. Since you said all that as your basis for non violence, a better approach to it would have been arguing on the basis of logic, such as the logic of universally preferred behaviors. Two people cannot "prefer" to be be raped for example, b/c rape by definition is a violation a person's desire not to have sex. You can't have a desire to be raped; rape is not something a person consents to or it simply isn't rape. Same is true of murder or violence (excepting the case of two masochists which is obviously not normative behavior).

I'm OK with using philosophy in getting your point across, and I'm even somewhat open to the SR perspective you've introduced me to, but in this case imo it's isn't useful or necessary.
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Offline bytemaster

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Offline starspirit

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If one is a believer in moral relativism (i.e. that there is no single absolute set of moral values that applies to all people in all times), then there is no way to form a consensus on which school of economic thought should be preferred over others in terms of their intent or guiding principles. While BM espouses individual freedom (which I also hold dearly), it is equally valid for others to hold the view that the greater good might be a higher principle even if individual freedoms are sometimes sacrificed, and indeed the ranking of such preferences for any person may also be time- or context-dependent. We must accept that our value judgments are often personal preferences and not universal laws. Even in Bitshares there is not a purity of application of the principle of individual freedom - BTS are now diluted for the common good even if individual freedoms in evaluating the merits of such wealth transfers are compromised, as I have raised before. This is neither absolutely right nor wrong - individuals make their own judgments.

I feel there is no need to use intellectual labels, economic or otherwise, to box BitShares or its diverse community. This will surely lead to straw-man arguments against it, and unnecessary debates within its community. Instead I think it is better to focus on where the community will derive value from this newly evolved ecosystem and the technological tools that make it possible, benefits such as increased personal freedom, global diversity and association, greater resource efficiency, indisputable security, etc. These end-benefits will drive the accelerating adoption.

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Ohh boy...

Terrible article, imho. [disclaimer: If there is a supply side believer bigger than, BM it is me...]

Trying to prove religion is a nonsense and destructive force using only approved religious texts and interpretations... Doable but totally unnecessary!

Why did you allow yourself BT to be drawn in the trap of being constrained to only the arguments that their 'system' considers valid or appropriate?


What I would have done?
I would have shown 90 years of total, non-stop failure of the neo-economics...
1.'Discover' their new and improved theory (based on 'provable' math of random snapshot of the 'economic picture' at their selected time)....
2. Fail miserably in practice;
3. Repeat 1 and 2;

Offline onceuponatime

Theories like this don't take human nature into account. If everyone could check their egos long enough to test out Austrian economics in practice, I suspect it would prove to be quite a mess. That's not to say that we couldn't use more of its wisdom in our system, but in its pure form it would cause depressions like we've never seen.

Yes, short and sharp rather than long and drawn out. A big improvement in my opinion.