Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970213132218.016fc9f0@ilhawaii.net> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 13:22:20 -1000 From: "Jay Hanson mailto:mailto:j@qmail.com" <j@QMAIL.COM> Subject: Re: The economics of ignorance and distortion. To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
At 04:34 PM 2/13/97 -0500, SE wrote:>So, I'm convinced, won't listen to their predictions re the market any more.
>And I certainly won't put them on my Web page.
>
>Are you ready to give up similarly on Ehrlich?
Specificality, which statement of Ehrlich's are you talking about? Or are you suggesting we just burn him at the stake and get it over with once and for all?
Actually, I always take statements from people with a grain of salt and try to verify their conclusions through other sources -- even Paul Ehrlich.
By the way, I just saw this:
Copyright © 1997 N.Y. Times News Service
(Feb 12, 1997 00:12 a.m. EST) -- Dr. Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University in England -- the brilliant theorist regarded as one of Albert Einstein's intellectual successors -- has conceded defeat in a famous bet he made six years ago on a matter of cosmic significance. [snip]
Since Hawking has now lost a bet and thus lost ALL credibility for ALL time, would you recommend that we send him a Jack Kavorican gift certificate?
Perhaps a permanent vacation to Devil's Island?
The real question is how can society rid itself -- once and for all -- of people who lose bets?
Jay -- http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/ ...................................................... Lester Thurow says free-market theory extends far beyond the realm of conventional economics: "It is, in short . . . also a political philosophy, often becoming something approaching a religion."
"No other discipline attempts to make the world act as it thinks the world should act. But of course what Homo sapiens does and what Homo oeconomicus should do are often quite different. That, however, does not make the basic model wrong, as it would in every other discipline. It just means that actions must be taken to bend Homo sapiens into conformity with Homo oeconomicus. So, instead of adjusting theory to reality, reality is adjusted to theory."