The Off Topic Topic

[Eddie Teach]

Ignore the mockery and lash out at the innocuous comments, she'd fit in well here.

[sbr]

 

[Josquius]

I remember a lecturer once telling me that you can only ever read a shockingly small number of books in your life even assuming you read very fast. If only I could remember his maths....

[DGuller]

How do you know his second poll wasn't biased?  His first one was.

I don't.  In fact, I thought one of his righty gotcha questions was dubious.

Here are the questions (actually they're statements that you either agree or disagree with):

1. Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.

2. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services.

3. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago.

4. Rent control leads to housing shortages.

5. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.

6. Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited.

7. Free trade leads to unemployment.

8. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment.

9. A dollar means more to a poor person than it does to a rich person.

10. Making abortions illegal would increase the number of black-market abortions.

11. Legalizing drugs would give more wealth and power to street gangs and organized crime.

12. Drug prohibition fails to reduce people's access to drugs.

13. Gun control laws fail to reduce people's access to guns.

14. By participating in the marketplace in the United States, immigrants reduce the economic well-being of American citizens.

15. When two people complete a voluntary transaction, they both necessarily come off better.

16. When two people complete a voluntary transaction, it is necessarily the case that everyone else is unaffected by their transaction.

Do all these questions have "correct" responses?    I can see these kinds of questions having different kinds of responses, depending on how many courses of economics you took.  Are you supposed to assume the Econ 101/WSJ economic universe where everyone is perfectly rational, perfectly informed, and perfectly free to do what they choose?

[Ideologue]

Indeed.  For some of them, it's very clear--making abortion illegal would obviously increase the number of illicit abortions outside of a perfect police state, and by contrast legalizing drugs would wipe out that black market in the same way that the end of Prohibition did away with bootlegging liquor as a major criminal enterprise, and the question about a monopoly is straight-up definitional, in that a monopoly must have the largest (above-board) market share, but a company with the largest market share need not be a monopoly--but most of the questions are gray.

Free trade leads to unemployment?  It certainly can, and to say the "enlightened answer" is that it cannot is not retarded--it is actively intellectually dishonest, even if you believe that freer trade is generally good.  Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the price of those services?  Perhaps, especially if you do not treat negative externalities that could result from failure to license as "costs."  Do minimum wage laws raise unemployment?  Ridiculous ones might, but reasonable ones might not, because demand for labor across all industries is certainly not perfectly elastic.  The point is these are asking categorical questions when categorical answers are not feasible.  It's a stupid quiz.

And the worst one--Overall the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago?  On what basis do you calculate standard of living--by some metrics, we live better than a king in the 10th century, in that we all have access to a toilet, let alone electricity and the Internet (of course droit du seignur is a non-economic good, so we can't count that).  But that is a question whose answer can only be made in either very narrow terms (did people own iPhones? I don't think so), or very broad, hard-to-quantify ones (were people happier? I have no idea).

[The Brain]

I think you guys spend way too much time on an op-ed piece in WSJ.

[Eddie Teach]

I think you guys spend way too much time on an op-ed piece in WSJ.

Probably so. I think you spend too much time painting miniatures. 

[The Brain]

I think you guys spend way too much time on an op-ed piece in WSJ.

Probably so. I think you spend too much time painting miniatures. 

Jealous much?

[Ideologue]

I just spent too much time looking for a comic in my poorly organized back stacks.

Lot of shit that isn't mine in the closet, so it turns out, and it's now in the trash.  Also, I found a box of books that my parents had gotten me as a kid, which I intended to give my children one day.  I guess it's not such a big deal; a lot of them are disastrously out of date, Warsaw Pacts and non-feathered dinosaurs abounding in their pages.  But they've got a lot of pretty maps and pictures and the dinosaur books had these neat little prose narratives about a day in the featured dinosaurs' lives, that were really good for a four or five year old to read.

Well, you can't hold on to anything forever.

You know what kills me, though?  I didn't even find the damned comic book.

[Razgovory]

Indeed.  For some of them, it's very clear--making abortion illegal would obviously increase the number of illicit abortions outside of a perfect police state, and by contrast legalizing drugs would wipe out that black market in the same way that the end of Prohibition did away with bootlegging liquor as a major criminal enterprise, and the question about a monopoly is straight-up definitional, in that a monopoly must have the largest (above-board) market share, but a company with the largest market share need not be a monopoly--but most of the questions are gray.

Free trade leads to unemployment?  It certainly can, and to say the "enlightened answer" is that it cannot is not retarded--it is actively intellectually dishonest, even if you believe that freer trade is generally good.  Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the price of those services?  Perhaps, especially if you do not treat negative externalities that could result from failure to license as "costs."  Do minimum wage laws raise unemployment?  Ridiculous ones might, but reasonable ones might not, because demand for labor across all industries is certainly not perfectly elastic.  The point is these are asking categorical questions when categorical answers are not feasible.  It's a stupid quiz.

And the worst one--Overall the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago?  On what basis do you calculate standard of living--by some metrics, we live better than a king in the 10th century, in that we all have access to a toilet, let alone electricity and the Internet (of course droit du seignur is a non-economic good, so we can't count that).  But that is a question whose answer can only be made in either very narrow terms (did people own iPhones? I don't think so), or very broad, hard-to-quantify ones (were people happier? I have no idea).

I dunno, some make other assumptions.  Would making abortions illegal increase the number of abortions.  Possibly, if there was still a demand for it.  If there is no desire for people to do it, making something illegal won't increase or decrease the number of incidents.  The question assumes a demand (which there is, but may not always be or may not be in all places).

[Eddie Teach]

Would making abortions illegal increase the number of abortions. 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say "no".

[Josephus]

Where does she keep the ones she's read?

She hasn't read any.

She's read 87 this year alone.

I read alone as well.

[Josquius]

This is crap yet entertaining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfBRCCUjRC8&feature=related

[Admiral Yi]

Do all these questions have "correct" responses?    I can see these kinds of questions having different kinds of responses, depending on how many courses of economics you took.  Are you supposed to assume the Econ 101/WSJ economic universe where everyone is perfectly rational, perfectly informed, and perfectly free to do what they choose?

I think about 4 or 5 of them are very debateable.  Although I don't see what perfect information, etc., etc., has anything to do with it.

What's less debateable is your, Ide's and Shelf's "ugh, centrism" response.

[Sheilbh]

Yi: I've probably jumped the gun a bit on that article, as I say I've not read it.  Sorry.  But I disagree with your equation of centrism = thinking.

I'm over halfway through my wordcount on this essay.  It's on the three certainties.  I've not even finished one yet

Still I think cutting an essay down is always easier than expanding a bare one.