Economics as religion

Steve Keen explained why the mainstream economists have completely failed to learn from their past failures at Brainstorm:

VOX: Why do you think the mainstream economists failed to learn anything from the 2008 crisis, given the fact that these minor school economists, the post-Keynesians and the Austrians in particular, have been correct about the crisis coming? Generally speaking, isn’t the idea that if the predictive model works, maybe we should pay attention to it?

KEEN: The reality is that economics is basically a set of competing religious schools. The case of the post-Keynesians predicting a crisis and some Austrians getting their heads around it as well and the Neoclassicals not predicting it is like saying the Muslims had discovered the body of Jesus Christ. The apt reply back from the Vatican is, no, you haven’t, because it isn’t here, it’s in heaven. So, in that sense, the religious side of it came out and they have their own interpretation of the crisis. It was an exogenous shock.

VOX: From where, Mars?

KEEN: Yeah, they were looking for the meteor right now to see where it landed. It was an exogenous shock from outside the solar system! So this idea of an exogenous shock became their explanation. There’s a classic paper over it by a guy who I think is named Peter Ireland, he’s actually from Boston College, and he began a paperback in 2010 saying that we failed to see the crisis coming but it doesn’t mean our models are useless. He dismissed the type of dynamic modeling that I do while simultaneously showing that he didn’t understand my modeling. He wasn’t reading a paper of mine, he was just saying that you can’t make a deterministic model of this sort of phenomenon, showing he knew nothing about complex systems. But he then said what actually caused the crisis was an exogenous shock just like those that caused the 1992 crisis. However, the shocks lasted longer and they got bigger. Which means, of course, that a randomly distributed variable, which is what the exogenous shocks have to be, remained permanently negative and got bigger while still remaining randomly distributed.

So therefore there has to be, at some point, a really big shock in the opposite direction which hasn’t arrived yet. So they just went back into saying that – and I have seen this happen so many times – that you can’t predict the crisis because in our model a crisis can only occur if there’s a large exogenous shock. Which, by definition can’t be predicted, therefore, you can’t predict it.

Now it really reminds me of one of the little questions I had in my mind. I said, how did Ptolemic astronomers explain comets? And it finally was explained to me that in that era, comets were considered an astronomic phenomenon because of course comets couldn’t occur in the heavens because the heavens are perfect. It’s the same thing with neoclassicals.

VOX: Yeah, it’s interesting to me how in any field of science or even quasi-science, you can almost always tell whose models are ineffective and who really doesn’t know what they’re talking about because they always have to bring in some sort of bizarre epicycle to explain things away. The more epicycles and explanations that they have to come up with, the more certain you can be, even if you have no idea what they’re talking about, the mere fact that they are engaging in the circles and epicycles means that you can be pretty confident that they’re going to be wrong.

I thought this was an unusually good event, even by the high standards of Brainstorm. We’ll try to get the transcript cleaned up and out to the members within the next two weeks or so.

Brings the Lightning by Peter Grant

Castalia House is very pleased to announce the publication of a new Western novel, Book 1 in The Ames Archives, Brings the Lightning, by Peter Grant.

When the Civil War ends, where can a former Confederate soldier go to escape the long memories of neighbors who supported the winning side? Where can Johnny Reb go when he can’t go home?

He can go out West, where the land is hard, where there is danger on every side, and where no one cares for whom you fought – only how well you can do it.

Walt Ames, a former cavalryman with the First Virginia, is headed West with little more than a rifle, a revolver, and a pocket full of looted Yankee gold. But in his way stand bushwhackers, bluecoats, con men, and the ever-restless Indians. And perhaps most dangerous of all, even more dangerous than the cruel and unforgiving land, is the temptation of the woman whose face he can’t forget.

When you can’t go home again – go West!

Earlier this year, Peter Grant, the author of The Maxwell Saga and The Laredo Trilogy, happened to mention that he was interested in reviving the classic Western, and was, in fact, engaged in writing one. While the thought of publishing a Western was appealing, my initial impression was that Castalia House had more than enough on its plate attempting to revive classic science fiction and fantasy, and besides, I’ve always been more of a Louis L’Amour fan than a particular fan of the genre.

But then it occurred to me that for many Western civilizationists who love liberty, the Western is central to our conception of ourselves, and moreover, that there was very likely a connection between the SJW infestation in SF/F and the loss of interest in the Western genre by the mainstream publishers. As we’ve seen everywhere from computer games to comics and RPGs, it is all one big cultural war.

And then there is the fact that Fair Blows the Wind is one of my favorite novels in any genre.

So, I got in touch with Peter, told him that Castalia would love to get on board with the Western revival, and offered to publish what I learned was not merely the novel that turned out to be Brings the Lightning, but was the first book in a series about a man named Walter Ames, a Confederate who finds that he can’t return home to the farm in Tennessee after the Civil War. Peter is a man of a vast and varied experience, and it shows in his writing; moreover, he is a stickler for historical research, especially where firearms are concerned.

If you have a soft spot for Westerns, or you are, like me, a L’Amour fan, I am confident you will enjoy the adventures of Mr. Walt Ames. Brings the Lightning is 229 pages, retails for $4.99, and is available only on Amazon. New Release subscribers should check their emails for the customary free bonus book offer.

From the early reviews:

  • Brings the Lightning is an
    excellent revival of the western genre popularized by the likes of Louis
    L’Amour and Zane Gray in years past. 
  • The gun nuts among his fans will be delighted at the myriad details about firearms he includes, deftly weaving them into the tale as his main character comes to depend on them for his livelihood and defense on the dangerous trip West. 
  • I found the novel to be on a par
    with the early L’Amour works such as Killoe, Fallon, Radigan, Hondo and
    Kilkenny    . Very much worth reading.
  • The storyline is L’Amouresque, but the writing style is much better. L’Amour told great stories, but let’s face it, some of his prose really clunked in places, whereas Grant’s is very smooth. 

UPDATE: Peter Grant’s own announcement of his first Western is here. It’s interesting to learn that the genre was so popular with the South African military.

    The Internet isn’t fair

    Neither is life. So what? Git hahd. Git gud. The New Femininity writes an essay on How to Defend Yourself From the SJW Mob:

    Never assume anyone is going to be fair to you

    No one is going to be fair to you and no one is going to sympathize with you. No one is going to give you the benefit of the doubt and no one is going to defend you because their default thought process is that you shouldn’t have touched the flaming hot stove if you didn’t expect to get burned.

    My own husband didn’t have a lick of sympathy for me. He told me I was completely on my own. In fact, the only time he showed me any sort of empathy was months after when I told him I pressed full charges on my stalker against her professional license. He knew she went too far, and he fully supported my decision.

    Bottom line is, people are not going to be partial to your sense of political justice in saying controversial things on the internet–because they themselves don’t want the trouble or expense of caring about something they believe you brought squarely upon yourself. It isn’t right and it isn’t wrong–it just is. People have jobs, their own lives, and their own multitude of problems. Don’t expect them to be fair, supportive or understanding in your willful decision to engage in your own personal crusade of online martyrdom–it’s your problem and they are under no obligation or duty to make it theirs.

    On the flip side, when you find that rare individual who is willing to stand with you, who is willing to damn the torpedoes and defend you, you’d better appreciate what a gift you’ve been given.

    That’s why so many people fear the VFM and the Dread Ilk. They know none of their tactics are going to work. They see the mutual loyalty that is the chief characteristic of the relationship and it scares them to death because they don’t know anything like it.

    That’s also why it is useless to attempt to separate me from my social media allies. I’m not blind to their various idiosyncracies, (nor, to be fair, are they blind to mine) I simply don’t care because I know that I can count on them. Every single one of them has, at one point or another, put himself in the line of fire on my behalf when he did not have to do so.

    This may be one more thing that separates the #AltRight from the movement conservatives. They are constantly jockeying for position and status and air time. We are far more concerned with mutual defense against the media and SJW mobs, and we genuinely celebrate each others’ scalps and successes. Take on one of us, and you can be pretty sure that at the very least, the others will at least fire a symbolic round or two in your direction.

    How do you develop strong alliances? Mike Cernovich has already answered that. Look for those who need help and deserve it. Help them. Then repeat.

    Smells like SFWA

    Elijah Wood speaks out about the pedophiles in Hollywood:

    Hollywood is in the grip a child sexual abuse scandal similar to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has claimed.

    The 35-year-old former child actor said paedophiles had been protected by powerful figures in the movie business and that abuse was probably still taking place.

    In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wood said he had been protected from abuse as he was growing up, but that other child actors had been regularly “preyed upon” at parties by industry figures.

    “You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating,” he said.

    “Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood.

    “It was all organised.

    “There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.

    “There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.”

    Considering the physical proximity of Hollywood to the California SF scene, it would not surprise me in the least if there turns out to be links between the Hollywood coven that Wood is describing, the Breen-MZB coven, and the coven of convicted pedophiles that the Sacramento police department reported were in contact with Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka.

    The truth will come out eventually. Eventually the victims will find the courage to speak out and save others from suffering their fate.

    Anne Henry, co-founder of Bizparents, a group set up to help child actors, said Hollywood is currently sheltering around 100 active abusers and said a “tsunami” of claims was beginning.

    The decline of science fiction literature

    He raises a significant question I haven’t seen: why is it that science fiction editors talk so much about politics, and so little about books they’ve read? He also hammers McRapey for his corrupt little arrangement with Cory Doctorow and BoingBoing.

    He also found over a dozen voting slates and determined that there was only  one difference between the Puppy success and the lack of success of the rival slates: the Puppy slates – which, in the case of the Rabid Puppies were of course not even slates at all – were put forth by more popular blogs.

    In other words, the only reason for all the fandom histrionics is that our writers are considerably more popular – or even worse, more influential – than theirs are. That is why they are constantly changing the rules and appealing to the media in order to continue their affirmative action campaign of destroying science fiction in order to improve it.

    Earlier this week, a rousing headline shot at warp-speed across browsers and Twitter feeds: Women Swept The 2015 Nebula Awards, taking home the prestigious science-fiction and fantasy prizes in the categories of Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story and Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy work.

    The news might’ve come as a surprise to — or, at least, to the chagrin of — a boisterous group of science fiction writers and fans who’ve taken up the cause of restoring the genre to its tenants of yore: lighthearted adventure that’s sleek, zippy, fun, and — oh yeah — comprised of shelves’ worth of white male writers.

    The ostensible platform of the Sad and Rabid Puppies, whose name is meant to mock heartfelt liberalism, is meant to support action stories sans political or moral message. And the cost? Last year, they rigged the voting for a similarly lauded set of prizes, the Hugo Awards, favoring white male writers and effectively quelling women and authors of color. Unlike the Nebulas — which are voted on by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, an organization comprised not just of writers but editors and publishers — the Hugos are controlled by readers, so the Puppies were able to leave their mark.

    They didn’t succeed entirely. The categories they stocked with their own nominees received “No Award” due to voters rejecting their white male nominees. But for writers whose books were unfairly overlooked, the damage was done.

    This year, the conversation howls on, especially in light of the woman-centered Nebula slate. Nnedi Okorafor, who won for her novella Binti, an interstellar story about a girl who leaves her people to attend the prestigious Oomza University, worlds away from her home, says she’s thankful that issues of prejudice in the industry are being discussed.

    In an interview with The Huffington Post, Okorafor said, “Honestly, I love hearing people arguing out in the open, not hidden away in their own echo chambers. That’s what I want to see more of: Dialogue. The issues swirling around the Hugos are merely manifestations of the growing pains this country is experiencing as a whole,” she added. “Growing pains are painful, awkward, annoying, sometimes destructive in order to create. What I hope will be the outcome of the Hugos is an airing out, an addressing, a debate, and a moving forward.”

    Naomi Novik, who took home the 2016 Nebula for her novel Uprooted, a fantasy book about a girl whose taken from her beloved community by a seemingly harmless dragon, feels differently. For her, the Sad Puppies’ rhetoric has been damaging, manipulative and unreflective of true fandom.

    “I am glad to trumpet my disdain for this loudly,” Novik told HuffPost. “What I very much hope will come out of this year’s Hugo Awards is that the rules will be changed. [The Puppies] need to just go away.”

    Both women agree that prejudiced lines of thinking have been historically damaging to women and writers of color working in the genre, who have both been recognized in their time, but largely forgotten by history. Kate Wilhelm’s suspenseful speculative fiction has won multiple Nebulas and a Hugo; Vonda N. McIntyre, whose longstanding attachment to the “Star Trek” franchise rocketed her to acclaim, won both awards as well. Yet neither is discussed alongside Orson Scott Card or William Gibson.

    If Maddie Crum had ever read Kate Wilhelm’s or Vonda McIntyre’s books, or Card’s and Gibson’s, for that matter, she would know perfectly well why the former are not discussed alongside the latter. They’re neither as good nor as important and influential. They’re just not. It’s not even debatable.

    It will be interesting to see how Novik’s disdain will be affected if we give her book Best Novel, just as we gave it to Three-Body Problem last year. Uprooted isn’t a great book, nor is it an important one, but it’s not a bad little fairy tale either. It’s a lightweight book more akin to Among Others than Redshirts or The Quantum Rose. It’s rather amusing that fendom is so caught up in the nominations game that they have failed to recognize that while they decide if anyone wins or not, the Rabid Puppies now decide who will win whenever there is more than one contestant in play.

    The thing is, neither Novik nor Okorafor are bad writers. I generally like their works I’ve read. In historical terms, they write competent midlist fantasy and science fiction, respectively. But the fact that they are the best Pink SF has to offer is sufficient evidence of both the decline of the mainstream science fiction infrastructure as well as the general mediocrity of female SF/F writers.

    What female SF/F writer today can compete with Tanith Lee at her best? If you compare Novik’s take on fairy tales to Lee’s, well, it’s not even close. There is still Lois McMaster Bujold, of course, but even she has lost her fastball when it comes to her novel-length works. Fat Seanan? N… K… Jemisin? Kameron “We Have Always Invented History” Hurley? Ann “Tea in Space” Leckie?

    Please. There are better women writers working in the game industry than are getting nominated for awards in SF/F literature these days. Forget the awards, half these women couldn’t get published traditionally or self-publish and sell in the Amazon top 100,000 if they used a male pen name.

    I’d very much like to see one of them try to prove me wrong. And as for the converse, well, are you absolutely certain I haven’t already done so?

    “The Jewish face of immigration reform”

    Yeah, so, about that….

    Man featured in Time cover story on immigration reform is sentenced to 15 years in prison for child porn and sexually exploiting boy with brain cancer.

    Naim, who immigrated to the US with his family when he was three years old, was named the ‘Jewish face of the immigration reform struggle’ after he appeared in the Time story. It was the first time Naim made his undocumented status publicly known.

    ‘My being public protects me because America loves stories,’ he told The Forward in 2013.

    ‘And when we hear about a good person — a person who is nice, who cares — we don’t want him deported; we want him in this country.’

    No, we definitely want him deported. And all his family with him.

    Fourmilog review of Cuckservative

    It is good to know so many intelligent people think well of Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America. From the Fourmilog review:

    This is an excellent book: well written, argued, and documented. For those who have been following these issues over the years and observed the evolution of the conservative movement over the decades, there may not be much here that’s new, but it’s all tied up into one coherent package. For the less engaged who’ve just assumed that by voting for Republicans they were advancing the conservative cause, this may prove a revelation. If you’re looking to find racism, white supremacy, fascism, authoritarianism, or any of the other epithets hurled against the dissident right, you won’t find them here unless, as the Left does, you define the citation of well-documented facts as those things.

    What you will find is two authors who love America and believe that American policy should put the interests of Americans before those of others, and that politicians elected by Americans should be expected to act in their interest. If politicians call themselves “conservatives”, they should act to conserve what is great about America, not compromise it away in an attempt to, at best, delay the date their constituents are delivered into penury and serfdom.

    Read the whole thing there. And if you haven’t read it yet, read Cuckservative.

    DevGame starts tomorrow

    The first session in the DevGame 2.0 course begins tomorrow at 12:30 Eastern. I’m concerned that I don’t have the emails for the two of you who paid at the White Bull site, so shoot me an email if you did and you haven’t received an invite yet.

    Above is a screenshot from a game that one team of our DevGame 1.0 attendees has created; the game is very close to completion and the lead programmer and the lead artist will be making appearances to discuss how they applied what they learned to Elveteka, which is a remake of the classic Apple II game Karateka.

    If you are a Brainstorm member or took the DevGame 1.0 course, you are welcome to attend. It’s not too late, so if you want to attend, you can either sign up for the course, or just shoot me an email with DEVGAME in the subject if you qualify for a free seat.

    Don’t fret if you don’t receive the registration link right away. I’ll send another batch out tomorrow morning.

    Distribution is an issue

    Free market capitalists might not like it, but the distribution of wealth is a legitimate societal problem and it is only going to get worse:

    The rising cash holdings of U.S. corporations is increasingly in the hands of a few U.S. companies, with just five tech firms having grabbed a third of it. And nearly three-quarters of cash held by non-financial U.S. companies is stashed overseas outside the long arm of Uncle Sam.

    Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Cisco System (CSCO) and Oracle (ORCL) are sitting on $504 billion, or 30%, of the $1.7 trillion in cash and cash equivalents held by U.S. non-financial companies in 2015, according to an analysis released Friday by ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service.  That’s even more cash concentration in previous years, as these five companies held 27% of cash in 2014 and 25% in 2013. Apple alone is holding more cash and investments than eight of the 10 entire industry sectors.

    Corporate America’s rising pile of cash is becoming increasingly important to investors as profit growth and the stock market stalls. The amount of cash held by U.S. companies rose 1.8% in 2015. Unfortunately for U.S. investors, 72% of total cash held by all non-financial U.S. companies is stockpiled outside the U.S., up from 64% in 2014 and 58% in 2013 as companies try to avoid paying U.S. tax rates.

    Remember, corporatism is not capitalism. And free trade doesn’t benefit a country if the money collected for its exports never enter it.