Tag: mailvox

Mailvox: errors of the equalitarians

Boris rejects my proposed liberty metric:

“So my question to Mr. Trimnell is if he accepts the number of laws and regulations in effect as a reasonable metric for measuring human liberty in this regard?”

This is a terrible metric. The content of the law is far more important wrt liberty than the actual number of laws. It can hardly be argued that American society is less free today than in 1919.  In any case, a more complex society will always have more laws, so your metric is not well thought out at all.

Boris’s objection is nonsensical on its face.  How can he reasonably compare the content of a single law to the total number of laws?  Alternatively, if by “the content of the law” he means “the cumulative content of all the laws”, how can he possibly ignore the fact that since all laws contain restrictions on human behavior, the larger the number of laws, the larger the number of restrictions on human behavior that they collectively contain?

It is true that the cumulative content of restrictions imposed by all the laws is a better metric than the mere number of them, but the latter is much easier to calculate, harder to dispute, and is demonstrably a reasonable and effective metric even if not the ideal one.

Furthermore, it can very easily be argued, indeed, it can very easily be proved, that American society is considerably less free today than in 1919.  I invite Boris to either attempt to prove that American society is considerably more as free today than in 1919 or retract his assertion.

Finally, what is “a complex society”?  Wikipedia defines it as: “the extent of a division of labour in which members of society are more or less permanently specialized in particular activities and depend on others for goods and services, within a system regulated by custom and laws.”  Since a complex society features a regulated system by definition, it should be clear that the complex society’s inevitable tendency to have more laws not only fails to disprove the metric, but instead underlines its effectiveness.

I also asked The Great Martini about his preference for democracy or limited democracy:

“Question for you: what better expresses the will of the people, direct
democracy or representative-limited democracy? And which do you favor?”

Direct
democracy would be preferable if a practical system could be devised to
implement it. There’s the question of whether it would even be
feasible to run a government by constantly consulting all the people
every time a decision had to be made. If everyone were versed in
everything and if everyone would actually agree to a process of constant
polling it would no doubt be a very effective expression of the will of
the people. The internet has made that more feasible, but still I
think impractical.

What does feasibility have to do with the more perfect expression of the will of the people?  Is direct democracy via the Internet truly LESS feasible or a less perfect expression than the system of limited representative democracy when it took weeks for information to travel from Washington DC to the various Congressional districts across the nation?  Is it even less perfect than the present system that involves gerrymandered representatives voting on giant bills consisting of thousands of pages that they have not even read?

The point I am making here is that even the most die-hard equalitarian favors strict limits on democracy.  They might appeal to feasibility, practicality, voter ignorance, or any number of other factors, but at the end of the day, every single one I have ever encountered favors concrete limits for the electorate.  Therefore, this is a purely practical debate and the metaphysical arguments upon which the pro-suffrage equalitarian rhetoric is based are irrelevant and inapplicable.

Mailvox: the metaphysical straddle

This discussion with Asher concerning the utility and legitimacy of utilizing both practical and metaphysical arguments was too long for Blogger’s comment system, so I’m giving it its own post.

I’m not sure what you mean by “that”. Are you saying you never do the metaphysical/practical straddle or that the way you do it isn’t a problem? IF you are offering both metaphysical and practical arguments THEN you are doing the straddle, and the straddle is the problem, in itself.

Earlier you noted that you effortlessly switched back and forth between metaphysical and practical considerations, which looks, to me, like an admission of a straddle. If so, then that is a problem and, if not, could you clarify that statement.

High IQ does not mean one is able to avoid the straddle problem by being smart, as the straddle IS the problem. Either one makes metaphysical arguments or one does not, and if one does than the entire argument is metaphysical.

No.  Your core assumption is wrong.  A metaphysical argument does not magically subsume a practical one.  They are two different arguments that happen to concern the same subject.  You are conflating “straddle” and “switch”; you’ve used the term “straddle” in two different ways.  What I do not do is what you correctly claimed many libertarians (and many others) do, switching back and forth between the practical and the metaphysical in order to avoid having their weakest arguments exposed and defeated.  I do not “switch” between the two for that reason.  I utilize both, following my opponent where he goes.

Where you are correct is that once one RETREATS to the metaphysical, one cannot legitimately return to the defeated practical argument.  But following another’s retreat to the metaphysical in no way invalidates what has already been shown to be a successful practical argument.

The average ability of the ilk is considerably better than that of the average Joe, but most of the ilk do not capable of following you, at least in the way you lead the conversation. It’s not that your reasoning is bad but that it’s too demanding for most of your blog readers, both those that agree and those that disagree.  The ilk are considerably more advanced than the average guy but less advanced than they fancy themselves.

On average?  Of course.  That’s precisely why I repeat myself over and over again.  That’s why I provide illustrative examples.  Those who can, learn, and eventually demonstrate that they can utilize the tactics themselves, often in long debates here in which I don’t involve myself.  Those who can’t follow are at least usually able to appreciate the tactical aspects in both the aesthetic and entertainment senses.  And given that I have repeatedly stepped in and informed people when they were using various tactics improperly, why would you think you are informing me of anything I don’t already know in this regard?

It’s not difficult to see when someone is attempting to utilize a dialectical device in a rhetorical manner or asserting a nonexistent logical fallacy.  Sometimes people have to experiment and try things out before they get the hang of it.  Sometimes, it is eminently clear they will never be able to do more than bluster and posture.  So be it.  I don’t always get things right myself, as readers like you are always, to your credit, pleased to point out.  However, the other day, I said this blog is not The Following, but it could be reasonably considered to be like that show in that I have helped develop a widespread collection of lethal serial killers in the intellectual sense.  When a member of the Dread Ilk eviscerates the arguments of a friend, or family member, or co-worker using the tactics he has learned here, I am with him in spirit.

I can use this metaphor. A trap is like a claymore mine. You are a parent and the ilk are your young children. You leave the mine lying around your house in the event of a home invasion and, instead, one of the ilk sets it off and it ruins his day. From where I’m sitting that is what we’d call an “own goal”.

It’s not an applicable metaphor.  The traps are, in almost all situations, triggered by the interlocutor.  It’s more like planting a minefield on a battlefield and I am the only soldier on the one side, outnumbered though not outgunned.  The civilians are safe.  The other side, well, one of them will probably step on a mine.  And even if a civilian decides to come onto the field and inadvertently sets one off, well, hopefully it will be a learning experience for him and everyone who witnessed it.  The traps are only set to catch those who are determined to be blindly critical at all costs.

The only way that setting traps is always a good thing is when there is no audience or where you know the audience is on your level of intellect. Most of the ilk are likely to misuse most of your traps most of the time.

Totally disagree and would go so far to assert that your perspective is solely tactical and fails to even begin to take the strategic aspects into account.  The traps are set, in part, for the benefit of the audience, who tend to find them more than a little entertaining in operation.  For example, I suspect Allyn was at least mildly amused when she commented: Vox claims “For my next trick I will make the rabbits appear and then dance and hop on one foot”.  On
command the rabbits appear, raging at Vox for being a Nazi, homophobic,
poopy head that is not smarter than them. What they seem to miss is
they are doing this while dancing and hopping on one foot.”

Now I agree that most people, including the many of the Dread Ilk, don’t have the ability to effectively lay traps for critics.  The capacity for constructing them requires a psychological inclination as well as the ability to utilize a dialectical device with rhetorical ramifications.  That’s all right, it is only one of many techniques and is primarily useful for someone like me, who has hundreds, if not thousands, of critics eager to attack him at every sign of weakness or error.  By displaying false signs, I can take out most of them and demonstrate that their criticism is both superficial and baseless with very little effort.  Your average person who is not a critical target has considerably less need of any such device.  As Allyn observes, I can come right out and announce that I am doing this, just as I am doing here, and it won’t even slow down the speed with which the average rabbit will plunge his head into the shining wire.

Some may consider this to be sadistic, but my view is that if you are aware someone harbors a negative attitude towards you and is inclined to attack you at the earliest opportunity, they entirely merit whatever consequences result from their predictable behavior.

If they are harmonious then you only need to use one and the other is redundant. If anyone uses two the odds of them being harmonious is, to put it charitably, very thin. The entire reason that people do the straddle is that they use one set of arguments to cover for weaknesses in the other set and vice versa.

You’re incorrect; you’re again conflating straddle and switch.  I utilize both levels in order to expose that both levels of the critic’s arguments are wrong and thereby render the switch useless.  You’re completely failing to understand how the game is actually played in favor of some imaginary, metaphysical version of it.

Another metaphor I can use. If day after day an army takes the field, gets defeated and then retreats to higher ground then there is something wrong with the field officers. The obvious strategy would be to stick to where one can win and not continue sallying forth onto ground where one keeps being defeated.

Another bad metaphor.  First I defeat them on the lower ground.  They retreat.  Then I defeat them on the higher ground.  At which point they usually abandon the battlefield altogether.  You know perfectly well that is the usual pattern observed here.  With, of course, the exception of the anklebiters of the world, who sally forth to defeat again, and again, and again, much to the amusement of many.  I don’t mind them most of the time.  It take absolutely no effort to keep swatting down their arguments.

That just doesn’t make any sense. If one has already won on the field of battle then one doesn’t *need* to retreat.

You’re missing the point.  I’m not retreating.  I’m following up the successful defense with a counterattack.  Here is how it almost always works.  I post something.  My statements are attacked on factual grounds.  I defeat the factual argument.  The interlocutor retreats and attempts to justify his now-defeated practical argument with a metaphysical one.  I then launch an attack on his metaphysical argument.  That defeated, he runs away.  We’ve seen this process again, and again, and again, have we not?

I’m not switching anything.  I haven’t given up one iota of my practical argument or the ground I am defending.  I’m simply moving onto the other side’s ground and taking that away from him too.

If you find yourself doing the straddle that indicates that you are faced with an intractable foe, and many in the audience are also likely to be intractable foes.

Of course.  This is hardly news.  I’ve been getting death threats, having book contracts paid off, and seeing my job, my music, and my books attacked for 12 years now.  And yet, my audience keeps growing, the Dread Ilk continue to become more capable, and my abilities continue to develop.

There are two ways to take this observation. Either you already convinced a bunch of Bush Republicans to join Team Vox or you just admitted to an own goal. Chasing people away is likely to decrease the chances of their joining your team.

If you’ve been around here for as long as you said, you already know the answer to this question.  The people who are chased away tend to be the apparently intractable ones, and even some of them don’t stay chased away.  Will they ever join the team of truth, reason, and freedom?  I have known a few who have.  But it is not for me to say if my actions have changed anyone’s minds.  And it’s not Team Vox, it is Team Truth.  I don’t dictate anything, I simply follow the truth, and The Truth, as best I understand it and as well as my limitations will permit.

Homeschool and social awkwardness

LH asks a serious question about socialization and homeschool:

My observations are this. Academically, homeschoolers are just pure genius. But the world does not work based on your grade point average. In the business world, it all also depends on who you know and how well you get along with people. And I’ve noticed that homeschooled adults–people in their twenties and thirties–often seem to struggle with the rest of the working world.

Now, I am asking for opinions on these observations. I’m not drawing a line in the sand, making any declarations against homeschooling, or anything like that. I’m looking for other people’s observations and testimonies that might prove hopeful.

I think it is a genuine issue.  I have observed the phenomenon on numerous occasions myself.  For example, at my eldest son’s first soccer practice with a new team, all of the other players sat down and listened to the coach when he started addressing them.  My son continued to stand, bouncing a ball, and was observably paying no attention to the coach.

Now, obviously I explained that his behavior was unacceptable after the practice and likely to lead to a lack of playing time.  But the fact that I had to explain this to him, when he had been playing soccer for years, was indicative of what can either be seen as a feature or a bug.  That is to say, he simply does not appear to feel any peer pressure.  The fact that everyone else is doing X not only does not instill in him any need to do X, he doesn’t appear to assign any significance to it whatsoever.

This isn’t necessarily the result of homeschooling, of course.  I am a socio-sexual Sigma and a lone wolf.  Spacebunny is also, by female standards, a lone wolf.  Both of us were public-schooled.  So, it should not be at all surprising that our son would tend to be highly independent regardless of how he was schooled, and yet, there is still a material difference between his perception of the significance of the behavior of others to him, and ours.

On the other hand, once a parent is aware of this lack of awareness, it is quite easily dealt with.  The incident at practice was two years ago.  It has not happened since; once the team begins to line up in front of the coach, he recognizes the signal and not infrequently is among the first to sit down and pay attention.  However, it appears to remain a conscious behavior and not an unconscious one.  I happen to think this will serve him well in time, as unlike the others, he has the option to go along with the crowd or not, as he consciously chooses.  Independence and auto-conformity are mutually exclusive; the parent who fears the occasional social awkwardness later in life would do well to consider what sort of problems are more likely to occur with an auto-conforming child.

However, the most significant testimony I have ever heard concerning socialization and homeschool was from the children’s pediatrician, who is a doctor of no little international repute.  We were the only homeschooling family in his practice at the start and he initially harbored some reservations about it.  However, after ten years, he mentioned that he was now fully supportive of it, in part because he had observed that our children were not only advanced intellectually, they were also the happiest children in his practice.

I think one should step back and consider what the working world presently is before concluding that those who struggle with it are somehow deficient.  What is natural or normal about spending 8-10 hours per day in a small grey cubicle, living like a rat in a cage and shuffling virtual papers while attempting to avoid conflict with various unproductive individuals of varying degrees of medication and reflexive hostility?  Considering how much the average worker has to modify his normal behavior just to avoid getting in trouble with HR these days, can one reasonably conclude that it is the homeschooled individual and not the increasingly outdated working world that is the problem?

The experts tell us that to succeed in the working world of tomorrow, it will be increasingly necessary to be independent, free of reliance upon the corporate patterns of the past, flexible, and agile.  To me, it sounds as if much of the “awkwardness” of the homeschooled individual in the eyes of the more conventionally schooled is akin to the strangeness of the mammal when viewed from the perspective of the dinosaur.

My suspicion is that the socially awkward homeschooler primarily represents a failure of the homeschooling parent to address socio-sexual issues with the child, and is little different from the tendency of most conventionally schooled men to be sexually awkward due to the maleducations they receive on the topic.  The fact that the homeschooled child is likely to automatically receive less socio-sexual education than the crude mindless one received by the conventionally schooled child does not mean that he is necessarily uneducable in the subject.

Mailvox: in time for Christmas

Glad to hear from JB that Marcher Lord Hinterlands was able to keep its word concerning the hardcovers and deliver in time for Christmas:

Received my copy yesterday!  I gave it a quick once over and I have to say, the book looks great on the whole.  The cover is somewhat muted in color in comparison to web images, but that was/is to be expected electronic gamma being what it is.

I’m looking forward to seeing it myself, but I expect I’ll have to wait another week or so.  Thanks again to team OCD, whose speedy proofreading made this possible.

Mailvox: illumination and shadow

A physicist notes the way in which Tolkien explicated the distinction between the illuminating fairy tale and the dark deceit of the retrophobic modern fantasy:

I was intrigued by the discussion on retrophobia in fantasy literature, and it made me recall a relevant passage from Professor Wood’s The Gospel According to Tolkien:

The essence of fairy-stories is that they satisfy our heart’s deepest desire: to know a world other than our own, a world that has not been flattened and shrunk and emptied of mystery. To enter this other world, the fairy tale resorts to fantasy in the literal sense. It deals with phantasms or representations of things not generally believed to exist in our primary world: elves (the older word for faires), hobbits, wizards, dwarves, Ringwraiths, wargs, orcs, and the like. Far from being unreal or fantastic in the popular sense, these creatures embody the invisible qualities of the eternal world — love and death, courage and cowardice, terror and hope — that always impinge on our own visible universe. Fairy-stories “open as door on Other Time” Tolkien writes, “and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself, perhaps.” Hence Tolkien’s insistence that all fantasy-creations must have the mythic character of the supernatural world as well as the historical consistency of the natural world. The question to be posed for fantasy as also for many of the biblical narratives is not, therefore, “Did these things literally happen?” but “Does their happening reveal the truth?”

This ties into your discussion of the modern Wormtongues, as well. Wood and Tolkien are essentially saying what you’re saying: modern fantasy fails, because important elements of the narrative do not reveal the truth, and readers know it.

The reason so much modern fantasy fails so spectacularly is not because it is soulless and derivative, although it is, but because it quite literally hates the heart.  It is written out of hatred, it is based on lies, and it is designed to obscure rather than reveal.  Take R. Scott Bakker’s series, The Prince of Nothing.  The events chronicled within it did not literally happen, but their happening, quite intentionally, obscures the truth, indeed, it claims that there is no such thing as truth.  The ugliness of the disgusting Face Dancers is an apt metaphor for the ugly incoherence at the core of the modernist vision for the series.

This is why GRR Martin will never be the American JRR Tolkien.  What are the truths revealed by A Song of Ice and Fire?  That people of good will are stupid?  That everyone is pointlessly sadistic? That no good deed goes unpunished?  That sex is either rape, incest, or prostitution?  The only truths to be found in Martin are negative; there is nothing beautiful or mythic about Westeros.  There is death, cowardice, and terror, but where is the love, courage, and hope?  When viewed from this perspective, it becomes apparent that decline of the series observed in the two most recent books are merely the flowering of a retrophobic seed that was planted at the start.

My point is not that those who write in the older tradition are better writers.  If anything, it is remarkable that those who handicap their narratives so severely with their moral blindness and ideological retrophobia manage to produce works that are still compelling in some way.  The problem is that, no matter how highly skilled they are, genuine greatness will always elude them and their works, despite their merits, will rapidly fade into the forgotten dust of history because they do not speak to the eternal truths at the heart of Man.

Mailvox: the utility of rhetoric

NorthernHamlet objects to the rhetoric inherent in the post Homeschool or Die.  He writes, in response to my explanation:

“Trying to talk about big pictures or summoning statistics is about
as relevant as reciting the Iliad. [Rhetoric] is not petty politics or point
scoring, it is the only possible form of dialogue.”

We both can run through this line of thinking easily.

Your
public audience, at least some of it, knows you could have it both ways
in a blog post, the rhetorical argument, the statistical reality,
and the meta-argument. You yourself admit that the situation has already
been politicized; suggesting that you are purposefully furthering that
politicization process for argumentative gain, and nothing more. You can
claim all day that the only audience you care about is your own (a
claim easily disputed) or however you choose to put it, but from an
outside perspective, the post comes off as extremely petty.

I’m
sure more of your public audience than you realize would appreciate both
the amusing rhetoric you are known for and which I’m sure sells books
and gains site traffic in addition to the insightful observations you
are equally known for peppered in to the post as opposed to the
comments; leaving room for even better conversation in the thread.

How the rhetoric in the relevant post comes off to conventionally-thinking conservatives who happen agree with me on the issue of the primacy of gun rights is totally irrelevant, not only to me, but to the argument.  I mean, I harbor very little concern for what most people think anyhow, as per MPAI, but the group whose opinion least concerns me is the most rhetorically impotent and argumentatively challenged group in American political discourse today.

It tends to remind me of those who used to insist that Ann Coulter would be more “effective” if she was only nicer and less strident.  Never mind that no one would have heard of her or that she didn’t really have a whole lot to say other than ruthlessly pointing out the hypocrisy and malicious intent of the American Left.

First, note that the post was linked to by Instapundit.  Why?  Because Instapundit recognizes an effective rhetorical argument when he sees one even though his primary public response was dialectic.  Does anyone think that his perfectly rational, perfectly correct argument about the false sense of security provided by gun-free zones will have any effect whatsoever on the minds of women who are posturing about how hard they are crying and how they are “hugging them close today”?

Of course not.  The dialectic cannot reach the rhetorically-minded.  Yes, it is logical nonsense to say “if you do not homeschool your children, they will die”, just as it is nonsense to say “because one crazy individual shot 27 people, we must forcibly seize 300 million privately owned firearms that prevent government tyranny.”  And yet, these logically nonsensical rhetorical arguments that shamelessly play upon the emotions of individuals are the only ones that the majority – the majority –  of the electorate find credible and convincing.  And so they must be made.

Is this rhetorical assertion a genuine surprise to NorthernHamlet or anyone else: “Standing up to the gun lobby is the best way to honour the innocent victims.”  If so, it shouldn’t be.  This is hardly our first shooting-inspired gun control rodeo.  In the past, the pro-control crowd reaped a rhetorical harvest in the early days while the pro-freedom crowd remained silent out of fear of politicizing the tragedy or limited itself to weakly protesting in a dialectical manner.  Those days are done.  We know the drill.

As I’ve already explained, any argument that focuses on the rhetorical aspect of “homeschool or die” can be easily turned against the rhetorical arguments made by the other side.  That is the power of the meta-argument that utilizes both rhetorical and dialectical arguments; the other side can either lose on rhetorical grounds, or, after attacking the rhetoric and stripping itself of its own rhetorical arguments, lose on the more substantial dialectic grounds.

There is nothing petty about it; to claim that it is petty is to fundamentally miss the point that the argument being won and lost on petty grounds because it is mostly being fought on ground that primarily consists of petty little minds.

Mailvox: the ethics of hypocrisy

RE asks about the hypocrisy of the religious:

I am a longtime reader of your blog, which I have found to be very helpful over the years.  Also, your book the Irrational Atheist is a God send.   I hoping that you would give me your take on something.  I recently had “discussion” with my older brother on religion. My brother stated “religion is bullshit, its made up by man, its full of hypocrites.” He further explained the reason he doesn’t go church or practice his faith in anyway is because everyone that goes to church are hypocrites.

I am sure every church has its large share of “hypocrites”, but I feel he is being unreasonable.  I know it can be difficult to find the right place to fellowship with others, but I still find value in going to church, praying, and reading the Bible.  Can you please provide me another or your intelligent and witty rebuttals to his concern? 

First, relatively few of the religious, or anyone else for that matter, actually fits the proper description of hypocrisy, which is defined as follows:  a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

Most people do not feign to having principles they do not really possess, but rather, fail to live up to the standards of those principles. What RE’s brother fails to realize, as do most people who regularly observe hypocrisy around them and make a meal of decrying it, is that professing ideals and failing to live up to them is not usually an indication that the profession is false, only that the professor has failed.  While it is possible for such failures to be a sign of the profession being false, it is far from being conclusive evidence of it.

Failure is not, in itself, necessarily indicative of hypocrisy.  Moreover, it makes no sense to accuse most Christians of hypocrisy, in that Christian theology expressly and specifically declares that all, without exception, are fallen.  No one is perfect.  No one is worthy.  One can more reasonably question if a self-righteous person is actually a Christian than to claim his self-righteousness is indicative of his hypocrisy being a consequence of his religion.

As for a rebuttal, I would suggest the following: the only reason you think they are hypocritical is because they have standards.  Why do you believe that a complete absence of standards is more indicative of good character than apparent hypocrisy? I mean, say what you like about the tenets of Christianity, dude, at least it’s an ethos.

He just wouldn’t stay down

As the Alabama sheriff said, “he was reaching for something….”  I’m not quite sure what amuses me more, the idea that I am the slightest bit concerned about being fair, the idea that I have any concern whatsoever for what Ackroyd thinks, or that he appears to believe he can dig his way out of looking like an ignoramus with a double-digit IQ if he only tries a little harder.

On second thought, I do have a question.  There are four “demotivational” posters featuring individual atheists.  The Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins posters feature words none of them actually said.  Given
that, was it fair of Vox to savage me as an “ignorant atheist” for not
realizing the Dennett poster features words he did say–paraphrased? I
think not.

Of course it was not only fair, but just, that I castigated poor little Ackroyd, accurately or not.  In the immortal words of Obadiah Hakeswill, “says so in the Scriptures”.  If you are going to come in here arrogantly asserting your opinion about the stupidity of this and the idiocy of that and generally acting like a big dog, don’t be surprised when you find yourself unexpectedly sad, wet, and stinking of urine.  I am the bigger dog.  I am an Award Winning Cruelty Artist.   I will cut a bitch with a smile on my face.  A minor character flaw, no doubt, but one concerning which everyone who comments here has been duly notified.

Furthermore, I was undeniably correct about the “ignorant” part.  Ackroyd was, by his own admission, completely ignorant of Dennett’s writings.  And now, thanks to his unwise attempt at ex post facto self-defense, we can safely conclude that he is stupid as well, because after drawing attention to the abject stupidity of the phrase on the poster, tried to defend Dennett’s incompetent argument advocating the intrinsic trustworthiness of science:

“In light of this, do the words on the poster convey Dennett’s point
accurately? Or would it be more fair to paraphrase him as saying
“Science can be trusted, because it yields amazingly accurate results”?
And isn’t this in fact true–as far as it goes?”

Yes, they most certainly do.  No.  And no, because it demonstrably isn’t true at all.  It repeats the very mistake Dennett made, which is the very reason the Dennett demotivator is both accurate and amusing.  Ackroyd still hasn’t understood that Dennett’s syllogism is faulty.  Not all sciences are created equal.  For example, physics yields amazingly accurate results.  Evolutionary biology, on the other hand, unquestionably does not and evolutionary biologists don’t claim that it does.  In his book, Dennett tries a classic New Atheist bait-and-switch, asserting that since both physics and not-physics are called science, if physics yields amazingly accurate results, then not-physics should be trusted… even though not-physics doesn’t produce any of the trust-inspiring results.  I could argue, every bit as reasonably as Dennett, that because theology is a science, “the queen of the sciences”, in fact, it should also be trusted on the basis of the amazingly accurate results of physics.

Mailvox: The silence of the Keynesians

BK asks why Paul Krugman and the Neo-Keynesians aren’t celebrating all those windows broken by Tropical Storm Sandy:

If, as per the NeoKeynesians, the government action in economy like
building some bridges somewhere is good for economy, then don’t you
think Sandy has given the government the right opportunity to improve
the economy- by rebuilding things. ( I guess they don’t care about the
broken window, do they.)  Why is it that Krugman and Co are not declaring
publicly that “Sandy is good for America”, then? Are they afraid that
such a statement will not be good for Obama campaign? That would be
double standards then – keep quiet about your theory when it is
unpopular, speak it out and implement it other times to gain popularity.
In that case, why isn’t the Romney people exposing the double standards
of these people to gain advantage?

Krugman and company are (mostly) keeping quiet on the tropical storm stimulation being provided to the US economy because it is a concept too manifestly absurd to be accepted by the general public when the public is actually dealing with the concrete reality of the devastation.  Keynesianism is the sort of gassy theoretical model that only holds up as long as it isn’t held accountable by events, which is why you never see Keynesians talking about economic history or even showing any sign that they are familiar with economic history.

As for the Romney supporters, they aren’t exposing the double-standards of Krugman and other Obama supporters because they, too, are Neo-Keynesians.  They are the flavor known as monetarists, heavily influenced by the Keynesian reformist Milton Friedman, but as Steve Keen and other economists of left and right have pointed out, they’re all operating within the same conceptual neoclassical framework, speaking the same Samuelsonian language.

Mailvox: the ideas, they spread

CG sounds a little offended upon my behalf:

Did you read this article? It’s a pretty blatant TIA rip-off. Sorry you
don’t receive any credit. 

Despite being taken directly from TIA, this may actually be less of a “rip-off” than another article I saw recently in a mainstream news article that read as if had come right out of a recent WND column.  But this doesn’t bother me in the slightest, in fact, I regard it as in some ways being the ultimate compliment.

What such citations mean is that it the ideas rather than the personality are making their way into the mainstream.  We’re seeing this with Roissy and Game, and we’re also seeing this in a lesser way with various concepts that I’ve been banging on for years now.  Since I’m not pursuing a career as a talking head, it doesn’t really matter if I get the ego boost from seeing my name in print or not, and let’s face it, of all the egos in the world, mine must be among the least in need of boosting.

It’s a good thing that the ideas are able to be transmitted in places where their attachment to my identity may handicap them.  The most influential thinkers are not always those whose names are most recognizable; Paris Hilton and Richard Dawkins are both famous, which examples I trust underline the complete lack of intellectual significance of fame.