Why I vote democrat

[dan2100]

This should probably be another thread, but have you tested the "measurable, repeatable results" against other hypotheses?

Dan,

If you are truly interested in this, please consult the bibliographies of the works I cited. Lots and lots and lots of peer-reviewed experiments all over the world by scientists. And yes, the results in many of them are measurable and repeatable.

Why not look at them?

Michael

Which ones? Have you looked at them? (Don't you think, too, were these sorts of things correct, no company or political that invested in and used such methods diligently would ever fail?)

And you didn't answer my question... Let me ask it again:

Have you tested the "measurable, repeatable results" against other hypotheses?

[dan2100]

Dan,

Let me clarify something. The military is governed by a civilian force. We cannot make decisions to act unless given permission by that civilian force. We can advise on military matters, as through the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with regard to strategic endeavors. But we cannot move on that advice without prior consent.

The way the government uses us, as you pointed out, can be coercive. I would agree to that, but not the military being coercive. Make sense?

~ Shane

This is akin to saying the DEA (or the IRS or the BML or BATF or pick a government agency) is not in and of itself coercive. It merely can be used coercively. The military is both an arm of government coercion -- that's its reason for being in the first place, no? -- and is funded coercive -- i.e., it wouldn't really exist were it not for taxation.

Saying that it's coercive doesn't mean that the military does whatever it pleases or is not subordinate to the state. But your argument here is kind of like saying a policeman is not coercive when he's enforcing laws that clearly are coercive merely because he has to answer to his chief who answers to his mayor or some other civilian official.

Dan, Brant, and Mike...

Point taken

The military is used as a coercive tool when diplomacy fails. Seems we're used an awful lot since I've enlisted.

~ Shane

Whatever rationalizations or pretexts those who command, man, or willingly support the military provide aren't really germane to whether it's coercive.

And while many are forced to pay for it, at present, to my knowledge, no one is forced to join the US military. Why join if you're afraid you might be part of operations you won't approve of?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What a pity so many Objectivists seem unable to grasp the elementary truth that, since human beings possess freedom of will and are not interchangeable units, statistical information about what particular individuals and particular groups of individuals have done under particular circumstances can prove nothing about what will happen when other, different individuals are placed in similar circumstances - even if the individuals trying to prove such propositions call themselves "scientists" and maintain a straight face while doing so.

Jeff,

It's odd to see you doing this without examining the material. But OK. Here are a few observations on your observation (and your heartfelt pity, for that matter).

1. The kind of reasoning you just presented was precisely the kind Ayn Rand used (albeit with better style) to claim that there is no connection between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. That is until she got a big honking case of lung cancer herself, at which time she quit smoking and shut up about it.

2. Human beings "are not interchangeable units"? Under what circumstances and using what standard? If you are talking about the essential human value of each individual, I am in full agreement with you. If you are talking about something like filling up a concert hall for a show, you are wrong. One human being--according to that standard and purpose--is an "interchangeable unit" with any other. If you are studying, say MRI brain scans in healthy human female adults between the ages of 35 and 40, one human fitting that criteria is an "interchangeable unit" with another for the experimental purposes of the scan. I don't see how this can be denied.

3. Your reasoning in your statement above is based on a principles-only approach. So if you want to dismiss observations (more precisely, recent observations, since all principles have observation as a fundamental component), I can do that, too.

Let's agree that the fundamental principles are axiomatic. From what I know of your writings, I believe we can agree on that. You have to use an axiom to disprove it and you cannot get any more fundamental than that.

But even among axioms, not all things are equal. For instance, let's compare the "law of identity" against "volition exists." Both are axiomatic because you have to presume them to be true of the agent (you) in order to contest them, and presuming they are false automatically blows you out of the water for doing any contesting.

Now, how about the comparison? Well, all things have identity, and that means volition has identity, too. Not all things have volition. Thus the law of identity is more fundamental than volition--at least according to metaphysical classification (which is the philosophical level where axioms are classified).

In terms of observation, if you wish to ignore parts of reality (say more recent observations) in order to tidy up a principle and pretend it is more universal than it is, you have a fighting chance if you ignore observations that produce principles that are less fundamental, not more fundamental.

Thus, if you ignore an observation that does not exhibit volition in order to promote the law of identity, that works. If you ignore an observation that clearly demonstrates the law of identity in order to promote volition, you shoot yourself in the foot since you are presuming that volition without identity can exist. It can't.

4. Here is a question. If you wish to obtain knowledge about human nature and you wish to dismiss statistics as a tool just because you believe statistics "prove nothing," how do you propose to obtain such knowledge? "I see it and you don't, but my way is right?" That's what you have left.

And what do you do when the statistics give 100% results, but are in violation of your principle? Dismiss them, too?

I will grant you that many of the social experiments, brain scans, neuro-chemical experiments, etc., conducted show probabilities--some of them overwhelming probabilities--rather than 100% results, but I am confused as to why you wish to ignore this information. People who use it--especially marketers--get filthy stinking rich. Politicians who use it get elected and/or become dictators. People who ignore it--on principle--rarely attain either state.

Don't you agree that this information is valuable on some level to the people who choose to use it? If not, why? And if it works so well and so consistently (I can back that up), do you believe that this is merely random chance? I don't. I say that this identifies something about human nature and goes straight to the law of identity.

5. I don't want to get bogged down into a lot of science right now, so I will confine discussion of experimental examples to one--and I will even use one that does not deal with brain scans. I will do that to make my point, since the brain scan stuff makes the point too easily. But there are oodles of experiments of all kinds if you are truly interested. Like I said, consult the bibliographies of the books I cited to get a start. (That is, if you are truly interested in the experiments and not truly interested in dismissing them without looking.)

Let's take one that has been widely repeated, Milgram's Experiment. (The link is to the Wikipedia article. Go to the section called "Replications and variations" in order to see a few documented repeats). But to save you the trouble of clicking on a link, here is part of a post I presented on another thread:

(From BBC, May 2009)

Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiment 2009 1/3

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Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiment 2009, 2/3

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Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiment 2009, 3/3

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. . .

Here's another time when Milgram's experiment was replicated. This was two years earlier. Unfortunately, the embedding feature of this video was disabled by the account owner. But the link to YouTube is valid.

Now, how do we tie this to the law of identity with respect to human nature?

Do we say that this should be excluded from the law of identity since not all the people went to the limit of compliance despite knowing the evil they were performing, that not all people showed that their volition went into helpless mode in the presence of authority?

No. That would be a mistake (which any dictatorship should prove).

We can conclude that human beings have a mental vulnerability to commands from authority the majority of the time. The figures may very in the different reenactments of the experiment, but they do come out to the majority.

This makes sense especially when we tie it to what we already know about human beings on a basic common-sense level--that we learn obedience to authority over many years while growing up. Children must obey adults for the simple fact that they are weaker to adults in all respects, and even depend on adults for their own survival.

So what do we do with that information? There are all kinds of things.

We can do like some folks ignore it...

(OK, so I'm a smart-ass...)

On a social-governmental level, we can try to make it so that no one positioning himself as a authority can get too much power. Or we can allow him to get that power and hope he will be wise in using it.

What we can't do is eliminate the urge to follow authority from the nature of human beings. And where there is authority, there is power. Thus power will always be a factor in human affairs.

If we are a marketer, it's easy to use this information. Get an authority on your side hawking your sales message and you sell more--even if you are selling crap.

There is plenty more. I could go on all day about this, but that's enough for now.

It's a pity all these facts exist. Especially since that ole' buggy-ass reality will not conform to certain principles.

I guess the best thing is for us to close our eyes and pretend the buggy parts don't exist.

That's a pity, a crying-out-loud damn shame, but what can you do?

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Which ones? Have you looked at them?

Dan,

Gimme a break. You're faking it and you know it. Read the damn stuff--or not, I don't care...

And you didn't answer my question... Let me ask it again:

Have you tested the "measurable, repeatable results" against other hypotheses?

All the time.

In Internet marketing it is called "split testing." There are oodles of programs and scripts to help you. Hell, even Google provides split testing resources in Adwords.

That's how you improve your results.

Given your unwillingness to look at some very basic material, I see no reason to go into any further details.

Michael

[dan2100]

Which ones? Have you looked at them?

Dan,

Gimme a break. You're faking it and you know it. Read the damn stuff--or not, I don't care...

Obviously, you care enough to bring it up. But if you can't have a reasonable discussion on this matter, fine.

I noticed you left out my parenthetic comment: "(Don't you think, too, were these sorts of things correct, no company or political that invested in and used such methods diligently would ever fail?)" Why? Again, if these methods work so well, I'd expect we'd all believe everything the political and corporate ruling class tells us. Ad campaigns, politically and otherwise, would never or rarely fail. How come this has not come to pass?

Tell me, how well do banner ads, product placement, upselling, etc. work on you?

And you didn't answer my question... Let me ask it again:

Have you tested the "measurable, repeatable results" against other hypotheses?

All the time.

In Internet marketing it is called "split testing." There are oodles of programs and scripts to help you. Hell, even Google provides split testing resources in Adwords.

That's how you improve your results.

Given your unwillingness to look at some very basic material, I see no reason to go into any further details.

Michael

Again, what basic material? Surely, you could lower yourself to cite one source here that adds credence to your case.

[Robert Campbell]

How are we so sure your actual name is indeed Robert? May I see your birth certificate?

Still nothing out of "Herb Sewell" that vaguely resembles an argument.

My website is right here: http://www.robertlcampbell.com. Perhaps "Herb" will put his considerable brainpower to use explaining for the edification of those present how it's all fake.

Meanwhile, on this thread every actual contribution on the subject of voting for Republicans or Democrats been the work of someone else.

"Herb"'s just been trolling.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't believe I am answering this, but the level of carelessness is so great, I feel a need to say something.

I noticed you left out my parenthetic comment: "(Don't you think, too, were these sorts of things correct, no company or political that invested in and used such methods diligently would ever fail?)" Why? Again, if these methods work so well, I'd expect we'd all believe everything the political and corporate ruling class tells us. Ad campaigns, politically and otherwise, would never or rarely fail. How come this has not come to pass?

Dan,

I suggest you read Post 78. The answer to your question is there. Basically, the answer is that a vulnerability is not a total lack. If you don't understand that, I'll just leave it.

Again, what basic material? Surely, you could lower yourself to cite one source here that adds credence to your case.

You could start with the bibliographies in the works I mentioned in Post 61. That's more than one source. I thought you noticed, seeing has how you even quoted that post, links and all, in your Post 63.

Sorry, but this is just a little too much erudition and effort on your part for me. I bow to your superior intelligence and zeal...

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Michael,

People need to be trained growing up to resist authority. The primary way is through critical thinking. Instead they are trained to submit to authority so WTF does anyone expect from that?

Rand never said smoking didn't cause lung cancer only that it wasn't proved and "you can prove anything with statistics." If I'm wrong please give me a quote. If you are a heavy smoker, BTW, you have a one in seven chance of dying from lung cancer. Ten years after you stop you'll still have that one in seven chance. Soon there will be statistics out for twenty years. This doesn't mean there are no health benefits from stopping. (Do not take beta-carotene supplements if you have a serious history of smoking as that may be a catalyst for the development of a lung cancer. Do drink a lot of green tea.)

What JR said is simply not a variation of what Rand said. Rand never said she was rolling the dice or playing the odds which was exactly what she was doing and on some level she knew it.

--Brant

[sbeaulieu]

Why join if you're afraid you might be part of operations you won't approve of?

I'm not. I can always use sound judgement in a situation I warrant as unlawful, and say so. Just because I'm in the military does not mean follow "all" orders. I must follow all "lawful" orders. I did this knowingly.

I'm pretty vocal about calling bullshit when I see it.

While no one is drafted into service, I doubt they're given the full picture by their recruiters (who have quotas to fill). Many learn the hard truth after they sign the dotted line and take on the Oath of Enlistment.

~ Shane

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Rand never said smoking didn't cause lung cancer only that it wasn't proved and "you can prove anything with statistics." If I'm wrong please give me a quote.

Brant,

There's a habit in O-Land that I find frustrating. It's the habit of trying to cloud over what you do as opposed to what you say.

When a person is totally engaged in an attitude or belief, what this person both says and does line up.

When they don't and you point it out, someone from O-Land (usually wanting to defend Rand or Peikoff or whatever) will start nit-picking, asking for a direct quote and dismissing the behavior as if it doesn't count. Well it does count.

What did Rand actually say about cigarettes causing lung cancer? I don't know first-hand. I can only speculate. I'm pretty sure those who knew her can remember something and I don't feel like digging into the bios right now. That's the said part.

What did she do? She smoked 2 packs a day and, according to those who knew her, even Peikoff, constantly dismissed a growing body of evidence. That's what she did.

So it's pretty clear that Rand did not believe smoking cigarettes caused lung cancer. The contrary would be to think that:

1. She believe they caused lung cancer to others but, miraculously,would not cause lung cancer to her, or
2. She believed cigarettes could cause lung cancer and didn't mind contracting it.

Neither of these two fit her way of thinking.

Well, there is a fourth option: blank-out. Does that sound like Rand to you? It doesn't to me.

I'll stay with the view that she was overly-stubborn from poor thinking and clinging to some romantic images--thus she screwed up big-time on this one.

Incidentally, the following is speculation, but I believe Edward Bernays might have contributed to implanting a freedom-image for smoking in Rand's mind, one that was reflected years later in what she wrote about smoking in Atlas Shrugged. See the Torches of Freedom article by Marilyn Slater for a nice description of what he did. This happened in 1929, right at the end of the Roaring Twenties. It was all over the press for weeks and everybody talked about it. This was the year Ayn married Frank, so I am quite certain that she was familiar with it.

I find it very easy to believe that, for Rand, this torch of freedom image (one I believe she polished) would be hard to trade in for the image of lung cancer.

Michael

[jriggenbach]

Never point out the absurdities in another person's religion. Doing so is like struggling with a particularly obtuse and determined tarbaby.

What a pity so many Objectivists seem unable to grasp the elementary truth that, since human beings possess freedom of will and are not interchangeable units, statistical information about what particular individuals and particular groups of individuals have done under particular circumstances can prove nothing about what will happen when other, different individuals are placed in similar circumstances - even if the individuals trying to prove such propositions call themselves "scientists" and maintain a straight face while doing so.

Jeff,

It's odd to see you doing this without examining the material.

And how do you know what I did and didn't examine? Let me guess. If I had examined "the material," I would have been persuaded of the error of my ways, since "the material" is not only self-explanatory but also irrefutable - right? No one can read the Book of Mormon and fail to see the Truth - right?

The kind of reasoning you just presented was precisely the kind Ayn Rand used (albeit with better style) to claim that there is no connection between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. That is until she got a big honking case of lung cancer herself, at which time she quit smoking and shut up about it.

What Rand argued was that correlation is not causation. It is not. Many people get lung cancer without ever having smoked anything. Many people smoke cigarettes their lives long and never get lung cancer. Under the circumstances, to say that "cigarette smoking causes lung cancer" is to commit an absurdity of the first water. The best we can say on the basis of the statistical information we've gathered is that cigarette smoking appears to be a causal factor in some cases of lung cancer. But that's not good enough for a religionist, is it?

Human beings "are not interchangeable units"? Under what circumstances and using what standard?

Under the circumstances that they're about to make a choice. By the standard of their ability to choose independently.

Your reasoning in your statement above is based on a principles-only approach. So if you want to dismiss observations (more precisely, recent observations, since all principles have observation as a fundamental component), I can do that, too.

Let's agree that the fundamental principles are axiomatic. From what I know of your writings, I believe we can agree on that. You have to use an axiom to disprove it and you cannot get any more fundamental than that.

But even among axioms, not all things are equal. For instance, let's compare the "law of identity" against "volition exists." Both are axiomatic because you have to presume them to be true of the agent (you) in order to contest them, and presuming they are false automatically blows you out of the water for doing any contesting.

Now, how about the comparison? Well, all things have identity, and that means volition has identity, too. Not all things have volition. Thus the law of identity is more fundamental than volition--at least according to metaphysical classification (which is the philosophical level where axioms are classified).

In terms of observation, if you wish to ignore parts of reality (say more recent observations) in order to tidy up a principle and pretend it is more universal than it is, you have a fighting chance if you ignore observations that produce principles that are less fundamental, not more fundamental.

Thus, if you ignore an observation that does not exhibit volition in order to promote the law of identity, that works. If you ignore an observation that clearly demonstrates the law of identity in order to promote volition, you shoot yourself in the foot since you are presuming that volition without identity can exist. It can't.

This is reminiscent of nothing so much as the medieval "proofs" of the existence of God. (A being than whom there could be none more perfect would have to be an existing being, since a being that exists would be more perfect than one that did not. Etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum.)

Here is a question. If you wish to obtain knowledge about human nature and you wish to dismiss statistics as a tool just because you believe statistics "prove nothing," how do you propose to obtain such knowledge? "I see it and you don't, but my way is right?" That's what you have left.

And what do you do when the statistics give 100% results, but are in violation of your principle? Dismiss them, too?

No statistical analysis ever gives "100% results." That's the whole point.

I will grant you that many of the social experiments, brain scans, neuro-chemical experiments, etc., conducted show probabilities--some of them overwhelming probabilities--rather than 100% results, but I am confused as to why you wish to ignore this information. People who use it--especially marketers--get filthy stinking rich.

Marketers got filthy stinking rich before anyone ever thought of using statistical information to guide their decisions.

Politicians who use it get elected and/or become dictators.

Not all of them. And many did the same before there was any use of statistics to guide their decisions.

People who ignore it--on principle--rarely attain either state.

You don't know this. You couldn't possibly know this. Prove it.

Do we say that [Milgram's results] should be excluded from the law of identity since not all the people went to the limit of compliance despite knowing the evil they were performing, that not all people showed that their volition went into helpless mode in the presence of authority?

Yes, Michael, that's exactly what we do, if we aren't swept away by Faith in the Religion of "Science."

No. That would be a mistake (which any dictatorship should prove).

We can conclude that human beings have a mental vulnerability to commands from authority the majority of the time. The figures may very in the different reenactments of the experiment, but they do come out to the majority.

We can equally conclude that the failure of some of Milgram's subjects to behave as the others did shows that human beings do not have a mental vulnerability to commands from authority, but learn it in some fashion. Then we can focus our attention on preventing or short-circuiting the means by which they learn it.

If we are a marketer, it's easy to use this information. Get an authority on your side hawking your sales message and you sell more--even if you are selling crap.

Not necessarily. Marketers routinely do this, because they share your religious devotion to statistics. Yet many of their campaigns fail. You do not know that they sold more of whatever they were selling than they would have if they had not acquired an "authority" to hawk their product. There is no way to know the nature of what didn't happen because it wasn't tried. To non-religionists, this is called logic.

I hereby abandon this topic. I have nothing more to say about it. I have no desire to beat my head against a wall arguing against religious faith.

JR

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I hereby abandon this topic. I have nothing more to say about it. I have no desire to beat my head against a wall arguing against religious faith.

Jeff,

That's not a bad idea, since your one-liners, your misconstruing my meanings, and flippant attitude show that you have your own intolerant religious faith burning deep within your heart.

Whenever someone dismisses an entire branch of scientific work without specifying anything and calls those who look at it names, ya' gotta' wonder.

You certainly can get dogmatic and we wouldn't want a religious war, now would we?...

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Re Rand's beliefs about cancer: She thought that cancer was caused by bad premises, hence was mystified when she developed cancer, and wouldn't give Allan Blumenthal permission to state what her operation was for, and to warn people against smoking.

That's what I recall Allan telling me, and I think Barbara has said the same.

Ellen

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Re Rand's beliefs about cancer: She thought that cancer was caused by bad premises, hence was mystified when she developed cancer, and wouldn't give Allan Blumenthal permission to state what her operation was for, and to warn people against smoking.

That's what I recall Allan telling me, and I think Barbara has said the same.

Ellen

I think those bad premises included not staying away from nitrogen containing polycyclic aromatics...

Jim

[James Heaps-Nelson]

BTW, correlations between cancer and these kinds of compounds go back a long way. In industrial England, small boys employed as chimney sweeps would come down with a particularly painful and deadly form of cancer caused by a polycyclic aromatic compound peculiar to large smokestacks. My rule of thumb is that if you don't know the chemistry behind something, it's probably a good idea not to put it in your body.

As an aside, these things show up in SOF extractions of diesel exhaust as well.

Jim

Edited July 23, 2010 by James Heaps-Nelson

[9thdoctor]

Whenever someone dismisses an entire branch of scientific work without specifying anything and calls those who look at it names, ya' gotta' wonder.

Climate science is a steaming pile of crap put over on the world by scam artists in lab coats.

Heh-Heh

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dennis,

That's a point well taken.

But I have no problem with anyone trying to look at all sides of an issue--even in public--if he doesn't understand it. And nothing beats looking at original sources. My own premise is that people of good will who think for themselves usually come to a reasonable conclusion.

I opened a thread on climate change once when Gore's film came out. I tried to present the attitude of looking at both side so I--and other readers like me who knew nothing about climate change--could come to a reasonable conclusion. At that time, not many lay people even knew global warming was about the weather. I know I didn't until I started looking into it.

But dayaamm! You should have seen the reaction. You would have thought I said the world was flat, Ayn Rand really was a one-legged man, and that the only good scientist is a dead scientist.

The same reaction I object to here is what I objected to there. It basically comes to the following:

"Don't you dare think for yourself when you have me [or my gods] to tell you what to think. Here are the things I want you to look at as my proof. Don't even think about looking at that other stuff. And if you do on the sly, you little weasel, you better keep your goddam trap shut about it. If not, I swear, by all I hold sacred, I will mock you out of existence and stir up a stink against you that they will still be smelling into the next decade!"

That's the stuff I object to.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As a footnote to my last post, I guess I am a religious in one respect. It's not statistical, either.

I am a fervent "think for yourself" person. I am so into that, I don't mind being called names for it.

Michael

[sbeaulieu]

As a footnote to my last post, I guess I am a religious in one respect. It's not statistical, either.

I am a fervent "think for yourself" person. I am so into that, I don't mind being called names for it.

Michael

Amen to that! :thumbsup:

~ Shane

[dan2100]

I don't believe I am answering this, but the level of carelessness is so great, I feel a need to say something.

It'd be nice if you aimed for the same level of civility I try to give to you here. It seems to me that everytime I disagree with you -- here on your views regarding marketing and human behavior; elsewhere regarding anarchism and whether Beck is a salvitic figure for libertarians -- you resort to condenscension and insults. Don't you think this only poisons the discussion?

Or consider Matthew 7:3: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (King James Version)

I noticed you left out my parenthetic comment: "(Don't you think, too, were these sorts of things correct, no company or political that invested in and used such methods diligently would ever fail?)" Why? Again, if these methods work so well, I'd expect we'd all believe everything the political and corporate ruling class tells us. Ad campaigns, politically and otherwise, would never or rarely fail. How come this has not come to pass?

Dan,

I suggest you read Post 78. The answer to your question is there. Basically, the answer is that a vulnerability is not a total lack. If you don't understand that, I'll just leave it.

I suggest you read my parenthetic comment again. If such predictability is vulnerable to error, and to the degree it is, one should at least have some doubts about it. Thus far, too, I know of know predictions in the fields of marketing or human behavior (at least, on the latter, in behaviors beyond things like blinking eyes or stuff that happens in highly controlled lab situations) that will give you the kinds of predictive cabilities you seem to think exist now.

Again, what basic material? Surely, you could lower yourself to cite one source here that adds credence to your case.

You could start with the bibliographies in the works I mentioned in Post 61. That's more than one source. I thought you noticed, seeing has how you even quoted that post, links and all, in your Post 63.

Sorry, but this is just a little too much erudition and effort on your part for me. I bow to your superior intelligence and zeal...

Michael

I actually have read Predictably Irrational, though I believe it was the first edition. I put it, at the time, along with titles like The Tipping Point (overrated and a former friend of mine tried to put the ideas in it into practice; notably, he didn't suddenly experience an uptick in his wealth), Why We Buy (a bit dated, but that this stuff dates should give pause that the latest and greatest will soon join the ranks of the obsolete), Freakonomics (ho-hum, another overrated book), and Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (a book I actually recommend, but that's not to say I don't recommend the other three I just mentioned). None of them made me change my mind on my basic view here.

Why is that? You and Jeff can toss back accusations about who is more religious than thou here, but my basic view is skepticism here. Why? Let's leave aside the axioms for a moment -- which is not to deny their importance. Anyone familiar with the history of psychology and cognitive science or of the history of marketing and who also just has common sense should recognize that grand unified theories abound, especially on the popular level (it's often not the researchers in a field, but their popularizers, who overgeneralize and fail to see that history is generally a record of failed attempts here) and further that, as both Jeff and I have pointed out, marketing and political campaigns often fail. (Anyone familiar with such history should be partial to the saying, "This too shall pass" rather than "We now have the final theory in sight and whoever doubts this is so much less well read than me!")

Also, let me adopt your tactics. This is akin to arguing with a technician about buying stocks. The fan of that brand of numerology known as technical analysis will point to the raft of titles and studies on the subject. But the fact is, if the market really worked that way, why would there be any technicians who lost money?

Yes, one might point to successes, but this is what's known as survivorship bias. Let me borrow from a witty writer in the field -- Nicolas Nassim Taleb. If we were to look at lottery winners only and try to divine how they won, we might come up with a list of traits they all have, such as, most likely, that they bought tickets. But by not looking at the losers -- who also share this and many other traits -- we'd end up with a theory of predicting the lottery that would really be hokum.

And, wouldn't you expect, were someone to come up with some truly workable predictive theory in this area, he or she wouldn't be trying to sell books and seminars about it. He or she would be filthy rich and trying, as adept poker players do, pass off the success as due to luck rather than letting the rubes in on the secret?

[dan2100]

Whenever someone dismisses an entire branch of scientific work without specifying anything and calls those who look at it names, ya' gotta' wonder.

Climate science is a steaming pile of crap put over on the world by scam artists in lab coats.

Heh-Heh

One must remember phrenology and polywater as once considered by some fairly intelligent people to be scientific. Calling something science should never mean critical thinking about it stops.

[dan2100]

As a footnote to my last post, I guess I am a religious in one respect. It's not statistical, either.

I am a fervent "think for yourself" person. I am so into that, I don't mind being called names for it.

Michael

Do you believe your interlocutors don't think for themselves? Do you believe you have a monopoly here on this?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It'd be nice if you aimed for the same level of civility I try to give to you here. It seems to me that everytime I disagree with you -- here on your views regarding marketing and human behavior; elsewhere regarding anarchism and whether Beck is a salvitic figure for libertarians -- you resort to condenscension and insults. Don't you think this only poisons the discussion?

Dan,

It's not the disagreement that is irritating to me. I welcome disagreement, as is proven all over the forum.

It's the total lack of addressing the point I am making, then cherry-picking some detail and going off into tangents of all sorts with questions that often lead nowhere, all with the presumption that I am wrong.

For example, I mention an idea, elaborate on it, and give you a bunch of examples. I just don't call them that.

Then you make a question like, "Have you thought of... [something I already thought of and clearly addressed], and that it might be different?" and you ask if I can give you an example. Often you block quote my entire post as you do that.

That's talking past me, it's affecting an unwarranted presumption, and it's irritating. It's not even trying to understand what I am getting at. All it does is fill the forum with one more post that goes nowhere.

It's almost like you are talking on the phone to one person and I think I am talking to you on some other end. What you say in response doesn't really fit with what I say. And I don't know how to reach you so that you address my remarks in a coherent manner.

But to answer your question, I don't think my irritation with this behavior of yours "poisons the discussion." In my understanding of what a discussion of ideas is, there is no discussion. There is only the pretense of a discussion. Form without content.

Actually, although it is true that my irritation does not poison the discussion (as there is none), it possibly poisons the pretense of a discussion. And that's not good, even if it is only a pretense. I just have to stop taking your seriously idea-wise and I will probably lighten up.

You show glimmers of intelligence and that makes me want to interact with you, but I have been incompetent at channeling those glimmers into any resemblance of a discussion of the ideas that I address. You are in your own little world and the communication-of-idea interlink with me is too sporadic, too often wrong in terms of representing what I said, with too many questions that have already been answered or are essentially rhetorical, and too presumptuous to be valuable to me.

So I give up.

I have only had this problem with Xray so far (but she is on an anti-Rand crusade, and with respect to misrepresenting what I write, barrages of useless questions, and misguided presumptions, she is in a class all by herself--to your credit, you do not even come close to her level).

As with her, I'm just going to stop reading your posts.

But do carry on. You are a nice polite person.

I hope one day we can communicate.

EDIT:

Do you believe your interlocutors don't think for themselves? Do you believe you have a monopoly here on this?

No and no.

SECOND EDIT JUST IN CASE YOU ARE INTERESTED:

I actually have read Predictably Irrational, though I believe it was the first edition. I put it, at the time, along with titles like The Tipping Point (overrated and a former friend of mine tried to put the ideas in it into practice; notably, he didn't suddenly experience an uptick in his wealth), Why We Buy (a bit dated, but that this stuff dates should give pause that the latest and greatest will soon join the ranks of the obsolete), Freakonomics (ho-hum, another overrated book), and Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (a book I actually recommend, but that's not to say I don't recommend the other three I just mentioned). None of them made me change my mind on my basic view here.

Here is a very good example of what I am talking about. My point in mentioning those works was not to change your mind, but instead to show where I am looking for the kinds of ideas I am engaged with. All you did was name-drop the works, dismiss them in a kind of snooty manner, and did not discuss the ideas.

A secondary purpose I had (later in the thread) was to provide you with a list of experiments (in the bibliographies) that serve perfectly for the examples you asked for, and you have yet to acknowledge that or look even though you asked for this.

I am not interested in the name-dropping game and I don't mind you disagree. I am going to think what I think, irrespective of what you are convinced of or not. Frankly, status-wise, I really don't care who is right or wrong. It means nothing.

I am more interested in understanding these ideas and using them. That's my focus. The kind of comment you made above does nothing to further understanding. All it does is talk past any attempt at understanding. So it is useless to me. And it is irritating, since you presume weird things like I want to change your mind. Hell, I don't even know what is in your mind to begin with, much less what I would ever want to change.

Anyway, over and out...

Michael

[dan2100]

It'd be nice if you aimed for the same level of civility I try to give to you here. It seems to me that everytime I disagree with you -- here on your views regarding marketing and human behavior; elsewhere regarding anarchism and whether Beck is a salvitic figure for libertarians -- you resort to condenscension and insults. Don't you think this only poisons the discussion?

Dan,

It's not the disagreement that is irritating to me. I welcome disagreement, as is proven all over the forum.

It's the total lack of addressing the point I am making, then cherry-picking some detail and going off into tangents of all sorts with questions that often lead nowhere, all with the presumption that I am wrong.

For example, I mention an idea, elaborate on it, and give you a bunch of examples. I just don't call them that.

Then you make a question like, "Have you thought of... [something I already thought of and clearly addressed], and that it might be different?" and you ask if I can give you an example. Often you block quote my entire post as you do that.

That's talking past me, it's affecting an unwarranted presumption, and it's irritating. It's not even trying to understand what I am getting at. All it does is fill the forum with one more post that goes nowhere.

It's almost like you are talking on the phone to one person and I think I am talking to you on some other end. What you say in response doesn't really fit with what I say. And I don't know how to reach you so that you address my remarks in a coherent manner.

But to answer your question, I don't think my irritation with this behavior of yours "poisons the discussion." In my understanding of what a discussion of ideas is, there is no discussion. There is only the pretense of a discussion. Form without content.

Actually, although it is true that my irritation does not poison the discussion (as there is none), it possibly poisons the pretense of a discussion. And that's not good, even if it is only a pretense. I just have to stop taking your seriously idea-wise and I will probably lighten up.

You show glimmers of intelligence and that makes me want to interact with you, but I have been incompetent at channeling those glimmers into any resemblance of a discussion of the ideas that I address. You are in your own little world and the communication-of-idea interlink with me is too sporadic, too often wrong in terms of representing what I said, with too many questions that have already been answered or are essentially rhetorical, and too presumptuous to be valuable to me.

So I give up.

I have only had this problem with Xray so far (but she is on an anti-Rand crusade, and with respect to misrepresenting what I write, barrages of useless questions, and misguided presumptions, she is in a class all by herself--to your credit, you do not even come close to her level).

As with her, I'm just going to stop reading your posts.

But do carry on. You are a nice polite person.

I hope one day we can communicate.

EDIT:

Do you believe your interlocutors don't think for themselves? Do you believe you have a monopoly here on this?

No and no.

SECOND EDIT JUST IN CASE YOU ARE INTERESTED:

I actually have read Predictably Irrational, though I believe it was the first edition. I put it, at the time, along with titles like The Tipping Point (overrated and a former friend of mine tried to put the ideas in it into practice; notably, he didn't suddenly experience an uptick in his wealth), Why We Buy (a bit dated, but that this stuff dates should give pause that the latest and greatest will soon join the ranks of the obsolete), Freakonomics (ho-hum, another overrated book), and Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (a book I actually recommend, but that's not to say I don't recommend the other three I just mentioned). None of them made me change my mind on my basic view here.

Here is a very good example of what I am talking about. My point in mentioning those works was not to change your mind, but instead to show where I am looking for the kinds of ideas I am engaged with. All you did was name-drop the works, dismiss them in a kind of snooty manner, and did not discuss the ideas.

A secondary purpose I had (later in the thread) was to provide you with a list of experiments (in the bibliographies) that serve perfectly for the examples you asked for, and you have yet to acknowledge that or look even though you asked for this.

I am not interested in the name-dropping game and I don't mind you disagree. I am going to think what I think, irrespective of what you are convinced of or not. Frankly, status-wise, I really don't care who is right or wrong. It means nothing.

I am more interested in understanding these ideas and using them. That's my focus. The kind of comment you made above does nothing to further understanding. All it does is talk past any attempt at understanding. So it is useless to me. And it is irritating, since you presume weird things like I want to change your mind. Hell, I don't even know what is in your mind to begin with, much less what I would ever want to change.

Anyway, over and out...

Michael

Will the farrago of condescension ever stop? I warn you now -- not out of politeless, but merely because these are the rules all of us must live by -- do not come within five meters of my person.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Will the farrago of condescension ever stop? I warn you now -- not out of politeless, but merely because these are the rules all of us must live by -- do not come within five meters of my person.

Dan,

I am starting to suspect something I don't like.

What rules are you talking about and who makes them?

Are you threatening me?

Michael