01 Mar 2013

Ayn Rand Vindicated

Climate Change, Conspiracy 32 Comments

From the WSJ:

Firearms manufacturers are well aware that if semiautomatic rifles are banned, bolt-action guns are next. It is a mistake to cede a millimeter on any issue, because it simply invites more demands. People in the gun culture know their opposition… Consider, by way of contrast, the foolish actions of Chesapeake Energy, a major producer of natural gas. Time magazine revealed last year that Chesapeake gave the Sierra Club $26 million. Presumably the Machiavellian reasoning was that the Sierra Club would use this money to attack Chesapeake’s competitor, the coal industry… Now the Sierra Club is trying to shut down hydraulic fracturing—the entire basis of Chesapeake’s natural-gas business. According to reports this week, the natural-gas boon from fracking could be a boon to the U.S. economy for 30 years, if the industry doesn’t fumble the opportunity… If Chesapeake’s managers had understood the environmental movement, they never would have subsidized Sierra Club.

32 Responses to “Ayn Rand Vindicated”

  1. Major_Freedom says:

    Chesapeake made their bed, now they have to sleep in it.

  2. Yancey Ward says:

    The management of Chesapeake clearly misunderstand the fundamental difference between bribery and extortion.

  3. Sealander says:

    Link, please.

  4. Ken B says:

    If once you pay the Danegeld you will never be rid of the Dane.

    • Ken B says:

      My memory fails me. A quick google now reveals I have slightly misquoted.

      IT is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
      To call upon a neighbour and to say:–
      “We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
      Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

      And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
      And the people who ask it explain
      That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
      And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

      It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
      To puff and look important and to say:–
      “Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
      We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

      And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
      But we’ve proved it again and again,
      That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
      You never get rid of the Dane.

      It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
      For fear they should succumb and go astray;
      So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
      You will find it better policy to say:–

      “We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
      Nor matter how trifling the cost;
      For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
      And the nation that plays it is lost!”

      • Tel says:

        Point is that any wealthy nation has both something to lose, and someone interested in snatching it. Thus, one way or another the productive will always pay protection money. The only question is who gets that.

        • Major_Freedom says:

          “…will always…”

          Always? A trillion years hence?

          • Ken B says:

            “A trillion years hence?”
            Yup. Right after an Austrian updates his priors based on a trillion consecutive wrong predictions.

            • Major_Freedom says:

              Austrian economics isn’t a prediction science you blockhead.

              If you want to make unfunny dry jokes, at least make them informed enough not to warrant facepalms.

              • Ken B says:

                Will ignoring Austrian advice have consequences? Will some policies lead to booms and busts, according to Austrian theory?

              • Major_Freedom says:

                “Will ignoring Austrian advice have consequences?”

                Will utilizing superior a priori, non-predictive sciences to achieve one’s goals have different outcomes than utilizing inferior a priori, non-predictive sciences?

                Let me check while I do the math

                “Will some policies lead to booms and busts, according to Austrian theory?”

                IF a contingent set of events takes place, which we cannot scientifically predict will or will not take place, and there is a boom and bust cycle, then Austrian theory makes a case for why it took place.

                Austrian theory is praxeology. Austrian analysis of history requires thymology.

              • Ken B says:

                Then why should anyone listen to Austrians before the fact. Either you predict inflation or you don’t. You either say something about the future or you don’t. If you don’t, why listen to before acting? If you, that is prediction.

              • skylien says:

                Ken,

                This is a bit like saying to someone “Hey if you driving risky with you car you may end up in an accident”. That doesn’t mean he will for sure. He may drive his life long without any, or he may just face it tomorrow.

                It is similar with what AE says. If you mess with the interest rate should not wonder if you face a bust somewhere down the road. Yet don’t ask me how big, or when exactly it will happen, because that is something that is always different depending on the data in each case and how people respond to them.

                Driving risky: Sometime you will have an accident because of that. If you are lucky it would be after you are already dead anyway.

                Messing with interest rates: Sometime in the future you will have a recession and because mis allocated capital. Not letting a correction take place will make the problem worse down the road.

                That is all there is to say. Exact predictions of when and how may still require knowledge of AE, yet you must be much better in knowing all the relevant data interpreting them correctly, which is nothing you can learn by knowing armchair economics.

                Just like it is important to understand the rules of the game of e.g. American football to be able to predict who will win. Yet above that you need to know tactics used by teams, ability of the players, the trainers etc to really make a plausible prediction. With only knowing the basic rules you know nothing who will win. You only know someone will.

              • skylien says:

                It should read “If you mess with the interest rate YOU should not wonder if you face a bust somewhere down the road.”

                and

                “Sometime in the future you will have a recession because of mis-allocated capital”

                sorry..

              • skylien says:

                Knowing AE or economics in general is about knowing the “rules of the game”.

                Unlike the rules of games like American football they are unfortunately not deliberately designed, but they are just there, and we want to know which they are. That is what we discuss here all the time.

                Having the right set of rules is vital but not sufficient to make correct and specific predictions within meaningful time frames.

                If a prediction was wrong, it was either because the theory itself was wrong or because the data the theory was applied on was wrong, incomplete or whatever..

              • Ken B says:

                Driving being risky is still testable. Drivers will die more than walkers or sitters. eventually that will be seen. There is a huge difference between saying we can only make broad predictions and NO predictions. Saying “bad policies lead to crashes” is a prediction. If it it weren’t there’d be no need to heed the advice.

              • skylien says:

                It is not that easy.

                Even if you are driving risky and you have an accident doesn’t mean it was caused by you driving risky…

                And with “testable” that is where it really gets tricky in economics. Why not read one or the other essay or even a book about methodology by some Austrian? (I guess you haven’t so far, as far as I can tell due to your recent discussions about this).

                That is not to say that I have already thought enough about methodology. I haven’t, I am just quite sure that topic is not taken seriously enough except for Austrians.

                I mean do you understand that just having a false prediction doesn’t tell anything if there was something wrong with the theory or the data! How do you know?

              • Ken B says:

                How you know is exactly the point skyline. MF says he cannot be wrong, but insists everyone else is. That’s not a sensible combination.
                Look, say Kuehnians, from different premises, predict with great accuracy for decades. Never fails. Would they still be wrong, hopeless, unscientific, deluded?
                I am not arguing if AE is right,only if its intellectually respectable to insist it cannot be disproven and therefore can be used to discredit other, testable theories. It isn’t.

              • Ken B says:

                Skylien, here’s my point another way. A man called Gene insists life cannot evolve. He knows this from some theorizing a priori. So then we set up Petri dishes and watch mankind evolve from chemicals. Does it make sense for Gene to say ” wrong”! He is attempting to refute an empirical theory with a theory he calls un empirical. You don’t see the problem? Or Bell’s inequalities provide another example.

              • skylien says:

                You misunderstood MF.

                He says not only AE cannot be disproven by empirical evidence, also Keynesianism can’t either!

                The only way you could disprove any of them is by resorting to theoretical arguments itself, by finding logical faults in the chain of reasoning. And if you want to know why he holds that view then you have to read about this.

                Your analogy does not work because controlled experiments are not possible in economics. That is the key issue for why Austrians emphasize a different methodology.

                You just CANNOT just set up some Petri dishes and find out.

                I may remind you that nearly everything worthwhile of knowing in economics was “discovered” by armchair reasoning. E.g. Marginal revolution etc.. Those where never proven by empirical evidence. Yet no one doubts them (except some Marxists maybe). How is that possible?

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Ken B:

                “Then why should anyone listen to Austrians before the fact.”

                Why listen to mathematicians before attempting to use quantitative concepts in order to achieve one’s goals?

                Because means are scientific.

                “Either you predict inflation or you don’t. You either say something about the future or you don’t. If you don’t, why listen to before acting? If you, that is prediction.”

                I don’t understand these sentences.

              • Ken B says:

                Oh he’ll skyline, we observe evolution all the time, and make predictions based on it. How an insight was discovered is completely different from whether it applies to the world or not. And we certainly CAN. Experiment on bacteria and see them evolve.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Ken B:

                “MF says he cannot be wrong, but insists everyone else is.”

                I never said that you liar.

                “That’s not a sensible combination.”

                Lying is not a sensible approach to characterizing someone’s actual convictions.

                “Look, say Kuehnians, from different premises, predict with great accuracy for decades. Never fails. Would they still be wrong, hopeless, unscientific, deluded?”

                If their theory is logically flawed, then they would be adhering to a false explanation of how the world works.

                Suppose my theory is that the more pirate there are, the warmer the Earth will get.

                Suppose I test this theory and find that over and over again, my theory is empirically confirmed.

                Does this mean that my theory is a correct explanation of the causal mechanism of Earth temperature?

                According to you, I should regard the progenitor of this theory as a genius, or at least a predictor who is advancing a true explanation of global temperate fluctuations. After all, he’s never been wrong….yet!

                “I am not arguing if AE is right,only if its intellectually respectable to insist it cannot be disproven and therefore can be used to discredit other, testable theories. It isn’t.”

                You’re being a blockhead again. Mathematics is not an a posteriori predictive science. Neither is analytical philosophy, or formal logic. But nobody who is serious about ideas and nobody who would be called an intellectual would dare assert that these are “not respectable” fields of inquiry.

                They are invaluable schools of thought, even though they are not “predictive sciences.”

                Why, or better, WHERE, in the heck did you get the stupid belief that a field of inquiry that is not empirically testable, not a predictive science, is somehow degraded, inferior in some way? Where did you get the belief that only predictive sciences are the only “respectable” sciences?

                Knowing the logical categories of thought, and/or action, as the foundation for how we come to know economic principles, is invaluable to the intellectual who knows and understands the contradictory assumptions implied in empiricism/positivism, as utilized in economics.

                I bet you have no clue that even empiricist economists adhere to untestable, a priori convictions in the course of their “predictive” empirical testing. Most of them don’t even realize it either. The philosophy that undergirds AE can address why empiricism is a contradictory approach in economics.

                You seem to have this attitude that predictive sciences have a badge of honor that a priori non-predictive sciences don’t have. You ought to jettison that silly arrogant attitude, because not only is it unfounded, but it is only hurting your chances of acquiring knowledge about the world around you, and yourself.

              • Ken B says:

                I just want to be sure Tex. you are lecturing me on mathematics, right?

              • Ken B says:

                Just in case no one notices MFs misreading, I said his argument was not respectable. I did not say AE or deductive studies in general are not. That’s just MF misunderstanding or deflecting.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Ken B:

                “A man called Gene insists life cannot evolve. He knows this from some theorizing a priori. So then we set up Petri dishes and watch mankind evolve from chemicals. Does it make sense for Gene to say ” wrong”! He is attempting to refute an empirical theory with a theory he calls un empirical. You don’t see the problem?”

                [Facepalm]

                Austrian economics arguments proper are not empirical arguments. They also cannot be used to “refute” or “falsify” empirical statements either.

                Someone who says “I predict that the average price of sugar in the US next year will be twice what it is now” cannot be refuted or proven right using Austrian principles, because it is an empirical statement.

                Your analogy is off. Someone who uses Austrian principles will not attempt to judge an empirical prediction. At best, they would only be able to address any a priori assumptions about human action the predictor is making.

                Someone who denies evolution, an empirical theory, cannot show how evolution is wrong by using a priori propositions.

                On the other hand someone who accepts the law of marginal utility, which is a non-empirical proposition (whether the proponents of it know this or not), can show how it is right by using a priori propositions. Empirical examples will always be consistent with it, but the way we come to know it is through self-reflective activity, rather than through observations of external data.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Ken B:

                “I just want to be sure Tex. you are lecturing me on mathematics, right?”

                Oh please. Intellectual chest thumping is something that I always laugh off. I don’t care if you’re a multiple Fields medal winner.

                No, I wasn’t lecturing you on mathematics. I was lecturing you because of your lecturing on about non-predictive sciences being “not respectable”.

                “Just in case no one notices MFs misreading, I said his argument was not respectable. I did not say AE or deductive studies in general are not. That’s just MF misunderstanding or deflecting.”

                Ken B, the fact that AE is not a predictive science means that if you complain about AE being advanced as non-predictive, you are indeed calling AE “not respectable.”

                You said:

                “I am not arguing if AE is right,only if its intellectually respectable to insist it cannot be disproven and therefore can be used to discredit other, testable theories.”

                Whether or not AE is non-predictive, is independent from whether or not you believe someone “insists” that it is or isn’t.

                I didn’t misread you. I am taking what you said and, combined with the reality of AE, noticing that you are implying AE is “not respectable.” For AE is indeed not a predictive science.

                So it follows from saying that one who insists AE cannot be empirically falsified is putting forth a “not respectable” position, that AE itself is not respectable.

                BTW, the fact that AE cannot be empirically falsified does NOT imply that it is in principle immune from all intellectual criticism.

                AE stands or falls based on a priori reasoning, which of course positivists reject as saying anything necessarily true about the real world. But AE theorists who know the philosophical underpinnings of AE, are, or if they are not they should be, open to a priori argumentation that would in principle refute AE.

                AE is grounded on rationalism. The only way to refute it would be to show, via rationalism and not empiricism, the errors in reasoning.

                Please don’t mistake the position that AE cannot be empirically falsified with the (false) position that AE in principle cannot be refuted.

                You just can’t use empiricism, that’s all.

                If you believe that ONLY empiricism can point us to truths and falsehoods about the world, then sure, it will definitely APPEAR as though AE theorists are claiming AE is in principle immune from any and all critical inquiry that would show it is erroneous. That is why it appears that they are “dogmatic”.

                You can show a mathematician is wrong, just not via empiricism. Same thing with AE.

              • skylien says:

                Ken,

                Yes you can perform experiments on how bacteria evolve. Never disagreed on that. However you cannot do proper experiments testing human action! I meant the Petri dishes thing figuratively not literally. Sorry if that wasn’t obvious…

  5. Tel says:

    Time magazine revealed last year that Chesapeake gave the Sierra Club $26 million.

    The trick is to pay in small, regular installments. Never a lump sum.

    • Matt M says:

      Or go the Buffett/Gates route and “pledge” to give a lot of money… at some unspecified time in the future.

  6. Eric Evans says:

    How delightfully disingenuous.

    1) Most of that donated money went straight into the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, so the money did pretty much what it was intended to do.

    2) The Sierra Club didn’t publicly change their stance on natural gas until Time outed the donations, so switching their position was a convenience.

    3) Chesapeake’s CEO donated the vast majority of the funds, so tying this activity to Chesapeake’s “managers” (whatever that means) is tenuous at best.

Leave a Reply to Major_Freedom

Cancel Reply