Eloise's thoughts and fancies - Comments

Eloise: A radical solution to the economic crisis

nospam@example.com (Eloise) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:31:27 -0600

I'm not sure how you construe a top level blog post on my own blog as trolling you. It's my blog, and it's given to the best of my knowledge you've never commented before it's hard to work out how you might think I'm posting it to provoke you.

Ironic? Not under any meaningful definition. Intended seriously? Not really. Here in the UK we are, seriously, being asked to consider the unthinkable and suggest radical solutions. A journalist about 3 weeks ago now proposed that we should solve the deficit by just scraping all defence spending for example. Proposing radical ideas, and you must admit this is pretty radical, doesn't necessarily mean they must be seriously expected to be implemented but it can be thought provoking and generating interesting and useful debate. Whether it will from you, since you already think I'm trolling, I'm not sure.

You seem to think that a lot of people will choose not to work. Any evidence of this? We already support a number of families who choose not to work on welfare but it is a fairly small proportion of the total population, and whilst a significant proportion of those claiming benefits, it is not according to the figures I can find a majority. Quite a lot of people choose to work - it gets them out of the house, gives them something to do and so on. That might change for some if they're supported fully, but I'm not as convinced as you that it's will be a large number.

Perhaps you didn't read the part where if you earn more than the subsistence rate, you get money back? Will you pay more net tax than under the new regime that the chancellor suggested? Yes, almost certainly - but you'll get a lot better services too. Will it be a lot more than under the current proposals? Unclear. After all, they're currently paying income tax, national insurance, VAT on some proportion of spending, fuel tax, council tax etc. This just wraps it up into one big lump sum. That should certainly reduce the administration costs of all these taxes if nothing else. It doesn't seem to me that there's a clear extra pressure to leave.

Politically, if it ever became a serious contender for policy, I'm sure it would have to be wrapped up differently - 100% taxation on the first £n of your income, thereafter some extra amount, but the impact would be the same.

But as I've hopefully spelt out clearly enough now, this isn't a serious suggestion. It's intended to try and provoke thought and well reasoned comments.

Liberty Tesla: A radical solution to the economic crisis

nospam@example.com (Liberty Tesla) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:44:40 -0600

Seriously?

If this is all intended ironically, then congratulations on successfully trolling me. But just in case you really mean it:

The free rider problem: if the state takes all my income, and my basic needs are taken care of, why bother having a job? And thus, for a big slice of the citizenry who were once productively employed, the state collects 100% of zero in tax revenue.

Tax exiles: the top earners, potentially the biggest revenue sources for the state, are likely to have the wherewithal to simply leave the state's jurisdiction. It happened before in the 60's when the top marginal rate in the UK was 95%. (cf "The Taxman" by The Beatles.)

And what makes you think the state would be any less profligate when they have all of your money than when they had just some of it? When has having access to more money ever made anyone more disciplined?

Kisa Naumova: Mixed signals

nospam@example.com (Kisa Naumova) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 18:56:54 -0600

If I was the suspicious type, I'd find it very easy to believe that the new Tory Government has always had a set of long-defined intentions and agendas, and is using an inflated report on what the country's economic situation is to justify carrying them out.

Troy McConaghy: Linden Lab's new direction 2

nospam@example.com (Troy McConaghy) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:35:41 -0600

I think the SL educators will do just fine. The SLED mailing list continues to run. SL educators will continue to network and help each other. The SL Best Practices in Education conference was never a Linden-organized event, so it's in no danger of being shut down.

It's sad that Claudia and Pathfinder are gone, but educators can still get help from each other - including from Eloise Pasteur.

Also, if Linden Lab figures out how to make SL render inside a web browser, that will make it easier for classes at universities to use it. Sounds good to me!

Pip: Confused about cricket

nospam@example.com (Pip) — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:45:21 -0600

Another of life's mysteries solved. I can now sleep at night. Thanks, Eloise!

TomPier: Weblords game review

nospam@example.com (TomPier) — Sat, 08 May 2010 22:08:29 -0600

great post as usual!

Troy McConaghy: The pain of changing browsers

nospam@example.com (Troy McConaghy) — Thu, 06 May 2010 05:25:28 -0600

I use three browsers on a regular basis: Firefox, Chrome, and Safari (from most-used to least-used).

The main reason I use three is that I manage three Gmail accounts (don't ask) and I find it a pain to logout and login to other accounts all the time. Each browser is for a different Gmail account.

To sync bookmarks between all my browsers, I use a plugin/extension called Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks). It's like magic! I can even view my bookmarks on a private (password-protected) web page.

I use Firefox as my main browser because it has AdBlock Pro. The web without ads is lovely. (You can turn ads back on if you want. I turned them back on for Google.com search results because I find those ads useful. I didn't bring ads back on Facebook.)

Of the three browsers I use, Chrome launches the fastest, but I haven't noticed any other big speed differences.

Eloise: Economics - Science or Witchcraft?

nospam@example.com (Eloise) — Mon, 03 May 2010 04:14:58 -0600

After a quick poll, it would appear that most UK universities agree with me that economics is not a science but an art. They probably don't go so far as to characterise it as witchcraft though.

My problem with economics remains the fact that it appears to me (I may be wrong, but this is how it appears to me) that you have a possibly robust model with a huge range of assumptions and that the economist can pick and choose amongst these assumptions to get an answer that, in essence, they like. This isn't the mark of a science, indeed it is the thing that causes me to disparagingly refer to it as witchcraft.

The problem with your analogy is that whilst one can argue about whether the design of new drugs is scientific or not, pharmacology and biochemistry have a reasonably fixed set of assumptions that they share without picking and choosing and they include an assumption that drugs which they think should work may or may not do what is expected (viagra would be an excellent example of one that doesn't do what was expected of it), and may or may not have side effects. To determine if the drug does what is expected and if it has side effects or not there are a series of steps (codified in law, but based on good scientific process) to initially test efficacy, then test for side effects in increasingly large pools, and finally to license for distribution to the public in the largest trial of them all - and it remains a trial because if a drug (Thalidomide would be a good example here) proves to have unexpected side effects in the whole population it can be and will be withdrawn.

Indeed, I would argue that the very nature of a scientific discipline is to look for what we don't know, work out how to test for this, and hopefully reduce the number of assumptions. That works to different degrees in different disciplines: biology as a whole is still "messier" than physics because there are massive ranges of interactions and we know our models are based on simplifications: that's why the newly designs drugs are tested. Sciences of all kinds do change their base assumptions over time, as experiments demonstrate they are invalid and/or explain better what is going on so they become understood and explained rather than assumed to be true.

The new drugs, when they enter the testing phase, are not justified on the basis of picking and choosing assumptions from a wide range to make the model give the desired result. (They may be designed on this basis however, I have heard someone who used to work for a large drug company describe the people who generate the initial designs for new potential drugs as "indulging in alchemy where they throw pseudo-science at it, see what sticks and they pray that it works." But however successful or otherwise this alchemical and theological process may be, it's not the end of the road.)

I'm starting to suspect you're an economist, but for whatever reason this has hit a nerve I apologise. This may be a place where we have to agree to disagree. I don't think you'll ever convince me economics is fundamentally a scientific discipline. I'm pretty sure I don't have the time and the desire to develop my understanding to the point that I can determine to my satisfaction whether my impression of how economists pick and choose assumptions is accurate or not. It does still have that impression though, not a comfortable place for it to sit.

Troy McConaghy: Economics - Science or Witchcraft?

nospam@example.com (Troy McConaghy) — Mon, 03 May 2010 01:40:20 -0600

Economists try to build useful, predictive models, but it's a tough slog. They have imperfect and incomplete data, they have to make many simplifying assumptions, and in the end the predictions can vary widely. That doesn't mean economics isn't a science. It just means that the full aspirations of economists haven't yet been achieved.

There was a time when physicists didn't have a good model for the spectrum of light emitted by a black-body, but nobody said that meant physics wasn't a science. Eventually someone (Planck) came up with an okay model, and over the years it's been improved.

Let's consider another science with problems similar to economics: biochemistry in living humans. Suppose I want to predict what will happen if I put a specific amount of a new molecule (drug candidate) in a specific person's bloodstream. Physics, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, physiology, etc. all have useful models that can help, but so far they aren't enough to tell us what will happen with great certainty. For example, it's currently difficult to predict some side effects. Shall we then say that biochemistry in living humans isn't a science?

I'll agree with you that politicians can mess with science, even screwing it up for generations, but at the end of the day, science has an immune system: it can reject models that don't work (even if some now-dead politician was in love with them).

Eloise: Economics - Science or Witchcraft?

nospam@example.com (Eloise) — Sat, 01 May 2010 16:52:49 -0600

I think my problem is that, unlike many sciences, economics seems (to my very unexpert eye) to have a variety of models that can be applied to answering the same question on the same set of data. Or perhaps they're similar models but with a different set of assumptions underlying them which gives essentially completely different output.

That brings me back to the initial question, is it a witchcraft or a science. If I can choose my starting conditions to make my answers look like I like them... is it a science still?

And perhaps that reflects back on the fact that economics as a subject is always strongly and intimately tied to politics. One can't imagine politicians without economic policies, I can't imagine economists without politicians either to be honest.

The (softish) science of drug-health-policing interactions has recently been all over the UK news because a scientist advising the government got sacked for daring to say the policies weren't based on the science. The fallout from that is still reverberating (albeit relatively softly now) as more and more of the scientists are leaving the committee, making it more and clear that there's little science in the decision making process.

Science mixing with politics leads to the scientists complaining the politicians are unscientific. Economics and politicians still seem like happy bedfellows to me. Ergo, economics isn't a science... makes sense to me.

Troy McConaghy: Economics - Science or Witchcraft?

nospam@example.com (Troy McConaghy) — Sat, 01 May 2010 11:12:04 -0600

Economics, like all sciences, is a collection of useful models. The models aren't perfect, but they get tested against reality and improved (or replaced) over time.

Even if you have a good model (found to be reliable over time), if you put garbage in for the numbers, you'll make garbage predictions.

Politics, on the other hand... is about getting power by saying stuff to get votes. Four legs good, two legs bad!

physical therapist: Nationwide reaction to the Leaders' debate

nospam@example.com (physical therapist) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:18:11 -0600

My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!

Troy McLuhan: Cheetah3D

nospam@example.com (Troy McLuhan) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 06:02:36 -0600

I'd never heard of Cheetah3D before. Thanks for the tip.

Simon Newstead: Cheetah3D

nospam@example.com (Simon Newstead) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 01:08:21 -0600

You may want to try the alpha of the new Blender version. It's got a radically revamped user interface that is now a lot more user friendly, and should be going into beta soon.

Eloise: The first battle-line is appearing

nospam@example.com (Eloise) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:53:04 -0600

I do use Serendipity yes.

Better than WP? That's a really subjective call. I prefer the interface and the options Serendipity provides so for the way I write and use my blog, yes. But your mileage may vary.