Sam Johnson got this one right.

Still have time here on the Left Coast where it's still Memorial Day.

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."  ~ Samuel Johnson

Jump Cuts

Learn 'em. Love 'em. Live 'em.

While we are on the subject of Warren Buffett (sort of)

...I found it utterly bizarre that he was a guest star on The Office. I keep telling myself "Stop watching. They've jumped the shark. They've jumped Megashark." (Language warning for the link.) But I keep watching, probably because of what I like to call "The Soap Effect:" I've watched it enough that I actually have a desire to see what happens to the characters in each new episode. I guess I should be more economical with my time.

A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.

What is more materialistic, to say that the worth of human activity can be measured in dollars, or that there is more to life than dollars and the pursuit thereof?

There is a problem in society of people of some learning contenting themselves to use their learning to try and make others look foolish when they make audacious-sounding statements or simply try to open dialogues or present new ideas. Wouldn't it be better if those with some education try to increase their learning?

Balking and mocking are better left to fools.

But since we are discussing the most brazen lines of my earlier post, I will happily defend them. When a person makes a decision, he makes a valuation. If I decide to buy $2.00 worth of apples instead of $2.00 worth of bananas, I have made a few decisions. Obviously, I have chosen apples over bananas. Only slightly less obviously, I have chosen apples over $2.00, which I could have kept in my possession. I have valued apples more than those two dollars.* Even more subtly, and fundamentally, I have chosen to think about produce. Instead of grabbing whatever fruit was nearest and taking it to the cashier and swiping my credit card thoughtlessly, I have chosen to think about my options and weigh them in my mind, before I ever contrasted apples with bananas in a contest of which fruit I should like better.

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Even so, the unexamined life results from choices that were based on valuation. A person values entertainment higher than self-examination or philosophy, and goes about his life doing what he needs to do to maximize his entertainment. That is choice based on valuation, even though, before long, such a choice leads to lazy, sloppy habit. He continues to value his intellectual laziness higher than thought, so he continues to choose not to think.

Contrast this with the philosopher who continually thinks about his surroundings, his life, and the creative spirit within him. If he chooses to value philosophy over a high income, and the creation of unappreciated art over the acquisition of luxuries, does that mean that he has eschewed value? Or that he does not create anything of value? Or are his choices just as much a process of valuation as weighing Harvard vs. Yale as part of a plan to acquire fabulous material wealth with a law degree? If one chooses to spend his weekends with his family instead of using them to pursue a promotion with a raise, is that any less an economic decision for not being materialistic?

When I say "every human action is based upon a choice," I am not talking about reflex behaviors, I am referring to the capacity of humans to choose what they do. Perhaps we could quibble about whether to call reflexes "actions," or we could just use "action" to refer to conscious choice because reflexes and animal movements are just as easily referred to as "behavior" as they are "actions." I should have defined the term "action," I suppose, but I never really know beforehand which blog posts to deck out for debate. I really am blind to the differences between my most incendiary writing and my most innocuous observations.

Regardless, the very act of debating implies that we choose what we do, apparently in contrast with animals, which simply behave according to the behavior of their kind, or according to their training. If we are debating one another, we are presuming that we choose our actions, else why debate? If we do not choose, our actions are no more under our control than is the rotation of the Earth. When we debate, we do so with the presumption that others can choose their actions differently on account of what we have said.

Since we are conscious actors, then, what do our actions represent, but choices? And if we choose, based on what, if not subjective, relative valuation of our various options? And what are we to call these subjective, relative valuations? "Values"? I think "values" is no less likely to foment misunderstanding in this case than "economics," but more importantly, if we include every subjective, relative valuation in one field of study, we have the advantage of seeing whatever is going on, regardless of whether or not it fits into a preconceived notion of what suits our topic. That is to say, if A, B, and C, affect my choice to take a particular action, it does not behoove us to examine only A and B as factors. If I am choosing between an entire alphabet of options, and A and B are considered economics, a more reasonable way to study economics would be to allow for the existence all twenty-six possible factors, to bear them in mind, rather than to compare and contrast A and B as if they are the only things that exist. Furthermore, if I am studying economics, and I come across those who have chosen C or Z or anything in between, am I any more materialistic for including that in my study of economics than if I study only the material component of subjective valuation? I believe those who focus only on the material world in economics are more materialistic than those who use "economics" as an umbrella term for all of the subjective valuations that humans make. In retrospect, perhaps I should not have spared my reader exposure to the term "praxeology."

Since all of human life (or all that is worth living), is based on choice, based in turn on subjective valuation, the study of which I referred to as "economics," every aspect of human life except reflexive behavior is economic. If a monk in a secret corner of a remote monastery does nothing but meditate on spiritual things and eat a few grains of rice, economics is no less relevant to his life than to Warren Buffett's. It is simply that he places a lower subjective value on the accumulation of wealth.

Perhaps Buddha would oppose me in comparing spiritual valuations to material ones (I don't know, as I have not studied Buddhism), but Christ Jesus would not. He explicitly states "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." He had so much to say about money, in fact, that it seems hasty and ill-thought out to imply that viewing everything as economic is somehow irreligious or unspiritual, or undervalues the immaterial. Valuing the immaterial requires assigning it value, that is, making an economic choice. Luke 16, and many other Scriptures, are very difficult to reconcile with the pro-economic ignorance stance.

In sum, economic methodology is too important to limit to material goods, and doing so leads inevitably to both bad economics and poor time stewardship. The study of economics is essential to understanding the human interaction in material world, yes, but is also greatly instructive for making subjective valuations in every aspect of our lives.

*I use the word "those" very consciously in this sentence, because I would not do this same transaction all day long, as my grocer would, happily. This suggests the idea of marginal utility, one of the most important and least understood concepts in economics. If I want some apples, and those apples are being sold for $0.40 apiece, I may very well want 5 apples more than I want $2. But if I have $100 in my pocket, it is unlikely that the entirety of my cash will be worth, altogether, less than 250 apples to me. What would I do with 250 apples? So the sixth apple is worth less to me than the first. The sixth apple is worth less than $0.40 to me, and the first five were worth more than $0.40 each to me (not exactly $0.40, or else I would not have troubled to carry them to the register to make the exchange). If this were a scenario where apples cost $0.50 apiece, perhaps I would have bought only two (for $1.00 total), and used the other dollar of those $2.00 (that would have been spent on apples at $0.40 apiece for apples) for something else, perhaps another kind of fruit that would have seemed too expensive by comparison if apples were only $0.40 apiece. In the $0.50 per apple scenario, only two apples were worth more than $0.50 to me, and third through fifth were worth more than $0.40 but less than $0.50. The sixth remains less valuable to me than $0.40. There is a curve then, whether I picture it or not, in the price I would be willing to pay for each subsequent item of identical (or nearly identical) quality. For any given item, the marginal utility of the hundredth, thousandth, or quadrillionth of that item approaches 0 in your scale of marginal utility, because once you have 999,999,999,999,999 of something, how much are you willing to give up to have one more? If there's a genie who gives you the Midas touch, and you eventually own a gold ranch the size of Texas, chances are that at some point you would want flowers (or beef cattle, or something) more than you want your next blade of gold grass. Everything material tends to diminish in our estimation the more abundant it becomes in our life (leaving aside, if we may, the issue of Midas-touch-induced starvation). It's the same when we buy groceries: the first few of each are worth more than what they cost us, but our valuation of variety drives up the value of some other fruit or vegetable in our scale of marginal utility, until we have our basket of groceries, and to buy more of anything costs more in dollars than our valuation of that excess produce.

The less a man makes declarative statements, the less apt he is to look foolish in retrospect.

I'm pretty sure I didn't pluck the most over the top statement from the first paragraph. You got a bit carried away. "Economics, then, could be said to be the essence of life on earth." If your point is the more limited "everyone should know something about economics", you might want to avoid language that would be better used to describe your religious beliefs.

I don't particularly care about the legitimacy of the empiricist (aka positivist) method of economics, why the average person should study economics and certainly I'm not interested in discussing the minutiae around the boundaries for proper economic applicability.

More limited claims would have been less obviously problematic.

And don't drive like my brother

I think my brother may have taken that last corner a little too fast. Rather than dismissing other approaches out of hand, I carefully (if briefly) compared and contrasted two different approaches. I would think that the subject of the post would merit closer examination, since the empiricist, or positivist, approach in the social sciences was pioneered by Auguste Comte, the father of sociology, which my brother has studied extensively. I wonder, though, if in his sociology studies the milieu was so thoroughly empiricist that what empiricism is might be indiscernible to him. I couldn't say for sure.

In any case, while human action is arguably not entirely economic, the point of the first paragraph is that all humans have an interest in understanding economics. If that is in dispute, the focus ought not be on the most audacious-sounding phrase, but on the overall premise presented in the paragraph. And to say that a discipline popularly associated with material possessions is broad enough to encompass all human action can be seen two ways, only one of which is to say that all human action revolves around material possessions.

So I wonder if I shall have a debate about the legitimacy of the empiricist (aka positivist) method of economics, or about the value of economic study to the layperson. Perhaps it behooves us, however, to explore just what the purview of economics is.

Well, yes. Everything's political.

My brother's post in which he says "Every human action therefore is an economic action" seems a bit over the top to me. I mean, sure, if you define economics so broadly to encompass all subjective valuation to be a part of economics then most human actions are economic. (Reflex actions may still be safely excluded, I'd think.) It reminded me of the line I used as the title of the post. It's from Fiddler on the Roof when Perchik is proposing marriage "in a theoretical sense" to Hodel.

This sense of the world that can be viewed entirely through an economic or political prism seems to me to be far too materialist. This "theory of everything" type of belief smacks to me of the tyrannies imposed by those who would deny the role of the immaterial. Everything is political or economic only if that is the lens you choose to make your primary method of looking at the world. Frankly, I'd rather not discount all other approaches out of hand, for if you do... well, that way madness lies.

Merry Madrigals

I was listening to my music library on a random setting and Del cibo, onde il signor came on. Not, of course, that anyone should necessarily recognize that title, but it's the third track of an album I ran across years ago (I no longer remember how) that is madrigals written by a Luca Marenzio for 5 and 6 voices. You can listen to samples at that link.

I'm not much of a music snob mostly since I don't have the musical ability to be so. But I do find that the music which I enjoy more than almost any other and find most impressive does tend to be older music. I don't want to say that all the music of today is crap, though a lot is, but I think it ends up being a lot like literature to some degree. The good stuff of yesteryear has been shaken out and preserved and a lot of the chaff is blown away in the winds of time. (Such metaphors!)

Fermat's Last Theorem and the a priori approach to economics

To my shame, I don’t remember the exact quote or which of the Austrian economists said it, but a wise Austrian economist once stated that economics is necessarily the business of every person. This is because every human action is based upon a choice, and that choice assigns value, and this subjective valuation is the heart of economics. Every human action therefore is an economic action. And who would deny that our daily bread comes to us through the economy, paid for by our participation in the economy? Economics, then, could be said to be the essence of life on earth. With that in mind, I offer these thoughts on economic methodology.

I was watching a show about Fermat’s Last Theorem, and of course I thought about Austrian economics. Well, there was a little more to it than that. In trying to explain why a computer could not be used to prove a mathematical theorem, a mathematician gave the example of a computer testing 100 numbers in the given equation, or 1,000, or 1,000,000: how much closer are you to having tested every number? You need a human mind to set out a proof that explains why it is logically impossible for the equation to work, because with infinite potential inputs, you cannot eliminate them one by one, no matter how fast you’re computing.

The same problem arises when trying to use empiricism in describing human interaction, such as economics: no matter how much data you accumulate, you can attempt to test economic models without logical proofs, but there will always be more relevant data than you can factor into the model, or measure with your test, and you will find yourself in the unenviable position of backtesting and endlessly tweaking various hypotheses (models). Empiricism is destined to fail in economics, because it is the wrong tool for the job, just as it is the wrong tool for proving Fermat’s Last Theorem. You need a priori proofs to describe economics, just as the Austrian School has always maintained.

To illustrate the superiority of the Austrian approach, compare it to the mathematician who does the work of figuring out, logically, why something is necessarily always true, and goes about writing the steps of logic required to reach that conclusion. In both cases, you start with laws that are self-evident, proceed through logic to a series of conclusions that must be true, if our first laws are true, and end at good theory that consistently instructs us about the world we live in. The benefits of this approach, both in economics and in math, are manifold and throughout technology, industry, and leisure.

A weekend laugh

Albi: The Racist Dragon - Part 6

Book Review: The Arkadians by Lloyd Alexander

I've read a couple books by Lloyd Alexander lately. I saw several of them on a list of my brother's books and I was reminded of how long it had been since I had read them and how much I remembered enjoying them.

When you hold a clearance sale, the party's over.

I think Homestar Runner is dead. No new content in about 6 months, only 6 updates or so last year and now a 50% off sale on most of the stuff in the store? Good-bye, Homestar. You had a good run.

It is a race, and I am winning!

C'mon, bro. Pick up the pace! Even if we don't count this post I'm ahead three to one. And I've got a bunch of material I haven't typed up yet.

The B-I-B-L-E.

I am troubled by Russell Saltzman's essay from First Things a couple days ago. Reading his account filled me with concern for him, for his children and his parishioners. Mr Saltzman writes of how he does not feel religious or even aspire to piety; he notes that of his seven children only three attend church. Though he does not firmly state a conviction that his own rather sterile faith is at fault, he does muse for a moment on the possibility.

Obviously, no one of us can know his heart or that of any of his children, but he leads his essay with the anecdote of his third son attempting to read through the Bible while in bootcamp for the Army. Sadly, he did not finish it, but perhaps he will return to it later. I was struck, though, by the fact that it was something he had not even attempted until then.

With what Mr Saltzman goes on to write, I think one may infer that his children did not receive a great deal of encouragement to spend time in the Scriptures. And what then of his parishioners? Do they receive the proper encouragement? I hope so; it seems a terrible thing to wish, but perhaps this is an instance (sadly all to common with preachers) where a man of God follows in the footsteps of Eli.

But what I really wanted to write about...

Do. Not. Want.

I like baseball. I like numbers and statistics. So, with that in mind, you'd think that Baseball-Reference.com would be just a little slice of heaven on the Intertubes. And you'd have been right, until today.

Exhibit A.

Really, BR? Really? Is no where safe from the insidious grasp of politics? And that wasn't much of a hook to excuse the excursion, either. Yet another example of Jay Nordlinger's "Shut Up and Sing" phenomenon.

The wee turtles were too quick for me!

Well, no sooner do I get an e-mail complaining of difficulty logging into the blog, than I discover that it was a clever ruse on my brother's part to secure the opening salvo.

Be that as it may, hopefully this will not be a blog to sink into a slough of despond after a month. To that end, I shall talk about whatever I bloody well please, and if anyone cavils please refer to the address bar at the top of your browser. Suggestions from any corner are welcome; rules, FAQs, info about, etc to come shortly.

Welcome to the Egotists Club

This is where two brothers - for now we shall call them Gladstone and Wodehouse - will be gazing at their navels and imparting their novel ideas and wisdom to their grateful readers, as well as to posterity. Hence the name. However, even if no other reader ventures through our journal, I (Gladstone) will be glad to share this endeavour with Wodehouse, whom I see far too little, and whose criticism arms and fortifies me. As steel sharpens steel, so one man sharpens another.