I don’t know how else to take repeated reassertions of extraneity as not containing an implication to take the claim of extraneity on faith. I think I’ve already articulated exactly what it is that you’re answering to - namely, why are quantification and inter-subjective value comparisons extraneous to subjective valuation? Please see thesetwo posts.
The two posts that I linked to above should answer that question. But thanks otherwise - I’ll try to do that sometime soon.
I don’t, because you used the term “a subjective value theory”. How can there be more than one?
Do you mean we’ve derived all the laws that can be derived? Or that no laws can be derived using more fundamental laws (plus consideration of the meaning of conditions posited)?
Isn’t “law” somewhat a strong word for any regularities you can hope to discover in the social realm via experimental means?
re: “I brought this up earlier but Daniel has been ignoring my substantive posts under the guise of being forewarned about my online presence or something. I can’t wait to pull that one in debate myself.”
Can you stop saying this liberty student? I’ve answered a slew of your points. If I have missed any it’s because I am overwhelmed by them or have already answered a similar version, not because I’m ignoring them. Don’t blame commenters here when you present a barage of questions and commenters don’t dedicate themselves to answering every single one of them. How many questions have I posed to you? Almost all I’ve been doing has been answering questions and clarifying those answer - many of them your questions.
re: “Do you mean we’ve derived all the laws that can be derived?”
I’m not sure how one would know how many laws could be derived! Do we have an upper bound on this? If there are more to be derived, then by all means derive them! My only point is that the exercise of deriving new laws ought not to be used as an excuse to limit the scientific method, which is also a productive endeavor.
re: “Isn’t “law” somewhat a strong word for any regularities you can hope to discover in the social realm via experimental means?”
Yes. Have I called such a thing a law? If I have, I shouldn’t have.
I could stop saying it, but you have already claimed you have explicitly avoided answering my points, see here
This is the parts where you contradict yourself. VVVV
I’ll admit that I can be less than charming, dismissive and at times, maybe even a little belligerent, but what really pisses off the people who don’t like me, is that I call them on their bullshit. And what you have fed me is a line of bullshit.
re: “If I keep going over those points when your will is (apparently) dry, wouldn’t I just be talking to myself?”
Yes.
re: “In all honesty, this sounds like you’re just giving up.”
Giving up on convincing you, perhaps. Giving up on talking about something I wasn’t particularly interested in talking about in this post, certainly. But not conceding the point. If it sounds otherwise to you, I can’t do much about that.
I don’t think any Austrians deny experimental methods altogether because of the fruitfulness of our method. If we considered them both to be effective, then fine, use both, or either. We deny experimental methods in economics because of the fundamental problems of those methods with regard to matters of human choice, not simply because of our enthusiasm for an alternative method.
What if I start a separate thread where we can discuss things? Would you post in it?
On the other hand, I find it simply amazing that you come into this thread to clarify your position, yet you’re not interested in defending that position from others who believe they disagree with it.
re: “What if I start a separate thread where we can discuss things? Would you post in it?”
No, dude. Sorry. Look, I know these questions interest a lot of people on here, but they don’t interest me all that much. I don’t want you to take this personally, but for me the value of constrained optimization is settled, the question of subjectivism vs. objectivism is settled and any viable objections that can be raised against inter-subjective comparisons pale in comparison to the benefits that the assumption offers in formal modeling. Unless there is some new argument out there about these issues that I haven’t heard, I’m only interested in spending so much time talking about it!
re: “On the other hand, I find it simply amazing that you come into this thread to clarify your position, yet you’re not interested in defending that position from others who believe they disagree with it.”
The questions you’ve been asking strike me as being highly tangential to the “interesting tidbit” that was first posted, and even then I’ve spent several comments on the questions you’ve raised. I think it’s unfair of you to say that I’m “not interested in defending that position”. I’ve spent a lot of time engaging these points of yours - time that could have been spent doing other things.
On the one hand, I can only infer from this that your position re: quantification and inter-subjective value comparisons is that the ends justify the means. Well, I completely disagree. From what I understand (and I, unlike you, admit to my understanding possibly being flawed or incomplete), the means you advocate are inconsistent at best and dishonest at worst.
But since the ends already justify the means to you, and you’ve apparently closed off your mind to any other possibility, I’m not surprised that you haven’t been convinced by counter-arguments on this subject. Apparently you haven’t been convinced because you won’t let yourself be convinced, which essentially means ignoring the counter-arguments presented.
Once again, you simply assert that they’re tangential without explaining why to my satisfaction. I can only take this to mean that you’ve been trying to shut me up this entire time, and since you’re not succeeding, you’re simply withdrawing instead. You only refer me to your blog, where the onus would be on me to sift through countless posts to (perhaps painstakingly) glean the insight I’m looking for. Thanks a lot.
No, I don’t think I’m being unfair at all. Of course, I meant that you’re not interested in defending your position in this thread. I figured that meaning was obvious, since I prefaced it with a reference to you coming into this thread in the first place. So it doesn’t matter where else you’ve defended your positions, because I haven’t been there. But I have been here.
“Statist” is a little too ambiguous. “Where do you live?” “Earth”. “Cool, bro! Ditto!” Let’s put it this way. Do you think that Canada’s post '70 health care system is better than pre '70.
