Rationality Quotes: February 2011

gwern

Take off every 'quote'! You know what you doing. For great insight. Move 'quote'.

And if you don't:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts from LW. (If you want to exclude OB too create your own quotes thread! OB is entertaining and insightful and all but it is no rationality blog!)
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Take off every 'quote'! You know what you doing. For great insight. Move 'quote'.

And if you don't:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts from LW. (If you want to exclude OB too create your own quotes thread! OB is entertaining and insightful and all but it is no rationality blog!)
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

But ... but ... what about bankruptcies induced by a liquidity crunch -- the kind the political elite's propagandists have have been telling me entitle a "too big to fail" company to receive perpetual government assistance?

In those cases, bankruptcy wouldn't suck up falsehoods, would it?

If your business is structured such that a liquidity crunch will drive you bankrupt then some restructuring might be in order.

Now one can (and I certainly would be willing) to make the argument that it is almost impossible for a small to medium sized business to structure itself such that a liquidity crunch exacerbated by an inept political class and a rapacious bureaucracy (or a rapacious political class and an inept bureaucracy, whatever).

In that case it's best to take your ball and go home leaving the enlightened revolutionaries with the society they voted for.

6gwern15y

No. But I think you* are guilty of affirming the consequent. If something is false, then it will end in bankruptcy - but that does not logically imply that everything ending in bankruptcy was false. So something true could still end in bankruptcy (for whatever reason, like a liquidity crunch). * Or Carlyle, I suppose, but given the choice between accusing a famous thinker of an elementary fallacy and a quick off-the-cuff Internet comment, I'd rather accuse the latter.

21

Rationality Quotes: February 2011

21

21

21

Rationality Quotes: February 2011

21

21