= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
ciphergoth comments on Survey Results - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (210)
Echoing RichardKennaway, IMO most of the strong arguments for libertarianism (as a set of policies) are consequentialist ones by economists.
The other issue is how to classify someone if they defend some mix of consequentialism and deontology. For example, Robert Nozick argued for rights as side constraints in an otherwise utilitarian moral theory, and Roderick Long argues for deontology based on consequentialist grounds. I'll raise my hand as someone who could probably truthfully describe myself as either, but settled on consequentialist in part for social reasons.
Do any of these economists have a consistently successful track record of prediction? Remember, this is a field where opinions of serious economists on the recent stimulus package ranged from "it won't have any effect" to "it will make things worse" to "it doesn't go far enough".
Economists talking about large-scale political structures should be assumed to lack credibility until proven otherwise via actual, consistent predictive results.
EDIT: Requesting clarification on why this comment was voted down to -2. Robin has posted repeatedly on many experts' allergies to predictions. Have I made a mistake in my conclusions here?
Listen to Robin Hanson discuss this phenomenon on EconTalk. Starts with half-hour monologue by presenter, but I find the presenter quite interesting too.