Stupidity and violence

[hmkpoker]

All other variables being the same, a society of less intelligent people is likely to have more problems with violence than a society with more intelligent people.

[arahant]

I think it's almost tautological. If I'm dumb enough, violence is the only way i'll be able to think of to resolve conflict. Just adding in the possibility of starting a rumor campaign against you means i'm less likely to punch you in the face.

btw...is that thing about you and the duck true?

[John21]

I had to disagree, only because I'm a male. If I had agreed to your question, I would also have to concede that women don't solve their conflicts with violence, hence they are more intelligent than men. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I had to disagree, only because I'm a male. If I had agreed to your question, I would also have to concede that women don't solve their conflicts with violence, hence they are more intelligent than men. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

If this is indicative of the reasoning behind people voting "disagree," the results of this poll will show approximately how many people desperately need to take a logic course.

[carlo]

Had to disagree. This is like saying the greatest man in the world is greater than all others. In something like this the proof is in the details.

As an example, the ruleing classes in Europe were certainly the best educated(even exclusively educated) and created the catastrophic WW1. WW2 was created through the most intelligent(?) Japanese and Germans and the English/American antagonists(not looking for blame here-history speaks for itself).

The destructive impulses of war machines including the atomic bomb was certainly initiated by higher intellects.

On and on, and I suppose this could go into the twists and turns of what is intelligence and can intelligence be conceived as that which moves(aids?) the human condition.

By definition you could say that the European leaders were stupid who started that great war and in that case the statement cannot be wrong .

On and on and on.

As an addition I'd say that he who acts more like an animal where the moral point is not evident(real lions and tigers) would be considered the stupid one. Of course this gets into the many debates on this site as to the nature of morality but Id have to say this particular point is specifically human and excludes the animal.In what many people view as intelligence I'd say that intelligence permeated by love would be the"most intelligent".

[vhawk01]

Hmmm...questionable whether declaring a war or ordering troops is really a violent act. I mean, the result is going to be violence I suppose, but is that really what the OP meant? The soldiers are the violent ones, and obviously the less educated.

However, I think the OP meant more on an interpersonal basis. Interesting question.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I had to disagree, only because I'm a male. If I had agreed to your question, I would also have to concede that women don't solve their conflicts with violence, hence they are more intelligent than men. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

If this is indicative of the reasoning behind people voting "disagree," the results of this poll will show approximately how many people desperately need to take a logic course.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was just making a half-hearted joke because I don't think the answer has any bearing on reality. The IQ range for someone in the Special Forces, Special Operations-Capable and Special Mission Units, falls between 110-130. And they're probably the most violent group of people on the planet, so...

If the 130 IQ cut-off won't work, then go to the 130+ range. The Manhattan Project produced the most violent act of our species.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]

The destructive impulses of war machines including the atomic bomb was certainly initiated by higher intellects.

[/ QUOTE ]

So were peacemaking efforts.

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
Hmmm...questionable whether declaring a war or ordering troops is really a violent act. I mean, the result is going to be violence I suppose, but is that really what the OP meant? The soldiers are the violent ones, and obviously the less educated.


[/ QUOTE ]

Right, the kid working on a farm prior to ww1 called the president and said"I'm violent, send me to war" and the president obliged /images/graemlins/frown.gif. Control of the passions/emotions/lower nature has,according to many religious has been a goal of Mankind. In here, intelligence can hide but can't run.This is as personal as it gets.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]


I was just making a half-hearted joke because I don't think the answer has any bearing on reality. The IQ range for someone in the Special Forces, Special Operations-Capable and Special Mission Units, falls between 110-130. And they're probably the most violent group of people on the planet, so...

If the 130 IQ cut-off won't work, then go to the 130+ range. The Manhattan Project produced the most violent act of our species.

[/ QUOTE ]

Men are taller than women you say? Pah, look at Sally, she's teller than all of us! What do you have to say to that?

[jogsxyz]

This sounds like another question from a right-wing TV host. Ask a question which is grey. Demand a black or white, yes/no answer.

[hmkpoker]

There's a difference between black/white and agree/disagree. White specifically means that the opposite of black is true, whereas disagreeing in this instance does not (i.e., voting disagree does not necessarily mean that more intelligent people are more likely to cause violence)

[vhawk01]

hmk,

Since you are the OP, I'm curious as to how you'd settle this. Obviously the largest violent incidents were probably set in motion or ordered by highly intelligent people. World leaders tend to be such. But would call starting a war to accomplish some goal you deem your society needs accomplished, or signing orders committing troops to battles and conflicts, to be a violent act?

Carlo,
The problem with this is that, by saying they aren't violent acts it sort of seems like I'm saying the leaders aren't complicit and that its 'all the soldiers fault.' Thats definitely not what I'm saying. I'm simply saying that violence isn't what they are guilty of.

[Psycho Boy Jack]

who said violence was not sometimes the most intelligent way to solve a problem ?

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]

Since you are the OP, I'm curious as to how you'd settle this. Obviously the largest violent incidents were probably set in motion or ordered by highly intelligent people. World leaders tend to be such. But would call starting a war to accomplish some goal you deem your society needs accomplished, or signing orders committing troops to battles and conflicts, to be a violent act?

[/ QUOTE ]

But there's more to a war than its leaders. How did the leaders get in there in the first place? War produces nothing of value to the economy, so to support a war in the absence of being attacked is certainly self-damaging (especially to the civilians) and defies common sense; and yet, such attacks take place, and require quite a bit of stupidity amongst the civilians to take place. One could argue that if the citizens are smart, such wars are far less likely.

I actually created this question on a small scale with more domestic violence in mind (gangs, robberies, murders, sexual assaults, etc.), but many people are interpretting it/viewing it differently. The question has a very cumbersome and possibly flawed element to it that I didn't realize until after I posted: the intelligence of the civilians is almost certainly going to alter the social structure, making it difficult to exclude other variables as equal. The conditions under which other variables could be excluded would imply that the change in intelligence, for better or worse, happened very recently and the subsequent social changes have not yet had a chance to take place. What I should have said was "other variables excluded," which would have more accurately captured what I meant to say, but meh, I'm counting on most of the readers not looking that far into the question /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[vhawk01]

Thats how I figured you had meant it. Violent behavior is very strongly correlated with low education. However, its much more likely that it is some third cause that raises the likelihood of both low education and violence, things like economic insecurity. Its hard for me to guess what a 'more intelligent' citizenry would be like, unless I assumed they were less likely to be malnourished, less likely to have substandard access to medical care, less likely to commit violent acts, and less likely to be an IV drug user as well.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Violent behavior is very strongly correlated with low education. However, its much more likely that it is some third cause that raises the likelihood of both low education and violence, things like economic insecurity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure those three elements are intercausal (is that a word? It is now), and that an adjustment in any factor toward the positive will predict similar positive the others toward the positive as well, and similarly for the negative.

[ QUOTE ]
Its hard for me to guess what a 'more intelligent' citizenry would be like, unless I assumed they were less likely to be malnourished, less likely to have substandard access to medical care, less likely to commit violent acts, and less likely to be an IV drug user as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think most people would intuit that the socioeconomic conditions of a more intelligent population would be more favorable. With both factors ostensibly positive, I fail to see why any such person would believe that violence would not be less likely to occur in such conditions.

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
Carlo,
The problem with this is that, by saying they aren't violent acts it sort of seems like I'm saying the leaders aren't complicit and that its 'all the soldiers fault.' Thats definitely not what I'm saying. I'm simply saying that violence isn't what they are guilty of.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I see what you're saying and the question of interpersonal effects are mandatory. My difficulty is the question of intelligence.Many posts on this site have discuused the boon of intelligence and have cometotheIQ test, for better or worse. Others haave said that since a great scientist by common acclaim is a great scientist he is obviously the most intelligent and we have a self fulfilling prophesy.

All the above smacks of elitism, but so what?

We could go on and on and on and in reality we reach into politics which by common acclaim has nothing to do with intelligence /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

My perspective is that not only must one have a good intellect but also needed is an emotional stability(better word?). Emotionality can and does cloud our reason which curiously enough a Christian philosopher Aquinas call this a "sin".Go figure. This clouding of our reason can and does lead to untoward acts including violence.

Some are stronger than others and in this we might call "character".

As mentioned previously, many religious(of diverse beliefs) see the overcoming of our"lower nature" of utmost importance and it seems that "intelligence" or the lexicon of "most intelligent" has to consider this. The guide to this overcoming is directly related to reason but in no way should an exclusivity based upon "intelligence" as is commonly known be the standard of perfection.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
All other variables being the same, a society of less intelligent people is likely to have more problems with violence than a society with more intelligent people.

[/ QUOTE ]Violence is the result of limited resources. Stupidity does not matter, only the need to compete over limited resources. Well maybe not only, but it's the largest factor. Provided of course that both soceities can recognize limited resources. Smart and Dumb become violent. There is no way to tell if smart or dumb will be the ones over estimating a preceived limit in resource.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
All other variables being the same, a society of less intelligent people is likely to have more problems with violence than a society with more intelligent people.

[/ QUOTE ]Violence is the result of limited resources. Stupidity does not matter, only the need to compete over limited resources. Well maybe not only, but it's the largest factor.

[/ QUOTE ]

Intelligence influences the nature of the competition.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
All other variables being the same, a society of less intelligent people is likely to have more problems with violence than a society with more intelligent people.

[/ QUOTE ]Violence is the result of limited resources. Stupidity does not matter, only the need to compete over limited resources. Well maybe not only, but it's the largest factor.

[/ QUOTE ]

Intelligence influences the nature of the competition.

[/ QUOTE ]If you mean intelligence influences the effiecency of scarce resources you may have a point. But again the post is about all things being equal. If it something else, what is the nature? A dumb person kills you with bare hands but a smart person kills you with a gun?

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
If you mean intelligence influences the effiecency of scarce resources you may have a point. But again the post is about all things being equal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nuts, you caught my mistake. See my first response to vhawk.

[jogsxyz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ War produces nothing of value to the economy, .....

[/ QUOTE ]

That statement isn't true. Didn't WWII end the depression?

In the book 1984, there's a constant state of war to support the economy.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you mean intelligence influences the effiecency of scarce resources you may have a point. But again the post is about all things being equal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nuts, you caught my mistake. See my first response to vhawk.

[/ QUOTE ]Vhawk pretty much has this nailed. I only wish Utah was arround to help you better understand the mistakes you are making regarding intelligence.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
That statement isn't true. Didn't WWII end the depression?

[/ QUOTE ]
No. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)

[ QUOTE ]
In the book 1984, there's a constant state of war to support the economy.

[/ QUOTE ]

And everyone lived in poverty.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]

That statement isn't true. Didn't WWII end the depression?



[/ QUOTE ] The parable of the broken window doesn't apply in this situation-as it doesn't apply in all situations in which unused capacity exists-because the resources (broadly defined) were not being used AT ALL and WWII put people to work and put money in the hands of people who were not working and had no money.

Perhaps there would have been a better way to end the great depression (Lewis Black's idea of building a big f-ing thing comes to mind) but the fact of the matter is that WWII did end the great depression.

[soon2bepro]

[ QUOTE ]
All other variables being the same, a society of less intelligent people is likely to have more problems with violence than a society with more intelligent people.

[/ QUOTE ]

voted agree because I chose to interpret your poll the way I think it should've been, but I think you should change the wording...

See how you say "have problems with violence" rather than "contain more violence".

The more intelligent people are, the more likely they'll have a problem WITH violence. They're less likely to be violent though. That's what I assumed the poll meant.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
The parable of the broken window doesn't apply in this situation-as it doesn't apply in all situations in which unused capacity exists-because the resources (broadly defined) were not being used AT ALL and WWII put people to work and put money in the hands of people who were not working and had no money.

[/ QUOTE ]

What I think you are arguing is that there was a huge disparity of wealth, and redistribution toward some level of equilibrium was necessary to get people back to work. If this is the case, we must admit that the transaction costs were EGREGIOUS. War, by itself, is not valuable. No one is eat, smoke, drink, dwell in or be entertained by war (well, maybe some sickos). Functionally, this is identical to paying tons and tons and tons of people to dig ditches and fill them up (although many more natural resources were exhausted in so doing). Along your reasoning, I see no reason to think that a sudden redistribution of funds would not have been infinitely superior to the huge transaction costs of the war machine.

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps there would have been a better way to end the great depression (Lewis Black's idea of building a big f-ing thing comes to mind) but the fact of the matter is that WWII did end the great depression.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was FDR's idea. He built craploads of big f-ing things. Did it work, or did it just prolong the depression? Methinks the latter.

BTW, the big f-ing thing idea makes zero sense. If a big f-ing thing really is going to make people say "OMG, I've got to see this big f-ing thing!" then some capitalist will just come in and build the big f-ing thing himself.

[Propertarian]

That is not my argument at all. The parable of the broken window goes like this:

X (say war) is not actually good for the economy because the resources spent on X would have been spent bettter elsewhere.

However, sometimes the resources used for X are not being used at all. They are just sitting there doing nothing. So they therefore WOULD NOT (could not is irrelevant) have been spent better elsewhere; the great depression was a massive instance of this: unused capacity. Nobody was building anything or hiring anybody, because aggregate demand was too low and aggregate supply too high (unused cars were sitting in lots for years, farmers were burning crops (while other people were literally starving) because they couldn't sell all of them and/or to decrease supply therefore increasing price) for people to have an incentive to build things or hire people. The war both increased aggregate demand in and of itself by demanding goods for use in the war be created and put people to work, and them having money further increased aggregate demand, incentivizing hiring people for other purposes and creating other goods and services that the newly employed people want and can now afford. The war ended the viscious cycle that existed: nobody wanted to hire anybody because it was unprofitable to do so, but it was only unprofitable to hire people because people did not have enough money to buy things.

The war effort even put people who weren't even in the workforce into an employed status, not just those who were officially unemployed.

[ QUOTE ]
BTW, the big f-ing thing idea makes zero sense. If a big f-ing thing really is going to make people say "OMG, I've got to see this big f-ing thing!" then some capitalist will just come in and build the big f-ing thing himself.

[/ QUOTE ] This is not true for the reason I gave above-nobody is spending on anything. Furthermore, the whole point of me bringing up the big [censored] thing is to illustrate how, in depressions, it is beneficial to employ people, even for things that nobody wants. As the joke goes, FDR paid people to dig a ditch in the morning, and paid another group to fill it up at night. Doing so puts money into people the pockets of people who would have money, increasing aggregate demand which eventually leads to the market to start producing things that people want again.

So, here is the hierarchy of best things to do with the resources:

1. Build a big f-ing thing.
2. Fight a war.
3. Let the capacity continue to go unused.

[madnak]

What he's doing is refuting the Keynesian assumptions you're still taking for granted.

"Resources aren't being used. It would be good if we started burning them and using them to kill people, to create jobs."

It's even worse than the "we should start breaking windows, because then people will have jobs repairing them" reasoning. Which definitely applies to this situation - destroying the property of rich people is a great way to mobilize resources. The difference being that the war solution to stagnation is even more destructive and includes atrocities as well as vandalism.

I love how you talk about the "vicious cycle" as if it just came along and happen, oh that's too bad. And I especially love how you talk about the draft and absolute necessity as a reduction in unemployment. "Wow, even people who didn't want to work got to, in fact, even people who tried to run away were dragged in and sent to their deaths whether they liked it or not! According to my arbitrary definition of 'good for the economy' that was totally good for the economy!"

Finally, you're only taking the US into account. Of course, I think the US lost plenty of utility from the war, but that's beside the point. An open system doesn't tend toward entropy, but a closed system does. Similarly, while it may be possible for one nation to benefit from a war, the net effect among all the nations involved in the war will be detrimental (in terms of utility both overall and per capita).

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
What he's doing is refuting the Keynesian assumptions you're still taking for granted.

"Resources aren't being used. It would be good if we started burning them and using them to kill people, to create jobs."

It's even worse than the "we should start breaking windows, because then people will have jobs repairing them" reasoning. Which definitely applies to this situation - destroying the property of rich people is a great way to mobilize resources. The difference being that the war solution to stagnation is even more destructive and includes atrocities as well as vandalism.

I love how you talk about the "vicious cycle" as if it just came along and happen, oh that's too bad. And I especially love how you talk about the draft and absolute necessity as a reduction in unemployment. "Wow, even people who didn't want to work got to, in fact, even people who tried to run away were dragged in and sent to their deaths whether they liked it or not! According to my arbitrary definition of 'good for the economy' that was totally good for the economy!"

Finally, you're only taking the US into account. Of course, I think the US lost plenty of utility from the war, but that's beside the point. An open system doesn't tend toward entropy, but a closed system does. Similarly, while it may be possible for one nation to benefit from a war, the net effect among all the nations involved in the war will be detrimental (in terms of utility both overall and per capita).

[/ QUOTE ] Your point is irrelevant to the conversation we were having. My point was that the war DID end the depression, which is a fact. HMK claimed that it did not and I was refuting that point.

Obviously I don't think World War II created a net increase in overall utility; nobody would argue that it did.

I love how you think that I was making a normative point, when I was in fact making a factual one.

[madnak]

There are no facts, even in the hard sciences (where people don't actually treat their personal guesses as the word of God himself). In this case there's only speculation - no system can predict what would have happened without WW2. That WW2 coincided with the end of the Great Depression is hardly proof that WW2 itself ended it.

But you're moving to restrict your position anyhow. You've been making claim after claim and now you're down to "WW2 ended the Great Depression." Am I to assume every other claim you've made in this thread is suddenly outside its scope?

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
In this case there's only speculation - no system can predict what would have happened without WW2. That WW2 coincided with the end of the Great Depression is hardly proof that WW2 itself ended it.


[/ QUOTE ] My argument was not an ethical argument, that's what I meant with that statement. My argument is a logical one that shows that WWII ended the depression. Perhaps I should have said: My argument is an "is" argument, not an "ought" argument; you are quite clearly and quite incorrectly assuming my argument is an "ought" argument when I was only discussing "is".

[ QUOTE ]
But you're moving to restrict your position anyhow. You've been making claim after claim and now you're down to "WW2 ended the Great Depression." Am I to assume every other claim you've made in this thread is suddenly outside its scope?

[/ QUOTE ] WTF are you talking about? HMK said that the great depression did not

The entire purpose of the entire text of all of my posts addressed to HMK in this thread were to show how WWII ended the great depression-which he said was not true-, which included demonstrating that the broken window fallacy does not prove that it did not end it.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In this case there's only speculation - no system can predict what would have happened without WW2. That WW2 coincided with the end of the Great Depression is hardly proof that WW2 itself ended it.


[/ QUOTE ] My argument was not an ethical argument, that's what I meant with that statement. My argument is a logical one that shows that WWII ended the depression. Perhaps I should have said: My argument is an "is" argument, not an "ought" argument; you are quite clearly and quite incorrectly assuming my argument is an "ought" argument when I was only discussing "is".

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm talking about "is" here. Causation's "is," not "ought." And presenting a hypothesis doesn't constitue logical proof.

[ QUOTE ]
But you're moving to restrict your position anyhow. You've been making claim after claim and now you're down to "WW2 ended the Great Depression." Am I to assume every other claim you've made in this thread is suddenly outside its scope?

[/ QUOTE ] WTF are you talking about? HMK said that the great depression did not

The entire purpose of the entire text of all of my posts addressed to HMK in this thread were to show how WWII ended the great depression-which he said was not true-, which included demonstrating that the broken window fallacy does not prove that it did not end it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You also said the war was good for the economy, and made statements about the "best" way to deal with unused resources.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
However, sometimes the resources used for X are not being used at all. They are just sitting there doing nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

God, there's all this oil that could be used that's just sitting there underneath this oil field, but no one wants to drill it. Let's hire some people to blow it up! That'll put people to work.

[ QUOTE ]
So they therefore WOULD NOT (could not is irrelevant) have been spent better elsewhere; the great depression was a massive instance of this: unused capacity. Nobody was building anything or hiring anybody, because aggregate demand was too low and aggregate supply too high (unused cars were sitting in lots for years, farmers were burning crops (while other people were literally starving) because they couldn't sell all of them and/or to decrease supply therefore increasing price) for people to have an incentive to build things or hire people. The war both increased aggregate demand in and of itself by demanding goods for use in the war be created and put people to work, and them having money further increased aggregate demand, incentivizing hiring people for other purposes and creating other goods and services that the newly employed people want and can now afford.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your reasoning absolutely boggles my mind.

If cars are sitting in a lot while people are in obvious need of cars, then something should be blatantly obvious: the price is too [censored] high. Clearly if you sold them for a nickel a pop everyone and their brother would be driving a new car. Same with the crops. Lowering the prices would have gotten useful supplies out to the people that wanted them, but no, we had to make prices higher and continue the depression.

But what if you couldn't give them away? What if I make tens of thousands of widgits, and can't even sell them at cost? Well damn, I guess I haven't produced anything of value then have I? There is no aggregate supply. I might as well have made a sculpture of pvn trampling FDR out of my own fecal matter and tried to sell that. Seems like if you want to stay in business, you have to actually make something people are willing to pay for, and if what you're making won't sell, it's not worth [censored].

[ QUOTE ]
The war ended the viscious cycle that existed: nobody wanted to hire anybody because it was unprofitable to do so, but it was only unprofitable to hire people because people did not have enough money to buy things.

[/ QUOTE ]

What the hell do they feed the students at Yale?. I just proposed an easier way to give people money without all the unnecessesary transaction costs of meaningless labor: just redistribute the damn stuff. How is creating pointless jobs superior to this?

[ QUOTE ]
As the joke goes, FDR paid people to dig a ditch in the morning, and paid another group to fill it up at night. Doing so puts money into people the pockets of people who would have money, increasing aggregate demand which eventually leads to the market to start producing things that people want again.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, what the hell is the point? Why not just save a bunch of steps and give them the damn money if that is, in fact, how it works? If Joe is to be paid $1,000 to spend the next month digging ditches and filling them, why the hell not just give Joe $1,000? That way he can get on with his life buying things that he actually wants, and won't have to go through the arduous nonsense of monotonous day labor.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
But what if you couldn't give them away? What if I make tens of thousands of widgits, and can't even sell them at cost? Well damn, I guess I haven't produced anything of value then have I? There is no aggregate supply. I might as well have made a sculpture of pvn trampling FDR out of my own fecal matter and tried to sell that. Seems like if you want to stay in business, you have to actually make something people are willing to pay for, and if what you're making won't sell, it's not worth [censored].

[/ QUOTE ] People wanted cars, they couldn't afford cars. People wanted food, they couldn't afford food.

[ QUOTE ]
What the hell do they feed the students at Yale?. I just proposed an easier way to give people money without all the unnecessesary transaction costs of meaningless labor: just redistribute the damn stuff. How is creating pointless jobs superior to this?


[/ QUOTE ] Their was no ethical point. The point was to show you how gov't spending ended the depression; all your good/bad, better/worse, should/shouldn't, superior/inferior stuff makes no sense.

[ QUOTE ]
Lowering the prices would have gotten useful supplies out to the people that wanted them, but no, we had to make prices higher and continue the depression.

[/ QUOTE ] No, it wouldn't have; did you see my farmers example? The farmer's were not willing to to let the products go for that low of a price; they just burnt them instead to decrease supply and therefore increase prices.

[Borodog]

Time preference. Stupid people cannot plan as far into the future, or as well, by definition. Higher time preference leads to higher time preference behaviors, i.e behaviors that have unaccounted for or misunderstood long term consequences, like violence.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
No, it wouldn't have; did you see my farmers example? The farmer's were not willing to to let the products go for that low of a price; they just burnt them instead to decrease supply and therefore increase prices.

[/ QUOTE ]

How smart of them...?

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
No, it wouldn't have; did you see my farmers example? The farmer's were not willing to to let the products go for that low of a price; they just burnt them instead to decrease supply and therefore increase prices.


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, no. This was done by federal agents, as was the wholesale slaughter of livestock, and it was extremely unpopular. It was part of FDR's BRILLIANT plan of limiting supply and elevating prices while people were out of work (because of FDR's artifical price and wage floors) and starving. What a guy.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]

How smart of them...?

[/ QUOTE ] Well, outside of the deficit spending/surplus thing to even out the business cycle, one of Keynes other great insights was the irrational behavior of people in markets leading to problems.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
Irrational behavior of tyrannical dictators in markets leads to problems.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP.

[Propertarian]

Unbelivable...Put a guy on ignore and he still won't stop flooding you with propaganda.

[Borodog]

Propaganda?

[ QUOTE ]
The Agricultural Adjustment Acts (1933, 1938) forced up farm prices, which meant higher food prices for millions of Americans. Under the AAAs, Secretary of Agriculture and future vice president Henry Wallace had farmers plow under some 10 million acres of cultivated land, destroying wheat, corn, and other crops. Hog farmers were paid to slaughter some 6 million shoats (young pigs). That was the sort of thing John Steinbeck protested in The Grapes of Wrath. - Cato Policy Report: How FDR Prolonged the Great Depression (http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v25n4/powell.pdf).

[/ QUOTE ]

Your entire worldview is propaganda.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
No, it wouldn't have; did you see my farmers example? The farmer's were not willing to to let the products go for that low of a price; they just burnt them instead to decrease supply and therefore increase prices.

[/ QUOTE ]

Think about this. Really, really think about this. You are a farmer. You have a stockpile of crops for sale. People don't want to buy your crops. Why, in the name of all that makes a shred of common sense, would you want to increase the prices? If they're not selling at x, and people are already starving, why the hell are people going to suddenly decide to pay for your crops when you charge MORE for them?

Why do failing businesses cut their prices dramatically during their clearance sales? There was a hardware store that went out of business recently near me that was selling all their stuff at 30% off or more; why didn't they start pouring all their paint down the drain to increase the demand and increase their prices?

[Borodog]

Dude, logic doesn't work on him.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
one of Keynes other great insights...

[/ QUOTE ]

he had one?

[Propertarian]

Here is what you have to understand:

Only some people didn't have money, onthers had plenty, even during the depression. When you can sell 100 units at 2 bucks each, or 125 units at one buck each, which do you choose? The market sets the price; they aren't going around selling some for a buck and the rest for two, they are selling all of them at the same price (usually to a retailier). I hope you understand it now. The choice they faced was between selling 100 for 2 bucks each or 125 for a buck each...makes sense to me.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
one of Keynes other great insights...

[/ QUOTE ]

he had one?

[/ QUOTE ]

His great insight was to realize that since he and the rest of the British Aristocracy (Lord Keynes) were in debt up to their eyeballs, deflation would be extraordinarily bad for he and the other Landed Dandies (but not most regular people). Hence, give governments an excuse to print money ad infinitum, and be among the first in line with one's hands out.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is what you have to understand:

Only some people didn't have money, onthers had plenty, even during the depression. When you can sell 100 units at 2 bucks each, or 125 units at one buck each, which do you choose? The market sets the price; they aren't going around selling some for a buck and the rest for two, they are selling all of them at the same price (usually to a retailier). I hope you understand it now. The choice they faced was between selling 100 for 2 bucks each or 125 for a buck each...makes sense to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your economic analysis has got to be some of the funniest stuff I've ever seen.

Business failing? Destroy your merchandise and up your prices! Brilliant!

Lol.

[John21]

Well at least there was some logic 'behind' him.

p.s. I ran across this video on the von Mises site. Don't know if you've watched it or not, but you can skip the first 7 minutes or so.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe vid (http://mises.org:88/ss06-Hoppe)

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is what you have to understand:

Only some people didn't have money, onthers had plenty, even during the depression. When you can sell 100 units at 2 bucks each, or 125 units at one buck each, which do you choose? The market sets the price; they aren't going around selling some for a buck and the rest for two, they are selling all of them at the same price (usually to a retailier). I hope you understand it now. The choice they faced was between selling 100 for 2 bucks each or 125 for a buck each...makes sense to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

But why are they selling at a rate of 100 for $2/each? Did the farmer yield some rather overwhelming influence on people's desires for his crops, or is he in fact following their desires? If the former, then can he simply restrict his supply further and sell 75 units for $3/each?

The Keynesian view suggests to us that people buy at the price they do because the farmer has tinkered with the supply, and therefore the farmer wields power over the market. But this is not the case. The farmer does not burn his crops because he wants to decrease aggregate supply thereby incentivizing demand; he burns his crops in response to the market telling him that he has foolishly grown too many crops, and that he better stop if he doesn't want to go broke.

EDIT TO ADD: You will probably observe that most clearance sales do not sell all of their products. Some simply go to waste at the end, destroyed or given away. They can sell 80% of their inventory at 30% off or 95% of their inventory at 60% off; obviously they're better off cutting prices only 30% even if some of it goes to waste. Are they the ones setting the rules as to how much people are going to buy at what price, or are they simply following what the market wants?

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
The farmer's were not willing to to let the products go for that low of a price; they just burnt them instead to decrease supply and therefore increase prices.

[/ QUOTE ] While it is accurate that some farmers burnt crops at this time, it isn't actually the case that we know this was their motive; we don't have any record of them saying they did this or planning to do this.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
The Keynesian view suggests to us that people buy at the price they do because the farmer has tinkered with the supply, and therefore the farmer wields power over the market. But this is not the case. The farmer does not burn his crops because he wants to decrease aggregate supply thereby incentivizing demand; he burns his crops in response to the market telling him that he has foolishly grown too many crops, and that he better stop if he doesn't want to go broke.

[/ QUOTE ] The Keynesian view does not suggest that. Keynes didn't have a theory of monopoly power at all.

NEOCLASSICAL economics claims that sometimes those with a large market share artificially limits supply to increase price, but the farmers under discussion don't have a large market share.

I think Prop just had his history wrong.

[hmkpoker]

Oh no, my arch-nemesis.

[ QUOTE ]
The Keynesian view does not suggest that. Keynes didn't have a theory of monopoly power at all.

NEOCLASSICAL economics claims that sometimes those with a large market share artificially limits supply to increase price, but the farmers under discussion don't have a large market share.

[/ QUOTE ]

Call it what you wish. I'm interested in the song, not the musician or the recording studio.



I don't have the energy for this tonight, I'm going to bed.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
His great insight was to realize that since he and the rest of the British Aristocracy (Lord Keynes) were in debt up to their eyeballs, deflation would be extraordinarily bad for he and the other Landed Dandies (but not most regular people). Hence, give governments an excuse to print money ad infinitum, and be among the first in line with one's hands out.

[/ QUOTE ] Deflation would have been bad for them as well, at least under capitalism, because it will lead to a further decrease in aggregate demand as people lose their main incentive to produce, spiraling the country further into depression.

I know you don't like empirical evidence, but for those who do:

[ QUOTE ]
Ben Bernanke and Harold James, in a paper called "The Gold Standard, Deflation, and Financial Crisis in the Great Depression: An International Comparison" published in 1991 (NBER working paper version here), noted that 13 other countries besides the U.K. had decided to abandon their currencies' gold parity in 1931. Bernanke and James' data for the average growth rate of industrial production for these countries (plotted in the top panel above) was positive in every year from 1932 on. Countries that stayed on gold, by contrast, experienced an average output decline of 15% in 1932. The U.S. abandoned gold in 1933, after which its dramatic recovery immediately began. The same happened after Italy dropped the gold standard in 1934, and for Belgium when it went off in 1935. On the other hand, the three countries that stuck with gold through 1936 (France, Netherlands, and Poland) saw a 6% drop in industrial production in 1935, while the rest of the world was experiencing solid growth.

[/ QUOTE ] From this short essay (http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html)

[moorobot]

Well, my first post states that Propertarian is wrong and you are right, so it isn't debate time anyway.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The Keynesian view suggests to us that people buy at the price they do because the farmer has tinkered with the supply, and therefore the farmer wields power over the market. But this is not the case. The farmer does not burn his crops because he wants to decrease aggregate supply thereby incentivizing demand; he burns his crops in response to the market telling him that he has foolishly grown too many crops, and that he better stop if he doesn't want to go broke.

[/ QUOTE ] The Keynesian view does not suggest that. Keynes didn't have a theory of monopoly power at all.

NEOCLASSICAL economics claims that sometimes those with a large market share artificially limits supply to increase price, but the farmers under discussion don't have a large market share.

I think Prop just had his history wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whether his history was right or wrong he was just making a point.

And no matter how you twist and turn to defend Keynes, at some point you have to admit that what he predicted would happen did not.

Keynes could see a day when most Americans would have a car and a four-bedroom house. He proclaimed to all that would listen that when most people had fulfilled the American dream, they would lose part of their incentive to work. Keynes declared that these prosperous Americans would shift from spending their surplus income to saving it - which would cause the entire economy to grind to a halt.
To prevent this clamity from occuring he advocated the government to adopt policies like deficit spending, progressive taxation, and the manipulation of interest rates - all for the intent purpose of keeping the most productive members of society working harder and from hoarding too much of their income.

Keynesian economics has been proven wrong. His theory is dead. Lets move along.

[Carded]

I doubt people with low intelligence are more violent.

I think the higher intelligence allows for individuals to be more effective in violence than those of lesser intelligence. People with higher intelligence probably are more able to avoid repercussion from committing a violent act then persons with less intelligence. Also, he/she most likly has a greater captivity for violence then those less savvy.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is what you have to understand:

Only some people didn't have money, onthers had plenty, even during the depression. When you can sell 100 units at 2 bucks each, or 125 units at one buck each, which do you choose? The market sets the price; they aren't going around selling some for a buck and the rest for two, they are selling all of them at the same price (usually to a retailier). I hope you understand it now. The choice they faced was between selling 100 for 2 bucks each or 125 for a buck each...makes sense to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is that you're suggesting they produced 100 units at the cost of 125 units. And then they burned the excess and sold the 100 units. That's silly. By taking cost into account in the profit curve, they could probably make more just by producing 90 in the first place, plain and simple. By producing the extra 35 units, they're wasting the crops as well as their time and effort and equipment. Say what you will about rationality, I think there are very few farmers who would consistently and knowingly overproduce to their own detriment. Something is fishy here.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, my first post states that Propertarian is wrong and you are right, so it isn't debate time anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

No! It must be a trick!

*searches for booby traps*

[Skoob]

I voted "disagree" because I feel that non-violent people are higher evolved than those who believe in justifiable violence.

They (the higher evolved folks) are open to cultural and lifestyle differences and are just more tolerant. And they also have a greater sense of empathy.

You can be really dumb while still posessing these qualities.

Conversely, you can be highly intelligent and still have no compassion at all.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
His great insight was to realize that since he and the rest of the British Aristocracy (Lord Keynes) were in debt up to their eyeballs, deflation would be extraordinarily bad for he and the other Landed Dandies (but not most regular people). Hence, give governments an excuse to print money ad infinitum, and be among the first in line with one's hands out.

[/ QUOTE ] Deflation would have been bad for them as well, at least under capitalism, because it will lead to a further decrease in aggregate demand as people lose their main incentive to produce, spiraling the country further into depression.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is simply wrong. People lose the incentive to produce the things that people have realized they do not have the savings to consume. I.e., malinvestments have to be liquidated. Factors of production have to be shifted away from producing unprofitable things that consumers don't want back to the profitable things that consumers do want.

Handwaving voodoo entities like "aggregate demand" are [censored]. There is no such thing as aggregate demand. There is only demand by individuals for individual products. To presume that people will stop consuming, which is the essence of the so-called "liquidity trap" "downward spiral" in the "aggregate demand" theory is ludicrous. People consume. To consume they must produce. The problem comes in for heavily debt-leveraged aristocrats and industrialists when the economy reveals that they have heavily invested their debt into producing the wrong things according to, as always, the consumers.


[ QUOTE ]
I know you don't like empirical evidence, but for those who do:

[ QUOTE ]
Ben Bernanke and Harold James, in a paper called "The Gold Standard, Deflation, and Financial Crisis in the Great Depression: An International Comparison" published in 1991 (NBER working paper version here), noted that 13 other countries besides the U.K. had decided to abandon their currencies' gold parity in 1931. Bernanke and James' data for the average growth rate of industrial production for these countries (plotted in the top panel above) was positive in every year from 1932 on. Countries that stayed on gold, by contrast, experienced an average output decline of 15% in 1932. The U.S. abandoned gold in 1933, after which its dramatic recovery immediately began. The same happened after Italy dropped the gold standard in 1934, and for Belgium when it went off in 1935. On the other hand, the three countries that stuck with gold through 1936 (France, Netherlands, and Poland) saw a 6% drop in industrial production in 1935, while the rest of the world was experiencing solid growth.

[/ QUOTE ] From this short essay (http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html)

[/ QUOTE ]

As always, I have no problem with empirical evidence. All I require is that it is correctly analyzed. Bernanke's analysis is a joke. The US never saw any "dramatic recovery" until after the end of World War Two, in 1946, with the (long overdue) rollback of much, although not enough, of the disastrous New Deal legislation.

Even at the height of mid-Depression production in 1937, the FDR-orchestrated heavily cartellized US economy had not reached pre-crash levels of productivity, and this modest "recovery" was followed immeditaely by another deep crash, the only time in history that a deep economic crash followed on the heels of the previous one without any appreciable "boom" period in between.

All of this is of course already in the link I already provided, had you bothered to read it.