[Borodog]

Here, I've highlighted the ridiculous bull [censored] that has nothing to do with anything that I've ever said in red.

[ QUOTE ]
pvn and borodog,

I'm not sure if the two of you have actually begun to believe that the glib, thoughtless responses you guys trot out every time we have this debate actually constitute an argument.

There are complex issues in economics (particularly the subfield I'm most interested in - behavioral economics) that attempt to detail the various phenomena brought up in this thread. <font color="red">Yet the two of you continue to somehow believe that you are above all this petty academic research, that somehow your overarching dogma takes care of everything.</font> And, before you can object about fallacies of straw men and appeals to authority, I'm gonna tell it like it is.

The fact is, time-dependent preferences are a tricky issue in economics. How should I, as an economist, weigh future utility vs. utility now? How should I, as a human being making choices, weigh future utility vs. utility now? <font color="red">I see no attempt to answer these questions, besides simply "this is how person X does it and this is how person Y does it and we can't argue because how could you know better". Well, I do know better, and I won't accept the argument that I don't simply because it is conceivable that I'm wrong.</font>

There is, of course, the easiest place to start: drug addicts. At one moment, an addict might tell you he has the preference to quit drugs. The next moment he's shooting up heroine. What's the deal? Apparently, the drug addict has a "revealed preference" to do heroine. Or, perhaps, in the former moment the drug addict made a very complex calculus of utility across time and decided to quit drugs, only to have his hunger for drugs . This calculus which our brain has evolved to carry out is something that sets humans apart from other animals, and I don't much care for tossing it aside. That we succumb to weakness at times should not invalidate this special talent, nor does it invalidate the results of this calculus.

More generally, there are actions we take that we regret even when they cause our intended results. What does this say about our preferences?

The limitations on our rationality are well studied. We make bad decisions all the time - and I don't mean decisions that I personally find bad. Study after study shows that I will make a different decision on which gambles to accept simply based on how they are phrased or what context they are given in. The same exact problem is presented to me, with the same exact results, and yet I choose differently. What preference has been revealed here, besides a preference for schizophrenic behavior?

As I stated, time preferences are a sticky issue. How to weigh them is difficult. If I need to do X today to achieve Y tomorrow, is it "bad" to do something that only gives me some limited utility today when the payoff from Y is much larger? Economics isn't necessarily geared to handle these questions, but it does well with money. Even in this narrow, limited domain, we humans have our follies.

Is $5 today really worth $50 tomorrow? I might act like it is, but won't I be rather disappointed tomorrow? Does this disappointment, which we can all agree is rather likely, not matter? What if it is shown that people are actually rather receptive to being forced to save money in the future, knowing that, when the time comes, they might act differently if not locked in? What if it is shown that this is actually a very good way of increasing savings rate, which we can all agree is probably good for people as individuals as well as for the economy as a whole?

<font color="red">When are we going to stop with the gimmicky response of "but the politicians know??" and start actually investigating the issue? Do you want to be right, or to be "right"? Instead of appealing to some vision or ideal of humankind, can we try some study? Some exchange of ideas that might lead to better understanding, rather than pointless arguments over fundamental moral assumptions that actually have little to do with the facts?</font>

This post isn't complete, but here it is. Pick apart at will, but know that I won't be responding just for the sake of responding.

[/ QUOTE ]

None of the rest of it, NONE, is in ANY WAY AT ALL, in ANY CONFLICT with ANYTHING I have EVER posted. The fact that you ranted about these things for 8 or 9 paragraphs in a post where you ATTACKED ME, led me to believe that somehow you had got it in your crazy head that something in my beliefs in is conflict with any of this. I explained CAREFULLY why that is NOT THE CASE and that in fact you are using words in a DIFFERENT SENSE than I have in my posting in an attempt to make it seem that I believe things that I do not. Apparently deliberately, since you carried on with it after I carefully explained the problem, so far as I can tell, solely to avoid losing an argument on the internet.

[censored] [censored] [censored] [censored] [censored] you are infuriating.