To my relief, Dr. Paul Krugman has published yet another sermon, When Prophecy Fails . For months, I have been fascinated by Dr. Krugman's blithe, unwavering insistence on the superiority of his arguments over those of differently clueless economists. Today, I decided to compose my reply. Back in the old days, in Poland, I often listened to a lovely satirical radio program on an FM station with a short range and not much attention from censors. Among others, each week brought an installment of a philosophical discourse, entitled "On the Superiority of Easter over Christmas." The author, Jan Tadeusz Stanisławski, a self-proclaimed Professor of Applied Presumptology, would explain in short, exquisitely absurd monologs the utter stupidity of the various pseudo-scientific arguments about economics and society. This episode, " Greed for Gold ," is as good as any. It ends with the following summary: Why are we talking about gold, someone might ask? They also a...
In this blog, I continue to write about the environment, ecology, energy, complexity, and humans. Of particular interest to me are human self-delusions and mad stampedes to nowhere.