Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
This type of mental masturbation serves no real purpose.
Yeah.
The "mental masturbation" just brought you the fundament to anything called "science" and still expands the scientific theory today, but I'm rather sure you can live perfectly well without that. 😉
If you want to see something that absolutely serves no real purpose, you may want to have a look at a business administration class, an investment bank or have a look at the Wall Street (the place, not the movie). If that isn't senseless enough, I'd encourage you to have a look at German fiscal law.
Originally posted by Borbarad
Yeah.The "mental masturbation" just brought you the fundament to anything called "science" and still expands the scientific theory today, but I'm rather sure you can live perfectly well without that. 😉
If you want to see something that absolutely serves no real purpose, you may want to have a look at a business administration class, an investment bank or have a look at the Wall Street (the place, not the movie). If that isn't senseless enough, I'd encourage you to have a look at German fiscal law.
Really? Regurgitating the philosophy of Kant or Nietzsche, Aristotle or Socrates, brought science? Really? That's a bold claim. And understanding any of this has any real world application? I'd love for you to quantify that because this type of knowledge is only useful for regurgitation on online forums, as you have proved time and time again. I think "philosophy" as it is taught in college is the most useless class in any school. Well, that and business administration. But I'm not sure we are going to agree because I think you just grouped investment banking and the workings of Wall Street (which consists of many fields) with "no real purpose". You're right. Philosophy serves more purpose than those two. It'll get you a great job at starbucks.
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Really? Regurgitating the philosophy of Kant or Nietzsche, Aristotle or Socrates, brought science? Really? That's a bold claim. And understanding any of this has any real world application? I'd love for you to quantify that because this type of knowledge is only useful for regurgitation on online forums, as you have proved time and time again. I think "philosophy" as it is taught in college is the most useless class in any school. Well, that and business administration. But I'm not sure we are going to agree because I think you just grouped investment banking and the workings of Wall Street (which consists of many fields) with "no real purpose". You're right. Philosophy serves more purpose than those two. It'll get you a great job at starbucks.
I don't think you're taking this into consideration: philosophy and specifically epistemology is fundamental in how we know the universe. Folks that sling about philosophical ramblings that they've just learned in their college-level philosophy classes aren't necessarily changing how the world works, but the immense foundation Western civilization has comes from the thoughts and teachings of Plato, Socrates, Hume, and Kant, etc. Saying it's mental masturbation is choosing to remain ignorant of the most crucial tool available to examine reality and objectively classify its aspects.
To put it in easier terms, if you are unable to conclusively reach facts because your means of attaining knowledge has no foundation (i.e., you have no real consistent philosophy, you're just an emotional animal or a fool to tradition) how can you claim to know anything? What can you argue is knowledge? What is objective and what isn't? How can you claim to come to conclusions at all except for with vague subjective reasons?
Things like the scientific method come into being because men and women interested in truth and objectivity lay groundrules by asking and answering questions. Calling the fruits of their labors "mental masturbation" strikes me as terribly ignorant. I take it you're not a history major either.
Originally posted by Dr McBeefington
Really? Regurgitating the philosophy of Kant or Nietzsche, Aristotle or Socrates, brought science? Really? That's a bold claim.
I said that philosophy brought science, not the "regurgitation" of philosophy.
And understanding any of this has any real world application?
As philosophy offers methods to describe and understand the real world, the "real world applications" of the art are fairly obvious, if one is capable of grasping them. Logic, for example, is a nice thing to understand and pretty much useable in almost any everyday situation. And it's 100 % philosophy.
I'd love for you to quantify that because this type of knowledge is only useful for regurgitation on online forums, as you have proved time and time again. I think "philosophy" as it is taught in college is the most useless class in any school.
What I have proven time and time again is, that I'm a far more capable thinker and debater than you are, Sexy. This while not even utilizing my primary language. Again two skills that come in handy in nigh any imaginable situation, if applied properly.
Philosophy, as I understand it (and unfortunately, there are enough students and professors of the art not sharing my opinion) merely serves as a fundamental tool: a key, granting a faster path into and through other fields of knowledge, and opening the gate to some fields of knowledge otherwise unaccessable. When it's practiced as an end to itself, in some sort of ivory tower, it probably becomes "mental masturbation", but I hope they still teach more than that in philosophy classes today while your base your judgement on archetypical prejudices regarding the art.
Well, that and business administration. But I'm not sure we are going to agree because I think you just grouped investment banking and the workings of Wall Street (which consists of many fields) with "no real purpose".
Modern day financial markets are mostly based upon the principle to generate value where there is nothing valueable to begin with. The worth of corporations is not determined by their actual worth (production facilities, financial gain and so on) but by expectations of some shareholders (Not that I didn't benefit from that, but it's still laughable). We're dealing with a devaluation of work at the moment, culminating in the development that corporations value is rising when they fire workers (come on...how stupid is that?). This situation silently undermines the foundation of capitalism. And while I do essentially believe in capitalism, the way it works today on many occassions, is leading to self-destruction of the system.
And going by this, there are certainly jobs at the Wall Street that do make some sense, especially when it comes to making money, but to me, the place is mainly a symbol for many things going wrong today.
Philosophy serves more purpose than those two. It'll get you a great job at starbucks.
As does the study of any other subject, if you're doing it wrong...
As philosophy offers methods to describe and understand the real world, the "real world applications" of the art are fairly obvious, if one is capable of grasping them. Logic, for example, is a nice thing to understand and pretty much useable in almost any everyday situation. And it's 100 % philosophy.
What I have proven time and time again is, that I'm a far more capable thinker and debater than you are, Sexy. This while not even utilizing my primary language. Again two skills that come in handy in nigh any imaginable situation, if applied properly.
Philosophy, as I understand it (and unfortunately, there are enough students and professors of the art not sharing my opinion) merely serves as a fundamental tool: a key, granting a faster path into and through other fields of knowledge, and opening the gate to some fields of knowledge otherwise unaccessable. When it's practiced as an end to itself, in some sort of ivory tower, it probably becomes "mental masturbation", but I hope they still teach more than that in philosophy classes today while your base your judgement on archetypical prejudices regarding the art.
Modern day financial markets are mostly based upon the principle to generate value where there is nothing valueable to begin with. The worth of corporations is not determined by their actual worth (production facilities, financial gain and so on) but by expectations of some shareholders (Not that I didn't benefit from that, but it's still laughable). We're dealing with a devaluation of work at the moment, culminating in the development that corporations value is rising when they fire workers (come on...how stupid is that?). This situation silently undermines the foundation of capitalism. And while I do essentially believe in capitalism, the way it works today on many occassions, is leading to self-destruction of the system.
the fiat currency system that's plagued our world for almost half a decade.
plagued our world
plagued
plagued
...
First off, I think you mean half a century (typos happen) and I think by plagued you mean instead blessed. Or did you not notice the absurd increases in (adjusted) per capita GDP since abandoning the Gold Standard? I offer you this graph:
Watch the distance traveled on the horizontal axis after, say, the 1940s. The US per capita GDP has grown more in the last half a century (you know, since abandoning the gold standard) than it did in the 150 years before that. (Note that the x-axis may be on a log scale, you can change it to linear by selecting the menu option nearest to the words "SIZE: population, total"😉
Obviously, there are confounding variables. The push for industrialization, globalization, and (more recently) futurization (i.e. the explosion of information technology) all played larger roles than did the nature of the currency. However, the correlation of the greatest explosion of wealth in the history of the nation is too strong to ignore. Let's look at another measure of the efficacy of the nation's monetary policy: the severity and frequency of recessions:
Every economist I've ever met or read or heard about would, to quote an article I found a while back, "laugh you out of court."
Edit: but this is Macro, and therefore boring. 😛
Originally posted by Zampanó
...First off, I think you mean half a century (typos happen) and I think by plagued you mean instead blessed. Or did you not notice the absurd increases in (adjusted) per capita GDP since abandoning the Gold Standard? I offer you this graph:
Watch the distance traveled on the horizontal axis after, say, the 1940s. The US per capita GDP has grown more in the last half a century (you know, since abandoning the gold standard) than it did in the 150 years before that. (Note that the x-axis may be on a log scale, you can change it to linear by selecting the menu option nearest to the words "SIZE: population, total"😉
Obviously, there are confounding variables. The push for industrialization, globalization, and (more recently) futurization (i.e. the explosion of information technology) all played larger roles than did the nature of the currency. However, the correlation of the greatest explosion of wealth in the history of the nation is too strong to ignore. Let's look at another measure of the efficacy of the nation's monetary policy: the severity and frequency of recessions:
[/quote]
You're confusing causation with correlation(maybe). The per capita growth is due to a lot of factors, none of which has to do with getting off the gold standard or increasing money printing. If you want a true correlation, look at prices of everyday things while on the gold standard compared to lets say.. Today maybe? You seem to think this was the greatest thing to happen to us, while it's really the worst thing that's happened to us. Short term success=long term failure. Also, the 1940s had nothing to do with anything other than a manufacturing boom due to supplying weapons to the allies.
Every economist I've ever met or read or heard about would, to quote an article I found a while back, "laugh you out of court."
Edit: but this is Macro, and therefore boring. 😛 [/QUOTE]
Here RH, play around with this, it might teach you something.
http://www.measuringworth.com/graphs/
Also, I think you're overstating the importance of GDP figures, otherwise we'd all have to subscribe to the idea that monetary inflation and quantitative easing work.
It's interesting how different institutions put the emphasis on different things. You were taught mostly in Texas, right? As long as you stay out of the deep blue there, it is probably possible to go years at a time without meeting an "outed" liberal.
I'm in Nebraska, which is similarly red, but the educational system is very liberal. As far as my "econ cred," you will certainly be able to outdo me in a competition of who has taken the higher economics course. However, I have memorized Krugman's introductory economics text (as well as his separate and less-good AP text) and placed 1st three years running at the State Economics challenge.
I know the basics, just enough to be able to tell when someone is completely off base. If the ideas behind Keynes work are legit, then you are totally off base. (How else would the Fed do open market operations?)
And did you notice how cool Gapminder is? It has data on like all 200 countries!
Keynesian economics are fatally flawed which is why they don't really work on any level other than superficial, and why the commodity/barter systems have worked for millennia. I'm afraid you're going to have to know more than the basics. And btw, they teach Keynesian Eco here as well since it is considered the mainstream economics of our time.
Those outdated systems really don't apply to today's market* and I'm not sure the commodity/barter systems ever did work. I'm not very deep into econ (yet) but I am something of a history nerd, and the wild swings of boom/bust during the 19th century (which featured mostly lassie faire policies) and the early 20th (which prompted political shifts in the form of the Grange movement and Populist/Progressive party) are unequivocally less desirable than the economy today under the stabilizing (countercyclical!) influence of the Federal Reserve.
And btw, do you have a good link to an explanation of Monetarism? I refuse to learn things from the Wiki, because they are needlessly wordy, technical, and largely unsourced. (Economics is a really bad place to learn from a beginner; there is a lot of room for personal bias that a novice can't self-correct in the way that an expert might.)
edit:
*especially as the main thrust of growth continues into the realm of intellectual property, communications technology, and other futuristic goods that muddy the concept of property rights (look at the problems plaguing the music industry)
Originally posted by Zampanó
[B]Those outdated systems really don't apply to today's market* and I'm not sure the commodity/barter systems ever did work. I'm not very deep into econ (yet) but I am something of a history nerd, and the wild swings of boom/bust during the 19th century (which featured mostly lassie faire policies) and the early 20th (which prompted political shifts in the form of the Grange movement and Populist/Progressive party) are unequivocally less desirable than the economy today under the stabilizing (countercyclical!) influence of the Federal Reserve.
And btw, do you have a good link to an explanation of Monetarism? I refuse to learn things from the Wiki, because they are needlessly wordy, technical, and largely unsourced. (Economics is a really bad place to learn from a beginner; there is a lot of room for personal bias that a novice can't self-correct in the way that an expert might.)
And truejedi, it's official. The Spurs are the worst #1 seed in NBA history.
the grizz just looked better. I watched the second half. It wasn't anything the spurs were doing wrong, they just COULDN'T get good shots. the Defense was incredible. Like Conneticut against Butler, what more could they even do?
I actually just cried watching Michael's farewell.... that was beautifully done.
Originally posted by truejedi
z-bo wasn't half bad either. What happened to the spurs? Just injuries? I didn't watch them all year, I was watching miami...
Ginobili was playing hurt but that's about it. Everyone that showed up for 82 games didn't bother showing up for the last 6. It's embarrassing really and it's probably the end of the Tim Duncan era, unless they all decide to give it one last hurrah.