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> This rhetoric is ridiculous Here's what I honestly don't understand about HN: Climate change has near unanimous support from climatologists. Most (rightly,

by wdr1 10y ago

> This rhetoric is ridiculous Here's what I honestly don't understand about HN: Climate change has near unanimous support from climatologists. Most (rightly, imho) point that as a reason why it should be accepted by the general public. And those doubting the experts are considered ridiculous. Here, however, we have an issue to drop corporate taxes which has near unanimous support from economists (across the political spectrum). Yet we call the experts ridiculous. Why the flip? Why should the general public accept the expert advice in one field, but then turn around & call it ridiculous in another?

tpeo 10y ago
It's easier to convince people who have no priors. The majority of people doesn't ever consider the temperature at the polar ice caps unless they are climate scientists, so they'll take accept it easily. But lots of people with a folkish understanding of local weather, specially after some huge snow storm, will mumble something like "so much for global warming". Even if you put all methodological issues (and citations from Richard Feynman) aside or even whether corporate taxes work or not, lots of social science findings would seem dubious simply because they deal with human behavior, which is something which is almost impossible to not have an opinion on, specially because it attempts to describe our own behavior. The problem is that, if I were to understand reality through my own behavior, it would be through an unwarranted generalization of my own conditions to the population as a whole. It's like that joke of "why don't they just buy themselves some money?". That's one of the issues, at least.
Robin_Message 10y ago
Scientists are often correct in their predictions, whereas economists sort of aren't. It's an epistemology question; these experts are not the same as those experts.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nightcracker 10y ago
Actually, I'm not 100% opposed to abolishing corporate tax altogether and finding other ways to structure tax. I'm not an expert, so I wouldn't know what the most robust structure is. But I am calling the arguments that they use in the article ridiculous, and in particular the parts that I've quoted in my post above.
opo 10y ago
Unfortunately economics is one of those areas where many people who have never studied it think they know everything about it. It doesn't help that politicians (of all types) take advantage of this ignorance to pander to their potential voters to tell them what they want to hear.
jackmaney 10y ago
If you think I'm going to give an economist the same clout as an actual scientist, you're out of your god damn mind.
- dang 10y ago
  Your HN comments have repeatedly been uncivil. We ban accounts that do this, especially when they ignore our requests, and we've asked you to fix this before. If you want to keep commenting here, please be civil from now on. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
  - jackmaney 10y ago
    Don't bother sending me more spam. I've already filtered any emails from hn@ycombinator.com to be deleted upon receipt. If you're going to ban me, just ban me.
    - dang 10y ago
      I don't recall what you're referring to, but if we sent you an email that wasn't a reply, it was probably with the intent of giving you helpful information about your HN account. Most people like it when we do that, so I tend to assume it's ok. I'm sorry that I guessed wrong in your case. You've been downvoting all my comments for months now. Would you please stop doing that? Abusive downvotes are dropped by the software, but they still add noise to the data. Edit: Ok, since you've responded by doing even more of it, I'm going to take this as a signal that you're not using HN in good faith and ban your account. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com.
      - jackmaney 10y ago
        Finally!
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

by wdr1 10y ago

tpeo 10y ago

It's easier to convince people who have no priors. The majority of people doesn't ever consider the temperature at the polar ice caps unless they are climate scientists, so they'll take accept it easily. But lots of people with a folkish understanding of local weather, specially after some huge snow storm, will mumble something like "so much for global warming". Even if you put all methodological issues (and citations from Richard Feynman) aside or even whether corporate taxes work or not, lots of social science findings would seem dubious simply because they deal with human behavior, which is something which is almost impossible to not have an opinion on, specially because it attempts to describe our own behavior. The problem is that, if I were to understand reality through my own behavior, it would be through an unwarranted generalization of my own conditions to the population as a whole. It's like that joke of "why don't they just buy themselves some money?". That's one of the issues, at least.

Robin_Message 10y ago

Scientists are often correct in their predictions, whereas economists sort of aren't. It's an epistemology question; these experts are not the same as those experts.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

nightcracker 10y ago

Actually, I'm not 100% opposed to abolishing corporate tax altogether and finding other ways to structure tax. I'm not an expert, so I wouldn't know what the most robust structure is. But I am calling the arguments that they use in the article ridiculous, and in particular the parts that I've quoted in my post above.

opo 10y ago

Unfortunately economics is one of those areas where many people who have never studied it think they know everything about it. It doesn't help that politicians (of all types) take advantage of this ignorance to pander to their potential voters to tell them what they want to hear.

jackmaney 10y ago

If you think I'm going to give an economist the same clout as an actual scientist, you're out of your god damn mind.

dang 10y ago
Your HN comments have repeatedly been uncivil. We ban accounts that do this, especially when they ignore our requests, and we've asked you to fix this before. If you want to keep commenting here, please be civil from now on. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- jackmaney 10y ago
  Don't bother sending me more spam. I've already filtered any emails from hn@ycombinator.com to be deleted upon receipt. If you're going to ban me, just ban me.
  - dang 10y ago
    I don't recall what you're referring to, but if we sent you an email that wasn't a reply, it was probably with the intent of giving you helpful information about your HN account. Most people like it when we do that, so I tend to assume it's ok. I'm sorry that I guessed wrong in your case. You've been downvoting all my comments for months now. Would you please stop doing that? Abusive downvotes are dropped by the software, but they still add noise to the data. Edit: Ok, since you've responded by doing even more of it, I'm going to take this as a signal that you're not using HN in good faith and ban your account. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com.
    - jackmaney 10y ago
      Finally!
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]