6 ms·

> Factual is class of statements, opposed to normative statements. They're asking for supporting evidence for MMT.

dllthomas 5y ago
No, they're talking past each other. dragonwriter seems to have meant "factual" in the sense of "concerned with questions of fact", "is" rather than "ought", and was not intending to claim (at least in that statement) that the answers MMT provides are correct. gray-area seems to have interpreted "factual" as "accurate" or "truthful", and was objecting that defining a theory as "concerned with things which are actually fr-reals true" is cheating. To be fair to gray-area, "true" is probably much more common a use of "factual". On the other hand, the broader context was that dragonwriter raised the point in objecting to argument about what MMT purportedly says we "should" do.
- grey-area 5y ago
  MMT is not evidence based, it is in no way factual (it is neither backed by facts, nor is it concerned with facts) - it is a conjecture about what might happen in the best of all possible worlds based on abstract arguments about perfectly spherical economies in a vacuum. Factual is entirely off base as a descriptor and has been picked here in an attempt to make it seem grounded in reality and without challenge.
  - dllthomas 5y ago
    I expect at this point you're actually disagreeing in some sense with what dragonwriter believes but I don't know and I won't speak for him. My point here is not to defend MMT but the quality of the conversation. If someone comes along and says Modern Moo-netary Theory says we should to build too many catapults, and another someone points out that the theory doesn't address questions of "should", pointing out that the theory talks about spherical cows in space doesn't rescue the original objection. That a theory makes unrealistic assumptions is absolutely an appropriate objection to raise, but it belongs upthread. Otherwise it won't be seen by people who've already decided what they think of the narrower topic of this subthread, and we'll get more repetition of worse arguments.
    - grey-area 5y ago
      Nobody said should, so your objection is irrelevant.
      - dllthomas 5y ago
        There was an obvious implication that it made recommendations (in order for it to have "been tried") which I still believe is what dragonwriter was objecting to. My objection is to people talking past each other rather than engaging (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and remains as relevant as ever.

No, they're talking past each other. dragonwriter seems to have meant "factual" in the sense of "concerned with questions of fact", "is" rather than "ought", and was not intending to claim (at least in that statement) that the answers MMT provides are correct. gray-area seems to have interpreted "factual" as "accurate" or "truthful", and was objecting that defining a theory as "concerned with things which are actually fr-reals true" is cheating. To be fair to gray-area, "true" is probably much more common a use of "factual". On the other hand, the broader context was that dragonwriter raised the point in objecting to argument about what MMT purportedly says we "should" do.

grey-area 5y ago
MMT is not evidence based, it is in no way factual (it is neither backed by facts, nor is it concerned with facts) - it is a conjecture about what might happen in the best of all possible worlds based on abstract arguments about perfectly spherical economies in a vacuum. Factual is entirely off base as a descriptor and has been picked here in an attempt to make it seem grounded in reality and without challenge.
- dllthomas 5y ago
  I expect at this point you're actually disagreeing in some sense with what dragonwriter believes but I don't know and I won't speak for him. My point here is not to defend MMT but the quality of the conversation. If someone comes along and says Modern Moo-netary Theory says we should to build too many catapults, and another someone points out that the theory doesn't address questions of "should", pointing out that the theory talks about spherical cows in space doesn't rescue the original objection. That a theory makes unrealistic assumptions is absolutely an appropriate objection to raise, but it belongs upthread. Otherwise it won't be seen by people who've already decided what they think of the narrower topic of this subthread, and we'll get more repetition of worse arguments.
  - grey-area 5y ago
    Nobody said should, so your objection is irrelevant.
    - dllthomas 5y ago
      There was an obvious implication that it made recommendations (in order for it to have "been tried") which I still believe is what dragonwriter was objecting to. My objection is to people talking past each other rather than engaging (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and remains as relevant as ever.