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>Our public policy would probably better served if most of the profession was put on a cruise ship and launched out to sea. Ah, the Khmer Rouge strategy. I won

>Our public policy would probably better served if most of the profession was put on a cruise ship and launched out to sea. Ah, the Khmer Rouge strategy. I wonder how that worked out.. It's not a coincidence that the "Nirvana fallacy" concept was coined by an economist.

CPLX 5y ago
- jancsika 5y ago
  Oh my-- I wish there were a button here called "flag if no follow up" In other words-- you have got to make your case for Larry Summers causing more human suffering, or at least link to someone who has written that polemic. Perhaps to improve UX there should be a 10 minute countdown to the flag being triggered. :)
  - CPLX 5y ago
    Well where should we start. How about right here in the present where he's responsible for the current war in Ukraine. First Google result: https://cepr.net/can-we-blame-larry-summers-for-the-collapse-of-russia/ https://cepr.net/can-we-blame-larry-summers-for-the-collapse... There's more. Lots more. It's so much worse than you think.
    - yanderekko 5y ago
      Even if one conceded (and it's conceding a lot) that Summers was involved in bad things, one needs to consider the counterfactual. In a world where Summers had died in childhood, are we imagining that the USSR would not have collapsed? Where this collapse would've lead to some sort of social democratic paradise? Or what? I mean, people aren't seriously arguing this, are they?
      - CPLX 5y ago
        People are arguing that our post-Soviet policy was fucking insane and that Summers was a chief architect of it. It was wholesale looting that set world stability back for generations and it was justified on principles of mainstream neoliberal economics and implemented by that community's (at the time) golden child. It was one of several fundamentally catastrophic decisions of economic policy made in the 1990's that have their roots very firmly in academic economic orthodoxy. If anything I'm understating how bad it was and how much needless human misery was unleashed from this community of sociopaths.
        yanderekko 5y ago
        You're dodging the question. If Summers weren't around, how do you think events would have played out instead? If you'd conflate between Summers' influence and the overall influence of neoliberal ideology, that's really not fair. (And full disclosure, I think this goes both ways - everything bad that happened in Cambodia cannot be ascribed to Pol Pot, but I think there's a much better argument for his having a very personalized impact on these events than there is for Summers and the collapse of the USSR.)
        CPLX 5y ago
        > You're dodging the question. If Summers weren't around, how do you think events would have played out instead? Dunno. Will some other neoliberal fuckhead be in charge or not?
        yanderekko 5y ago
        Probably. I'd hope it's someone who understands causality and counterfactuals and opportunity costs and constrained optimization, at least..
    - jancsika 5y ago
      Why is this like pulling teeth? I'm genuinely interested in learning more, and I don't want to search for random results by writers in a field I'm not familiar with. You're the expert. Could you give me, say, the top three articles on the subject by reputable authors? I know you say not to trust the field, but there must be an intersection between at least a few reputable writers and the subject.
- quicklycreated 5y ago
  - CPLX 5y ago
    I mean if you're going to do a proper analysis of someone's contribution to human misery you're going to probably need to start counting how many dead children each of the contestants has been responsible for and the number for Larry Summers is definitely not zero.
    - quicklycreated 5y ago
      - CPLX 5y ago
        Yeah and how did the current greedy/evil bastard get in power? I have no great love for Russia and don't believe at all in the idea that the U.S. or the west in general is the source of all the misery in the world. I think it's pretty clear there are some malignant actors in the world and China and Russia are foremost among them. But you might want to look into American post-Soviet collapse policy before you get too far over your skis.
      - eli_gottlieb 5y ago
        >the country whose history they've fetishized their entire lives is irredeemably evil. Dude I hate Russia, but it's not irredeemably evil. That's some cultural essentialist bullshit right there.
        quicklycreated 5y ago
        [flagged]
    - johnny22 5y ago
      maybe i missed it, but a lot of folks are likely to care about intent. Even if larry summers is responsible, did he mean to? I think you'll have trouble pressing your argument even if it is true, even if the amount of dead is 10x that just because of intent.
- yanderekko 5y ago
  >Had to think about it for a second didn't you. No, no reasonable person had to think about it for a second..
  - CPLX 5y ago
    Michael: My father’s no different from any other powerful man. Any man who’s responsible for other people. Like a senator or president. Kay: You know how naïve you sound? Senators and presidents don’t have men killed. Michael: Oh. Who’s being naïve, Kay?
- ch4s3 5y ago
  No, I didn’t. The Khmer Rouge killed 2 million people in 4 years, fully 1/4 of the population. The preferred weapon of execution for much of that time was the pickax. It’s a disgusting comparison to make, and I don’t like Larry Summers at all.
  - CPLX 5y ago
    Pop quiz, if you had to go would you pick a pick axe or starvation?
    - ch4s3 5y ago
      There are two major things wrong with this line of argument. It is a bad way to judge moral actions. It is in arguable that ordering the murder of 2 million people is a worse moral action than arguing for bad economic policy. The second is that I don't think there's a very good line from Summers' policies to any mass starvation/famine. Every famine since 1990 except in North Korea has been the result of a war.
- FastMonkey 5y ago
  If you ever visited the killing fields in Cambodia, you'd never make a statement like that. A sub-optimal economic policy isn't even on the same measurement scale as the raw, senseless, brutal cruelty and violence of that regime.
  - CPLX 5y ago
    I spent a week in Phnom Penh around 20 years ago and the experience of walking through Tuol Sleng prison is one of the most affecting and enduring memories I have. Nothing I am saying diminishes that as an expression of profound evil. The question I've got though is why you're here minimizing the raw, senseless, brutal cruelty of 1990s neoliberal economic policies. Just because you can't see pictures at the visitors center doesn't mean the misery is any less profound.

CPLX 5y ago

jancsika 5y ago
Oh my-- I wish there were a button here called "flag if no follow up" In other words-- you have got to make your case for Larry Summers causing more human suffering, or at least link to someone who has written that polemic. Perhaps to improve UX there should be a 10 minute countdown to the flag being triggered. :)
- CPLX 5y ago
  Well where should we start. How about right here in the present where he's responsible for the current war in Ukraine. First Google result: https://cepr.net/can-we-blame-larry-summers-for-the-collapse-of-russia/ https://cepr.net/can-we-blame-larry-summers-for-the-collapse... There's more. Lots more. It's so much worse than you think.
  - yanderekko 5y ago
    Even if one conceded (and it's conceding a lot) that Summers was involved in bad things, one needs to consider the counterfactual. In a world where Summers had died in childhood, are we imagining that the USSR would not have collapsed? Where this collapse would've lead to some sort of social democratic paradise? Or what? I mean, people aren't seriously arguing this, are they?
    - CPLX 5y ago
      People are arguing that our post-Soviet policy was fucking insane and that Summers was a chief architect of it. It was wholesale looting that set world stability back for generations and it was justified on principles of mainstream neoliberal economics and implemented by that community's (at the time) golden child. It was one of several fundamentally catastrophic decisions of economic policy made in the 1990's that have their roots very firmly in academic economic orthodoxy. If anything I'm understating how bad it was and how much needless human misery was unleashed from this community of sociopaths.
      - yanderekko 5y ago
        You're dodging the question. If Summers weren't around, how do you think events would have played out instead? If you'd conflate between Summers' influence and the overall influence of neoliberal ideology, that's really not fair. (And full disclosure, I think this goes both ways - everything bad that happened in Cambodia cannot be ascribed to Pol Pot, but I think there's a much better argument for his having a very personalized impact on these events than there is for Summers and the collapse of the USSR.)
        CPLX 5y ago
        > You're dodging the question. If Summers weren't around, how do you think events would have played out instead? Dunno. Will some other neoliberal fuckhead be in charge or not?
        yanderekko 5y ago
        Probably. I'd hope it's someone who understands causality and counterfactuals and opportunity costs and constrained optimization, at least..
  - jancsika 5y ago
    Why is this like pulling teeth? I'm genuinely interested in learning more, and I don't want to search for random results by writers in a field I'm not familiar with. You're the expert. Could you give me, say, the top three articles on the subject by reputable authors? I know you say not to trust the field, but there must be an intersection between at least a few reputable writers and the subject.
quicklycreated 5y ago
- CPLX 5y ago
  I mean if you're going to do a proper analysis of someone's contribution to human misery you're going to probably need to start counting how many dead children each of the contestants has been responsible for and the number for Larry Summers is definitely not zero.
  - quicklycreated 5y ago
    - CPLX 5y ago
      Yeah and how did the current greedy/evil bastard get in power? I have no great love for Russia and don't believe at all in the idea that the U.S. or the west in general is the source of all the misery in the world. I think it's pretty clear there are some malignant actors in the world and China and Russia are foremost among them. But you might want to look into American post-Soviet collapse policy before you get too far over your skis.
    - eli_gottlieb 5y ago
      >the country whose history they've fetishized their entire lives is irredeemably evil. Dude I hate Russia, but it's not irredeemably evil. That's some cultural essentialist bullshit right there.
      - quicklycreated 5y ago
        [flagged]
  - johnny22 5y ago
    maybe i missed it, but a lot of folks are likely to care about intent. Even if larry summers is responsible, did he mean to? I think you'll have trouble pressing your argument even if it is true, even if the amount of dead is 10x that just because of intent.
yanderekko 5y ago
>Had to think about it for a second didn't you. No, no reasonable person had to think about it for a second..
- CPLX 5y ago
  Michael: My father’s no different from any other powerful man. Any man who’s responsible for other people. Like a senator or president. Kay: You know how naïve you sound? Senators and presidents don’t have men killed. Michael: Oh. Who’s being naïve, Kay?
ch4s3 5y ago
No, I didn’t. The Khmer Rouge killed 2 million people in 4 years, fully 1/4 of the population. The preferred weapon of execution for much of that time was the pickax. It’s a disgusting comparison to make, and I don’t like Larry Summers at all.
- CPLX 5y ago
  Pop quiz, if you had to go would you pick a pick axe or starvation?
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    There are two major things wrong with this line of argument. It is a bad way to judge moral actions. It is in arguable that ordering the murder of 2 million people is a worse moral action than arguing for bad economic policy. The second is that I don't think there's a very good line from Summers' policies to any mass starvation/famine. Every famine since 1990 except in North Korea has been the result of a war.
FastMonkey 5y ago
If you ever visited the killing fields in Cambodia, you'd never make a statement like that. A sub-optimal economic policy isn't even on the same measurement scale as the raw, senseless, brutal cruelty and violence of that regime.
- CPLX 5y ago
  I spent a week in Phnom Penh around 20 years ago and the experience of walking through Tuol Sleng prison is one of the most affecting and enduring memories I have. Nothing I am saying diminishes that as an expression of profound evil. The question I've got though is why you're here minimizing the raw, senseless, brutal cruelty of 1990s neoliberal economic policies. Just because you can't see pictures at the visitors center doesn't mean the misery is any less profound.