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Zizee had 4 paragraphs, and pravda pointed out that paragraph 3 was fallacious. The fact that paragraphs 1 and 2 are not doesn't change this. I have no idea wh

Zizee had 4 paragraphs, and pravda pointed out that paragraph 3 was fallacious. The fact that paragraphs 1 and 2 are not doesn't change this. I have no idea why pravda is being downmodded, beyond silly mood affiliation.

anigbrowl 12y ago
Because he's wrong, and so are you. The 'broken window Fallacy' is Bastiat's observation that while the income generated for glaziers from repairing rboken windows is indeed a form of economic activity, and that this is nice enough if you're in the window business, it's economically inefficient because the economic activity merely restores the status quo instead of going to finance new production - had the window remained unbroken, the shopkeeper might have bought a book or a suit of clothes. The glazier's gain is the shopowner's loss and so there's no net improvement. But that's a wholly inappropriate analogy for this situation of expenditure going towards Indian scientists and technicians, because they were engaged in new and productive work rather than merely receiving a subsidy. The Indian government didn't have an existing interplanetary program that was scrapped and replaced with another; it built one from scratch. In terms of Bastiat's analogy, it would be as if the shopkeeper hired the glazier to install a new window in what had previously been a blank wall. The direct economic value of measuring whether there is methane in Mars' atmosphere is intangible - just as it would be hard to measure the impact of a newly-added window on a shopkeeper's turnover at the time of its installation. It could also be argued that NASA or some other space agency could conduct the same measurement on some future Mars project, and so the ISRO effort is probably duplicative. But even if the direct economic output of the craft itself is assumed to be zero, the development of the satellite manufacturing and launch capability, which is a net economic gain too, whereas the replacement of a broken window does not have any innovative component (since the prior existence of the window means the capability to make it already existed). It seems to me that you and the other two posters who are arguing this position are making the implicit assumption that that NASA et al. have a comparative advantage in the development of space technology and that therefore Indian efforts are economically superfluous, in addition to your general distaste for the notion of government as client.
- philh 12y ago
  I don't think this reply works. Situation 1: There is a window. It gets broken. The shopkeeper pays for it to be replaced, instead of buying a book. Situation 2: There is no window, and there is no need for a window. But the shopkeeper pays for a window anyway, instead of buying a book. Situation 1 is restoring the status quo, situation 2 is financing new production - but they seem equally bad, because in both cases you're paying someone to do something that doesn't (at the beginning of the situation) need to be done. I'm not saying that we're in situation 2 here, because windows are in fact useful. But zizee's original argument was roughly, "let's forget all the benefits that we get from windows, this project is paying the wages of glaziers, this money will get taxed and etc." And I think that that particular argument in favour of this project fails, and I think pravda was correct to point it out.
  - vonmoltke 12y ago
    From the perspective of the Broken Window Fallacy, though, buying a new window is equivalent to buying a book. Need is not a component of the fallacy whatsoever. Thus, your final statement is incorrect. pravda was not pointing out anything; the fallacy is not applicable to this situation.
    - philh 12y ago
      To be honest, I can't work out what part of my argument you think is wrong. Can you clarify your objection?
      - vonmoltke 12y ago
        > I think pravda was correct to point it out. pravda did not point that out. pravda claimed zizee was using the Broken Window Fallacy. zizee's argument and your summarization of it are not examples of the fallacy. Nor is situation 2 in your post above. The fallacy has nothing to do with something being useful or necessary.
        12y ago

anigbrowl 12y ago

Because he's wrong, and so are you. The 'broken window Fallacy' is Bastiat's observation that while the income generated for glaziers from repairing rboken windows is indeed a form of economic activity, and that this is nice enough if you're in the window business, it's economically inefficient because the economic activity merely restores the status quo instead of going to finance new production - had the window remained unbroken, the shopkeeper might have bought a book or a suit of clothes. The glazier's gain is the shopowner's loss and so there's no net improvement. But that's a wholly inappropriate analogy for this situation of expenditure going towards Indian scientists and technicians, because they were engaged in new and productive work rather than merely receiving a subsidy. The Indian government didn't have an existing interplanetary program that was scrapped and replaced with another; it built one from scratch. In terms of Bastiat's analogy, it would be as if the shopkeeper hired the glazier to install a new window in what had previously been a blank wall. The direct economic value of measuring whether there is methane in Mars' atmosphere is intangible - just as it would be hard to measure the impact of a newly-added window on a shopkeeper's turnover at the time of its installation. It could also be argued that NASA or some other space agency could conduct the same measurement on some future Mars project, and so the ISRO effort is probably duplicative. But even if the direct economic output of the craft itself is assumed to be zero, the development of the satellite manufacturing and launch capability, which is a net economic gain too, whereas the replacement of a broken window does not have any innovative component (since the prior existence of the window means the capability to make it already existed). It seems to me that you and the other two posters who are arguing this position are making the implicit assumption that that NASA et al. have a comparative advantage in the development of space technology and that therefore Indian efforts are economically superfluous, in addition to your general distaste for the notion of government as client.

philh 12y ago
I don't think this reply works. Situation 1: There is a window. It gets broken. The shopkeeper pays for it to be replaced, instead of buying a book. Situation 2: There is no window, and there is no need for a window. But the shopkeeper pays for a window anyway, instead of buying a book. Situation 1 is restoring the status quo, situation 2 is financing new production - but they seem equally bad, because in both cases you're paying someone to do something that doesn't (at the beginning of the situation) need to be done. I'm not saying that we're in situation 2 here, because windows are in fact useful. But zizee's original argument was roughly, "let's forget all the benefits that we get from windows, this project is paying the wages of glaziers, this money will get taxed and etc." And I think that that particular argument in favour of this project fails, and I think pravda was correct to point it out.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  From the perspective of the Broken Window Fallacy, though, buying a new window is equivalent to buying a book. Need is not a component of the fallacy whatsoever. Thus, your final statement is incorrect. pravda was not pointing out anything; the fallacy is not applicable to this situation.
  - philh 12y ago
    To be honest, I can't work out what part of my argument you think is wrong. Can you clarify your objection?
    - vonmoltke 12y ago
      > I think pravda was correct to point it out. pravda did not point that out. pravda claimed zizee was using the Broken Window Fallacy. zizee's argument and your summarization of it are not examples of the fallacy. Nor is situation 2 in your post above. The fallacy has nothing to do with something being useful or necessary.
      - 12y ago