{"id":544,"date":"2024-07-06T21:07:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T03:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=544"},"modified":"2024-07-06T21:07:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-07T03:07:39","slug":"theres-always-another-awful-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":"There&#8217;s Always Another <i>Awful<\/i> Idea&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe id=\"odysee-iframe\" style=\"width:100%; aspect-ratio:16 \/ 9;\" src=\"https:\/\/odysee.com\/$\/embed\/@MarginalNonHermit:3\/always-another-awful-idea:3?r=8gvoByECHNgc2BfQ5o91oxf89bpi1Ui4\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I was inspired by part of a <a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/mises-daily\/mises-and-liberty\">Lew Rockwell speech<\/a> that was posted at the Mises Institute website last week!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Today, I&#8217;m talking about the dangers of positivism in economics. Basically, in complex systems like the economy, you need a logical, causal framework to evaluate ideas. A purely positivist (i.e., each idea must be tested empirically) approach can be disastrous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Why? Because empirical testing of uncontrolled systems can lead to counterintuitive and non-generalizable results!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The temptation to fiddle endlessly becomes a source of wealth for the fiddler and a source of poverty for everybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"tenor-gif-embed\" data-postid=\"5445371\" data-share-method=\"host\" data-aspect-ratio=\"1.22549\" data-width=\"100%\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tenor.com\/view\/knob-dial-temp-temperature-thermostat-gif-5445371\">Knob Dial GIF<\/a>from <a href=\"https:\/\/tenor.com\/search\/knob-gifs\">Knob GIFs<\/a><\/div> <script type=\"text\/javascript\" async src=\"https:\/\/tenor.com\/embed.js\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Not only are there unlimited legions of bad ideas to &#8220;test,&#8221; there are an equally unlimited number of statistical tests to apply to the subsequent data, and a finite confidence interval means some of those statistical tests will give you false positives!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Anyway, check out the video up top, and the show notes <a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/always-a-dumber-policy.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This video is available on <a href=\"https:\/\/odysee.com\/@MarginalNonHermit:3\/always-another-awful-idea:3?r=8gvoByECHNgc2BfQ5o91oxf89bpi1Ui4\">Odysee<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/old.bitchute.com\/video\/W3Gg47ulUVnm\/\">BitChute<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was inspired by part of a Lew Rockwell speech that was posted at the Mises Institute website last week! Today, I&#8217;m talking about the dangers of positivism in economics. Basically, in complex systems like the economy, you need a logical, causal framework to evaluate ideas. A purely positivist (i.e., each idea must be tested [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,82,4,2],"tags":[130,37,86,66,72,200],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-essay","category-philosophy","category-political","category-video-link","tag-austrian-economics","tag-economics","tag-freedom","tag-ludwig-von-mises","tag-politics","tag-positivism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marginalnonhermit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/books-25.jpg?fit=638%2C235&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}