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The Ferguson – or Imperial – coronavirus model is a load of Hooey. But not, or not alone, for the reasons generally given that it’s a tangled mess of code that doesn’t even produce the same answer each time. Nor because its output was so useless that even the originator wouldn’t obey the implied rules from its use when seeking a shag. No, Ferguson failed because his model failed to include human beings in it. Which is really very weird indeed when attempting to model, erm, human beings. May 25th, 2020 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Finally, in my last post I wrote of confirmation bias among journalists and bloggers. I have noticed the same thing among photographers. The camera doesn’t lie, but photographers can and often do. Their choice of lens can make the same group of people look rashly hugger mugger or responsibly social-distanced, for example. Their choice depends on how they want you to see the world – and who doesn’t want others to see the world as they do themselves? The photographer is sometimes consciously deceiving his viewer but more often is first lying to himself. Attending many photo workshops has proved to me repeatedly that photographers standing in the same location with similar equipment will produce very different images. That difference seems to depend just as much on their metaphorical point of view as their literal one. May 20th, 2020 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
As Ludwig von Mises states in his magnum opus, Human Action, the “market process is the adjustment of the individual actions of the various members of the market society to the requirements of mutual cooperation”. Thus, markets will always be imperfect, but that is precisely why markets exist in the first place! Markets never conform to the “ideal” of perfect competition, but this is completely irrelevant, since under such state of affairs, markets are unnecessary and redundant, since all resources are already perfectly allocated to their most valued uses. Market processes exist precisely because to generate the information necessary to better coordinate the plans and purposes of individuals in a peaceful and productive manner. The entrepreneurial lure for profit and the discipline of loss is what guides such imperfect processes in a tendency towards the creation of more complete information between buyers and sellers. – Rosolino Candela, from Are Markets Imperfect? Of Course, But That’s The Point! May 19th, 2020 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Musk’s act qualified as economic civil disobedience, especially since he expressly offered himself up for arrest and punishment. His ultimate success was a testament to the power of that peaceful strategy for political change. The government probably wanted to avoid the public controversy that would result from jailing someone like Musk. May 18th, 2020 | 38 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The humanist ethic begins with the belief that humans are an essential part of nature. Humans have the right and the duty to reconstruct nature so that humans and biosphere can both survive and prosper. For humanists, the highest value is harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.” – Freeman Dyson, the great scientist and futurist who died recently. As quoted in this fine article over at National Review, by Robert Bryce. Dyson did not buy global warming alarmism, which must have given many in the government-funded science establishment the vapours, (excuse the pun). May 17th, 2020 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. – Frederick Douglass May 17th, 2020 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
The simplest explanation for modern academics’ hostility to 21st century capitalism’s “structures of power” is their complete exclusion from them. – T. Greer, from ‘History is written by the losers’. May 16th, 2020 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
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Good quality housing only seems less available now to people who pretend the housing stock is the same and household size is the same. Fifty years ago large families crammed into small leaky houses. Nowadays half as many live in the renovated versions of those houses. With decent plumbing etc. We frequently blow up fifty year old tower blocks because they are considered sub-standard. – the delightfully named Chester Draws May 9th, 2020 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Yeah, the reason the speaker can’t come here is because he promotes violence – by us, his enemies.” Quoted by David Thompson. May 8th, 2020 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Turning ourselves into China for any reason is the definition of a cure being worse than the disease. The scolders who are being seduced by such thinking have to wake up, before we end up adding another disaster on top of the terrible one we’re already facing.” The whole essay will, I bet, resonate with all you freedom lovers in the comments. May 2nd, 2020 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
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