Re: poly: Modeling Economic Singularities

Perry responds to me:
>> As I've told you before, I'm open to questioning specific points, but
>> I can't effectively respond to unfocused requests to justify everything.
>
>Hey, you made an extraordinary claim: that a short set of very well
>behaved (largely linear, as I recall) equations could tell us
>considerable useful information about the state of the economy into
>the far future. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

All standard results in all fields consistitute extraordinary claims
to those who don't know those fields. Otherwise they wouldn't be
interesting results. That's why its so much fun to learn new fields.

>You may say "geesh, Metzger, you're being a jerk. This stuff is believed
>by tens of thousands of my academic peers." ... comments on your part
>that "all this is well understood in the literature and I'm above
>teaching the ignorant"

I have not said this! These are not quotes from me. I have not placed
a value judgement on your level of skepticism. I merely note that I do
not have time to effectively respond to it. Effective response to
strong broad skepticism requires a slow careful review of many standard
results, discussing for each the reasons people accept them. The more
things you question, the longer this takes. And the stronger your
skepticism on each point, the longer this takes. Can't you see that?

Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614
Received on Tue Apr 14 18:52:01 1998