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Not to razz you too much, but I think that a large problem with economics as a whole, is that a lot of the time it tries to describe emotional, cultural and social behavior through raw numbers. Which just doesn't work. In all of your cases, this is really is what is happening.

Economics can be useful to try and predict various results. Sort of like being an economic weatherman, per se. The problem is that the variables at play are so complex and almost unpredictable at a micro level, to render the prediction unreliable.

I guess what I'm saying is that economics needs to be taken out of the sciences, and put into the humanities, so to speak. This will probably require a complete reboot of the entire field..which is probably a good thing..

Posted at July 12, 2007 5:30 AM in response to The Ten Boxes of Heterodoxy, or Why Economics Sucks
Nobody else has mentioned this, so here you go.

P2P is NOT just competition for CD sales. It's that assumption that is where the problem is. P2P flourishes because it's a great alternative to radio, which has become crappier and crappier over the last 10 years. It allows people to program their own radio, decide what they want to listen to and when.

When Napster first came out, the labels really needed to create their own system, with fast, reliable downloads (even secure), and a top-notch player. Throw in an ad banner bar/sound ads every 15 minutes or so, and boom. You got the money to reimburse the artists.

TV P2P is quickly becoming a problem. It's only because of Tivo, which really is the equivilent that it's not a whole lot worse than it is. The networks need to come up with a system (probably based on BitTorrent), where you can download episodes of shows to watch on your computer, from fast reliable servers, complete with ads.

Movies, just have the problem that they are canibalizing themselves. People pick up a DVD instead of going to the movies. They've released a product that people like and are willing to buy.

And they're ALL suffering because of the rise of video games. Video game sales are slowing, but playing is going up up up.

Posted at November 27, 2005 2:15 PM in response to Giving Thanks for Free Stuff
Yeah if it's a post about video game politics, you should have something from an honest to goodness gamer :)
Both the Democrats and the Republicans are playing video game politics, but if you think the two are equivilent, you're crazy.
The Democrats are playing a min-maxing game. Think Civilization. Or in more modern console terms, any of the many Strategy-RPGs, where it's not about beating the game, but making your "nation" as strong as possible. You can beat the game, but that's not the point. To those who know, think of the Nippon Ichi games.

Republicans are playing Counter-Strike. They don't want to just win. They want to teabag us as well. And if you don't know what that is. You're lucky.

Posted at October 10, 2005 7:51 PM in response to Video Game Politics
Well, there's the disconnect on what Democracy actually means to liberals vs what it means to conservatives. Both have completly different meanings of the term, and that's a large part of a lot of the problem.
To liberals, Democracy is majority rule and minority rights. That's the simplest way to put it. To conservatives, democracy is about privatizing everything and well..an ultra lassiz-faire economy.
With this constitution, AFAIK, the conservative definition of democracy is enshrined. It was one of the conditions that Bremer set on them. So they really oculdn't care less about women's rights or any of that other stuff.
Their mission is achieved. Ours? They couldn't care less about.

Posted at August 22, 2005 5:57 AM in response to Get it Done, Get it Right?
Off of the discussion over at Drum's site, I was thinking about it. And yeah. I think you're right. I think that you keep the polls open for an entire week or so, and that's the best thing.

Posted at August 6, 2005 9:22 PM in response to Why Tuesday?
Petey:Because before that can happen, the Democrats need to break through the wall. There's a moral poison that's sinking deeper in deeper in America, where people are opposed to these things just because the thought of helping people outside of their group, just disgusts them. Those OTHER people, they need to look after themselves and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Yeah! Government handouts are for me and mine. Taxes are for you and yours.

The big problem I have with the DLC, is that they don't want to fight this culture war at all. They have no stomach for it..they're too deep into the DC culture to go against the grain. They're too deep to call those holding America back to the curb, and to fight them tooth and nail. And until that wall of immorality is broken down, frankly, you don't have a hope in hell.

Posted at July 28, 2005 5:21 PM in response to stock ticker, super jumbo
I'm going to retype something I posted over at Driftglass..but without the foul language.
I watched Bush give his speech today. Well, one line of it, before I flipped on the PS2 to something really morally stimulating. He mentioned how the free countries needed to be right all of the time. But nobody can be right all of the time. There still will be leaks. There will be holes.
The real way to fight terrorism, is to raise the cost of terrorism to be so high that it's no longer worth it. That a terrorist act is rejected by the people, your causes popularity plummits. And so on. What you DON'T want, is for the target audience, for it no longer to be terrorism, but freedom fighting. Where terrorism is no longer a negative. But a positive in the scoresheet. Where it gains you admirerers and supporters. Where it gives you more power.
That's exactly where the Iraqi war has put things.
What Bush and other Western nations needed to do, after 9/11, was build on the horror. Showing how the West really didn't deserve that to happen. That we're not out to kill innocents and civillians. That's not what we're about. But what Bush and Blair did...they showed that yes. That is EXACTLY what we're about.
What effect do you think that had? Pretty blatently obvious if you ask me. These guys have no idea on how to fight terrorism. Absolutly none. They do what's politically helpful, which is mainly what feels GOOD. And bombing brown people, apparently, is what does the trick to them. Too bad that as of last week, 50 more lives were added to their guilt.

Posted at July 11, 2005 10:25 AM in response to Why Iraq Has Made Us Less Safe...
Morality. That's what it comes down to.
Why do the religious conservatives exist? That's the question. What are they after. What's their goal. What motivates them. That's the question.
And it's one that nobody gets right.
Most people assume they're on this moral crusade, to right all the wrongs in the world, so to speak.
That is so not the case.
They're doing the old magicians trick. Misdirection. It's their goal to get you focusing on moral issues as homosexuality, abortion, and so on, to get you focusing AWAY from taking care of the environment, and each other, and so on. That's the whole goal of their theocracy. Look at the other side. They'll destroy labour laws, open the door for the raping and pillaging of the environment and so on. And there's no disconnect to them. They'll hurt people. Just as long as they can do what feels good to them.

Sacrifice?

That's for the other guy.

Posted at June 12, 2005 3:59 PM in response to Broken Communion
One of the big problems is that people don't realize that the problem in Government bureaucracy isn't government.
Bureaucracy sucks. Period. But it's a necessarly evil in today's hyper-information age. And that's the way it should be presented. Give actual cases where the current HMO bureaucracy screws over consumers. Teach that it's not government that's annoying, it's just the nature of the beat.
The SECOND thing to teach, is that it's do or die. I think the urgancy need to be put on the issue that it deserves. Without health care reform, the US economy is heading for the cliff. And that can be held off, but it can't be stopped. I think that one of the big problem that Democrats have is that for various reasons they don't give issues the urgency they deserve.

Posted at June 1, 2005 6:54 AM in response to Another Slice of the Question
In private circles, quite frankly, talking about foreign policy is a completly different beast. The problem is that it's hard to articulate what exactly is going on, why it's going on and what should be done. Everybody agree that Terrorism is the biggest problem in the world today. Yes? Great. So what do we do to fight terrorism? Well, terrorism is a tactic. It's creating fear among a population for political reasons. What we need to do, as not just the US but all the Western countries, is create a new moral order that were if you do a terrorist act, frankly, your cause is toast. And that's why Bush surrendered when he decided to invade Iraq. Because to a lot of the world, this was a terrorist act possibly on par, but in reality it's far beyond what happend on 9/11. They see Bush and Bin Laden as being on the same page..and the US by proxy. Bush's little war actually legitimicized terrorism as a valid tactic that well everybody uses. We better use violence because THEY'RE going to use violence too.  And I think the real problem is that nobody wants to frame it in that way. Nobody wants to look back at Iran-Contra and realize those were terrorist activities. Hell, most of the Cold War was about terrorism in one way or another. In order to actually do something about it, something is actually going to have to be done. And I suspect it'll have to start with a bunch of bloodletting regarding the past first. (Not actual violence, or even legal reasons, but talking honestly about the past to gain respect about the future) 

Posted at June 1, 2005 6:37 AM in response to Yes, It's About the Message, but It's Also About the Fight. . .