The SpaceX/Musk presentation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOpMrVnjYeY
Readit Newsschizoidboy commented on Starship Prototype Unveiled space.com/elon-musk-unvei... · Posted by u/childintime
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schizoidboy commented on Ask HN: What are the best open-access journals for non-academics to submit to? · Posted by u/freeradical13
Yes, I'd reach out to someone who is already in the field to see whether your ideas could be of interest.
Thanks, I've added an existing research section and will reach out to researchers in the field for more feedback.
schizoidboy commented on Ask HN: What are the best open-access journals for non-academics to submit to? · Posted by u/freeradical13
The biggest problem with this paper, as a published scientist, is that I read the abstract and had no idea what your paper was about. Your abstract needs to be more substantial, and cover a) the problem you're addressing, b) the approach you took, and c) the degree to which you succeeded.
Thanks, I've tried to expand the abstract.
schizoidboy commented on I Win My European Unemployment Bet econlib.org/i-win-my-euro... · Posted by u/shubhamjain
I think the meta-point is that betting on intellectual ideas is an underused tool in the toolbox of decision making. Endless academic journal debates don't seem to help much in moving people across ideological divides.
For all of those that disagree with his methodology or conclusions, if you can reach him, I recommend putting your money where your mouth is and proposing a different bet with Dr. Caplan.
I see a lot of people in the comments offended by his tone. I see his tone as analogous to a soccer player celebrating after a goal. We should socially encourage such behavior for those who win fair intellectual bets. (Although there is such a thing as unsportsmanly gloating, although I don't think this is such an example.)
schizoidboy commented on I Win My European Unemployment Bet econlib.org/i-win-my-euro... · Posted by u/shubhamjain
What did he test though? That over a given decade, unemployment might be higher in one nation-state than a collection of others?
What's the hypothesis? Where's the valuable data gotten from this?
My idea of equivalent action: Me stating "the president 10 years from now will be the first 3rd party president ever."
Why? Who knows! And if I was right, and make a blog post that says "See, I was right!" And then point to a bunch of things that happened after my prediction that led to this result, what did we learn? Anything at all?
The point is that these are bets between people who disagree with each other. They negotiate the data and terms and hopefully learn from the result and change their minds. This is one way to help tune bayesian priors about what ideas and people to trust and investigate further.
schizoidboy commented on I Win My European Unemployment Bet econlib.org/i-win-my-euro... · Posted by u/shubhamjain
People like this author are the people who give economists a bad name. What arrogant writing and totally one dimensional thinking.
Dr. Caplan is a big proponent of betting. Disputes in academic journals are endless and inconclusive. Betting gets people to put their money where their mouth is. I think this is the best part of the economics profession and needs to be applied to more parts of society.
schizoidboy commented on I Win My European Unemployment Bet econlib.org/i-win-my-euro... · Posted by u/shubhamjain
> What does this all mean? To me, this bet is just a small extra piece of evidence in favor of the orthodox and blindingly obvious theory that Europe has higher unemployment than the U.S. because it has stricter labor market regulation.
Insofar as I'm aware it mostly means that US unemployment is under-reported.
The labor force participation rate has yet to fully recover from its pre-2008 levels, and you're not counted as unemployed if you worked an hour the previous week.
European countries, by contrast, have mostly not changed their definitions of unemployment since, and have a relatively sane definition of what it means to be employed. This is not to say it's perfect -- far from it. But at least they're not counting 1h/week Uber drivers as employed.
See e.g.:
https://qz.com/877432/the-us-unemployment-rate-measure-is-de...
It's worth noting that the economist John Quiggin didn't propose an adjustment for this in the bet.
schizoidboy commented on I Win My European Unemployment Bet econlib.org/i-win-my-euro... · Posted by u/shubhamjain
> That said, I heartily commend Quiggin for actually making our bet. He towers above all of the apologists for European labor market regulation who refuse to put their money where their mouths are.
I know nothing of the people or personalities involved...but this does not give me a good impression of the author. First, he never refers to anyone with a contrary opinion in any way other than "apologist". Second, he never addresses any other value than the unemployment rate as a number (for example, I can easily imagine an "apologist" being uninterested in his bet if they think he might be right about the numbers, but they value the regulation for other reasons). In never addressing their views, he dismisses them as unworthy.
I'm poorly versed in economics so I don't really have an opinion on the actual matter under debate...but I can easily see him writing a smug and self-congratulatory article on this topic that nonetheless gave me a better opinion of him.
> Second, he never addresses any other value than the unemployment rate as a number (for example, I can easily imagine an "apologist" being uninterested in his bet if they think he might be right about the numbers, but they value the regulation for other reasons). In never addressing their views, he dismisses them as unworthy.
Dr. Caplan reached out to the other economists and they didn't respond (which could have included proposing a different bet with different values). He is very judgy about public intellectuals that don't bet on their claims. I wouldn't call that dismissive because said intellectuals impose massive costs on society if they're wrong. It's not enough to hide behind unquantifiable hopes.
> I know nothing of the people or personalities involved...but this does not give me a good impression of the author. First, he never refers to anyone with a contrary opinion in any way other than "apologist".
Apologist is a bit of a brash word, but it's a possible conclusion if a public intellectual is unwilling to put their ideas to tests and revise if necessary.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jKepii1hL9e-gkAsz906nRtgssz...