And maybe force them to like programming. Slap them if they don't use a computer for hours every day.
Sorry, but the idea that we should artificially excite girls about programming is silly to me. If they are interested, fine, if not, so be it. The very first programmer was a woman (Ada Lovelace) and she didn't have Legos or prep talks.
Why start from the premise that there _should_ be 50%-50% men and women programmers and try to force that, instead of watching what girls and boys actually like, and of course help any girl that _actually_ wants to go into programming?
We don't force young boys to go into ballet dancing, or even think that there is a problem because the genders there are not 50%-50%. And we don't give benzedrine, beers and toy trucks to girls to make them go into truck driving, which is also a profession with a gender imbalance.
Oh, and what about professional basketball and football? Should we force girls to be into it more, and force people to watch them play professionally? Because men's basketball and men's football currently dominate.
it's artificial to give women legos to play with when they are children? I wouldn't say using Ada as an example really fits your argument considering she was taught mathematics at an early age, which is certainly more direct than playing with legos.
He also gives me that impression when I see him on Keynotes, one of a power grabbing, back-stabbing kind of guy. Which could or could not be true, I'm talking purely from a "face-reading" standpoint.
The exact opposite of that would be Bob Mansfield.
I've seen each VP (except Mansfield) talk in person and I have gotten a very different impression of Forstall. He was one of the most impressive VPs in my eyes (he talked a lot about his passion for bettering accessibility and making life-altering impacts with iOS).
Few core developers (mainly, one, Armin) that couldn't be bothered enough. It's a volunteer project after all.
He did write about the unicode problems with the Python 3 changes and the need for an improved WSGI spec (heck, he even co-wrote the unicode literal change PEP).
But after the new WSGI spec was out, and the u thing was already implemented in 3.3 pre-release, there was no much motion in Flask, whereas Pyramid, Django and others have already started work.
Even the "When will Flask support Python 3" document has not updated and is 2 years out of date in it's contents.
Economists rarely make predictions. Predicting stuff is hard.
I think it was the RBA (or maybe the Australian Treasury) which admitted that their DSGE model was no more accurate than trend modelling in terms of it's predictive power, so they could only use it to give policy advice.
>Economics is clear when explaining its foundation: Markets are only as efficient as its participants are rational and fully informed.
Plus even more assumptions: that participants cannot game the system (by influencing laws, abusing power or monopoly, bribing others participants, controlling public opinion by friendly or owned mass media, forming cartels, etc).
Oh, and "rational" doesn't just mean "clearly thinking and clever", but also perfect calculating actors in a game-theoretic way.
Oh, and there are no factors outside of direct market control, from natural disasters and resources, to foreign country policies and such.
So all those hold even remotely true only in some magic unicorn land.
All of the topics you mention are popular topics of study. For example, gaming the system by influencing laws was studied by (picking a famous name here) Hayek. Monopolies/monopsonies are well studied and generally believed to be inefficient.
Information asymmetries and actors with bounded rationality are extremely popular topics to study today.
The paper we are discussing here is a perfect example describing the microfoundations of bounded rationality, for example.
I'm talking about the assumptions about market efficiency and the supposed superiority of the mythical "free market" here.
Hayek, since you mentioned it, was a western "free market" lackey, imposing his dogmas on the Chilean people --and lots of others-- (and through a dictator at that), with dire consequences. This kind of "policy advice" is 80% percent catering to interests and 20% ideology. No more scientific than Stalinist economics.
A science doesn't need a dictator (or an elected official) to enforce that "earth is round" or "water will boil at 100 degrees under the right conditions".
Heck, even hard science fails when there are economic interests (e.g big pharma, releasing BS half-baked drugs, or physicists making big BS claims to get funding).
Economy is all, and solely, about economic interests, so all public (non academic) use and discourse of it is inextricably tied to those.
As for the "popular topics to study today", those, while interesting from a math/game theory standpoint, are turned to shit as soon as they enter the political / economic policy field.
On my 25 years of following the stuff, I've haven't seen anything but BS, special interests, spin, greed, failed predictions and bad advice on all fronts. Which is always touted as "scientific" and "based on state of the art models" by the policy advisors.
If you take out the "cater to special interests" bias factor, the rest of economists performance can be had with any random walk methodology.
I'm talking about the assumptions about market efficiency and the supposed superiority of the mythical "free market" here.
Market efficiency and "superiority" (I have several incompatible ideas of what you mean here, but if you could clarify...) of an idealized free market are not assumptions. They are conclusions derived from much simpler assumptions.
Different conclusions can also be derived under different assumptions. For example, markets are "inferior" when distributing signalling goods (e.g. suits or educational certification), since this leads to wasteful arms races and overconsumption.
As I said, you should learn some economics before attempting to critique it.
A science doesn't need a dictator (or an elected official) to enforce that "earth is round" or "water will boil at 100 degrees under the right conditions".
I'm confused - apart from the fact that you (and Hayek, incidentally) don't like dictators, what are you trying to say here?
As for the "popular topics to study today", those, while interesting from a math/game theory standpoint, are turned to shit as soon as they enter the political / economic policy field.
>Market efficiency and "superiority" (I have several incompatible ideas of what you mean here, but if you could clarify...) of an idealized free market are not assumptions. They are conclusions derived from much simpler assumptions.
Well, highly debatable conclusions.
(As for what I meant, it's that I'm attacking both the idea of the EMH for financial markets, and the general belief in the superiority of the "free market capitalism", going back to the idea of the "invisible hand").
>I'm confused - apart from the fact that you (and Hayek, incidentally) don't like dictators, what are you trying to say here?
That a "science" that studies something _it itself creates_ through "policy advisory" and "legislation" is hardly a science.
Not to mention that it interprets it however fits those it is in ties with, or that its outcomes are more often than not directly inverse of the predicted ones, at which point they blame it on "not enough enforcement" etc, in a classic anti-falsifiability move.
As for Hayek not liking dictators, LOL.
>In 1978 he wrote to the London Times that he had “not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende
(...)
For instance, Hayek—writing to The Times in 1978 and explicitly invoking Pinochet by name—noted that under certain “historical circumstances,” an authoritarian government may prove especially conducive to the long-run preservation of liberty: There are “many instances of authoritarian governments under which personal liberty was safer than under many democracies.”
Of course, his support to the regime is even worse and far more involved, utilizing it as way to fulfil his economic policy wet dreams. Yes, a great freedom loving guy, this Hayek.
>This is the nature of politics.*
And this is the role of economics and economists.
As for the academic part of economic research, when not done with specific political interests in mind and to support some specific monetary and financial policies, is as relevant as post-modernist gender-studies critical theory. That is, totally irrelevant.
Meanwhile, an enterprise with hundreds of trained economists (read: The Fed) used this magical unicorn training and prevented the Great Recesession from becoming the Great Depression II. All using economic theory. And if it wasn't for political interference/inaction, we'd be even further ahead, thanks to them.
I know people hate to hear that, and it's en vogue to rip on the field of economics, but it's true.
You're not exactly describing the difference. I would say that:
1. We have statistical evidence from large numbers of SIMILAR people with similar tumors. Economic events tend to be highly dissimilar in terms of context (Great Depression? 1988 Savings and Loans Crisis? 1997 Asian Financial Crisis? 2008 Global Financial Crisis?), and only to be similar in terms of before-and-after on some narrow set of parameters. This makes prediction and counter-factual history for economic stuff really hard.
2. We also understand some of the mechanisms of how tumors work and affect physiology. These are founded upon a large body of knowledge of causation and empirics in medicine, chemistry, and biology. Economics lack a comparably reliable and large body of knowledge because of 1.
>"We really have no idea what would have happened had the fed not intervened and allowed a normal bankruptcy to occur."
This is the fallacy: You really have no idea. That's not an insult. People who do this for a living, like, say, FRB economists, do know the consequences of letting bank runs occur and not providing liquidity during a crisis. It's well studied.
>" Economic events tend to be highly dissimilar in terms of context (Great Depression? 1988 Savings and Loans Crisis? 1997 Asian Financial Crisis? 2008 Global Financial Crisis?)"
I'm not sure this is true, either. Financial crises are surprisingly similar [0].
And we have statistical evidence from large numbers of economies. It's not perfect. We make a best guess and go for it. That's my point.
Contrary to popular belief, these guys aren't winging it. As I've said, go check out the research they're doing at the Fed. That's the cutting edge of economics.
You are using a straw man to defend the indefensible.
"These guys" are clearly winging it, when we remember the definition of "These guys":
Ideologues touting Efficient Markets and the Washington Consensus, often in the pay of corporations, and using clearly falsified theories to do so.
(You can get an idea of how bought they are by watching "Inside Job".)
No one is saying that no economists anywhere ever got anything right. The problem is that the economists who do get things right are the dissenters from the orthodoxy of "These guys".
So why don't you go check out the research referenced at
>"So why don't you go check out the research referenced at"
I read plenty of economic research, thank you. Every day. So, while I appreciate a link to a what is essentially the site of a pundit (whom I have read, by the way), this is not the bleeding edge of economics. When is the last time this guy actually wrote a paper?
>"As for the Fed, Volcker's Fed yes, Greenspan and Bernanke's Fed no."
Right. So, Volcker, dealing with intense inflationary pressure in the 1980s, and Bernanke, dealing with massive deflationary pressures in 2008, should use the same policy tools? I'm sorry, but you clearly need to brush up on the basics before you go attacking someone for their lack of economic knowledge. This is pointless.
I was referring to the Hudson book mentioned at the link, not Roberts's "punditry" as you call it.
Oh, and where did I say Volcker and Bernanke should use the same policy tools?
The big difference between Volcker and Greenspan is that Volcker stood up to congress, while Greenspan caved to the politicians and gave them the bubble they wanted. And politicized the Fed.
Or in your own words,
"And much of the housing portion was political mandate."
Did you not know this?
And where did I attack you for lack of economic knowledge?
I attacked you for using strawman arguments and putting words in peoples' mouths, and I stand by that.
>"If geeks weren't trading MBS and selling NInJA loans as AAA rated assets to the insurance companies"
I think you're conflating "people who work on Wall Street" with economists. Most of the "dirtiest" of the loan originators were people with no financial education whatsoever; salesmen, and nothing more.
>"If the Fed hadn't pumped easy credit, first during the dotcom bubble, then into the housing bubble, would the blowup have happened?"
Yes. Blowups happen. It's the business cycle. A credit driven economy inflates until marginal borrows default, which cascades to a deleveraging. The Fed "pumped" money in the economy after the dotcom bubble because we saw some of the greatest destruction of wealth, ever, during that period. And much of the housing portion was political mandate.
Admittedly, economics and the economy is a finicky patient. But contrary to popular belief, these guys are smart and know what they're doing.
>I think you're conflating "people who work on Wall Street" with economists. Most of the "dirtiest" of the loan originators were people with no financial education whatsoever; salesmen, and nothing more.
And I think you're conflating economists with people that didn't influence policy at the top level to enable those "salesmen" to do what they did, people that didn't hum along while the salesmen were doing it, people that didn't praise this thing happening, and people that didn't ensure the public that everything was perfectly OK before the crash.
Because economists, and top level ones at that, with Ivy League PhDs and all, did all of the above.
Case in point:
"""The former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, has conceded that the global financial crisis has exposed a "mistake" in the free market ideology which guided his 18-year stewardship of US monetary policy. A long-time cheerleader for deregulation, Greenspan admitted to a congressional committee yesterday that he had been "partially wrong" in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry and that the credit crunch had left him in a state of shocked disbelief. "I have found a flaw," said Greenspan, referring to his economic philosophy."""
But all other top dog economists policy influences were doing the same things, and praising the same "throw caution to the wind" attitude towards the "free market" and unsupervised banking...
>"And I think you're conflating economists with people that didn't influence policy at the top level to enable those "salesmen" to do what they did"
Pray tell, what did they do? What options does the Fed have that can run opposite popular politics that wouldn't instantly cause them to lose independence?
>"people that didn't ensure the public that everything was perfectly OK before the crash"
This is simply not true. People, including academics, were writing about the housing market pressures as early as 2004. The "economists" can't force themselves onto MSNBC or CNN to tell people to stop buying houses, especially when that runs counter to what politicians want: a hot economy.
>"The former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, has conceded that the global financial crisis has exposed a "mistake" in the free market ideology which guided his 18-year stewardship of US monetary policy."
An old Randian, trying to ensure his legacy isn't completely tarnished. Hindsight is pretty easy.
>Meanwhile, an enterprise with hundreds of trained economists (read: The Fed) used this magical unicorn training and prevented the Great Recesession from becoming the Great Depression II.
Really? So where were these "hundreds of trained economists" when the Great Recession came about? Out there, causing it.
As for "being saved from becoming Great Depression II", well, let's wait and see.
>"Really? So where were these "hundreds of trained economists" when the Great Recession came about? Out there, causing it."
Causing it? That's preposterous, being as how the borrowers (ie, Joe Public) are 50% to blame for over extending themselves. Again, tell me what tools the FRB has at its disposal that could have prevented the housing meltdown.
>"As for "being saved from becoming Great Depression II", well, let's wait and see."
Indeed we shall. Care to put your money where your mouth is? I have, and continue to do so, participating in one of the biggest bull-market run-ups in history the past two years. Meanwhile, most people continue to spout doom and gloom. And I'm just some guy watching this happen from the sidelines, trying to piece it all together.
>It is not politically correct to say that women are riskier hires than men. But given biology and current culture, women of child-bearing age clearly are riskier hires. Women have non-trivial odds of getting pregnant, sometimes unexpectedly. In the event of pregnancy, moms usually require more time off than fathers, and are more likely to never return to their jobs.
Then the people should make sure that such businesses are PUNISHED, and women are free to take time of for pregnancy.
The way to ruin a society is to stifle it's reproduction. As for the business risk, it should be an _assumed_ risk of all businesses if they want to operate within a society of people.
>The assumption that past discrimination justifies reverse discrimination is a dangerous one, and gives lots of opportunities for those who want to discriminate to justify it to themselves.
The "past discrimination" was mass abductions from their countries, SLAVERY, Jim Crow laws, lynching, segregation, fewer rights and a hugely disproportionate percentage of the black population in prison.
The "reverse discrimination" is ...getting some more jobs or better grades.
Suddenly when it's for the benefit of the other side this 1/1000 less discrimination is "dangerous"?
Sorry, but the idea that we should artificially excite girls about programming is silly to me. If they are interested, fine, if not, so be it. The very first programmer was a woman (Ada Lovelace) and she didn't have Legos or prep talks.
Why start from the premise that there _should_ be 50%-50% men and women programmers and try to force that, instead of watching what girls and boys actually like, and of course help any girl that _actually_ wants to go into programming?
We don't force young boys to go into ballet dancing, or even think that there is a problem because the genders there are not 50%-50%. And we don't give benzedrine, beers and toy trucks to girls to make them go into truck driving, which is also a profession with a gender imbalance.
Oh, and what about professional basketball and football? Should we force girls to be into it more, and force people to watch them play professionally? Because men's basketball and men's football currently dominate.