RE: Senators Denounce Policy Analysis Markets

From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Mon Jul 28 2003 - 18:56:02 MDT

  • Next message: Paul Grant: "RE: To thine ownself be true? Re: Radical Suggestions"

    It will certainly be unfortunate if these guys manage to get the market
    shut down. However my guess is that it will be able to proceed now that
    some of the more provocative imagery and examples have been removed from
    the web site. People read the articles, and go to the site, and all they
    see is some dry-sounding text, no pics of nuclear missiles arcing out of
    Korea, no Yassar Arafat clutching his chest as an assassin speeds away,
    nothing dramatic.

    So hopefully it can weather the storm. And in that case, the project
    got more publicity than it could have ever hoped for.

    There is an interesting connection to our ongoing discussion here about
    "Radical Suggestions" and how to think about the unthinkable. Just as we
    have those here who argue against even abstract consideration of horrific
    suggestions, these Senators seemed to have a similar emotional reaction
    to a market which would deal with objective predictions and responses,
    for events like terrorist actions or acts of war.

    There is something about the mere possibility of a non-emotional response
    which is threatening to this mindset. My take on it is that there is
    a certain strategy, or perspective, or philosophy, which gives great
    value to emotional response. This is a widely held philosophical view,
    probably a majority viewpoint, possibly even a very wide majority.
    Sometimes it is combined with a spiritual or religious perspective.

    If we think of this philosophy as a meme-complex, it is in competition
    with an alternative philosophy which reduces the importance of emotional
    reactions relative to abstract intellectual reaasoning. These two
    points of view are threatening to one another, as each one attacks the
    basic presumptions of the other. And as memes, both are in competition
    for the hearts and minds (a phrase which itself embodies the two sides)
    of the population, each providing answers and strategies that are almost
    exactly the opposite of the other.

    In his novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
    dealt with much the same split, between viewpoints he called Classical
    and Romantic. It's a very old distinction, which he traces back to the
    ancient Greeks.

    I'm not sure what lesson we can draw from this, other than to recognize
    the existence of these two points of view, and to try to respect the
    other one even if you don't agree with it. Of course, my whole analysis
    here is completely in the Classical mode, and will therefore tend to be
    rejected by the Romantics. It's a tough divide to bridge.

    Hal



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