tcpip | Lectures and Tests, Games and Magyar Pagans, Intelligent Design, Hidden Agendas and Vested Interests

Lectures and Tests, Games and Magyar Pagans, Intelligent Design, Hidden Agendas and Vested Interests

Second workshop on market segmentation and geodemographics for Prosper Australia was a success. Tomorrow is marketing for the media. After that organisational planning. Then comes the big test of implementation. Cisco classes went well last week. For the two module tests my results were 96% (WAN technologies) and 83% (router commands). I confess to not paying much attention to the latter.

Have been hard at work with the Mimesis RPG and will have a lengthy new draft on said work in progress at the end of today. Sunday (after a dull Unitarian Committee of Management Meeting) was Outbreak of Heresy where the noble troupe discovered a surviving Magyar pagan village and discovered the fiendish plan of the pagans to smash the neighbouring Christian counties through the Sword of God. It's all getting quite exciting.

Ahh, I'm giving the service for next Sunday's extended service:

Theories of Evolution: Intelligent Design versus Natural Selection

A special extended service to discuss this issue to be held at the Melbourne Unitarian Peace Memorial Church, 110 Grey Street, East Melbourne at 11 am on Sunday October 23.

Dr. Bill Hall, PhD in Evolutionary Biology, Knowledge Management Systems Analyst for Tenix Defence Engineering Pty Ltd and Nigel Sinnot, Rationalist and former editor of the British journal "Freethinker" (world's oldest freethought journal).

Plus speakers from ICAST (Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology) and the University of Melbourne (Department of History and Philosophy of Science).

Special thanks to the Livejournal community convert_me for their contribution to this debate.

Why are business and economic spokespeople so ignorant of basic economic matters? Here's an example of the Executive Director of the Business Roundtable who doesn't know what GDP is or how it is calculated. Here is an example (courtesy of

zey) of the spokesperson for the Australian Industry Group who doesn't know what productivity is. Are we supposed to have confidence is this people? Anyone with even high school economics would be rolling in the aisles at the sheer stupidity of these claims. Perhaps, (he asks rhetorically in the third person), they have another agenda?

Speaking of other agendas and vested interests Dr. Major Fernandes has gotten himself into the news again. Seems that the senior figures of the Australian military are less interested in intelligence and security but more interested in protecting the reputation of the Howard government. Want the evidence? Read the book, Reluctant Saviour.

Oh, and

the_siobhan? Thank you. This game rocks.

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Will you be mentioning His Noodly Appendage?

(There was an interesting BBC feature on Intelligent Design. I'd never heard of the Wedge Document (http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html) before. Who would be so stupid to leave that lying around?

Their response?
So what? (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&program=CSC%20Responses&id=2101)

Thanks for the reminder! I will most certainly mention TSM! Heck, I'll even distribute a leaflet!

Ahh, the Wedge Document. I'd forgotten that. Make sure I run off a few copies of that as well.

Just to make sure I understand correctly - GDP is purely a measure of money spent, isn't it? So post-Katrina cleanup and rebuilding will increase America's GDP. The loss of capital caused by the damage and the fact that in spending money on rebuilding they won't be ablt to spend it on "more productive" things (is that called opportunity cost) is irrelevant to GDP and covered in other metrics (if at all). Is this correct?

If that is the case then I think this guy's problem is that he is a rabid free-marketer (look at how he accuses the Greens of refusing to admit that market forces will solve all environmental woes, not realising the utter irony of his accusation), and in that mindset, a higher GDP is always a good thing. However, obviously Katrina is a bad thing that will drain money from the country. He can't reconcile this contradiction in his ideology, so he claims that GDP is measuring something different, that expenditure accompanied by losses is not included.

GDP is purely a measure of money spent, isn't it?

Yep.

So post-Katrina cleanup and rebuilding will increase America's GDP.

Yep. And this Roger Kerr clown was saying it wouldn't.

I think your assessment is mostly on the ball. That said, quite a few "free marketeer" types understand the limitations of GDP.

This guy is simply an ideologue. If the Greens say it, it must be wrong.

I was about to respectfully disagree with your interpretation of what the clown is saying in the GDP comment ... and then I re-read it and saw that you were exactly right. Had he gone on to (properly?) surmise that despite the likely increase in GDP because of a disaster, the overall effect on the economic health of the system is not enhanced by natural disasters, I think his point would be a good one (and I presume this is really where he was trying to go, no?) but his words are completely wrong. Disasters (like wars) are often good for GDP, even if they are bad for economies in the long run.

GDP is a measure of economic activity, not a measure of wealth. Obviously to increase wealth you need economic activity, but this is not necessarily the case. Wars, cyclones, hurricanes, Y2K ... all increase GDP. But they either reduce national wealth or do nothing for it at all.

The part I find frustrating is that people like this should know this... or they're deliberately telling lies for another agenda.

(This is not a conspiracy theory - this is just what vested interests do).

As I tried to post yeterday when your system accused me of being a spammer...;)....

GDP may increase, or decrease, due to Katrina. GDP came from the production that occurred in New Orleans; its destruction has caused that to be lost. If they abandon NO, GDP will drop. If they rebuild it with streets paved in gold, marbled halls, and $100k p.a. government jobs for every citizen, GDP will rise.

Of course, most likely something in between will happen. So we don't know if GDP will rise or fall as a result of it. So while it's true that Roger Kerr doesn't understand what the GDP actually (the measure of all the money spent in a country), it's also true that it won't necessarily rise. It depends on how much they spent rescuing and housing people, and how much they spend fixing the place up afterwards.

GDP may increase, or decrease, due to Katrina. GDP came from the production that occurred in New Orleans; its destruction has caused that to be lost. If they abandon NO, GDP will drop. If they rebuild it with streets paved in gold, marbled halls, and $100k p.a. government jobs for every citizen, GDP will rise.

Yes. You know what GDP is ;-)

Speaking as the former National Accounts expert for the Parliamentary Library, Roger K is not saying something as silly as folk in this thread seem to think.

GDP is a measure of final production. So, if the US produces more as a result of spending on Katrina repair than it otherwise would if Katrina had not occurred, then Katrina will indeed increase GDP.

Now, expenditure on Katrina repair will be highly visible. What will not be visible is the production that does not occur as a result of Katrina. Nor the production which would have occurred if the resources spent on repair had been spent elsewhere. If the value of lost production plus displaced production is greater than production for repair (including any quality improvement effects), the net effect of Katrina on US GDP will be negative. Which is quite likely. Either way one certainly cannot claim that US GDP will be automatically higher as a result of Katrina. It is more likely to be below what it otherwise would be.

Of course, Katrina repair production is production, so contributes to GDP. In that (rather pointless) sense one can say that Katrina repair will raise US GDP.

Of course, if one goes directly to economic well-being, then Roger K is clearly correct, which would have been perhaps the more lay-down-misere way to put his argument.

But bright folk can say silly things, even in their area of expertise. I once heard Bernie Fraser, when Reserve Bank Governor, give a speech where he clearly confused a one-off increase in price level with inflation.

Quite so. The critical question of course (to summise) is whether expenditure on rebuilding the devastation caused by Katrina is greater than the production lost by its destruction.

I suspect it would be, and significantly so.

Um, no actually, the question of displaced production is very important. Katrina repair production is not 'manna from heaven', the resources have other potential uses -- i.e. their opportunity cost. Which Roger K specifically argues will be higher than the value of the repair production.

A classic formulation of the recovery-is-good-for-GDP fallacy has been to point to postwar German and Japanese growth rates and say that war-repair was good for their economies. Below is the % advantage in USA GDP per capita compared to the average of 12 Western European economies according to Angus Maddison's figures:

1913 44%
1950 91%
1973 37%
1998 46%

Basically, it took until the late 1960s for the West European economies to catch up to their relative GDP per capita level they had with the USA in 1913. Given that technological transfer, the liberalising effects of the EU and the GATT and the break-up (particularly in Germany and Japan in the immediate post-war period) of Mancur Olson's collusive networks counteracted the damage of WWII, the point is even stronger.

Also according to Maddison's figures, Japan (which had a very benign WWI) did not pass its 1941 level of per capita GDP until 1956. Which was, given the extent to which they were bombed flat (1941 per capita GDP was 86% higher than its 1946 low), a remarkable performance.

Um, no actually, the question of displaced production is very important.

Assuming of course that highest possible utilisation of the nation's production possibility frontier. If this is not the case (which it hasn't been for some time, iirc) then the disaster recovery programme will push actual production towards the potential.

Explain why comparative GDP per capita is the appropriate measure in this case. It's not coming to me intuitively.

I used per capita because it gets away from population change.

Actually, the question of the productivity possibility is not the relevant thing. Whether or not repair production is a more productive use of resources than displaced production depends on the characteristics of both. If the society is already at its frontier, then the repair production cannot be more productive than the displaced production. But if the society is not at its frontier, it can be as, more or less productive.

I suspect you are thinking more of the shift between consumption and investment.

What time do you finish up at Prosper?

Lateish, around 9.30 usually... You proposing a drink afterwards? At that very nice old bar?

Not sure, 9.30 is kind of late. Just figuring some shit out.

...about the Creationism / Intelligent Design vs Evolution debate (and whether or not one or both should be taught in school) is:

Is it science?
Can the idea be tested, and proven false if incorrect?

If it can't (and most religious ideas can't be tested) then it ain't science. Of course I'm not so sure that Evolution is, either...

Evolution (the proposal that species change over time) shouldn't really be a point of discussion.

What's interesting is whether what has evolved is due to natural selection or intelligent design.

And if it's intelligent design, I want to have a few harsh words with the designer!

"In his image and likeness" my arse!

Just g'me their name(s) and addresses!

Perhaps the fairest approach would be to offer up Darwinian natural selection, intelligent design and maybe another model or two to test against the requirements of scientific method to see if they do stand up.

(The hard part would be avoiding bias toward a given model in the evidence presented in the course)

The problem with the ID advocates is that the don't have any testable propositions.

If you show them a dsyfunctional aspect of evolution which indicates there is no designer (e.g., koala pouches facing downwards) they will claim that there is a "hidden purpose" which we have not yet discovered.

Well, if it fails to stand up to the requirements of testability, falsifiability etc needed under scientific methodology, there can be only one conclusion:

The scientific method must be wrong. :)

*APPLAUSE*

The link to "this game" doesn't seem to be working...

worked for me :)

Ahh, more zombie players!

Can I be a guest player in one of your games when I come visit Melbourne? I'll have a character built and everything before I get there, if you tell me how to build one :). I'm a good roleplayer. And I've played GURPS before.

I won't be offended if you say no; I've seen too many games go rotten because there were too many players, or something like that :).

Sure that sounds just fine... When are you over?

I'm going to be in town between November 16th and December 11th... except the weekend of Nov 25 - 27 I'll be busy. Yeah, it's a little ways off :P. You play every Sunday? (it sounds like a longtime running campaign.)

Yep, we play every Sunday.. Currently three games

Outbreak of Heresy (16th century Transylvannia, home brew system)
Australian Noir (1920s alternative history Australia)
RuneQuest Glorantha (using 4th edition playtest rules)

Come along!

BTW, your prosper.org link is broken.

Eh. Spelling mistake in the url. Stoopid me.

AIG has never been a group I have been very impressed by. Indeed, I am a bit surprised to see them endorsing IR reform. But what is your specific complaint about the comment? (It is certainly possible for changing institutional arrangements to raise productivity. Indeed, it is well known to happen.)

The specific claim that the IR reforms will cause an improvement in productivity.

Seeming that the slate of IR reforms do nothing to change managerial competence, logistics, capital investment or workplace skills their claim is just nonsense.

I thought you were going to zero in on the productivity is declining comment, when clearly what they meant is productivity growth is declining.

Well, the IR reforms certainly could cause an improvement in productivity by a range of mechanisms including release of resources barred by complexity costs. So their claim is optimistic, but not self-evidently silly.

Well, the IR reforms certainly could cause an improvement in productivity by a range of mechanisms including release of resources barred by complexity costs.

Releasing resources doesn't axiomatically mean that the resources are reinvested into productive activity. Heck, there's no certainty of capital investment even if we were all working for a bowl of rice a day. There's that great Keynesian discovery of "the liquidity preference"

Well no, it's not axiomatic. But the resources would have to be produced to be consumed. So if the opportunity to use the released resources was actually taken up, productivity would go up.

A friend said to me last night IR reform is about making machines work harder, not people. Not a bad summary.

So we're back to trickle down theory? Keep wages low, conditions rough and the monies saved will go back into capital investment?

Please excuse the resounding cynicism, but I have insufficient trust in the Australian ruling class to do the right thing.

It's more like trickle-up theory. If you have rules which make it more expensive to employ people over-and-above their wages and which restrict ability to use labour over-and-above work-time, then, without reducing wages or increasing work time, their labour can be applied more productively, increasing the product which then gets split between the more productive worker and the owner of the more productive capital.

Various shifts between pay and leisure can also become possible. A dynamic the mining union ran afoul of in the Kimberley mining industry when the workers revolted against a union attempt to stop a deal allowing the four-weeks-annual leave to be cashed out (since they were working on two-weeks on, two-weeks off basis anyway). So their work time went up by two weeks (to 26 weeks a year) but they got paid more.

You know, you sound like the reason that John Howard wants to remove student unionism... and the reason it needs to continue.

Heh. I have good memories of my student union activist days. Indeed, involvement in student politics was in many ways a lot less frustrating that involvement in "real politics". Ahh, the benefits of small constituiencies!

History, eh? And computer programming?

We have stuff in common already...

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Lectures and Tests, Games and Magyar Pagans, Intelligent Design, Hidden Agendas and Vested Interests

Theories of Evolution: Intelligent Design versus Natural Selection

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