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Comment by pathy | Hacker News Reader

He probably isn't. Are you?

Your posts mostly consists of rambling that the established economics definitions of efficiency, market failure and so forth are wrong. You call an entire profession slippery and dishonest.

You are clearly pushing your agenda, in a fashion that IS intellectually dishonest. Try having a conversation where you actually use the jargon of the subject matter. Market failure means one thing when you are discussion economics, don't try to invent your own definition. That is dishonest and poor argumentation technique.

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> You call an entire profession slippery and dishonest

Academic economics isn't a profession.

> You call an entire profession slippery and dishonest.

I didn't call all economists slippery and dishonest. So, this is a bizarre and blatantly false accusation.

I don't even think all economists who accept the jargon and go with it are dishonest. It would be hard to do anything else. But I think certain jargon is inherently biased. Somebody originated that jargon.

> in a fashion that IS intellectually dishonest

How so? I think it's pretty fair to criticize my point of view, but I don't think you can support the accusation that I'm intentionally misleading people. That's a pretty high bar to reach. I'm not going around intentionally inventing confusing terminology.

Re: astroturfing, I regret bringing that up. But the guy I was talking to didn't seem to be interested in discussing the issues, he seemed to be playing language games to "win" an argument. But that is just my perception, I'm not even sure I'm right about that.

Those "language games" (I assume you're referring to my having to twice clarify the definition of description) were necessary a) because you were putting words in my mouth; and b) half of your argument centred around attacking me like I was pushing some agenda: I was describing reality.

> But the guy I was talking to didn't seem to be interested in discussing the issues

I made a clear point with a clear example and well defined boundaries. Some of what's been said here - a lot by you - has been so wrong/irrelevant/flawed that I wasn't willing to entertain it, on this point you are correct. I'm 2 weeks in to a new keyboard layout you see, and the thought of the amount I'd have to type to address them all properly was too much to bear.

> astroturfing

For the record, I had to google that.

> a) because you were putting words in my mouth

No I wasn't. Give an example.

This would have to take the form of me having claimed you said something you didn't, not the form of me claiming an implication of your statements that you don't agree with.

> (I assume you're referring to my having to twice clarify the definition of description)

Now thrice, and it's irrelevant because you are also "pushing an agenda," as you put it. You can't really do one without the other. Every fact about reality has implications for human action.

> Some of what's been said here - a lot by you - has been so wrong/irrelevant/flawed that I wasn't willing to entertain it,

I think this is an example of not pursuing intellectual discussion, like I was talking about.

Another reason I brought up astroturfing is because you have a new account.

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