Mick and Stopme's wet dream come true

Quoting people is partly me wanting to give credit to where I got certain ideas, and it's partly lending authority to the ideas I want to espouse (because no **** bestows authority on my opinions). But aye, I've come to realise that flogging the ideas as your own original ideas at all times might be a better solution for ego building - even if it is a bit of intellectual property theft.

Anyway... here's quote from the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker which backs me up on idea stealing

 

That's a bit condescending. If I'm looking for ideas I don't stick to dogmatists - for instance two books that have massively influenced my thinking on economics are Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom and Michael Sandel's The Moral Limit of Markets - Friedman argues from the Libertarian Right and Sandel takes on some of his ideas from the Rawlsian Left. I've taken ideas from both sides, and found myself a comfortable 'middle' position (which is still pro-markets, because of the utility of the market - even if I do have big sympathies towards Rawlsian egalitarianism).

 

Nah, go back to 2010 on this board and watch me **** over socialist ideas, despite the fact that in practice I was still a rampant capitalist - something has changed my articulated opinions in a relatively short period - and I've a fairly good idea what (growing up, to be a miserable and sober realist, mostly). Plus I've spouted Rawlsian ideas a few times on here (such as I used the 'veil of ignorance' to defend a universal National Health Service - which was a pull back from me earlier wanting to privatise health...). These thought experiments are necessary for fixing ingrained bias, or getting overly excited about new ideas - and certainly politicians or political leaders who haven't thought these things through are dangerous.

 

I simply can't just trust you - you need to prime me with proof of authority on the subject first, certainly before blind trust can be established (if it ever should).

The only argument I can think on your side is the various theories of conciousness - for example, how there's lots of evidence that our brain makes the decision before our concious mind does - and our concious mind makes an excuse, after the fact, for why the brain did what it did, or thought what it thought. Even if this is true it does not mean to say you can not consciously train your unconscious brain to make better choices by practising logical thoughts. I now program code in my job almost robotically without engaging my concious brain that much - because at one point I sat down and consciously struggled through the learning exercises.

 

Someone I know in A&E at QAH Portsmouth said that a person arrived the other day, wanting to be treated because they had hiccups.

 

Tell that to collectivist China of 30 years ago vs market reforming China of today.

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I would agree in theory - only in practice regulation tends to distort the market, it creates entry barriers for competitors and shores up monopolies. If I want to start a new mobile network I can't just stick a mast up outside my house and take it from there, I need to pay a couple of billion to Ofcom to buy a piece of the spectrum pie. No doubt Ofcom have good reasons for protecting the radio spectrum and the Government think they have good reasons for extracting as much money as they can from big corporations who can afford the couple of billion - but then politics creeps into corporatism when their interests are aligned, and you end up with the crony-Capitalism we have today.

I could give a dozen other examples of this - and I've already previously given you an example of William Hill bragging that the new UK gambling tax would push small players out the market removing competition. Big corporations love a regulation...