Re: Japan/recent decisions

[Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
> Interesting comment. Unfortunately when you do not make a stark statement
> , the reader (or listener) does not think you said something that is
> completely different. You have to shock people into rethinking their
> position.  Otherwise, the easy response is just that this is an
> idiosyncratic variant of what everyone else has said. Only by making
> things black or white, can you make people realize you are not just
> another shade of grey!
>
> Paul D.
>

In some venues, shock value is useful, but on pkt you have a majority of
relatively like-minded people, except for some whom you could not convince
anyway.  Why not create a dialogue instead of attacking?

I find Marx to be superior to Keynes.  I will not convince you or anybody
else by loading the list up with Marx quotes, like Greg does with Hayek.

In turn, you cannot shock me into changing
my mind.  If you have strong ideas rather than strong opinions, I am open
to listening.  If you resort to hectoring, I am inclined to turn you off.

I have learnt a great deal from your writings.  Bill Mitchell told me that
he has also.  If I had not had exposure to your writings before, I would
not have paid any attention to you at all.  The style would be led me to
push the delete button automatically.

Like many others on this list, I am being pushed in the direction of
unsubbing.  The noise drowns out the signal.  Some participants seem to
believe that quantity will win out over quality.  If they repeat the same
idea enough times, they will convert people.  In the long run, they can
conquer a list by driving others off, but they cannot educate that way.

Again, I did not intend my comments to be taken antagonistically.  The tone
of your comment suggests that you took my note to be a friendly suggestion.

I am probably falling into the trap of going on too long, but I want to
relate this note to Rick's comment and Jaimie's response.  Like many on these
lists, I do not have the opportunity for many meaningful exchanges with my
colleagues.  When Bill Mitchell visited this summer, I lept at the
opportunity to spend a couple of hours talking to him every day.

I want to be able to learn from pkt, pen-l and the like.  I enjoy some of
the banter, but I can do without it.  I do not think that the problem is
so much the quantity of the postings as the frequency of people posting
the same stuff over and over.

Many of us could look at the heading of some of the posts from the worst
abusers and come quite close to anticipating what will follow.  Why bother
to post the same stuff over and over?  Again, quantity will not win out over
quality.

 --
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 916-898-5321
E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx