I don't know if there is anyone out there who believes Jay Hanson is
actually right about things. But if there is, I'd suggest you look
carefully at his posting "lesson of the cake" and then take Jay to
task for being so irresponsible.
If Jay is right, then the survival of humanity as a species depends
on us taking his dire warnings to heart and establishing the
world-dictatorship he apparently sees as our only hope for survival.
But the "lesson of the cake" message reads like a caricature, lampoon,
or parody of his views and can only detract from his message. If the
survival of our species depends on taking Jay seriously, then writing
such silly messages is placing us all in danger and he should never
be so irresponsible.
On the other hand, I happen to think Jay is completely wrong, and would
normally be pleased to at any message that confirmed that -- but even so
I hate to see him make such a fool of himself. I'd still like to put his theories
to the test by writing and running a similation, but that means taking him
and his remarks somewhat seriously, which the "lesson of the cake" makes
difficult. So, I will just ignore it, for now.
Elsewhere Jay argues for his theories as if they have some genuine content
and writes about "biophysical laws", by which he presumably means
something empirically verifiable -- something based on verifiable facts,
something we can test -- and I'd like still like to test it.
I don't know if Jay is aware of it, but one of the classical sources
for views like his is a book by another Jay, Jay W. Forrester --
World Dynamics, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971. That book
is a report on a simulation somewhat similar to what I have in mind,
and it includes graphs which look a lot like the ones Jay Hanson makes
so much of -- and has a similar conclusion, that "Obvious Responses
Will Not Suffice".
That's an interesting result, one that Jay Hanson should applaud and
I should disagree with. But having little taste for mere argument,
I'd like to see if those results hold up under a more modern approach
with better data. If they do, I'll happily admit to being wrong,
and just to keep me honest I'll agree to put source code and data up
on the web. If Jay won't help, I'll have to dig up the data myself,
but I'd prefer it if he'd stop writing these self-parodying messages
that aren't any use to anyone.
dpw
Douglas P. Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/index.html
