In an earlier post Arnold Kling says
Ordinarily, my philosophy is "catch them doing something right." If you try to correct people when they do something wrong, they just take offense, and you accomplish nothing
Which explains why Arnold references me so infrequently. ![]()
But more seriously if you think I am wrong don’t hesitate to say so. I picked up from another post of Arnold’s that he disagreed with my take on Mike Mandel. Mandel himself wrote a response and I agreed with one his main critiques of my critique.
I think Mandel and I ended up agreeing that the key question is whether or not an improvement in the terms of trade is equivalent to a productivity increase and Mandel noted he has a paper coming out soon detailing why he thinks they are not. This is the blogosphere at its best.
Our ultimate hope is not have been right but to be right. This can only happen when (1) risk saying things that are wrong (2) get called out on it and correct ourselves.
Also, I don’t always read all the comments so if there is something you really want to call my attention to email me.
Lastly, I meant to post on this but I don’t think I did. Arnold’s talk at Kauffman gave me still better insight into where he is coming from and the folk dancing and doves bit actually helped. I am serious about that.

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Thursday ~ April 7th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Sister Y
Our ultimate hope is not have been right but to be right.
Nicely put.
Thursday ~ April 7th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
IVV
Agreed, nicely put, and also why it can be difficult to make progress in many organizations. When too many people care first about whether you have been right, and don’t like to watch the process by which someone becomes right, then luck comes to dominate success over process.