[From Bill Powers (2004.05.22.0938 MST)]
Bill Williams 22 May 2004 3:40 AM CST --
In a recent post I said that Bill Powers can say things are obviously
not true such as when he said, that "Williams has never made a
substantive contribution to CSG." Powers denied having said such a
thing. So, I went looking in the CSG archive. And, I found that
Bill Powers had said that I hadn't made a single contribution to
CSG-- prior to this single contribution of a table of data.
No, Bill, when you first brought this up, you said control theory, not CSG
(net). As you will see below, you have misread the words again. I said, in
that archived post you quote, that you had not made a single substantive
contribution to CSGnet (not control theory) prior to your offering of a
table of data. And that is true; all your offerings had been of the nature
of diatribes against personalities, or references to other people's
writings that give no hint as to what they are about, or sneers at people's
lack of knowledge of economics, or refusals to offer "tutorials" or any
other sort of substantive discussion, or lectures on abstract topics. You
have, of course, successfully applied PCT (not CSG) to some economic
problems, the most successful being your analysis of the Giffen Effect. But
as to your interactions on CSGnet, they have been almost entirely
destructive. There have been moments of light, but most often you waste
your time by reading deep dark evil intentions into what you read, or
imagine that you have read.
Here is the quote from the archive again. See if you find anything in it
where I said you have never contributed anything to PCT or the uses of
control theory:
Bill W.
> The question is whether
>I have ever made a single substantive contribution to
>CSG.
Me:
> The answer to that question (which is not the one you asked above) is yes,
> a single one. You contributed the above table of data.
> Prior to that table-- nothing.
You, currently:
When Bill Powers gets excited he says stuff that is so obviously
absurd that it is laughable. And, then he can't admit to having
said stuff that obviously isn't true so he digs himself into a
deeper hole. If Powers' emotions are engaged in the issue you can
not trust what he says-- like the stuff he says about me.
Now consider this, the recent trigger for your remarks above:
Bill W. said:
> >Nor is there any justification for Bill Powers to claim that I have never
> >made any contribution to efforts to apply control theory to problems
> >involving human behavior or at least economic behavior.
And I replied:
> I would be astonished to discover that I had ever said any such thing.
Clearly, I never said that you "have never made any contribution to efforts
to apply control theory to problems involving human behavior or at least
economic behavior." You made up that quotation out of thin air. This is a
perfect example of what I called "insult inflation". In this case it has an
obvious purpose: to divert attention from a truthful statement that is not
flattering to you by converting it into something that was never said, and
which, if said, would call for objection from any reasonable person who
knows your work.
I was complaining, in the archived passage above, that you had
contributed essentially nothing of substance to CSGnet. I did not amplify,
but I could have said it was because of your preoccupation with imagined
slights and insults, and your reluctance to offer any of your knowledge in
a normal intellectual interaction -- in your words, to act as an "unpaid
consultant.") You had spoken frequently ex cathedra, sharing your
conclusions and beliefs, but never explaining how you got to them. This is
not substantive conversation, it's bragging, preaching, and bullying. That
is why I said what I said, and I doubt that you could find anyone on CSGnet
to contradict it.
Your problem, I am beginning to realize, is that you simply can't read
without your imagination twisting the words on the way in so you see
something utterly different from what other people see. I don't know why
you do that, and it's not my place to guess. But it's the source of a great
deal of unnecessary friction. If you would just read my words carefully and
make sure you are aware of what I actually said and quite likely meant, I
think you would react differently. You are putting words in my mouth that I
never said, and the words you choose to put there seem to be selected for
maximum negative effect. Again, I don't claim to know why you do that, but
that you do it there is no doubt. Ask anyone.
If we don't abandon this futile back-and-forth arguing we may as well give
up any joint attempt to further a theory of economics. The arguments are
repetitive, childish, and dull, and have already driven people away. If you
could simply burn that list of gripes and forget about them, we might be
able to stay on the subject of interest. But if you simply have to keep
coming up with these cheap shots at people, anything of value here is going
to be lost. Maybe it's already been lost.
Bill P.