Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
The paywalled cartoonist gaslights everyone about the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. The claim is there was one 'free' marshmallow and taking it didn't result in any punishment.
Good thing he doesn't experience embarrassment.
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I wouldn't characterize his being underinformed as gaslighting exactly, but that was the topic I took the most exception to. Most advances are borne by some form of delayed gratification, and it stands to reason that people willing to endure temporary austerity have accumulated resources that can be leveraged for the future.
His other recent topic that grates on reason is conjuring up a new currency as a means of alleviating national debt, which makes me question his understanding of his economics background in ways that make me question AOC's degree in economics.
Assigning value to a new crypto currency doesn't relieve the debt obligations of the previous currency, unless we decide it's ok to rob debt holders of their delayed gratification investment of owning debt which has an agreed upon value.
People are susceptible to view money as some mysterious thing that contains value, when in reality it is a placeholder for value. If someone is paid to build a fence, and they never build the fence, then no value has been created and the payment is fraudulent. On the other hand, if someone builds a fence and then receives no payment, then the value they have added has no representation and is fraudulent.
A robust currency closely represents the value one has contributed, and is not printed at will, or debased in other ways. Debasement is theft, and there is no other way to view it. Anyone purposely debasing currency is more morally reprehensible than a pick-pocket, yet it is legal.