| MDMAlliance said: Not sure, is English your first language? A general rule does not mean a typical result. A rule of thumb is also not a general rule. A general rule is a more vague way to refer to a set of standards or rules. You can call England's legal system based on general rule, as it is based off of "common law." |
Is English *your* first language? The term "as a general rule" is a well-known term. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/general
Go down to the "Phrases" section, where you will find "as a general rule", with the provided definition being "in most cases" (as in the sentence "As a general rule vegetable oils are better for you than animal fats"). This is the standard use of the term "as a general rule", and one which people who speak English should be well-acquainted. The exact sentence I used was "What I'm talking about is a society where those who contribute more get more money as a general rule". Nobody refers to England's legal system as being "based on general rule" - indeed, a search of the internet for the terms "general rule" and "legal system" simultaneously produces only examples where the aforementioned meaning ("in most cases") is used. The term "general rule" is used, as a general rule, to refer to something that applies most of the time, but for which there are exceptions.
Meanwhile, you explicitly said that I was asking for a completely free market (which was completely false), and now you defend yourself by saying that you never said I said it - no, you implied that it was the underlying idea, which was also completely false.
"Prisoner's Dilemma" isn't an IR term, it's a game theory term - as in, Mathematics. It comes up in economics, in IR, in actual games, in social interactions, etc. And it's not about trust, it's about rational decision-making, when involving multiple people, producing sub-optimal results. Each person is making the rational decision to betray, because irrespective of what the other person does, betrayal will produce a better result for that person... but because both make the rational decision, they both betray, producing a worse result for each of them than if both had cooperated. It is the difference between an optimal result for the group and the Nash Equilibrium, which occurs when each person acts rationally.
The classic version would say that, if both betray, each gets 2 years in prison. If one betrays, the betrayor goes free while the betrayed gets 3 years in prison. If both cooperate, they both get just 1 year in prison. If Prisoner B betrays, then it is better for Prisoner A to betray, because they'll get only 2 years in prison, rather than 3. If Prisoner B cooperates, then it is better for Prisoner A to betray, because they'll go free rather than getting 1 year in prison. As a result, it doesn't matter what Prisoner B does, Prisoner A is better off betraying, and betrayal is the rational thing to do. The exact same reasoning applies for Prisoner B, since it's a symmetric situation. And so, both betray and get 2 years in prison, when if they had both cooperated, they would get just 1 year in prison each - a clearly superior result for each.
Have a look, for instance, here. It's an article in the Library of Economics and Liberty, all about Prisoner's Dilemma in the context of economics.
And you still seem to think that this is about having a law or official restriction to produce the desired result. The whole idea is that you construct the "playing field" itself to make people choose the desired result when acting rationally. Kind of like, for instance, how governments usually offer tax deductions for charitable contributions - it's a way to encourage people to give to charity, without forcing anybody to do it. And yes, it is reasonable and realistic for society to regulate the market - we do it already, and the best regulations are highly successful (many regulations are ineffectual and burdensome, but that's a failure of the design of the regulation, not a failure of regulation itself).
As you say, you didn't actually assert that I claimed the 24 hour news cycle was the only cause of corruption... you only implied it, when you made a point to emphasise that corruption existed before the 24 hour news cycle. And the 24 hour news cycle most certainly *does* result in corruption that wouldn't otherwise be there. And no, "corruption" doesn't mean the government doing "something it's not supposed to be doing", it means, and I quote, "dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery".
And you don't seem to comprehend CONTEXT. So I'll have to say it more slowly, I guess... a properly set up democracy won't have massive loopholes. The "correct way" directly implies a specific form of democracy, whereas "properly set up" does not. This isn't a matter of degrees, it's the ACTUAL MEANINGS OF WORDS, and their contexts. You can't just take individual words, like "correct" and "proper" out of the context in which they're used, and still make a sensible interpretation of the situation. You did this exact same thing with "general rule". You can't just separate the words into "general" and "rule", and assume that the individual meanings are just put together directly. Our language does NOT work that way - "general rule" is not just a "rule" that is "general", just as "baby shower" isn't a "shower" that is "baby". As for correct vs proper, consider, for example, a person. You might describe a person as "prim and proper". You wouldn't ever say "prim and correct". They're not just degrees, they're entirely different meanings because of the context.
You say you asserted that "it isn't compatible unless you have something opposite of a democracy first." Now, other than the fact that you never said that in the discussion with me, there's the problem that you haven't backed up your assertion with anything whatsoever - just attempts to shout down anybody who expresses disagreement.
Meanwhile, I find it hilarious that you claim that applied mathematics means nothing to economics. You clearly know nothing of the economics that you claim is your field, given that the vast majority of economics is literally applied mathematics. That you don't even know about Prisoner's Dilemma in the context of economics makes me very skeptical that you know anything at all about economics. Indeed, economics can be considered a subfield of game theory - which is itself a subfield of mathematics.
But hey, tell me again how knowledge of mathematics and logic isn't helpful when discussing economics.
