Steve:
> > What you are asking for is ultimately impossible.  It boils down to,
> > at least in part, getting people to reveal unobservables.  Now people
> > being what they are will often misrepresent these unobservables
> > (welfare being one of them).  Even in a small group achieving
> > "truth-telling" is extremely difficult if not outright impossible.
> > Further, a continuum of "values" would require having information
> > that nobody likely has access to.

This is a good example of obfuscation. Steve is indicating somehow that
'welfare' is an 'unobservable' but it is absolutely impossible to determine
what he means here by 'welfare'. I guess it could be surmised that within
this one sentence that some meaning could be extracted, but what meaning.
Welfare is very easily observable if it is a form of welfare that keeps
folks in need off of streets in the winter, lets them have a warm supper
meal.

I wonder who it would be that would likely 'misrepresent' welfare? Well it
would likely be someone that does not directly benefit from welfare, someone
who pays a lot of income taxes. This is probably what Steve is actually
meaning to suggest, that someone in the economy who lacks the knowledge
about the benefits of 'welfare' has something important to contribute on the
'unobservable' out there called 'shelter' and 'food'. No distinction is made
either by Steve about the source of the welfare either, whether it is the
Salvation Army which does produce lots of 'observables' in the Sally Anns
for person on low or fixed incomes.

Then there is this other allusion to 'truth telling' groups which just pops
up in his overgeneralization. What the heck is a truth telling group? and
what is this generalization about? How do persons 'misrepresent' values
impossibly? and what criterion do you use to discriminate between truth
telling and telling untruths?

The last sentence is completely incomprehensible. I assumed that it was a
response to a statement by Ray, but a short re-read of this sentence reveals
nothing approaching an authentic insight on a philosophic quandary.  A
descriptive treatment of values may result in a 'continuum' but there has to
be some organizing principle in how to establish that continuum, and no
mention or explaination is given to what that continuum and it's criterion
would consist in whether it be spiritual, economic, ethical or aesthetic.
But do not fear as Steve overgeneralizes again he informs us that, yes, that
'nobody' would 'likely' have access to 'it'. Does he mean an 'overarching'
principle which would tie a common theme between all values? Regardless of
the intentionality being attempted and conveyed, I see nothing salvagable in
terms of true meaning...

First Steve informs us that people misrepresent 'unobservables' like
welfare, and then he continues his arguement to the final conclusion
indicating that nobody knows the truth in a group setting. Well I for one
have to acknowledge one thing: there are some groups which deliberately
distort the truth or find the means to achieve that goal without any reqress
or regrets. Finally we are all exonerated because nobody can even know what
values there are because if you take Steve's argument to it's fatal
conclusion values are well 'incommersurable' just as Ray and I have stated,
but that is far and away much different than knowing what values there are
and also acknowledging that no one can tell the truth in a group setting.

Enough of this....actually one more idea. There was that guy who referred to
a scale of values, Maslow, who constructed a theory of regarding a
'hierarchy of values' which seems closely aligned to the notion of a
continuum of values which Steve instructs us does not and cannot be
known....

chao

John Foster

It was said once that some "know the value of everything, but the worth of
nothing." Was it Strindberg or Ibsen? I think it was the english bloke who
wrote funny and witty plays, perhaps....



>
> Ray here:
> Steve, it is obvious that you are not familiar with the literature on
> Multiple Objective Planning, Multiple alternatives/Multiple Aspects,
(MAMA)
> etc.  Perhaps you might benefit if you were to try to get outside the box
by
> doing a little literature research in this field.
> ---------------
> >
> > Does this mean that benefit/cost analyses should not be done.
> > Absolutely not.  In fact, Ray's extremist position above is, I feel
> > highly counter productive.  Instead, a more reasonable approach would
> > be to do the analysis, but to be cognizant of these short comings of
> > benefit/cost analysis.  I am not sure where Ray learned about
> > benefit/cost analysis, but when it was first introduced to me the
> > shortcomings of it were quickly brought up.
> >
>
> Ray here:
>
> Have you ever *done* benefit/cost analysis in the public domain?  I think
it
> has much to offer *within* a particular company/corporation where the
> objective function is very simple/well defined.  But it radically distorts
> the analysis in the public domain.
>
> I am not surprised that you did not learn about the sorts of limits to b/c
I
> have noted; nor am I surprised that you have not learned about valid
> alternatives to that procedure for the public domain - unfortunately, you
> seem to have been constrained to an education in the economic discipline
and
> have not had the intellectual capacity to question your received wisdom
> since your grad school days.
>
> I've been there.
>
> > Saying this type of analysis has problems and therefore one is going
> > to avoid them, is like noting a hammer is not appropriate for the
> > given task and then never carrying a hammer in your tool kit.
>
> Ray here:
>
> Well Steve, it seems that you are not capable of dealing with the limits
of
> one particular analytical tool and then trying to find others which might
> reduce those limits.  You apparently are so young and inexperienced that
you
> accept without question the received wisdom.  If you don't change, you
will
> find that in your old age you will have fallen so far behind new ideas
that
> you don't even recognize the problems and benefits for the new world that
> the the several protaganists have in store for us.
>
> May I suggest that you "get with it"?  You have alot to learn and the
> learning process is not enhanced by sophomoric comments that you have the
> tendency to make.  Grow up.
>
> Ray