A Facebook meme, transplanted

Only one lie in the below. Can you find it? M., you do not get a vote.

Can you fill this out without lying? You've been tagged (As a matter of policy, I don't tag people, but you're welcome to pick this up on your own), so now you need to answer all the questions HONESTLY. At the end, choose at least 8 people to be tagged. Don't forget to tag me! To do this, copy post this entire message, then go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note post, delete my answers, and type yours.

01. What was the last thing you put in your mouth? -- Earl Grey tea

02. Where was your profile picture taken? -- Shi Shi Beach, in Olympic National Park.... Read More

03. Can you play Guitar Hero? -- Oh, probably. Haven't and won't, though.

04. Name someone who made you laugh today? -- Dan Bannon, in a comment when I originally posted this on FB.

05. How late did you stay up last night and why? -- Turned my light out around 10:15. Watched the end of the baseball game, then did some reading.

06. If you could move somewhere else, would you? -- Probably not. Lots of ties here around Seattle. I might take a job in London if it paid really well and wasn't going to last more than five years. Then I'd come back.

07. Ever been kissed under fireworks? -- Yes.

08. Which of your friends lives closest to you? -- Jeff is only about 85 miles away by road.

09. Do you believe ex's can be friends? -- Can be, certainly. Don't think it's too likely with mine; I was a real asshole.

10. How do you feel about moutain dew? -- Ew.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard? -- Really hard? What's that mean? Probably in the late '80s.

12. Who took your profile picture -- I did.

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of? -- Don Mammoser, a professional photographer.

14. Was yesterday better than today? -- I hope not.

15. Can you live a day without TV? -- Sure. I do it often.

16. Are you upset about anything? -- Upset? No.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it!! -- Worth what? Probably.

18. Are you a bad influence? -- No. I got nobody *to* influence.

19. Night out or night in -- Depends on my mood and what the night out involves.

20. What items could you not go without during the day -- As long as I have something to occupy my mind, it doesn't matter too much what it is. I'm pretty attached to my iPhone, though.

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? -- My father-in-law, though I don't think he was my father-in-law yet at the time.

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say? -- I don't get or send text messages.

23. How do you feel about your life right now? -- Everything is fine and wonderful

24. Do you hate anyone? -- Yes.

25. If we were to look in your facebook inbox, what would we find? -- An invite from a guy I can't remember ever knowing, but who is friends with people I'm friends with. I need to look him up in my yearbooks or something.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass? -- Yes.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before? -- I doubt it. Obviously, I don't count myself.

28. What song is stuck in your head? -- None right now.

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be? -- I dunno, is my wife home at the time?

30.Wanna have grand kids by the time you're 50? -- No, thank you.

31. What do you have to do tomorrow? -- Meet with the cabinet guy. Work a couple of hours to finish out my 40 for the week.

32. Do you think too much or too little? -- Depends.

What they don't tell you in 100- and 200-level Economics classes

So it seems I need to talk about this, and my space is probably more appropriate than cluttering up somebody else's any more than I already have.

When you go to college and start studying something, no matter what it is, the first few classes you take tell you lies. They're not doing it to mislead you, they're doing it because you don't have the background and training to understand the advanced concepts yet.

In physics, when you start to talk about light, they get out the big rubber band to teach you about wavelength and frequency, resonance and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. "Light is like this", they say, even though light is almost *nothing* like that.

In geology, they tell you about C14 dating, point out that C14 findings are consistent with other methods of dating artifacts--such as deposit layers, and leave it at that. They don't have time to explain the drawbacks of C14 dating, or that where C14 dating falls down, they have other, well-tested methods.

In economics, they whip out the supply and demand model of a market, wave their Invisible Hand* at you, and talk about what happens when you vary elasticity, taxation, cost curves, and the like. They don't itemize their assumptions, because they distract from your understanding of the basic concepts.

So here, for your edification, is an incomplete list of the assumptions they *don't* tell you about in your early Econ classes that are required for the market to work the way they say it works:

( Is anyone surprised that this went long? )

Note to folks coming over from Facebook (or elsewhere): Anonymous comments are welcome here if you don't have or want an LJ account, but please do me the favor of identifying yourself in your comment. Thanks!

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This whole thing that happened in Richmond, CA this weekend (Warning! News article is potentially triggering, is certainly enraging), Jim Hines has something to say about it over in his space.

Check it out. Most of the nasty furor has died down, but I still think Jim's main point needs to be repeated--that our tendency to evaluate crimes like this as perpetrated by the Other is not conducive to expanding dialogue about prevention.