Bishop Hill Mann makes friends
Sep 25, 2012 Climate: HSI Climate: Mann Climate: Models 
New York Times blogger Nate Silver has a book on forecasting riding high in the Amazon US charts at the moment. The Signal and the Noise is a survey of forecasting, and looks to be thoroughly entertaining. I've asked the publisher for a review copy.
Unfortunately, Silver has stumbled into the murky world of climate prediction, and has incurred the wrath of Michael E Mann, who has printed a lengthy critique at Think Progress. It's a lot milder than your normal Mannian critique, but includes many of the normal tactics. His invoking Silver's training at the University of Chicago as a cause for concern almost defies belief:
Nate Silver was trained in the Chicago school of Economics, famously characterized by its philosophy of free market fundamentalism. In addition to courses from Milton Friedman, Nate might very well have taken a course from University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, known largely for his provocative 2005 book Freakonomics and its even more audacious 2009 sequel Super Freakonomics.
Silver sounds deeply frustrated, saying that Mann's piece is not a fair critique of what he wrote. I guess he should have read The Hockey Stick Illusion before deciding that Mann was the go-to guy.
The Signal and the Noise can be bought at Amazon US. It will be published in the UK in a couple of days, but they are letting you preorder the Kindle version.
Reader Comments (95)
Sep 25, 2012 at 7:10 PM | Russell
Forgive me if I am misunderstanding some private cryptic communication you are having with the Bishop here, but if you are wanting to school someone about the current faculty of the University of Chicago and how this taints or purifies by association, then maybe you would better direct your attention towards Michael Mann?
There's this deep disconnect between the conspiracy theory, believing that every 'denialist meme' - that seeks for example, like McIntyre, simply to ask questions about something like the Hockey Stick - has to originate from reckless anti-civilization propagandists
Who would be so uncharitable as to suggest that the folks footing the bill for the barrators belaboring Mann for the last 14 years are motivated by anything but scientific curiousity?
Just look at all the money they're spending to date the younger dryas, deconvolute the K-T extinction and increase the transparency of The American Petroleum Institute .
Russell, if you ever committed yourself to a coherent context and attached some explanatory exposition you might make some sense one day ;)
I notice you stopped quoting Richard Drake at this line
Boy have I ever ;)
"younger dryas"
When you hear this phrase, you know you are in the presence of a paleoclimate equivalent of the dragonslayer.
There's something called obsession Russell, which causes you to lose sight of real dangers and focus on the illusory and fantastic. In the sentence you quote I was giving the benefit of the doubt to a contributor on HuffPo because he seemed to acknowledge the possibility of legitimate skepticism, while still struggling with the same obsession about fossil fuel funding. That was poignant. I'm not sure you've ever made it that far in my mind in your own rantings.
Meanwhile I've been quietly surprised that the HuffPo has allowed two comments of mine to go through so I've done a third in reply to what seems an honest comment about basic physics and statistics. In it I recommend HSI. I wonder what the moderators and the great professor are going to make of that.
Hmm, the reasonable reply from a rather nice Nate fan has disappeared and been replaced by two much more predictable bits of snark. But I've learned that software does strange things. I give the mods the benefit of the doubt, so help me Lord :)
avail himself of the textbook and online course offered by that good and great Chicago School climatologist, Prof. Raymond Pierrehumbert
No one should. It is ineffable twaddle, replete with errror.
Ooh! I was prompted to go and have a look at that Hufflepuff comments section and Lord what a miserable lot of Mann groupies there are there. None of them can have read the Silver book yet, yet virtually everyone I saw had an identical empty droning mantra “Thanks Professor for your great work, Nate Silver has made a mistake and we believe you implicitly”
Jesus. Intellectually damaged is the only description for that like-minded crowd. I don't feel they have been solicited for a purpose however, that level of mental inanity is common there from my experience.
Off topic but the reference to Ray Pierrehumberts book has triggered my interest. It was being touted as the potential answer to a direct question posed by Steve McIntyre about the need for an engineering quality exposition of how 2.5 deg C is derived from doubled CO2. For example in this thread here.
http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/02/james-annan-on-25-deg-c/
Personally I have always been astonished by the failure of the Climate Science to provide a satisfactory answer to the very legitimate question posed by Steve.
Now when I last checked the book was very expensive and given Pierrehumberts tendency for advocacy as shown at RealClimate I would personally be very reluctant to fork out for it. Also given how so many people say the impact of doubled CO2 is very alarming then it does not make sense for the details to be only be available in a very expensive book.
The book was published quite a while ago.
If we put snark aside does anyone know if the text book is any good and more importantly does it get anywhere close to providing an answer to Steve's requirement for a detailed explanation of the derivation of 2.5C warming?
clivere: Before you called Brian G Valentine answered?
Leopard: Yes, the lack of the phrase "I have read the book" is quite telling throughout.
Richard - I saw Brians post and it does not tell me anything other than he does not like it. He asserts errors but does not describe them so for me his post is just noise.
Fair point clive. I'd never seen Pierrehumbert's effort put forward as an answer to Steve's plea for an engineering quality exposition - thanks for that idea, which I'm surprised I've not heard mention of before.
Richard - the book was being touted by Neal King in the post I linked to above. I think I also saw a couple of other people suggest it elsewhere.
For me the failure of the Climate Science Community to address this issue is crucial. As a result I watched to see what happened when the book was published but nobody followed up which is why I am posing the question now.
Yes, thank you, I'm now into that thread too. Freely downloadable at that point, it seems, so I guess it's unlikely that Steve himself felt it was the answer or even getting on that way. But then Steve's talked about putting millions into such an effort I think. I entirely agree with you and with him.
have you tried abebooks, clivere...since the textbook is very old, there should be some unwanted 3rd hand copies knocking around
Richard - drafts were apparently made available prior to the post but when I went searching at the time I dont think they were all still available.
Actually getting hold of a copy is not that important to me. Dont even know if I would be able to follow it or would wish to put in the effort to do so.
However understanding if it potentially provides a solution to Steve McIntyres request is important.
clivere: as I recall, someone had looked at the book, perhaps even Steve M. himself, and stated that it is not sufficient.
Quite frankly, I thinik the "engineering treatment" of such a subject is really a red herring. It requires testing through controlled experimentation. The doubling of CO2 aspect is largely untestable by any means other than waiting to see how the atmosphere responds. Since CO2 production has dropped due to the economic collapse, the duration we must sit by and quietly munch on Snickers bars just jumped up by a large margin.
Maybe that's not what Steve M. has in mind, but the only other solution I can see is based on model simulations. I would not be surprised if he would outright reject any model based derivation as insufficient as well. How do you verify the models? Time as well, so we're back to the same starting point.
Indeed, the inability to test is the very reason many in here simply do not recognize climate science as a real science, at least, not as practiced by the main stream. There's lots of observation and hypothesizing, but not much else, and certainly its predictive ability is, shall we say, challenged?
Mark
I think Steve wants the process to be engineering-grade even if it seems the answer isn't going to be one.
There can be no engineering-grade analysis of the climate system.
"Grow up! Not every Socialist is a prick. Not every right winger is basically decent.
Sep 25, 2012 at 11:29 AM | Unregistered CommenterMooloo "
Well... in truth thats not true. Every socialist is indeed a prick and every rightwinger is basically decent.
"I do know I used to be a socialist and wasn't drawn to it by "hatred" of anything, even Tories. If this underlying malignant hatred can have failed to have gripped me then I am not going to believe it is a general truth base on this er, rather hateful generalisation. ;) Sep 25, 2012 at 12:06 PM | Registered CommenterThe Leopard In The Basement "
I'm going to be blunt so please don't take too much offense to this however realistically you have two types of socialists. Socialists who understand socialism aka "the leadership". Then you have the retards that follow them but don't understand socialism. Commonly called "useful idiots". You would be the useful idiot type socialist.
To put it in a simply event based display. The "leadership" says to the "useful idiot" if you press that red button everyone will get cake... however that evil "capitalist" won't let you press that button. You the "useful idiots" doesn't know or care how the cake comes to exist or anything along that line... you just know everyone gets cake. You fight and attack the evil "capitalists" who block you pressing the button, you talk about how great the world would be if someone pressed that button, you craft and you plot, whine and beg... until one day someone does press the button. Then you get cake....
However since you are a "useful idiot" you never asked about how the cake is made and one day someone does ask... and the "leadership" responds "o its made of this magical stuff called Soylent Green. Too put simply... the cake is a lie.
Socialism can never work as their is no such thing as a good socialist... you only have socialists who never got the chance to bring about their policies and then watch them fail as they always do. Really thats the only difference between a socialist and a mass murdering genocidal nutcase... A socialist doesn't/didn't have the power to bring about his/her vision of socialism.
As too the hate comment that is also correct. Pure socialists are pure collectivists. Collectivism is a view of the world where everything must be grouped. AKA all racism, prejudice, bias, etc, etc, etc is rooted in collectivism. Pure collectivists MUST hate, it is simply the way they process the world. This is also why people who are pure individualist(aka far rightwing) can not be racist. Of course as humans unless you have mental damage we can't be pure individualists. Its a goal everyone should try for but realistically no one can every reach.
Sep 26, 2012 at 2:52 AM | Unregistered Commenterrobotech master
I don't take offense at all. Thanks for attaching the flattering modifier "useful" to the pejorative. I am not so sure I can return the favour with you ;)
You seem to have a lot of logical fallacies and absolutes swirling around there. I think I pick up basically that *pure* socialism is HATE and *pure* individualism is LOVE - like some reverse 60's hippy cartoon ideal.
But since purity is always going to be a meaningless abstract in this realm I find most of what you say meaningless I'm afraid.
I understand how an ideal libertarian who wants no government and will only defend his/her family on their isolated farmstead against all races creed and colours with equal vehemence is a sweet old dear to you, I think. But the fact that modern technological humanity *has* to involve a level of social organization and negotiation in the real world is really always "socialism" at some degree, and therefore will always taint and negate your concept of *purity*. And will always do so. So - Get real! ;)
"You seem to have a lot of logical fallacies and absolutes swirling around there."
No just science and simple logic... however statements such as this
"I think I pick up basically that *pure* socialism is HATE and *pure* individualism is LOVE - like some reverse 60's hippy cartoon ideal."
and
"But the fact that modern technological humanity *has* to involve a level of social organization and negotiation in the real world is really always "socialism" at some degree. And will always be so. So get real. ;)"
both contain logical failures and create strawman arguments that I never state nor agree with. I'm happy to break done the simple science behind collectivism/individualism and other thought processes that come from these basic ideologies.
Sep 26, 2012 at 5:09 AM | Unregistered Commenterrobotech master
Okay thanks, lets keep it focused shall we?
"This is also why people who are pure individualist(aka far rightwing) can not be racist."
Could you explain the "can not" in there to me? How or why does the purity of someones individualism deny the possibility of racism in their nature?
Remember "can not" means something to some people (i.e. me). ;)
Apologies to robotech, it turned out I was tweaking the last part of my 5:02 AM comment (its a habit I am getting addicted to!) before I saw you had then responded with a quote from the previous version - but I don't think the sentiment changed to confuse the issue.
Back to Mann's article and the Huffington Post. I made four comments but the most important, the third, in which I recommended HSI, has not appeared. To be honest I was surprised the others did. So here's the record. Hugh-Gee said in reply to me (you can expand to see the subthread):
My rponse, which it seems was too much for the HuffPo:
I tried to keep it mild, given the context. Let's hope Nate Silver, despite the inducement of the best Penn State ice cream, is going to cause many millions to delve in and think again about such matters.
Noble twit
M. Mann clearly likes this being described as "Nobel Prize-winning scientist", having linked to the headline from his Facebook page.
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/20544/20120925/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-michael-mann-talks-climate-change-politics
Clearly happy to get mileage from his 1/2701th share (the 1th being Al Gore). Can you every really trust a man with such a lack of modesty?
Twitter: Below that entry he says: "So Nate Silver and I have been having a back-and-forth on twitter tonight about my Huffington Post commentary on his book. You can follow at twitter: @MichaelEMann & @FiveThirtyEight"
Well I can't see what Mann said because there's some block on me seeing his account. But for Nate Silver, there's no 'back-and-forth', but a simple a statement of his position (already noted by Paul Matthews above):
"Deeply frustrated to see @MichaelEMann's critique of my book. It's not a fair representation of what I wrote. Mann attributes me as endorsing a number of premises that the book actually refutes.
e.g. the book is very careful to describe differences between prediction of physical systems and prediction in fields like economics. I hope that it's possible to say climate prediction is a "complicated" subject WITHOUT falling into the false equivalence trap.Good thing about a book is that you can walk through the evidence WITH the reader, rather than commanding them how to think about it.
But that strategy fails, I suppose, if reviewers stop reading half-way through it. "
"and therefore will always taint and negate your concept of *purity*."
This a a strawman that I already stated in my first post to prevent just such a thing from being created... o well.
"Of course as humans unless you have mental damage we can't be pure individualists."
Sep 26, 2012 at 2:52 AM | Unregistered Commenterrobotech master
-----
"Okay thanks, lets keep it focused shall we?
"This is also why people who are pure individualist(aka far rightwing) can not be racist."
Could you explain the "can not" in there to me? How or why does the purity of someones individualism deny the possibility of racism in their nature?
Remember "can not" means something to some people (i.e. me). ;)
Sep 26, 2012 at 5:23 AM | Registered CommenterThe Leopard In The Basement "
In reference to "can not" would scientifically impossible be a more exact wording to your liking?
As to why?
Racism is what? Hate of a race.
What is a race? It is a group.
What does not believe in the existence of groups? A pure individualist sees only unique single entities exist in that ideological thought process. Someone who is a pure individualist can't understand through the thought processes of that ideology what a group is. In simpler terms take a calculator and punch in any number and then divide that number by zero... that would be the thought result. It is simply not scientifically possible for a pure individualist to be racist.
Cool, mention of Milton Friedman, who won (individually, NB Mann) the Nobel Prize for Economics back when it meant something. He was an adviser to President Reagan, which is one reason why people with certain political views continue to use him as a symbol of evil even after his death - and thanks to Foxgoose, we now find that he could affect foetuses in the womb.
Friedman believed in minimising State intervention in markets and personal behaviour, and had the chops to back up his views with brilliant and groundbreaking work in economic analysis. Interestingly, he was a pioneer of econometrics, aka economic modelling. But his intellectual rigour would never have allowed him to go along with the rubbish that passes for modelling in many fields today.
Mann is not fit to tie his bootlaces. Not only was Friedman brighter by several factors, his personal integrity was never, ever legitimately questioned in his long and distinguished career. No-one ever accused him of making stuff up or fudging, except in the context of political slanging matches. His data and methodology were always impeccable.
He was said to be the most influential economist of the C20th, after Keynes. Mann is like a bad-tempered fox terrier yapping at the foot of the Great Pyramid here.
"He was said to be the most influential economist of the C20th, after Keynes. "
Sep 26, 2012 at 11:29 AM | Unregistered Commenterjohanna
Sadly for all of humanity I tend to agree with this. World would be a much different place if marx and keynes were 2nd fiddle theories in college...
Sep 26, 2012 at 12:46 PM | robotech master
OK, I just see what you say as a meaningless abstraction then in that case. I guess it must be good gruel for some discussion groups though, but not me. Knock yourselves out ;)
Sep 26, 2012 at 7:36 AM | Richard Drake
I don't see any reason why your comment should not have gone through but I don't see it yet. I'd assumed that Huff was moderated at a reasonable CiF level ( I think Cif is reasonable to newcomers) so it sounds like maybe the above the line may get a say in what passes. If so I'd give up waiting myself.
The thing that strikes me is that the guy you respond to is convinced that Mann has pointed out that Silver "got some of the basic physics wrong" but reading what Mann actually says I see no striking "gotchas" e.g such as pointing out Silver has mistaken up for down. ;)
All Mann picks upon are many question of interpretation that depend on many value judgements that depend on where you stand on a subject. E.g.
Its a familiar Mannian authoritative bloviating style that is nauseating familiar and I wouldn't buy it from anyone I liked let alone Mann. But apparently it seems to have convinced your bovine brained interlocutor.
To convince the poster who claims to be a fan and a close reader of Silver that he has been "caught" out at a basic science level on that evidence makes me feel that Silver either has many dumb fans or some phoney fans ;)
"Its a familiar Mannian authoritative bloviating style that is nauseating familiar..."
Anybody thinks Mann's stock has fallen like a rock ever since he started opening his mouth more frequently?
Comrade Leopard, if my cat did that to a mouse, I'd call it cruel. It was good fun while it lasted though.
Sep 26, 2012 at 5:47 PM | shub
I can't see any improvement in his technique. It has to be damaging for him hasn't it?
There will always be spaces for a kind of pseudo-intellectual charlatan hero you get on lefty sites - like Huffpo and ghettos on CiF, but since Mann is supposed to be operating as a more scientific authority I can't believe he can keep this up and maintain any credibility like that.
However while re-reading more closely that piece again to check if Mann really had picked up Silver on any “basic science” errors I find it admittedly uncomforting to realise how quickly I have become used to skimming over his style. His tendency to riff on tangents about vague connections like Levitt and Freidman really is deranged I can easily skip over it. However it seems this skippable bit is food for the acolytes who devour it without thinking. In fact that is where Mann makes claims of “basic physics” errors but not by Silver but by Levitt. It seems this claim is picked up by the acolyte Richard Drake is talking to as reflecting straight onto Silver – In fact the acolyte says .
I can’t condemn the acolyte for thinking this because I admit to being numbed by his style too!
However I suggest this reading stupidity must be a quality in both friend and foe that Mann depends upon for his existence. He is so mind-numbingly crap he just has to be right I guess the fans must think?
I think Mann could always choose to pursue this path - he can always drift towards the unassailable guru with a tight devoted coterie following (a bit like Julian Assange seems to me, maybe controversially!) However like Assange (but for different reasons) I think he will become ever more marginalised as an irrelevancy.
So, the HuffPo let me recommend HSI at the second attempt:
You can see the context, starting with the ghastly Milton Friedman indoctrinating poor Nate as an embryo, here. Any 'Click Here To See them All' links need your attention to reveal the full picture.
I don't often partake in CiF Leopard (thanks for the reflections) but every now and then I like to mix with a crowd starting from a different place from all of us. One does need more discipline and that's not a bad thing. Whether anyone reads HSI as a result of this who knows - even to have it mentioned under Mann's name feels good, however many pages and 'Click Here To See them All' links it's hidden by. Perhaps Nate himself will read it before long.
My overall feelings about the HuffPo system is that it's well ahead of CiF or the Telegraph blog efforts. And the moderation seems to me to be helping. A cautious positive.
"OK, I just see what you say as a meaningless abstraction then in that case. I guess it must be good gruel for some discussion groups though, but not me. Knock yourselves out ;)"
Sep 26, 2012 at 3:40 PM | Registered CommenterThe Leopard In The Basement
Sadly people like you who understand nothing about science, logic or rational thought simply refuse to even open your mind to very simple ideas. Talking to someone like you in the sociology sense of individualist/collectivist and explaining it to you would be like someone explaining math and the concept of zero. You simply refuse to understand it because it is to complex and goes against your programed biases. You also admit as such since you have no counter other then the simple self defense mechanism of running away.
Come on robotech, you don't have to bite someone's head off just because they are a socialist.
No need for personal attacks, robotech. I'm no socialist, but regard the Leopard as one of the most erudite and entertaining commenters on this site.
We don't all have to agree about everything, you know. For example, while I regard Milton Friedman as a giant of the C20th, I also have a great deal of respect for Keynes (whose actual work is often misrepresented and oversimplified).
Nate Silver was analyzing polls for the Obama campaign, and has access to their internal polls at his 538 blog at The New York Times, from which he provides the slant on polling that the Times requires.
Mann should have realized that Nate was on his team.
Interesting to see that Hayek hasn't been given a mention here. All this focus on Friedman, by all sides, as an ideal of free market economics (who was more on the crony captitalist "social manipulation" side of economics I think) would have made Hayek laugh - or cry? ;)
When Hayek dedicated "The Road to Serfdom" to:
"The Soclialists of all parties."
He meant this as a reproof to people and a wake up call. I think it also acts as a "Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone" admonishment.
Like when being confronted by pompous religious piety or environmental heroic bloviaters - I always laugh in eager expecation when confronted by armchair puritan libertarian, individualist posers - because I am always thereafter on the look out for the classic sign of hypocrisy. It usual comes in the mundane trip-up: the requirements for huge maintained arm forces or crony capitalism, if not that, then you can usually rely at other times a stated desire for circumscribing the behaviour of other "individualists" who don't fit their particular flavour of individualism ;)
I would also recommend reading the Chapter on Individualism and Collectivism in Hayek.
“Individualism has a bad name today and the term has come to be connected with egotism and selfishness. But the individualism of which we speak in contrast to socialism and all other forms of collectivism has no necessary connection with these... It does not assume, as is often asserted, that man is egoistic or selfish or ought to be. It merely starts from the indisputable fact that the limits of our powers of imagination make it impossible to include in our scale of values more than a sector of the needs of the whole society...From this the individualist concludes that the individuals should be allowed, within defined limits, to follow their own values..."
robotech master what do you think Hayek means by the "defined limits" here? Do you care?
If there are no limits, as you imply, then this means the freedom for an individualists to have a value such as er, "racism" however badly derived.
Robotech, it is you who are doing the dodging here - you are the one who has dodged the clear implication that there can be no barrier for a pure individualist to have racist values. If you deny the "defined limits" above then your abstract absolute "scientific" truths need to be policed to spare you any blushes, you would have to be denying that freedom with some sort of, um, social control ;)
Leopard, Friedman wrote the introduction to the 50th edition of Hayek's book, in which he said:
“Over the years, I have made it a practice to inquire of believers in individualism how they came to depart from the collectivist orthodoxy of our times. For years, the most frequent answer was a reference to the book for which I have the honor of writing this introduction.”
Can you please elaborate on your reference to Friedman espousing 'crony capitalist social manipulation"? I find it odd, because some hard line libertarian Austrian school economists criticise him for being too judgemental about monopolies and oligopolies. He was an early advocate of 'trust-busting', for example, for which he has been excoriated by some purists.
Sep 27, 2012 at 10:13 AM | johanna
I admit to little knowledge of Friedman so me casting the "crony capitalism" aspersion is unjustified I admit. I have read "The Road to Serfdom" but I didn't know about the Friedman forward to the 50th edition - I wonder how significant that it was after Hayek's death?
In fact what prompted me was I had just watched the rather good BBC documentary "Masters of Money: Friedrich Hayek" by Stephanie Flanders, and that reminded me of her mention of Friedman comparison to Hayek which is summarised here.
...
I vaguely know Friedman had criticised Hayek's economics as naive and I think that Hayek had a more fundamental view of free markets that may have been so described, but as Flanders concluded at the end of the documentary Hayek's view of the markets has never been really tried so we can never know. They may never be tried because at the end of the day they would take away some aspect of scoial control from the politicans and policy makers that would make them redundant.
All comes down to the reality of human nature against absolute abstractions again I guess.
OK, you've forced me to digress - about Hayek, Friedman and Friedman's precocious (and initially reluctant) disciple, Thomas Sowell. Sowell of course started as a Marxist but, unlike Nate Silver, was born at such a time as to have courses from Friedman at Chicago in his radical youth. Later he came to appreciate his teacher a great deal. In the RealPlayer audio here (does it work as video too?) he gives a heartfelt and amusing tribute to his mentor at a Cato event in 2004.
The link with Hayek? Sowell explains how in Professor Friedman's reading list for his doctoral course on Price Theory there was an obscure article by Hayek called The Use of Knowledge in Society. Sowell couldn't work out what it was doing there but later, when he was studying some strange anomalies in prices in the Soviet Union, this article came back to him as a key to unlock the situation. Sowell's breakthrough work, Knowledge and Decisions, published by Midge Decter at Basic Books in 1980, arose from this piece of Hayek, passed on, in his wisdom, by Friedman.
And that reminds me, I only just came across Sowell's 2001 Thoughts About Writing, in which he praises Decter as a editor - one of the very few that he has even a pittance of respect for. Very amusing and helpful to this amateur.
Nice to meet some fellow economics nerds here - science is all very well, but somebody's got to pay for it ;). Most 'green' policies re energy are rendered nonsense by what I learned in high school economics. It is dispiriting to encounter such widespread ignorance of things that were readily comprehensible to my class of 16/17 year olds.
Surprised you responded back been gone hope you will return.
"It usual comes in the mundane trip-up: the requirements for huge maintained arm forces or crony capitalism,"
First crony capitalism is socialism... at least for our debate. We should stick to one economic scale(capitalism/socialism) vs another(free market capitalism/state capitalism). If you wish to change or to the other scale then thats find... but lets stick to one or the other.
"robotech master what do you think Hayek means by the "defined limits" here? Do you care?"
While I'll try to avoid putting words in Hayeks mouth the general principle can be summed up in the simple statement "Government is a necessary evil". To this meaning that man can not be individualists in a pure sense because they are men and thus in order to have a functional freedom one must accept that collectivism exists and that one must in many cases become part of a collective.
Or even simpler. Anarchy and capitalism will always be attacked by the socialist/totalitarian and will often lose that battle.
Hayek believe in what would be called "libertarianism" or as little government as you possible can have... ever reducing as best you can and trying to get as close to anarchy as possible while still maintaining a functional society.
It should be understand that what Hayek believe was most likely a scale that always shifted increasing toward anarchy as technology among other things allowed.
"Robotech, it is you who are doing the dodging here - you are the one who has dodged the clear implication that there can be no barrier for a pure individualist to have racist values. If you deny the "defined limits" above then your abstract absolute "scientific" truths need to be policed to spare you any blushes, you would have to be denying that freedom with some sort of, um, social control ;)"
Not exactly even sure if you are arguing or just trying to say "I say A because I say A and thus if it is A I win".
"Abstract absolute" is a meaningless argument since we both agree that its not abstract at all... Just because it is not easily obtained for humans doesn't make it abstract.
As to the "racism" can could argue since individual believe everyone to be a "race" that by hating one person they would be "racist" against that ones persons "race". However thats really really stretching the definition to a very extreme distortion.
"In fact what prompted me was I had just watched the rather good BBC documentary "Masters of Money: Friedrich Hayek" by Stephanie Flanders,"
Your first problem is your taking the BBC at face value...
"When it comes to the 1930s, history has not looked kindly on Hayek's arguments. The classic study of the depression by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, decades later, made a convincing case that it was caused by the US central bank pumping too little money into the economy, not too much."
This is complete BS. It has long been proven that the government likely had a huge role in causing the crash but pretty much without doubt that they extended it. The statement "made a convincing case that it was caused by the US central bank pumping too little money into the economy, not too much."
Is not really true. Its a clever twist in that we can not know for sure but since our "approved" theory is that we would spend more thats how "it would have been fixed". The problem is much like "O lets just raise taxes". You can spend all you want and be wrong and just claim you didn't spend enough. This is current in effect happening right now globally with massive money printing and spending... which will fail. Then 60 years from now some douchebag will get on TV and claim "well if only we had spent more it would have fixed it".
I would also tend to agree that Friedman would be closer to keynes then hayek. When hayek first started out like many people of his day the only thought process was collectivism... to he and much of the world hitler was pretty rightwing. This extremely narrow view of the world still exists and is in fact almost common place. The world can only be collectivist... in fact it is in many respects the basis of your argument of "abstract". Hayek having watched hitler and many other socialists fail using "standard" science accepted that "standard" science could and probable was wrong. He was one of the hardest to rebel against "standard". However he wasn't alone. People like say Mises wrote a good amount about the failures/likely failures of the "stalin is a moderate, hitler is rightwing" narrow mind set.
I would suggest if your interested in reading others that have similar ideologies to mind that you grab this book by Mises up. I believe you can get a free pdf here http://library.mises.org/books/Ludwig%20von%20Mises/Socialism%20An%20Economic%20and%20Sociological%20Analysis.pdf
If thats not update to date if you look you can find it.
The book is important because it was written in 1922. It all but for shadows the events of the 30s, 40s and even today.
In many respects it is a book written to debunk the very basis of the "abstract" of the individualist.