Humor Never Works on the Internet

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At least, not if it's tongue-in-cheek. In this thread I try to lightly provide constructive criticism to the only other free market guy who posts on the site, and then some environmentalist gets huffy with me.

Note to self: Defending Bryan Caplan only leads to trouble.

Comments

  1. Micha Ghertner3:14 PM

    What I don't understand about that post is this:

    But, when individuals take advantage of market failures to limit each other's freedoms, then the government has a role in correcting the market failure.

    Anyone familiar with Caplan's work should know that government itself is one of, if not the largest public goods problem. You can't use government to limit people's ability to take advantage of each other by limiting each other's freedoms when they are doing so through the government itself.

    ReplyDelete
  2. TokyoTom2:46 AM

    Bob, I hate to break it to you, but that enviro didn't get all huffy with you. He simply lapsed into a rhapsodic explanation for why he didn't mind being called a "socialist tree hugger".

    Guess one just never knows when to expect a Gaian Elocution!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bob Murphy8:10 AM

    Tom,

    So now I don't know about climate change or the English language?

    He was huffy, and he was lapsing into a long-winded narrative trying to show why my money-grubbing philosophy was decadent. And he certainly did object to being called a socialist.

    But we're buds now (or at least, last I checked).

    ReplyDelete
  4. gcallah12:36 PM

    Bob, the list of things you don't know about is much longer than that.

    ReplyDelete
  5. TokyoTom1:21 AM

    Bob, how about if I agree you're right that the guy didn't see your tongue-in-cheek humor?

    FWIW, I have had similar problems. Jeffrey Tucker, for example, complained that he thought I was being straight in this piece, so I later added a "snark alert". http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/13/who-knows-climate-science-the-mises-blog.aspx

    But maybe it's just that those who are being poked don't particularly find it funny?

    ReplyDelete
  6. gcallah2:29 AM

    TokyoTom, you have posted this URL: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2
    a couple of times on this site, but every time I try it, I get a message saying, "The system cannot find the path specified."

    Can you double-check the URL?

    ReplyDelete

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