Asymmetrical Information

Real Audio? Lost me before you started.

I was going to say the same thing. How about an animated gif? ASCII art? Better than real and viewable by more people. :P

Magazine??

Doesn't The Economist call themselves a newspaper or something?

In case we can't get enough of Jane on video? I don't have any Jane on video. Please somebody post some links.

Megan -

I thought you did a great job. Actually, you were really, really awesome.

Random comments on the talk:

It’s been awhile since I lived in New York but I’d forgotten about the visceral hatred for Republicans, especially those of the Bush ilk. While I’m not a fan of most of the President’s policies, I was mystified to hear the comments made at your discussion, especially since they weren’t made as controversial comments, but rather than a known truth. In response to the “Bush is a liar” comments, I thought your British colleague had a telling point – that is, most people believe what they say. To say otherwise doesn’t allow much of a conversation. Argue the belief based on the evidence (which in reference to WMDs, was believed by everyone, not just Bush; this includes the Clinton administration, European nations, etc.; recall that one of the biggest arguments against the war was that Saddam would unleash WMD on our troops, as he had against the Kurds, which is well documented). Towards the end, I was shocked that someone stood up and made the point that Clinton did the exact same as Bush. Ask an outraged Democrat who says that Clinton was a great president what he thinks about the war in Kosovo or his attacks against Iraq (especially during his impeachment hearings). I suspect you will find silence or stuttering.

Are people, as a whole, bad? I was shocked that this even came up. I’d never thought about it before, but it seemed like some thought that people in general are the problem (especially when it comes to global warning). While I’m biased, I’ll always side with the humans. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to look at this moralistically since without humans, there would be no morality.

I’m a recent father who is definitely the secondary caregiver. My wife (while working) has embraced the position and reads extensively on the subject. She is constantly telling me what “they” say about this or that risk. At Target the other day, she was aghast that I would sit our child in the front seat of the buggy, without any sort of protection. She was concerned about the germs he could catch from the seat. She showed me a protective seat that I refused to buy. I’m deeply impressed by her commitment to our son, and deeply appreciative. But the fact that she reads so many “parent” magazines leads her to be concerned about so many things that I find irrational. Part of this is her own nature (we met because of her aversion to public toilets – a story for another time), but I feel like prominent journalism shouldn’t acerbate these tendencies.

I used to work in Equity Research, the same one as the wah-wah woman who married an Iranian. If she lost her job because she refused to “prostitute” herself, she certainly has legal recourse. But she said that she can’t practice because she lost her license. This is a SEC or NASD decision, which means that she did something wrong regarding a proffering of advice. I don’t know her history, but your license can’t be revoked for not taking off your top. Perhaps her superiors fabricated evidence about her, but surely she can fight that. There are mechanisms. After all, this is an extremely high paid field. If she won the awards she claims, and worked in New York, she probably made at least $250,000 per year, at an absolute minimum.

All in all, a great job on your part. It was a really fascinating discussion (yes, I listened to it all; even through the tape change).

Regards.

Good wrap-up on the panel, Emmett, which I had the pleasure of attending.

The visceral Bush bashing was pretty amusing and I thought Mr. Fueredi baited the hook and landed most of them quite effectively. (I was sitting behind the Barabara Ehrenreich fan and could see her visibly squirming.) Kudos to Jane for getting me to a panel where I could see this interesting thinker.

Anyway, I still enjoyed seeing Jane in person. Her self-described semi-prepared remarks still outdid the well-rehearsed inanities of her Nation counterpart.

Some of the audience questions, as described in Emmett's comment were, well, interesting. I wish I was feeling better that day, because I usually enjoy contributing at forums like this. Instead I saved my energy to introduce myself to Ms. McCardle, who I've been reading since the first days of LFTWTC. Keep up the good work Megan. You're an obvious inspiriation to many eminences in the blogosphere but also to those who blog and comment on a less regular schedule.

If I ever get around to writing the book I want to do, it will be in no small part to the many seeds of phrase and thought you have planted on your blog.

I ran across this short essay about Jane, I thought it was fascinating:
http://ragandbonebuffet.blogspot.com/2007/03/jane-galt-as-anti-modernist.html
She would probably be too embarrassed to draw your attention to it herself.

Thanks for the video. Really enjoyed it.

Format was great on my wireless broadband connection. Much smoother than blogging heads.

Real Player works for me. I have not been able to view Blogging Heads. You did fine.

You can also just open it with VLC and just get audio.

Was also there and wanted to let everyone know that the many of the audience questions were very much the tinfoil-hat variety, and the person who made the "tinfoil-hat" analogy was my uber-liberal husband.

Not all of us New York Liberals are like that.

EmmettCloud - recall that one of the biggest arguments against the war was that Saddam would unleash WMD on our troops

Ya know, I never heard that one used by any actual opponent of the war. Most of what I heard was "The UN certified that Iraq didn't have WMDs any more" "The Iraqis might consider us as invaders" and "It'd be better if we 'had our allies with us'"

The last of which turned out to be worthless, of course. France had it's own (corrupt) reasons for trying to nonchalantly shoot us in the foot which weren't going to change with diplomacy and sweet talk. And the UN oil for food program was far more corrupt than people suspected pre-war. But otherwise the arguments seemed reasonably accurate.

I remember waiting for Bush to try and plant some kind of WMDs and declare then 'found.' That the CIA never did that seriously surprised me.

Where is Jane? I'm having withdrawals....

Frank makes a valid point about how fear is a means by which we shape our identity and define a community, but he meanders pensively into post-modernism when he promiscuously suggests that all "fear mongering" should be rejected, which suggests that all threats are of equal weight and probability. (The way he formulates his case makes his case either circular or just wrong. Of course we should resist "fear mongering" - spreading ungrounded fears. The real question is which fears are not grounded, which are, and by how much?) Clearly you stand a greater chance of dying by being hit by a car than by being hit by a meteorite. Fear of one should not be rejected as readily as fear of the other.

So in one sense, Chris is more correct than Frank. But Chris misdiagnoses the problem when asserts that responsibility rests mainly on the shoulders of journalists. People liked to be scared. Journalists loose paying customers to their competitors if they fail to supply the required dose of fear. (I vaguely remember reading a story - from Julian Simon? - about a newspaper devoted to reporting only good news. It soon folded due to lack of interest.)

Looks like the accurate calibration of risks with fear will remain the preserve of specialists in the insurance industry. By extension, the recalibration of >popular

Looks like the accurate calibration of risks with fear will remain the preserve of specialists in the insurance industry. By extension, the recalibration of ~popular~ fears with actual risk would more readily come about if information on insurance premiums were more widely available. (What is the premium of terrorism insurance these days, anyway? And how does it compare to the premium for last year? I have a devil of a time finding this information). Here is a proposal, an editor could include a link to the relevant insurance information at the end of every fear story.

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