Over Herding

sheepdogHuman beings have a strong herding instinct, certainly as strong as the instinct that guides, horses, cattle, sheep and many other animals. How do we know humans are herd animals? We watch them with our euphemism free clear vision. Humans herd other animals and they also herd one another.

The Internet has evolved into the greatest herding tool since the cattle prod. So how do humans herd each other? They use the same techniques they employ in herding less intelligent animals. A reward is offered and choices are narrowed. The human animal takes the reward and continues down the path of least resistance that they are offered. Sometimes fear is used to scare them down a preferred path. It is the same as is with other animals. Humans deny being herd animals but all one needs to do is watch them.

Like any other animal they can be over herded and that is what the Internet has done. A complete herding industry has evolved where behavior and opinions are managed. Google and facebook are completely funded by human herding. Each determines what you see and each profits by guiding people, limiting choices and and stimulating them.

Just like with the cattle drives of old, too much herding in too short of a time wears the animal down. Americans today are like a herd of dairy cows that has been over milked. Over herding destroys the utility of animals.

Internet advertisers are not getting results and they are becoming very aggressive. It is getting harder to get folks to click the mouse. People are saying to themselves. Nope, I am not falling for that again. News sites are losing readers because it is not worth the trouble given all of the badgering they encounter in the process. This kind of thing is normal where consumers have free choice, even when it is limited. Consumers are not behaving in the ways ad companies expected them to. It is turning out that the Internet is not a source of unlimited profits after all.

Here is Curbside Jimmy’s Euphemism-Mountain.mp3. It is all about the euphemisms of life.

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About Fantasy Free Economics

James Quillian independent scholar,free market economist,and teacher of natural law. Who is James Quillian? Certainly I am nobody special, Just a tireless academic and deep thinker. Besides that, I have broken the code with respect to economics and political science. Credentials? Nothing you would be impressed with. I am not a household name. It is hard to become famous writing that virtually no one in the country is genuinely not in touch with reality. But, if I did not do that, there would be no point in my broking the broken the code. If you read the blog, it is easy to see that there are just a few charts, no math and no quantitative analysis. That is not by accident. Given what I know, those items are completely useless. I do turn out to be highly adept at applying natural law. Natural law has predominance over any principles the social science comes up. By virtue of understanding natural law, I can debunk, in just a few sentences , any theory that calls for intervention by a government. My taking the time to understand the ins and outs of Keynes General Theory is about like expecting a chemistry student to completely grasp all that the alchemists of the middle ages thought they understood in efforts to turn base metals into goal. Keynesian theory clearly calls for complete objectivity. Government can only make political decisions. Keynesian techniques call for economic decisions. So, why go any further with that? Fantasy Free Economics is in a sense a lot like technical analysis. Technical analysis began with the premise that it was impossible to gain enough information studying fundamentals to gain a trading advantage. Study the behavior of investors instead. Unlike technical analysis, I don't use technical charts. What I understand are the incentives of different people and entities active in the economics arena. For example, there is no such thing as an incentive to serve with life in the aggregate. In the aggregate, only self interest applies. It is routinely assumed otherwise. That is highly unappealing. But, I am sorry. That is the way it is. I can accept that because I am genuinely in touch with reality. Step one in using Fantasy Free Economics is for me to understand just how little I really know. A highly credentialed economist may know 100 times what I do based on the standard dogma. Compare the knowledge each of us has compared to all there is to know and we both look like we know nothing at all. There is always more than we don't know than what we do know. I am humble enough to present myself on that basis. Why? That is the way it is. I am not bad at math. I have taught math. What I understand is when to use it and when to rely on something else. Math is useless in natural law so I don't use it. While others look at numbers, I am busy understanding the forces in nature that makes their numbers what they are. That gives me a clear advantage.

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