I’m not sure if it’s time for Monday Message Board, as it’s still Sunday in Maryland. But I guess blogging has its own time, and this is an Australian blog. So open up with your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).

Roll up yet again for the Monday Message Board. All topics welcome, civilised discussion, no coarse language please.

Suggested discussion starter 1: Why do the great majority of visitors read blogs, but never comment?

Suggested discussion starter 2: What’s your favorite self-referential paradox?

Update Although others came close, Chris Sheil gets the prize for recognising the subtle link between my two topics. Anyone who comments on topic 1 instantly disqualifies themselves, since I want to find out what motivates non-commenters.

Further update Controversy rages in the comments thread, with some participants maintaining the c8to should have been given the prize, and others rejecting the identity politics inherent in my supposition that commenters are not qualified to comment on the motivations of noncommenters. All this makes James Russell’s head explode. Read, enjoy, and comment!

It’s time, once again, for the (original and best!) Monday Message Board, where you get to comment on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language please).

It’s time for the regular Monday Message Board when you have your chance to have your say on any topic whatsoever (as always, civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).

I’d be interested if any readers wanted to say something about where and why they read this blog.

It’s time for the regular Monday Message Board when you have your chance to have your say on any topic whatsoever (as always, civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).

Although I begged off this job in my birthday message, I’ll probably end up doing a “state of the blogosphere” piece before too long, so any suggestions/opinions/predictions of imminent collapse will be of particular interest to me. But, as always, anything goes!

Update I wasn’t sure if there would be much interest in the new GG. But judging from the Message Board there’s heaps, including Rob Corr’s brush with fame.

Drawn from life by Stella Bowen, kindly lent to me by reader and fellow-economist, Nick Gruen. Bowen was an Adelaide-born painter who, like most artistically inclined Australians before the election of the Whitlam government in 1972, left for Europe at the first opportunity and never returned. She took up with the American writer Ford Madox Ford and sacrificed her career to what she perceived to be his greater talent. I haven’t read any of Ford’s books, and I guess we can’t know what Bowen would have produced given a free run, so I’m not going to make a call on this for the moment.

Inevitably, I’m also reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. My son Daniel devoured it on the afternoon of its release and now I have to read it as well if I’m to remain au courant with the younger members of the literary world. As always, JK Rowling does an excellent job, and its a pleasant read, with the trend to ever-longer volumes seemingly having levelled out after The Goblet of Fire.

It’s time for your comments on all topics. As always, civilised discussion and no coarse language please.

I’d be interested on views about the way forward (if any) for Federal Labor.

The term ‘rational’ and its variants (rationality, rationalism) are used in a lot of contexts in economic debate, both positively and negatively, but nearly always sloppily or dishonestly. A specimen I’ve seen on more occasions than I can count is the line (usually presented with a sense of witty originality) ‘if you are opposed to economic rationalism, you must be in favor of economic irrationalism’.

In keeping with the idea of this regular feature, I thought about providing a definition that would clarify the issues surrounding this word and the reasons it causes so much confusion. In reflecting on the problem, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that the word ‘rational’ has no meaning that cannot better be conveyed by some alternative term and that the best advice is probably to avoid it altogether.
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As everyone is busy celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday today, today’s Message Board will probably be a bit quiet, but that gives anyone who’s been waiting to post their first comment an ideal time to do so.

My attempted discussion-starter is a request for suggestions for more and better public holidays. For example, if we can have a holiday on a fictitious date the Queen’s Birthday who not the Horses’ birthday?

As always, please keep the discussion civilised and avoid coarse language.

This is a followup to my earlier posts on consequentialism/utilitarianism. A notable debate in the literature on this topic is on whether, from a consequentialist or utilitarian perspective, it is best to try always to choose the action with the best consequences (act-consequentialism) or whether to try to find those general rules which, on average, yield the best consequences, and follow those rules even when in particular cases, they yield bad consequences (rule-consequentialism).
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