Reginald Houseman

I just recently re-read the Honor of the Queen.

I'm not exactly sure if Houseman is actually a good economist or people just say he is.

I mean, what kind of economist has never heard of game theory? According to the Honorverse wiki he's got a PhD and is 'renowned' and considered to be 'brilliant'. Considering the importance of game theory to economics and that the rudimental introductory example of game theory is 'Prisoner's Dilemma' (not to mention 'War') I am at a loss to understand why Houseman couldn't see that 'cooperating' when the counter-party chooses to 'defect' would lead to a unsatisfactory result. I imagine that if someone uttered the words 'Nash Equilibrium' to Houseman he would just stare blankly at them, possibly while drooling on his shirt.

Maybe in the next two thousand years economics truly lives down to its title of 'the dismal science' and is considered a lowlier profession than 'garbage technician'. Consequently the best practitioners would nevertheless constitute the dregs of society?

For me to take a villain seriously I have to at least respect some quality about them... Rob S. Pierre was intelligent, St. Just was disciplined and ruthless, even Cordelia Ransom was terrifyingly homicidal. Houseman? Maybe he is a good economist and just experiences a mental short circuit due to his political prejudices, but he just comes across as dumb to me, as well as contemptible for his conduct.

BobfromSydney wrote:I just recently re-read the Honor of the Queen.

I'm not exactly sure if Houseman is actually a good economist or people just say he is.

...

...Houseman? Maybe he is a good economist and just experiences a mental short circuit due to his political prejudices, but he just comes across as dumb to me, as well as contemptible for his conduct.

Honor didn't hit him nearly as hard or as often as she should have.

In later volumes we learn a bit more about those who consider him a good economist. HotQ does give enough about him to deduce he is an "ivory tower intellectual" with very little correlation between his pet theories and reality.

While Houseman does have Strawman tendencies, he must have some mental agility for him to have reached the position he attained prior to his unfortunate encounter with Honor's fist.

Houseman was a rather mild case of Strawman compared to one character in a book I read (that I cannot remember the name of. That character was an environmental activist who couldn't understand why the water in a marsh was unfit to drink, since it was "an untouched natural environment".

Michael Everett wrote:While Houseman does have Strawman tendencies, he must have some mental agility for him to have reached the position he attained prior to his unfortunate encounter with Honor's fist.

Houseman was a rather mild case of Strawman compared to one character in a book I read (that I cannot remember the name of. That character was an environmental activist who couldn't understand why the water in a marsh was unfit to drink, since it was "an untouched natural environment".

That reminds me of my mother in law who has recently caught the 'organic' bug. She keeps buying us 'organic' groceries that are inferior in quality to the fresh products we prefer to buy for ourselves. (i.e. 'organic' juice that's made from concentrate, rather than fresh juice).

Houseman is not an enemy. There is no need to attempt to respect him.

He is merely an obstacle, with an aura of importance. Like a police-line saw horse. No, wait - more like crime scene tape.

dreamrider

I think it's pretty clear from the text that Houseman would say it's not a Prisoner's Dilemma, and that it's the stupid military people and warmongers who think it's a Prisoner's Dilemma who are creating a Prisoner's Dilemma through their self-fulfilling prophecies.

CC is preferable to CD, says Reginald Houseman, because CD has all the annoying costs of war and conflict and blowing stuff up - and what do you get for it? A destroyed planetary economy you then have to occupy? Who wants that? CC has all the benefits of exchange and trade and division of labor. Everyone wants CC, and everyone who thinks CD is better is a militaristic moron who knows nothing about how the economy works.

He thinks it's his job to get both sides down at a table, slap them in the head and show them how rich they could be if they just put aside their petty, idiotic, backward differences, and their eyes will open wide and mouths drop open and next week there'll be a flourishing trade between Masada and Grayson.

Houseman is an academic who puts too much stock in the rationality assumption and the automatic belief that people are utility maximizers, and just can't understand that people could have a goal that isn't maximization of their absolute wealth.

Actually, in a universe where it's pretty clear that there've been few wars (and the Solarian League likely represents a terrific example of the benefits of trade and interconnected commerce and has for centuries) it's not surprising that such an assumption has become bedrock of some academic economics. Particularly in Manticore, which is the epicenter of that wealth and sees all the benefits up close and personal. After all, it's bedrock of some academic economics now.

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dreamrider wrote:Houseman is not an enemy. There is no need to attempt to respect him.

He is merely an obstacle, with an aura of importance. Like a police-line saw horse. No, wait - more like crime scene tape.

dreamrider

I think you're being too kind. Houseman is just a bug that needs squishing - nothing more, nothing less.

Fortunately, Honor carries a very effective flyswatter.

Though an ass he is, you cannot judge his asininity solely on the premise that an economist so far in the future doesn't know about game theory. Game theory has its advantages and disadvantages that may not make it so appealing in the future...especially in economics because it has its limitations when trying to predict realistic behaviour. One problem manifests itself when the 'set' because infinite as opposed to finite.

cthia wrote:Though an ass he is, you cannot judge his asininity solely on the premise that an economist so far in the future doesn't know about game theory. Game theory has its advantages and disadvantages that may not make it so appealing in the future...especially in economics because it has its limitations when trying to predict realistic behaviour. One problem manifests itself when the 'set' because infinite as opposed to finite.

Game theory says nothing that isn't said by plain english elsewhere. It's just a way of either describing logic, or of discovering logical conclusions that can then be translated into english. The weakness with the assertion that "Houseman was wrong because he didn't know game theory" isn't that game theory might not be reasonable in the future (although that is very possible), it's the assumption that knowing game theory means believing Grayson/Masada was a prisoner's dilemma, which Houseman demonstrably did not believe.

Crown Loyalist wrote:

cthia wrote:Though an ass he is, you cannot judge his asininity solely on the premise that an economist so far in the future doesn't know about game theory. Game theory has its advantages and disadvantages that may not make it so appealing in the future...especially in economics because it has its limitations when trying to predict realistic behaviour. One problem manifests itself when the 'set' because infinite as opposed to finite.

Game theory says nothing that isn't said by plain english elsewhere. It's just a way of either describing logic, or of discovering logical conclusions that can then be translated into english. The weakness with the assertion that "Houseman was wrong because he didn't know game theory" isn't that game theory might not be reasonable in the future (although that is very possible), it's the assumption that knowing game theory means believing Grayson/Masada was a prisoner's dilemma, which Houseman demonstrably did not believe.

Agreed. Quite frankly, I do think it ironic that he didn't know game theory because it actually would have given him more ammunition to logically distort his arguments. Game theory encourages the partnership of players; it is the cogent approach. Houseman could have used that point as a bases for his arguments. Erroneously, however, because one other serious weakness of the theory is applying it to religious subject matter! There is no way in hell that game theory can be used to predict anything to do with the outcome of one much less two religious contestants. Um, devoutly religious.