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Jurate - I don't mean to belittle Krugman's award winning paper - good for him. What I find distasteful is that people point to the fact that he won the Nobel Prize in Economics to use as a justification to defend his political views.

I imagine there are scientists who have won Nobels who might have very Right-wing political viewpoints, and i would find it equally distasteful if people quoted THEIR political writings and added (as people do with Krugman) "Well, he won a Nobel Prize!!"

I think I said that I don't' like partisans who distort their opponents' views. If I wasn't clear on that, I amend myself. I think it's fine to have strong viewpoints, as long as one also understands exactly WHAT the intelligent good-willed opposing viewpoints are, and when they argue against them, they present them accurately, and don't distort them.

I'm not really a masochist when I read Krugman - I sometimes even agree with him when he writes on economics. I mainly read him because he has a high profile - and I like to read people who have a large voice in debates - so I can understand all sides, and so I can get a sense of what's in the air culture-wise. But whenever I start reading one of his columns, I never know where it's gonna go. Will it be a great insight into something in economics which I hadn't thought of, but is well worth considering? Sometimes it is. More often it starts to veer into politics, and when it does, I still read (it's always short), and if he just makes his point, cool. But I hate it when he distorts the views of those who disagree with him - I think it's bad when someone with a high profile does that. It cheapens discourse.

As to the comments section - I like to add my voice to a discussion. But the first few times I did, I went back to make sure it got posted (it did), and then later went back to see if anyone retorted, or to see how the voting on my comment went. Most of the times, I found that at some point, my comment had been deleted. I mentioned this on an economics blog I frequent that has a VERY lively commentariat full of regulars (Calculated Risk) - and others started saying "Yeah, I've had the same thing happen to me there!" Some of the regulars who have a left-wing bent said, "I comment there - my posts have never been deleted...." The ones who said that their comments had disappeared said "Oh, I was slamming what he had written...."

It just looked....odd. I don't bother to comment on Krugman's articles anymore.

Jurate - You're right; I have no basis for demeaning Krugman's Nobel Prize. I went over the top in saying what I did as a means of forcefully stating the point that you agree with - that a Nobel doesn't elevate the status of the recipient's political views.

So, at least I got my point across - but yes, I used a crude method to do it. If I'd been writing a serious thesis here, I'd have written more at length to make that point more gracefully. But people already critcize the length of my posts, so I'm sometimes trying to heed that, and do what most do - just shoot fast and hard.

If I had a column in the NYTimes, I'd never do that.

Nice quote from Hayek - a fascinating character....   And actually, that's the nature of some of the criticism that I've seem many economists level at Krugman - they think that he's subtly using his 
Economics Nobel to lend weight to his political writings; not that he does it directly, but that his followers do, and he makes no effort to dissuade this.
 

smn -

as far as my non-tinnitus issues go, I'm pretty much out of tacks.

I've seen a LOT of doctors. None have a clear diagnosis. The lazy ones leave it at that. The others ask colleagues, who are likewise stumped. Their final advice is "try this or that drug for symptomatic relief." I've tried them all - none of them have helped; a couple of them made things worse. No alternative therapy has ever helped.

Some docs, as you did, considered the possibility of a somatoform disorder, and suggested a full workup by their favorite psychiatrist. I've always followed that advice, and their psychiatrists all said, "This isn't psychiatric - you need to keep asking more neurologists."

So I did - and they've also been stumped. Their consensus advice is to re-try a few of the medications I already have, but at higher doses. That seems to be my best option for now.

But I'm always open to suggestions for new tacks.

smn - I'm gettin' a little tired of the angry, derogatory assessments of me that you seem to feel free to keep hurling my way (actually, hurling in many people's directions).  I've let all of them slide, but at some point, I gotta call you out on it. 

Let's review this old situation that inspired your post above.

I described a neurological condition I have which is unrelated to tinnitus or hyperacusis.  Rob kindly said he has a treatment that he thought might help.  He didn't actually give any indication that he understood exactly what my condition is. He said that he'd only tell me what his treatment is if I committed to following it exactly as he instructed, no questions asked.

I'm willing to experiment, so I said I'd be happy to try it as long as it didn't involve things which my doctors have told me to avoid.  At first, Rob didn't say that it wouldn't - he only said that in his opinion it's harmless.

I also had no idea if I'd be committing to a brief trial, or a one-year trial of...whatever it is, and my word is Gold, so I only make commitments I know I can keep.  I needed to at least know the timetable before I committed to it - I have other treatments my doctors want me to pursue.

Finally, after days of some very odd posts back and forth (mostly you yelling "Just do Rob's treatment!!"), Rob finally said "it will not violate your doctors' instructions".  Great, but he still hadn't said how long my commitment would have to be. Then days later he finally said, "The trial is over anytime you think it's not working." I then immediately said, "Okay, let's do it."

Rob said "not now, think it over for a few days, and then let me know if you're in."  Then I had a medical emergency arise that required me to do one of the medications my doctors were recommending, and I told Rob I needed to handle that first. As soon as that was handled, I again said, "Okay, I'm ready now, so let's do it." Rob withdrew his offer.  Okay, that's fine, no problem.  There are no obligations here.

I was willing to do it, sight unseen, as soon as I had those two basic assurances - that it wouldn't violate my doctors' orders, and it wouldn't be a long commitment.

But now, months later, you're using this, out of the blue, to say "Don 't say you're open to new tacks when you're not, okay?  You rejected (Rob's treatment) on some %+*$+$@# pretext.  The real reason was that you cannot tolerate giving up control"

This is beyond weird, smn.

Really, back when you were a practicing physician, how you would have responded to a patient of yours who said "I just made a commitment to a guy on the Internet to follow a treatment plan he's offering, instead of yours. No, he's not a doctor.  No, he hasn't indicated that he knows anything about my condition, but he knows a lot about some other conditions.  And no, he hasn't assured me that his treatment won't violate your orders, in fact he won't even tell me in advance what it is or how long it will take - but he seems like a really nice guy."

If, in person, you speak to people in the same manner that you sometimes do here on the Internet, it's possible that you might have bitten your patient's head off and spit it right out of the 10th story window.

At a minimum, I imagine you would have dropped this patient, and with good reason.

But I'm still open to trying Rob's treatment, whatever it is, and am still grateful to him for having once taken the time to think about it.