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Comment by leakycap | Hacker News Reader

Paul Krugman, the guy who predicted fax machines were more would have more impact on business than the Internet, even in 1998?

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/revolutions/miscellany/paul...

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Please let's not dip into the cosmic hashtable. It's boring and offtopic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9722096 (June 2015)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22622773 (March 2020)

Whatever you say, boss! I'll never mention it again, my apologies.

Appreciated! It's not that you did anything wrong in itself, it's just that the global effects these things have end up being negative.

The original Paul Krugman quote

“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”

> most people have nothing to say to each other!

Seems he was also wrong about social media

He's absolutely right. Most people have nothing to say to each other, and that's why social media is a small number of people broadcasting and an overwhelming number consuming. Most pairs of people don't say anything to each other. Absolutely spot on.

It's weird how you just replied to me on social media to tell me people have nothing to say to one another. It's almost like you're ... unaware of what is happening?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

I can anecdotally say you didn't add to the conversation with this link, so maybe you are one of the folks who do not have anything to say to another, as Mr. Krugman so eloquently put it.

I'm glad you came around to my position.

He's substantively wrong; he’s right that most people have nothing to say to each other, but its a scaling law being discussed, and “most people have nothing to say to each other" is an issue impacting the constant multiplier, not the scaling rate.

Porn drove electronic payments and a lot of other tech. The fax machine did not carry porn. Look to the medium's ability to be used for porn as a clear indicator of adoption.

Home robots will eventually catch fire.

Predictions are wrong more often than observations, I expect.

McKinsey advised AT&T that the total market for cell phones would be just a handful. McKinsey is going strong.

You're right, he missed that one. Do you think his total track record is poor?

> Do you think his total track record is poor?

That is actually the issue. All these talking heads, professional experts, writers, etc. make their reputation and money by constantly making predictions while never getting benchmarked.

It's the whole trope behind the book Superforcasters.

Oh no, he made a mistake one time... When I was in 5th grade I added 2 numbers wrong, that must mean my whole career has been a lie.

Do you believe Paul Krugman's intelligence and impact on the world to be equivalent to a 5th grader? Do you want to try to make an argument that support's Mr. Krugman's point of view, or did it just upset you that I brought up a factual quote from the past?

Your last sentence is a verbose way of saying "Just sayin'".

https://psychcentral.com/health/defending-against-im-just-sa...

You know why you posted that quote, it's not just to "[bring] up a factual quote", it's to imply the man is a fool who's not to be listened to. And when challenged you pretend you're "just posting a quote".

Here's a Krugman quote from today (in fact it's in the post):

> A powerful faction in America has become deeply hostile to science and to expertise in general

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