“…I really wonder if Megan McArdle is as stupid as she appears or if she is really just a sociopath.”

That’s the same question I always asked about Bush. Same answer I always got too: Two things in one.

This is my theory to how Megan works:

Come up with a conclusion. Use Google to find some “facts” to support the pre-determined conclusion. This will involve a quick skimming of a few random academic papers for facts that fit the thesis. Speak of such just acquired facts as if they are things she’s always known, “Oh, who HASN’T read the seminal 1996 paper on beach erosion by Gamlet, et al?” The more cavalier she is about using such numbers, the better. It gives off an air familiarity with things she likely just half-read moments ago. Since reading any responses or counter arguments to the paper will likely not strengthen the case for her pre-determined thesis, this basic act of scholarship is outright ignored. As is, I suspect, basic proofreading.

I’d argue that she does this, not in spite of her MBA training, but because of it. Its par for the course in business school. The mastery of false scholarship to feign expertise to those that know less is a great way to win boardroom arguments. Unfortunately for her, the audience is not a captive one in a room with only minutes to decide whether or not her conclusions are right, but a large group of readers all perfectly capable of double-checking her sources. Not surprisingly, people with actual expertise of the subject find many flaws and omissions in her work. Their years of research will trump her 20 minutes with Google every time.

It is only at this point that her psyche comes into play. Her ego forces her to double-down on her mistakes, and when truly cornered to go with either, “My family is smarter than your family, so there!” or “It’s my calculator’s fault!” The truly humorous part of that last one is how prevalent it is amongst college freshman to argue that their calculator was wrong, not them when arguing about deductions on exams.

The fundamental story is this: Megan fakes scholarship to advance an agenda. Real scholars step in and make her look stupid. She throws a hissy fit and plays the victim, garnering sympathy from those that share her desire to advance that agenda.

What is truly scary is that she is not alone with this bad scholarship. Many others do to and it grows collectively into this mass of cross-references garbage so that conservative scholars back up bad research by citing other bad research. Eventually it all gets so intertwined that to an outsider, it appears as if this network of garbage must constitute a serious body of academic studies. But if anyone dares go down the rabbit hole they’ll soon realize that its all a bunch of circular logic feeding of each other’s body of lies

Obama should hire people to scrutinize the idiots his administration is apparently influenced by. Like Breitblart. And McCow.

You know, so they don’t FIRE PEOPLE.

If anything happens to Warren because of that bitch…man. I don’t know.

Minutes after I posted comments over there, they were pulled.

So … in essence you’re telling me McCardle is an idiot? I have that part down pat, my question remains — I too am an idiot, I just want to get paid for being so and if ya can help a brutha out let me know.

I encourage everyone to post comments over at the Atlantic. Oops, earlier I’d said she was pulling comments, but to her credit she’s not. But inundate her anyway. :)

Beautifully (if depressingly) said. It cites what I see so often in MM’s work: the airy schpritzing of jargon and esoteric economics-speak, which pretends to flatter the reader while relentlessly ignoring her responsibility, which is to clarify and explain, and not to invite us to preen with her in her “expertise.”

But then, this is the behavior of the wannabee, the aspirant to upward social mobility. (Not professional mobility, since her career as an MBA is comatose, if not dead. Her job is now a social one. She’s in public relations.)

She’s not an expert, but she plays one on teevee–or, at least, computer monitors. That she is a “libertarian” is the final insult to good economics journalism, since they by definition do not, and do not care to, live in the real world.

I’m generally amused by the proportion of Megan’s inane rantings which fit under “ideological blindspot” vs “knee-jerk idiotic contrarianism”. This is actually a fun game to play with almost anyone who blogs, but the dumbest of them all are the ones who routinely take experts to task for doing something stupid or ignoring their own perceptions (however flawed). My personal field isn’t generally too useful in analyzing such things in the political blogosphere, but as a neuroscientist, I sometimes see things like this:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2010/5/28/04613/4655

Well, the paper obviously doesn’t answer your questions, so it must be stupid, right? Plus, let’s throw in some thoughtless analysis:

If the meth high produces a memory, so would the meth crash, which is a very powerful and miserable experience. Who would seek to replicate that memory?

Funny you should ask, because meth massively increases dopamine release, and dopamine (increased naturally or artificially) greatly facilitates memory formation. The “meth crash” is caused by an absence of dopamine, and without dopamine it is very difficult to create new memories.

And even that is a dumbed-down ultrasimplistic explanation, but stating that something is obvious doesn’t make it right. And not being able to figure out why someone did a study doesn’t make them stupid.

And that’s assuming you actually want to understand the situation. If your goal is, like Megan’s, simply to score cheap points, smear someone’s character, etc, intelligent analysis and understanding sources is actually counter the task at hand. This is why criticism should be left to either A) experts or at the very least B) very intelligent and honest people willing to spend a great deal of time to understand and analyze the minute details (plus, they should spend a great deal of time consulting experts to avoid being led down the wrong path by their ignorance in the specific field).

All of which is a long-winded way to say that Megan is a dishonest hack who would be best-suited to writing a blog critiquing overpriced gadgets for wealthy scions. Stick with what you know, Megan!

I’m lots more childish about Megan. As a Scot, I’ve been wondering for years what the hell clan the ‘Ardles’ are part of. Indeed.

Wait’ll she becomes top dog editor at the Atlantic and she starts publishing Suderman’s astroturfing bullshit as though it were a series of actual articles. It’s gonna happen and he’s still not gonna do her.

Well keep in mind when called out about the 2×4 thing she claimed she was mistaken about what a 2×4 really is….

I think sociopath is the answer.

Sadly, it seems many on the right are taking Megan seriously on this

http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.com/2010/07/i-think-were-going-to-need-bigger.html

This pretty much nails it … like many, she starts with the desired conclusion, picks the facts that fit it, alters the facts that don’t, and crafts an argument to support the conclusion.

The only thing that isn’t fungible is the conclusion. The facts and argumentation are subordinate.

Way, way too many obvious, mindless errors to be a Sekret Genyus.

The time she called a 0.1 drop in the unemployment rate 200 bps.
The time she slandered the Kidney Foundation over one sentence in an old paper that she deemed their entire argument based on a letter to the editor.
The time she couldn’t read a tax table.
The factor of ten error in the very last post.

Point is, she wants to be taken seriously but can’t get anything right, ever. She thinks she’s in the big time, bit she’s playing under the Wingnut Welfare rules where every swing is deemed a hit, as long as you say it is.

On Tom Levenson’s blog, I responded to one of the commenters, who was upset at someone else’s dissing of MBAs, with this:

Having a friend who got an Executive MBA a few years back, which he described as basically consisting of the exchange of a large amount of money (yours) for a piece of paper that said “MBA” (theirs), I would tend to agree with Nylund. At a little party thrown by the school for graduating MBAs, my friend walked over to the Dean and said, “Thank you for everything.” The Dean shook his hand and said, “Oh, no, thank you.”

Duh, that “someone else” was you, Nylund. Don’t know what Ig’s problem is – maybe he’s got a shiny, expensive new MBA and can’t get a job – but he sure didn’t like your comment.

Aww, how could you be so mean to the Giant Elf like that? Are you really sayin’ that the purty, smilin’ face at that link conceals a sociopathic, sell-everyone-else-down-the-river-so-I-can-get-paid kinda gal? Unpossible!

Seriously, she is truly a Handmaiden for the Powerful and the Privileged. I’m just wondering where in “prominent circles” her post will be cited first, despite all the valid (and easily ignored) criticisms from DFH bloggers. Will it be first read into the Congressional Record by a wingnut Congressman during hearings involving Prof. Warren? Or cited by an ‘anonymous senior Administration official’ in a Politico story as a reason against nominating Warren? I’m gonna go with selection ‘B’.

She reminds me of the female character in this (IMO) awesome YouTube video (Rammstein’s “Die Sonne”, 4:44 – lyrics in original German, but the video feed by itself should provide adequate context). She’s a Pied Piper for clueless, smug and smitten rubes, helping to lead them to their doom by ensuring they’ll eventually have no option but to work themselves to death.

Among media types, she’s every bit the menace to middle class folk that Breitbart has been to the advocates for the poor and victims of discrimination.

Did you know that MBA stands for “Moneygrubbing Bogus Academic?”

Is the MBA the single easiest graduate degree to get outside of William Howard Taft Law School?? I am amazed at the number of bozos I run across that have one….

Further proof that Business School causes retardation and that all libertarians are closet sociopaths (it really is not an either/or question, she is both).

I really wonder if Megan McArdle is as stupid as she appears or if she is really just a sociopath

OOOOH, I know, I know… Isn’t this what they call a false dichotomy?

I’ve found that even really smart people get stupid when they go down the path of evil. The cognitive dissonance required to justify evil actions to one’s conscience eventually acts as an IQ suppressor.

Is the MBA the single easiest graduate degree to get…?

IIRC, if you exclude MBA’s, more graduate degrees are awarded every year for Education then all other graduate degrees combined. The Sciences, Mathematics, Engineering, Medicine, Lit, all of ‘em.

I would guess MBA’s come in a close second, though.

One of McMuggins’ more memorable bits of Numberwang was when she came up with a nice little argument based upon what she thought was the price of health insurance in New York, only for commenters to point out that premiums were nearly triple that amount. Muggins then turned around and said that getting it wrong was central to her point.

Also: I’ll take “sociopath”, or at least “spoilt conceited bastard who has been rewarded in excess of her capabilities her entire fucking life.”