Re:Blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at on...
by seanmcdirmid on Sunday September 04, 2016 @09:42PM
(#12427617)
No scientific claims were made in my comment. In the social sciences, including economics, the actors are much more difficult to study in controlled settings, so statements tend to be much more qualitative.
Selection bias is a real thing, however. For example, "All politicians are corrupt" doesn't mean they all are, but given corrupt as a competitive advantage, the ones that weren't corrupt are not successful enough to be known. You don't have to be corrupt to be a politician, but you might have to to be a successful one. Businesses are much more like that given hyper competitive environments.
Minimizing taxes as a financial optimization strategy have everything to do with competitive advantage. If we were genuinely looking to take lessons from biological history, it would teach us that subsequently perishing as a consequence of that adaptation is entirely natural and normal. 'Natural selection' is whatever happens. It is often conflated with various notions of progress, merit, laissez-faire, et cetera, but seldom honestly.