Editing Gary Becker

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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/3618131148
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Rules are that it has to be in the Econ department on video with [[Gary Becker|Becker]] present at Chicago or Jorgenson at Harvard.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/3617527422
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=[[Arrow's Impossibility Theorem|Arrow's impossibility theorem]] can be seen as a cohomological obstruction to constructing representative consumers without magical thinking.
|timestamp=2:42 AM · Aug 29, 2009
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/3617738723
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=[[Gary Becker|Becker's]] theory of [[Stable Tastes|stable homogenous tastes]] on the other hand is....words fail me...the greatest indictment of [[Peer Review|peer review]]. Ever.
|timestamp=2:54 AM · Aug 29, 2009
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/3617798373
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Just for a moment...put yourself in my shoes. I have an amazing theory of welfare with evolving tastes and a cult that claims [[Stable Tastes|stable tates]].
|timestamp=2:57 AM · Aug 29, 2009
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/3617875123
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Why stop at [[Stable Tastes|stable tastes]]? Why not declare yourself the last Pasha of Scotland and immune from bigamy laws as a winged son of Zeus?
|timestamp=3:01 AM · Aug 29, 2009
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/3618080234
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=$500 Challenge: Get me an invited Econ gig at Chicago / Harvard to confront the theory of ordinal welfare with [[Stable Tastes|stable homogenous tastes]].
|timestamp=3:13 AM · Aug 29, 2009
}}
|timestamp=3:16 AM · Aug 29, 2009
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{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1998178143006589049
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Gary wasn’t stupid. He was just on a failed dead end mission of intellectual suicide. He was shrewd, creative and wildly wrong about human beings at levels that are difficult to convey. 

And so it fell to him to tell the ultimate academic lie on behalf of his profession of economics: all humans have stable unchanging tastes. 

So dumb. So unethical. Such an intellectually pathetic move. But then he was refereeing the same game within which he was flagrantly cheating. 

He was easy to beat in any argument not judged by ideologues. But in Chicago and elsewhere they pretended this was genius rather than a flagrant attempt at patching the vulnerabilities that will sink Neo Classixal economic imperialism.

He lived, and died, in a protected world, not unlike an academic Hermit Kingdom. An intellectual North Korea where people were always bowing before him if they wanted to survive and needed his favor.

But the vulnerability is real. And believe me, he and I both knew it. It was tense as hell dealing with him for a reason:

The fiction of Stable Tastes is THE analog of rhe exhaust vent on the Death Star of NeoClassical Economjc Imperialism. His life’s work.

I look forward to showing you just how that little exhaust vent works.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1998178143006589049
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Unlike [[Paul Samuelson]] & [[Ken Arrow]], 
[[Gary Becker]] was cut from different cloth. He reminded me of my dealings w/ [[Lenny Susskind]], Larry Summers, Brad Delong, Jagdish Bhagwati, [[Ed Witten]], Mildred Dresselhaus & others, so possessed by ideology that academic reason could just vanish.
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{{Tweet
|image=BobMurphyEcon-profile-to4MBQzT.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/BobMurphyEcon/status/1998097742741250169
|name=Robert P. Murphy
|usernameurl=https://x.com/BobMurphyEcon
|username=BobMurphyEcon
|content=In my recent interview of @EricRWeinstein, he referred to "stable preferences" as Achilles' heel of neoclassical econ. Exhibit A is this famous quote from Becker. At face value, Becker is saying a model w/dynamic preferences wouldn't even be economics anymore. Do others agree?
|media1=BobMurphyEcon-X-post-1998097742741250169-G7qrSZ4W8AAZZcz.jpg
|timestamp=6:29 PM · Dec 8, 2025
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|timestamp=11:49 PM · Dec 8, 2025
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|timestamp=11:49 PM · Dec 8, 2025
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== Related Pages ==

* [[Borjas Rectangle Theory]]
* [[Boskin Commission]]
* [[CPI]]
* [[François Divisia]]
* [[Gauge Theory]]
* [[Immigration]]
* [[Ken Arrow]]
* [[Paul Samuelson]]
* [[Quantum Gravity]]
* [[Ronald Coase]]
* [[Stable Tastes]]

[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Portal Topics]]