Re: Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: "The problem with the discussion was not that it was insufficiently academic. ...Nor was the problem that I wanted to cut off people's opportunity to participate. Just the opposite. I wanted to encourage more people to participate. Nor was the problem that certain ideas have no business on the list. ... The problem was that the discussion degenerated until it was mostly limited to two people, who were going back and forth in a style that was increasingly becoming personal."
Hello Michael: Michael your list is very valuable to me, and I greatly admire your work. I am obviously not an economics academic, but I have interest in understanding this lists' discussions. But I do agree with the general tenor of the reply from Louis P. I am guilty as he charges of silence. Perhaps this current discussion only entails those with adequate 'heft'. While I am certainly not very 'deep', I am a lurker here. Occasionally I surface however, and usually to ask polite questions. Perhaps my questions are considered so stupid as to merit any reply. However I can do little about my lack of insight, without replies. I grant that this might not matter to many - this is not after all this lists concern! With all due respect however - my second unanswered question: the contribution of oil-diplomacy of Venezuala to on-going environmental damage - is probably not that dumb a question. One possibility that the pro-Chavez bias of much of this list makes this an inconvenient question might be considered. Anyway, just to say that I appreciated some of this ding-dong back-&-forth on Peak Oil. And I did try to insinuate myself into this question. But somehow people were quite irritated with this strand. Hari Kumar
