This one is I believe particularly relevant and quite the scourge in many ways. Also known as the "is-ought problem" and first articulated by Scottish philosopher David Hume, it states that many claims are made about what ought to be, based on statements about what is. Hume pointed out that there's quite the difference between positive statements about what is and prescriptive normative ones about what ought to be and there's no coherent way for transitioning from one (descriptive) to the other (prescriptive). This is somewhat similar/related to the epistemological fact-value distinction which draws a line between objective empirical facts or such based on reason and normative-prescriptive value statements which occupy the domains of ethics and aesthetics. 

And, I think we've all noticed how it is often the case that people actually do mix and muddle the two, what is with what they think or believe ought to be. And the cryptosphere is rich in precisely such examples, one more ridiculous and absurd than the next. Especially among the Bitcoin crowds which periodically weave/change a new narrative on the basis of some completely flawed and unrealistic assumption which they as if try to crystallize as accepted truth or fact by repeating it enough times. Denial and refusal to accept reality and instead opting for a retreat to some unreality or another actually has psychological consequences, a state of what is known as nihilism. Just the other day read a truly excellent article on just that which I very much recommend.

But our very economic thinking also seems to be infected with such psycho-logical plagues. Economists and people in charge and positions of governance, central planners and so on, they seem to all share the same problem of being unable, incapable and unwanting to accept certain realities, so instead they proceed to act and do as if causes and effects, actions and consequences, were linearly static and simplistic or at least complicated and subject to domain expertise, but not dynamic non-linear and complex, which is what they really are. Ideologies share in the same, by definition grounded in some set of dogmas and a priori assumptions about things which firmly cements them over in this or that camp or party, paralyzing and relieving one from the capacity or need to himself think about things and form his objective judgments. And if A, B, C, D then somehow naturally from that X, Y, Z will always follow. 

As in one of my previous posts in these series also pointed out (the one about e-Prime, general semantics and the structural differential), the above also stems from the function of the verb "to be" in how we use it in the grammar and syntax of the language we articulate our thoughts in. The otherwise sometimes highly annoying Socratic Method or just simply Socratic questioning may always be of help here, the making sure one asks the question: "What does this actually mean and how does it mean it?" Upon encountering a statement, claim or slogan which sounds right, or cool or somehow appeals to our ideas or preferences or feelings, or if maybe it is one coming from an expert or authority that we respect, believe and trust (but maybe not always understand), then we should definitely first react to it with such critical deconstruction and asking of questions (there's never stupid ones) in order to position everything in its proper place or have its coherent meaning collapse and crumble in the process.