Message from @Undead Mockingbird

Discord ID: 544524042787487769


2019-02-11 14:13:39 UTC  

Which is why every attempt to design an economic system that relies on their prediction has failed.

2019-02-11 14:14:01 UTC  

There are many heuristic processes occurring that are vastly distributed.

2019-02-11 14:14:33 UTC  

What determines a good price in one industry might be completely different from the pricing mechanisms in another.

2019-02-11 14:15:00 UTC  

And you are right to point out that there is some lag inherent in the system.

2019-02-11 14:15:24 UTC  

That lag, that degree of misstatement of the price, is where people speculating on price shifts make money or lose money.

2019-02-11 14:15:39 UTC  
2019-02-11 14:15:52 UTC  

I knew I've seen it pop up somewhere 🙂

2019-02-11 14:16:24 UTC  

There are many NP-complete problems in nature.

2019-02-11 14:16:39 UTC  

That does not mean that there aren't many processes that provide good approximations thereof.

2019-02-11 14:16:55 UTC  

> I knew I've seen it pop up somewhere 🙂

Yes, which is why you shoehorned it in.

2019-02-11 14:17:15 UTC  

random digression: I hate the smiley being the laughing one, colon-closeparen shouldn't be equal to colon-D

2019-02-11 14:17:23 UTC  

People don't usually bring up classes of algorithmic complexity in the context of market economies.

2019-02-11 14:20:20 UTC  

so, the question on whether and how a govt should act about people ending up on the wrong side of the fence of life seems still unanswered at this point.

2019-02-11 14:21:37 UTC  

The how not I can propose.

2019-02-11 14:21:54 UTC  

One way not to do it is to mess with the market forces, which is what the minimum wage does.

2019-02-11 14:22:06 UTC  

It is like heating a thermometer to make it warmer outside.

2019-02-11 14:22:06 UTC  

Likely true, yes.

2019-02-11 14:22:26 UTC  

Neither do you gain an increase in employment numbers.

2019-02-11 14:22:54 UTC  

Black unemployment, for example, has been lower before introduction of the minimum wage in the US than after.

2019-02-11 14:23:27 UTC  

If you want to hand people money, at least do that, but do not misstate the value of a good or service. That is the function of the pricing mechanism.

2019-02-11 14:24:08 UTC  

It is simply a measure what a good or service is worth in relation to another and deluding yourself to it does not mean that the demand for coal miners (or journalists) has suddenly increased.

2019-02-11 14:25:08 UTC  

The reason why a coal miner might get paid half as much as some other job X is because there is half as much demand for coal miners at that price point.

2019-02-11 14:25:48 UTC  

The question what should be done with people who cannot make ends meet doesn't really enter into it.

2019-02-11 14:26:35 UTC  

If you artificially raise their wage, then you might as well just hand them the difference between what they would have been paid and what you think they ought to be paid. At least that way the market correctly reflects the price of coal miners.

2019-02-11 14:27:09 UTC  

But all you are doing is handing them welfare through the government then, so you are achieving the same thing with more side effects and extra steps.

2019-02-11 14:27:25 UTC  

That is why I posted that graph.

2019-02-11 14:28:25 UTC  

If a community wants to take care of some person who cannot find work, go ahead and do so. But should the solution be to force everyone to take care of that person?

2019-02-11 14:30:35 UTC  

If beggars can die in the street, I guess it's a responsibility everyone has (and wants) to change that, be it only that society is a multiplayer game where one can't always control the circumstances one ends up in.

2019-02-11 14:31:34 UTC  

If people feel that responsibility there should be no reason to force them.

2019-02-11 14:32:08 UTC  

And if they do not, they relinquish entitlement to demand the same of others.

2019-02-11 14:32:24 UTC  

But the addition of coercion adds nothing moral to it.

2019-02-11 14:32:47 UTC  

I doubt you should be allowed to likely kill somebody by taking their last valuable, but that's just me.

2019-02-11 14:33:04 UTC  

Who is taking it?

2019-02-11 14:35:55 UTC  

A refugee? A citizen? A real shitbag person you wouldn't want near your house? A white male? You know the problem with intersectionality is that this is suddenly supposed to matter - in a democracy.

2019-02-11 14:36:47 UTC  

Then again, I'm as lost as you in this discussion, yes.

2019-02-11 14:37:09 UTC  

No, I don't exactly understand the scenario you are trying to bring up.

2019-02-11 14:37:21 UTC  

You referred to killing someone.

2019-02-11 14:37:30 UTC  

Kill them through inaction?

2019-02-11 14:37:34 UTC  

I am not sure what you mean.

2019-02-11 14:37:50 UTC  

If there is no coercion, you are not killing anyone.

2019-02-11 14:41:06 UTC  

Well my point was more about "killing" someone through removing them from the little they had. Closing the mine, the asbestos factory, the sweatshop, the mental asylum. But I might make too big of a leap here, am I conflating two distinct issues here? In fact, I'm not sure I can tell why this seems so obvious to me.