4th Grade Nation State

[Xerographica]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you still can't tell the difference between pragmatarianism and anarcho-capitalism.


Right now lots of the kids already work in the garden. So it's logical for there to be a gardening department that the kids can give their taxes to. This department would purchase seeds, plants, supplies and decide how much to pay the kids who work in the garden.

How are they going to decide how much to pay kids who work in the garden?

I have no idea.

[The Two Jerseys]

Sure.

Ok, so now that it's established that sometimes words are more trustworthy and probative of true desires than actions, going back to your question -

So you say that your valuation of alcohol is $5,000 dollars... but you only spend $200 dollars to oppose prohibition. Do I trust your words... or your actions?

In the scenario given, you should trust my words. Just like you had no practical way of saying "no" to giving $500 to Frank the Robber, I had no practical way of putting in $5,000 to reflect my "true" valuation. This makes both actions divergent from true desires.

Ergo, your system doesn't measure what you desire it to measure.

I don't really care for drinking alcohol, but I don't mind if other people drink. So I really don't care if prohibition was enacted or not, because I have no horse in the race.

If I say I value prohibition at $1 million, knowing full well that I can't afford that bid, then only bid $0.01 so as to profit massively off the drunks who want to keep their booze flowing, what's my true valuation of prohibition?

[The Two Jerseys]

Are you sure? You don't seem to understand that the government needs money in order to function...

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you still can't tell the difference between pragmatarianism and anarcho-capitalism.

Yeah, that's not how things work in the real world.

If you're trying to show that this system of government works, you need to actually model the means of production.

Right now lots of the kids already work in the garden. So it's logical for there to be a gardening department that the kids can give their taxes to. This department would purchase seeds, plants, supplies and decide how much to pay the kids who work in the garden.

You heard it here, folks: Xero is growing quotes on trees!

[Soldati Senza Confini]

How are they going to decide how much to pay kids who work in the garden?

I have no idea.

So let's assume in the worst case scenario, a hypothetical with adults, that the people in the landscaping department of a company using your system pays people an arbitrary number (since you have no idea, let's use an arbitrary number system). Since the owners of the company want to have more bidding power than the workers, they pay to their workers 10 dollars an hour each, while owners end up with over 1000% of the profits.

How does your system correct and resolve for this particular issue?

[Galloism]

Ok, so now that it's established that sometimes words are more trustworthy and probative of true desires than actions, going back to your question -



In the scenario given, you should trust my words. Just like you had no practical way of saying "no" to giving $500 to Frank the Robber, I had no practical way of putting in $5,000 to reflect my "true" valuation. This makes both actions divergent from true desires.

Ergo, your system doesn't measure what you desire it to measure.

And again, if you think your argument has merit, then prove it by starting a thread that argues that we should eliminate markets entirely.

As soon as you make a thread on how we should legalize armed robbery.

You're not going to do so because you understand that your argument is BS.

I don't see exchange of money for goods having much to do with true desires anyway. No one ever transacts at their "true valuation", either as a buyer or a seller. This notion that money = desire is silly.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I don't see exchange of money for goods having much to do with true desires anyway. No one ever transactions at their "true valuation", either as a buyer or a seller. This notion that money = desire is silly.

Money = desire doesn't even make any sense.

Let's put an example: I want a SEGA Dreamcast and I would pay 100 dollars for one. If I can find it at 40 dollars, and I purchase it, I am not really expressing my true desire for it. I just am opportunistic because the Dreamcast is cheap.

Money equals desire as much as I desire to be a millionaire and win the lotto tomorrow.

[The Two Jerseys]

And again, if you think your argument has merit, then prove it by starting a thread that argues that we should eliminate markets entirely.

As soon as you make a thread on how we should legalize armed robbery.

You're not going to do so because you understand that your argument is BS.

I don't see exchange of money for goods having much to do with true desires anyway. No one ever transactions at their "true valuation", either as a buyer or a seller. This notion that money = desire is silly.

If transactions reflected "true valuation", we wouldn't have haggling...

[Camicon]

viewtopic.php?p=30214556#p30214556

Just going to ignore my response, Xero? I'd like to see you try and defend your ridiculous "compensation eliminates harm" argument.

[Galloism]

As soon as you make a thread on how we should legalize armed robbery.



I don't see exchange of money for goods having much to do with true desires anyway. No one ever transactions at their "true valuation", either as a buyer or a seller. This notion that money = desire is silly.

If transactions reflected "true valuation", we wouldn't have haggling...

More specifically, it would collapse the world economy.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.
If you are making pie throwing robots for a penny each, then either
a) someone is paying you a penny or more for each robot, or
b) You gain at least a penny of value from the robot, effectively paying yourself.
If you don't gain any value from the robot, and no-one else is paying you for the robot, then you are making a loss, and will eventually go broke and starve to death on the street. So you stop your loss-making business. Money allocated efficiently.

Your whole 'value theory of economics' is jsut wrong. I don't know how much better to say that. Its not what any economist ever has thought; you won't find anyone from Adam Smith to Samuelson to Mises saying that you should be paying exactly what a product is valued at; or that your valuation changes with the number of sellers in the market.
And again, there is a simple way to show that you don't really believe in what you're espousing: do you pay more than the sticker price whenever you buy something? To truly show 'allocative [in]efficiency', you should be paying more than the ticket price. Unless you think that everything that you buy has been priced at exactly your valuation and you wouldn't pay a penny more for everything. And when you buy something on sale that you normally buy at full price, that's because you value that item less this week.

You know what's funny about this? The effect it would have on business is monstrous.

Let's suppose I'm Apple. President, CEO, sole shareholder. I have complete control of Apple.

Now, a mid-range CPU costs me say... $50. There's competitive bidding and I choose the one that makes sense, which costs $50. But how much do I value CPUs as CEO of Apple? Can my business exist without them? Nope.

If the materials cost doubled, and therefore CPU cost nearly doubled, would I still pay it?

Yep.

How about 5 times?

Yep.

How about 10 times?

Yep.

How about 100 times? If it cost $5,000 per mid-range CPU, and I couldn't find lower prices elsewhere, would I be willing to pay it?

Yep. Because without CPUs, I have no business. So how much is a CPU in value to me? The highest value it's worth to me is the point where I, as CEO of apple, get out of the electronic device business. Let's say that's $5,000 each. According to Xerographica's theory of economics, that you should always pay what you value instead of what you can get it at, Apple should pay $5,000 per CPU, even though they can purchase them for about $50. This would make iphones be thousands of dollars instead of hundreds, and result in consumer electronics not being a thing available to almost everyone.

And it's not just Apple in this predicament - IBM, Lenovo, Dell, Android device manufacturers... almost everyone who manufactures such devices would be willing to pay for CPUs, whatever the price, because without them they have no business.

[Xerographica]

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=30214556#p30214556

Just going to ignore my response, Xero? I'd like to see you try and defend your ridiculous "compensation eliminates harm" argument.

You said that compensation doesn't eliminate harm. *shrug* Voting has harm without compensation

And then you repeated the same thing you said before about wealthy people. You didn't bother coming up with a specific scenario so I didn't bother replying.

[Xerographica]

I have no idea.

So let's assume in the worst case scenario, a hypothetical with adults, that the people in the landscaping department of a company using your system pays people an arbitrary number (since you have no idea, let's use an arbitrary number system). Since the owners of the company want to have more bidding power than the workers, they pay to their workers 10 dollars an hour each, while owners end up with over 1000% of the profits.

How does your system correct and resolve for this particular issue?

Right now the kids are gardening for free. Once there's a gardening dept... then the kids might get paid more than nothing. And once there are other departments... then the kids can see which departments are paying the most money.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

So let's assume in the worst case scenario, a hypothetical with adults, that the people in the landscaping department of a company using your system pays people an arbitrary number (since you have no idea, let's use an arbitrary number system). Since the owners of the company want to have more bidding power than the workers, they pay to their workers 10 dollars an hour each, while owners end up with over 1000% of the profits.

How does your system correct and resolve for this particular issue?

Right now the kids are gardening for free. Once there's a gardening dept... then the kids might get paid more than nothing. And once there are other departments... then the kids can see which departments are paying the most money.

Well, yes, but that isn't really my question.

My question wasn't "how are kids going to get paid well?" my question was "assuming the owners of a company get paid 10 dollars an hour in order to have 1000% of profit margins for the owners, and assuming they are doing this to suppress "bidding", how would your system correct and resolve the problem?"

[Xerographica]

Right now the kids are gardening for free. Once there's a gardening dept... then the kids might get paid more than nothing. And once there are other departments... then the kids can see which departments are paying the most money.

Well, yes, but that isn't really my question.

My question wasn't "how are kids going to get paid well?" my question was "assuming the owners of a company get paid 10 dollars an hour in order to have 1000% of profit margins for the owners, and assuming they are doing this to suppress "bidding", how would your system correct and resolve the problem?"

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Camicon]

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=30214556#p30214556

Just going to ignore my response, Xero? I'd like to see you try and defend your ridiculous "compensation eliminates harm" argument.

You said that compensation doesn't eliminate harm. *shrug* Voting has harm without compensation

And then you repeated the same thing you said before about wealthy people. You didn't bother coming up with a specific scenario so I didn't bother replying.

Yes. Compensation doesn't eliminate harm. I gave an example, to demonstrate as much.

Your system does not eliminate harm. Providing monetary compensation to people who have been harmed does not mean they were not harmed. If Bill Gates kicks me in the balls and I get a million dollars in a settlement, that doesn't mean my balls weren't kicked. Compensation doesn't "eliminate" harm, it compensates for it.

And then I explained why a specific example is unnecessary to explain why your system is fundamentally flawed.

We both agreed that tyranny is a form of harm.
I noted that tyranny of the minority is more harmful than tyranny of the majority, and explained why.
I noted that your proposed system enables and encourages tyranny of the minority; I noted that it specifically encourages a tyranny of the ultra-rich because you have decided that money is your metric for value. The exact process by which this would happen has been explained to you multiple times, but I'm going to link Lost hero's explanation for you.

This require no specific scenario. I'm asking you to explain why your system is "less harmful" than a democracy; keeping in mind that compensation does not eliminate harm, and that tyranny of the minority - which your system enables and encourages, and which democracies do not allow - is more harmful than tyranny of the majority.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Well, yes, but that isn't really my question.

My question wasn't "how are kids going to get paid well?" my question was "assuming the owners of a company get paid 10 dollars an hour in order to have 1000% of profit margins for the owners, and assuming they are doing this to suppress "bidding", how would your system correct and resolve the problem?"

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Okay, say a country, we will call it Xerotopia adopts your bidding model successfully. For the sake of the argument let us suppose a country thinks your idea is amazing and they implement it as a voting policy for issues.

In Xerotopia, there is a company which we will call ACME. ACME has 1000 employees, each of whom have to be paid to live by. ACME sets up an arbitrary wage for its workers at 10 dollars an hour with the purpose of suppressing the 1000 worker's wages given that they know your system is based on monetary value. I am using 10 dollars an hour and not more because apparently you have no idea how owners are to decide wages under your system.

How does Xerotopia correct this issue? In other words, what can Xerotopia do, within your system, to ensure workers keep a competitive wage and are not in an "oppression of the owners" state, in which the owners of the means of production can suppress the worker's bidding because they do not pay their workers enough?

[Xerographica]

tyranny of the minority - which your system enables and encourages, and which democracies do not allow - is more harmful than tyranny of the majority.

Michelle's class has used coasianism 3 times. How many times has there been tyranny of the minority?

[Xerographica]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Okay, say a country, we will call it Xerotopia adopts your bidding model successfully. For the sake of the argument let us suppose a country thinks your idea is amazing and they implement it as a voting policy for issues.

In Xerotopia, there is a company which we will call ACME. ACME has 1000 employees, each of whom have to be paid to live by. ACME sets up an arbitrary wage for its workers at 10 dollars an hour with the purpose of suppressing the 1000 worker's wages given that they know your system is based on monetary value.

How does Xerotopia correct this issue? In other words, what can Xerotopia do, within your system, to ensure workers keep a competitive wage and are not in an "oppression of the owners" state, in which the owners of the means of production can suppress the worker's bidding because they do not pay their workers enough?

If ACME is the only company "suppressing" wages then the workers would simply quit and start working for other companies. So maybe you're arguing that all companies are suppressing wages? Then you start a company and get rich by not suppressing wages and stealing the smartest workers (brain gain) from the other companies.

[Galloism]

Okay, say a country, we will call it Xerotopia adopts your bidding model successfully. For the sake of the argument let us suppose a country thinks your idea is amazing and they implement it as a voting policy for issues.

In Xerotopia, there is a company which we will call ACME. ACME has 1000 employees, each of whom have to be paid to live by. ACME sets up an arbitrary wage for its workers at 10 dollars an hour with the purpose of suppressing the 1000 worker's wages given that they know your system is based on monetary value.

How does Xerotopia correct this issue? In other words, what can Xerotopia do, within your system, to ensure workers keep a competitive wage and are not in an "oppression of the owners" state, in which the owners of the means of production can suppress the worker's bidding because they do not pay their workers enough?

If ACME is the only company "suppressing" wages then the workers would simply quit and start working for other companies. So maybe you're arguing that all companies are suppressing wages?

This has happened before.

Then you start a company and get rich by not suppressing wages and stealing the smartest workers (brain gain) from the other companies.

That requires capital, capital you cannot get while working at $10 per hour.

[Xerographica]

If ACME is the only company "suppressing" wages then the workers would simply quit and start working for other companies. So maybe you're arguing that all companies are suppressing wages?

This has happened before.

Then you start a company and get rich by not suppressing wages and stealing the smartest workers (brain gain) from the other companies.

That requires capital, capital you cannot get while working at $10 per hour.

So Youtube should implement the pragmatarian model? Or... you don't genuinely care about people being paid...

[Galloism]

This has happened before.



That requires capital, capital you cannot get while working at $10 per hour.

So Youtube should implement the pragmatarian model? Or... you don't genuinely care about people being paid...

So we should have democratically decided workplace protection laws to keep people who legitimately have too much influence already from abusing the shit out of the little guys more than they already do, no matter how much money they have.

[Neanderthaland]

This has happened before.



That requires capital, capital you cannot get while working at $10 per hour.

So Youtube should implement the pragmatarian model? Or... you don't genuinely care about people being paid...

That doesn't sound like a false dichotomy at all.

[The Two Jerseys]

So Youtube should implement the pragmatarian model? Or... you don't genuinely care about people being paid...

That doesn't sound like a false dichotomy at all.

Yeah, how do we go from the practices of hypothetical companies in Xero's wet dream of a nation to YouTube, much less Gallo not caring about people getting paid?

[Soldati Senza Confini]

If ACME is the only company "suppressing" wages then the workers would simply quit and start working for other companies. So maybe you're arguing that all companies are suppressing wages?

This has happened before.

Then you start a company and get rich by not suppressing wages and stealing the smartest workers (brain gain) from the other companies.

That requires capital, capital you cannot get while working at $10 per hour.

I mean, the main problem I see here is that there is already an incentive to suppress worker's wages. It is inherent to capitalism so that the owners, or the shareholders, or whomever is controlling the company gets the most profits.

Now imagine just how more rampant it would be without worker's protections under Xero's crackpot capitalist system where money is needed to approve or reject a proposal up to public vote and so it gives an even higher incentive for business owners to suppress wages.

[Camicon]

tyranny of the minority - which your system enables and encourages, and which democracies do not allow - is more harmful than tyranny of the majority.

Michelle's class has used coasianism 3 times. How many times has there been tyranny of the minority?

Irrelevant. We're not talking about what has happened, we're talking about what your system enables and encourages. Just because one grade 4 student isn't ultra-rich and hasn't figured out how to game the system does not mean it wouldn't happen when applied to a larger or more educated population.

The fact that multiple posters here have figured out how to game the system is evidence enough that someone with the means to do so would figure it out as well. It's an inevitability.

How do you account for it?

[The Two Jerseys]

Michelle's class has used coasianism 3 times. How many times has there been tyranny of the minority?

Irrelevant. We're not talking about what has happened, we're talking about what your system enables and encourages. Just because one grade 4 student isn't ultra-rich and hasn't figured out how to game the system does not mean it wouldn't happen when applied to a larger or more educated population.

The fact that multiple posters here have figured out how to game the system is evidence enough that someone with the means to do so would figure it out as well. It's an inevitability.

How do you account for it?

And need we point out again that when Gallo actually tried it with a group of adults, they immediately realized that the system could be played?