4th Grade Nation State

[Soldati Senza Confini]

As I explained in this post, we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Would we use coasianism for the least valuable ideas? Nope.

You do understand this means absolutely nothing.

If the pragmatarian model is used to sort ideas by their value, and coasianism shows that an idea is indeed valuable either because it wins bidding from a wealthy source/sources, or by people wanting money bidding for profit, then that means the pragmatarian model would, by default, choose a bad idea as valuable due to its price in the market anyways.

So you have hardly answered Gon's question in any meaningful way. It's kind of the equivalent of "that won't happen because I say so", and that's more of an answer of an already exasperated parent to their kid: "don't ask questions, I just know and you don't".

[Xerographica]

As I explained in this post, we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Would we use coasianism for the least valuable ideas? Nope.

You do understand this means absolutely nothing.

If the pragmatarian model is used to sort ideas by their value, and coasianism shows that an idea is indeed valuable either because it wins bidding from a wealthy source/sources, or by people wanting money bidding for profit, then that means the pragmatarian model would, by default, choose a bad idea as valuable due to its price in the market anyways.

So you have hardly answered Gon's question in any meaningful way. It's kind of the equivalent of "that won't happen because I say so", and that's more of an answer of an already exasperated parent to their kid: "don't ask questions, I just know and you don't".

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Let me try and break my argument down...

- Ideas aren't equally valuable
- The value of an idea can be determined by spending
- The pragmatarian model will reveal the value of ideas
- Once the value of ideas is known, then they can be sorted by their value

Do you disagree with any of these points?

[Galloism]

Finally the profiteers figured it out in the morning class: I wonder how long till the afternoon class gets it.
Also note, that after the profiteers got burned from gambling, instead of giving up on turning a profit, they retreated to the safety option in the system which always made money, even if it would be less than the gamble.

In the morning class, there were 4 students who weren't willing to spend anything. What can we guess? We can guess that they could care less whether class is inside or outside. But what if it was raining/snowing/freezing outside? Would these 4 students still be perfectly ambivalent?

You refer to hedging (spending equally on both sides) as the "safety option". But will it truly be the "safety option" when the potential outcome of winning chump change is having class outside in a blizzard?

Hey Galloism, what was the outcome of the voting class?

Voting class was 69 degrees, wind light and variable. Went 15-2 again.

Sorry - keep forgetting about them.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Let me try and break my argument down...

A- Ideas aren't equally valuable
B- The value of an idea can be determined by spending
C- The pragmatarian model will reveal the value of ideas
D- Once the value of ideas is known, then they can be sorted by their value

Do you disagree with any of these points?

So we have here a logical problem.

A is true, but B is problematic. B, where the value of an idea X can be determined by spending {ValueA} isn't really so much of a problem in your logic, as much as it is a problem in the manner in which the problem is being approached. For B to be true, it would mean that there are no real solution to what ideas are actually worth to people, but a simple historical survey on the history of ideas would tell you that we already have different methods of approaching the value of an idea to people. The most common one is proselytizing and resolution/nuance to the idea in philosophical discourse in order to convince people as the highest valuation we can informally give without using money or armed revolutions.

Why do you feel we need to accurately measure ideas with monetary value when the study of dialectics are already an accurate way to measure them?

[The Two Jerseys]

Gallo, is there any rain in the forecast? I'd love to see if the people trying to get paid force class to be outside that day.

[Galloism]

Gallo, is there any rain in the forecast? I'd love to see if the people trying to get paid force class to be outside that day.

Seven day forecast has rain on Tuesday, but class is monday, wednesday, friday.

I mean, if it moves a little bit faster or slower, there could be rain either monday or wednesday.

We DID see people get paid to put money on going outside when it was 58 degrees outside, though. 58 is a little cold to sit still outside in my opinion, but there you go.

EDIT: it's also worth noting that, as of the last class in the morning, we now have gamblers on both sides.

[Xerographica]

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Let me try and break my argument down...

A- Ideas aren't equally valuable
B- The value of an idea can be determined by spending
C- The pragmatarian model will reveal the value of ideas
D- Once the value of ideas is known, then they can be sorted by their value

Do you disagree with any of these points?

So we have here a logical problem.

A is true, but B is problematic. B, where the value of an idea X can be determined by spending {ValueA} isn't really so much of a problem in your logic, as much as it is a problem in the manner in which the problem is being approached. For B to be true, it would mean that there are no real solution to what ideas are actually worth to people, but a simple historical survey on the history of ideas would tell you that we already have different methods of approaching the value of an idea to people. The most common one is proselytizing and resolution/nuance to the idea in philosophical discourse in order to convince people as the highest valuation we can informally give without using money or armed revolutions.

Why do you feel we need to accurately measure ideas with monetary value when the study of dialectics are already an accurate way to measure them?

Earlier in this thread I mentioned that Michelle came up with the word "megareal" to refer to "better than real". "Megareal" is a word, but it's also an idea.

Imagine that there was a website where people could submit new words/meanings. Members of this website would have to pay $1/month... but they could choose which words/meanings they spend their pennies on. This is the pragmatarian model.

The amount of pennies that were spent on new words/meaning would reveal/show/uncover their value. Knowing the value of new words/meaning would allow us to sort them by their value. Sorting new words/meaning by their value would make it easy to find/learn the most valuable new words/meanings. As a result, language would evolve more efficiently.

Could we use voting rather than spending? Sure. But willingness to vote (WTV) really isn't the same thing as willingness to pay (WTP).

Could we use "dialectics" to determine the value of "megareal"? Eh?

When you're in a grocery store... and your shopping cart is full of different products... and each and every different product is a different idea... how do you definitively prove that you truly value the different ideas that you've placed in your shopping cart? Do you vote for the ideas? Do you use "dialectics"? Of course not! You spend your money. And how you, and everybody else, spends money determines how society's limited resources (ie attention/time/brainpower) are allocated.

Society's attention is limited.
Society's time is limited.
Society's brainpower is limited.

These are fundamentally basic economic facts. All the attention/time/brainpower that you spend in this thread discussing this topic is attention/time/brainpower that you can't spend in another thread discussing another topic.

Buchanan's Rule is a fundamentally basic economic fact. If you don't chisel this fundamentally basic economic fact into your brain... then you're not going to understand the importance of using spending to help determine how society's limited resources are allocated/distributed/used. You're not going to understand the point/meaning/significance/necessity/importance of the Invisible Hand...

It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their stocks towards the employments which in ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society. But if from this natural preference they should turn too much of it towards those employments, the fall of profit in them and the rise of it in all others immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without any intervention of law, therefore, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock of every society among all the different employments carried on in it as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society. — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

[Soldati Senza Confini]

So we have here a logical problem.

A is true, but B is problematic. B, where the value of an idea X can be determined by spending {ValueA} isn't really so much of a problem in your logic, as much as it is a problem in the manner in which the problem is being approached. For B to be true, it would mean that there are no real solution to what ideas are actually worth to people, but a simple historical survey on the history of ideas would tell you that we already have different methods of approaching the value of an idea to people. The most common one is proselytizing and resolution/nuance to the idea in philosophical discourse in order to convince people as the highest valuation we can informally give without using money or armed revolutions.

Why do you feel we need to accurately measure ideas with monetary value when the study of dialectics are already an accurate way to measure them?

Earlier in this thread I mentioned that Michelle came up with the word "megareal" to refer to "better than real". "Megareal" is a word, but it's also an idea.

Imagine that there was a website where people could submit new words/meanings. Members of this website would have to pay $1/month... but they could choose which words/meanings they spend their pennies on. This is the pragmatarian model.

The amount of pennies that were spent on new words/meaning would reveal/show/uncover their value. Knowing the value of new words/meaning would allow us to sort them by their value. Sorting new words/meaning by their value would make it easy to find/learn the most valuable new words/meanings. As a result, language would evolve more efficiently.

Could we use voting rather than spending? Sure. But willingness to vote (WTV) really isn't the same thing as willingness to pay (WTP).

Could we use "dialectics" to determine the value of "megareal"? Eh?

When you're in a grocery store... and your shopping cart is full of different products... and each and every different product is a different idea... how do you definitively prove that you truly value the different ideas that you've placed in your shopping cart? Do you vote for the ideas? Do you use "dialectics"? Of course not! You spend your money. And how you, and everybody else, spends money determines how society's limited resources (ie attention/time/brainpower) are allocated.

Society's attention is limited.
Society's time is limited.
Society's brainpower is limited.

These are fundamentally basic economic facts. All the attention/time/brainpower that you spend in this thread discussing this topic is attention/time/brainpower that you can't spend in another thread discussing another topic.

Buchanan's Rule is a fundamentally basic economic fact. If you don't chisel this fundamentally basic economic fact into your brain... then you're not going to understand the importance of using spending to help determine how society's limited resources are allocated/distributed/used. You're not going to understand the point/meaning/significance/necessity/importance of the Invisible Hand...

It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their stocks towards the employments which in ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society. But if from this natural preference they should turn too much of it towards those employments, the fall of profit in them and the rise of it in all others immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without any intervention of law, therefore, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock of every society among all the different employments carried on in it as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society. — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

While I understand your position, taking Buchanan's rule to faith is incredibly ignorant of you.

Humans are not 100% efficient. We are, to a degree, efficient and effective, but you cannot be both.

Language, for example, has evolved naturally since the beginning of time. Our modern English actually is an evolution of Shakespearean English with a dash of Latin syntax and grammar rules.

Your example of the grocery store actually fails to put into consideration several factors which are qualitative and subjective.

When you're in a grocery store... and your shopping cart is full of different products... and each and every different product is a different idea... how do you definitively prove that you truly value the different ideas that you've placed in your shopping cart? Do you vote for the ideas? Do you use "dialectics"? Of course not! You spend your money.

When you are in a grocery store, for starters, you go for groceries. Now, I will not dabble on this Platonic argument that groceries are ideas. I am more of an Aristotelian materialist. However, let us assume that grocery cart A has all the things I need. All the things I need for what? That's something I, and only I, can tell based on what I consider important. I could just want food to last me for the month. I could want to make a dinner for my girlfriend that night to celebrate our anniversary. That is a specific purpose I know that I cannot place monetary value on it because I feel strongly about surviving for the month, or I love my girlfriend so much that I would want to cook something special for her.

Knowing the value of how much I love my girlfriend, or how important is it for me to survive is going to tell you what, exactly? That I am a self-centered asshole and not a humanitarian dove? Congratulations, you could have asked me that and I could have told you that that's exactly the kind of person I am anyways.

As for your word example, people value words not by their monetary value. People value words by their ease of access. "Wherefore" is hardly a word used in common language because it's less accessible than "why". Language doesn't evolve by rules of logic. It evolves by rules of communication. So why is the accessibility of a word not an accurate measurement of a word in general and instead you want to place monetary value into it? I mean, "Google" has become a word in common language now because Google is the most common search engine people use. You don't hear people saying "I'm gonna Yahoo! something" they say "I'm gonna Google something". That's an example of language evolving. "Megareal" is another word, which may become popular, may not become popular. What makes a word valuable is its popularity among the general public, or if it is a word only she and her friends know, how comfortable they feel using that sort of communication.

As a further example I can put the case of code-switch: code-switch is the ability to be able to carry conversations in two or more languages. Is it valuable? Only for the people involved in the code-switching and know the standard of code-switching communication the other person uses. If I try to use English-French-Spanish code-switch with people who are only bilingual I am going to confuse the hell out of them. Communications are a point-to-point. You cannot put value on point-to-point communication standards other than the subjective value that people who have devised the standard have placed in it.

[Neutraligon]

And in those condition if outside wins it then gets in the way of learning the purpose of the class. So how does your system deal with outcomes that directly harm the system and cannot be changed (the day is already lost once the vote has been set)?

All else being equal, if there are two classes that use coasianism... whichever class has the least cheaters... will win.

How do you determine winning? And once again the purpose of class is teaching, if for some reason people end up voting to go outside (say because they gamble badly) how will this forward the purpose of class? You are saying that the team with the most honest spenders wins, but that does not answer the question.

I have also asked repeatedly how your system deals with someone who is deliberately trying to harm the government and gotten no answer. I am a supporter of Russia who is an American citizen. I want the US to release all classified documents and "bet" on that. I will likely lose, and make money, which I then bet on the classified documents being released. Eventually my money will be high enough that those who do not want the classified documents released cannot pay enough to prevent it from happening. Now what?

As I explained in this post, we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Would we use coasianism for the least valuable ideas? Nope.

That also did not answer the question. You basically simply claimed that it would not happen with no reason to think it would not. You are assuming that people would use your system as you described, rather then trying to make money by voting on things people would disagree with. You have still not given a reason why this would be the case. So once again how does your system prevent those who deliberately wish to harm the government from doing so?

[Galloism]

Finally the profiteers figured it out in the morning class: I wonder how long till the afternoon class gets it.
Also note, that after the profiteers got burned from gambling, instead of giving up on turning a profit, they retreated to the safety option in the system which always made money, even if it would be less than the gamble.

In the morning class, there were 4 students who weren't willing to spend anything. What can we guess? We can guess that they could care less whether class is inside or outside. But what if it was raining/snowing/freezing outside? Would these 4 students still be perfectly ambivalent?

Not sure - it's a problem with your system that it actually is so overwhelmed by miscellaneous considerations and data points that what you're trying to convey gets lost in the noise.

It's actually worth noting that, while the voting class has had 100% participation in voicing their true opinions, in the morning you are down to 5-6 out of 14 (I think the hitchhiker's guide guy is voting his preference, but he's fixated on 42 cents). Less than half are bidding in communication of an actual preference. We're actually getting less pertinent information regarding inside/outside from your system than from voting already, and the preference data is trending downwards, while the other factors (namely, making money/gambling/reaping the margin) is on its way up.

We'll have to see if that trend continues ,but with three data points, it's definitely a trend now.

[The Two Jerseys]

How do you determine winning?

Apparently though getting the same result that you would get by simply voting, only using a more convoluted process that serves no purpose other than to unnecessarily make money change hands.

[Lost heros]

Finally the profiteers figured it out in the morning class: I wonder how long till the afternoon class gets it.
Also note, that after the profiteers got burned from gambling, instead of giving up on turning a profit, they retreated to the safety option in the system which always made money, even if it would be less than the gamble.

In the morning class, there were 4 students who weren't willing to spend anything. What can we guess? We can guess that they could care less whether class is inside or outside. But what if it was raining/snowing/freezing outside? Would these 4 students still be perfectly ambivalent?

Wow this part of the post is so relevant to what I wrote. It's impressive how you wrote all these words that can so easily be traced back to my post. These sentences don't feel like a separate thought from my post.[/s]

You refer to hedging (spending equally on both sides) as the "safety option". But will it truly be the "safety option" when the potential outcome of winning chump change is having class outside in a blizzard?

It's the safety option because the goal for them is to make money. If they bid more they'll make more, but by bidding this way they have small reward for no risk.

[Dazchan]

As I explained in this post, we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Would we use coasianism for the least valuable ideas? Nope.

I thought pragmatarianism was designating where your taxes go (or at least, according to the definition you provided... multiple times), not ranking ideas by their perceived value. You did admittedly change the definition, but not before spending more than half the thread discussing it under the "classic" definition and only when your ideology started to resemble an Aero bar.

I await with baited breath for your next post, to see where the goalposts have moved to.

[Salandriagado]

As I explained in this post, we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Would we use coasianism for the least valuable ideas? Nope.

I thought pragmatarianism was designating where your taxes go (or at least, according to the definition you provided... multiple times), not ranking ideas by their perceived value. You did admittedly change the definition, but not before spending more than half the thread discussing it under the "classic" definition and only when your ideology started to resemble an Aero bar.

I await with baited breath for your next post, to see where the goalposts have moved to.

Can we have a sweepstake on it? I'll take "the athletics track".

[Galloism]

I thought pragmatarianism was designating where your taxes go (or at least, according to the definition you provided... multiple times), not ranking ideas by their perceived value. You did admittedly change the definition, but not before spending more than half the thread discussing it under the "classic" definition and only when your ideology started to resemble an Aero bar.

I await with baited breath for your next post, to see where the goalposts have moved to.

Can we have a sweepstake on it? I'll take "the athletics track".

I'll put it somewhere beyond the asteroid belt.

[Xerographica]

As I explained in this post, we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Would we use coasianism for the least valuable ideas? Nope.

I thought pragmatarianism was designating where your taxes go (or at least, according to the definition you provided... multiple times), not ranking ideas by their perceived value. You did admittedly change the definition, but not before spending more than half the thread discussing it under the "classic" definition and only when your ideology started to resemble an Aero bar.

I await with baited breath for your next post, to see where the goalposts have moved to.

Well yeah... pragmatarianism is where taxpayers can choose where their taxes go. But then eventually I had an epiphany. For all intents and purposes, taxpayers are subscribers and their taxes are their fees. The government isn't the only organization with subscribers. Netflix also has subscribers. Same thing with The Economist. If it makes sense for taxpayers to choose where their taxes go, then it makes sense for subscribers of Netflix and The Economist to choose where their fees go.

Once subscribers of The Economist can choose where their fees go, then the articles (ideas) could be sorted by their value. Once subscribers of Netflix can choose where their fees go, then the content (ideas) could be sorted by its value. Once subscribers of the government can choose where their fees go, then public goods (ideas) could be sorted by their value.

In this thread I attached a poll that allows us to see the popularity of some public goods. With this information, we can sort the public goods by their popularity...

Space colonization
National defense
Public education
Biodiversity conservation
Other
Income equality
Infrastructure
Public healthcare
Diversity

If subscribers of the government could choose where their fees go, then we could sort these ideas by their value.

Why would it be beneficial to be able to sort ideas by their value? If you don't know the answer, then please read this post.

This website doesn't have subscribers... should it? Of course. Then the subscribers could choose where their fees go and we would be able to sort the threads/posts/ideas by their value.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Well yeah... pragmatarianism is where taxpayers can choose where their taxes go. But then eventually I had an epiphany. For all intents and purposes, taxpayers are subscribers and their taxes are their fees. The government isn't the only organization with subscribers. Netflix also has subscribers. Same thing with The Economist. If it makes sense for taxpayers to choose where their taxes go, then it makes sense for subscribers of Netflix and The Economist to choose where their fees go.

Once subscribers of The Economist can choose where their fees go, then the articles (ideas) could be sorted by their value. Once subscribers of Netflix can choose where their fees go, then the content (ideas) could be sorted by its value. Once subscribers of the government can choose where their fees go, then public goods (ideas) could be sorted by their value.

In this thread I attached a poll that allows us to see the popularity of some public goods. With this information, we can sort the public goods by their popularity...

Space colonization
National defense
Public education
Biodiversity conservation
Other
Income equality
Infrastructure
Public healthcare
Diversity

If subscribers of the government could choose where their fees go, then we could sort these ideas by their value.

Why would it be beneficial to be able to sort ideas by their value? If you don't know the answer, then please read this post.

This website doesn't have subscribers... should it? Of course. Then the subscribers could choose where their fees go and we would be able to sort the threads/posts/ideas by their value.

You didn't have so much an epiphany as much as you saw your argument crumbling.

Now, with that out of the way, I can design a system which I am more familiar with: networking.

As many people know, I am studying networking and network security. Now, let's say there 10,000 subscribers to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). There 10,000 subscribers are my responsibility to distribute connections that are reliable to the connection tiers they have paid. Some have paid for higher speed than others. I have the control of several frame relay switches for this purpose, to allocate 10,000 different speed lines to 10,000 subscribers.

As anyone who works in frame relays knows, or should know, you commit to a certain speed. Meaning, you commit to give the customer the speed they pay for, but also you do not involve yourself into guaranteeing the speeds.

Say you have a frame relay setup where you have to give 500 of these customers DSL speeds from a shared T1 line. Do you find this is a bad idea and instead you attempt to use coasianism to see how much they value their DSL connections in order to know how Burst space you leave on their lines, or do you setup every line equitatively at the same amount of bursts specified by their fractal connection speed? Assume that for the purposes of this mental problem, that DSL lines have to share the same Burst block proportionately equitative as the industry standard. Why would it be a better idea, even though network engineers who have designed the frame relay infrastructure have actually set it up to where there is an equitative standard for burst blocks?

[Xerographica]

All else being equal, if there are two classes that use coasianism... whichever class has the least cheaters... will win.

How do you determine winning? And once again the purpose of class is teaching, if for some reason people end up voting to go outside (say because they gamble badly) how will this forward the purpose of class? You are saying that the team with the most honest spenders wins, but that does not answer the question.

The purpose of class is teaching? Eh, the purpose of class is learning. So winning is making better decisions that facilitate learning. Does listening to music facilitate learning? If so, then whichever class has less cheaters is more likely to make the decision to play music during class. Does dancing every 15 minutes facilitate learning? If so, then whichever class has less cheaters is more likely to make the decision to dance every 15 minutes.

As I explained in this post, we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Would we use coasianism for the least valuable ideas? Nope.

That also did not answer the question. You basically simply claimed that it would not happen with no reason to think it would not. You are assuming that people would use your system as you described, rather then trying to make money by voting on things people would disagree with. You have still not given a reason why this would be the case. So once again how does your system prevent those who deliberately wish to harm the government from doing so?

I already explained that we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Once we know the value of ideas, then we clearly wouldn't use coasianism for the least valuable ideas.

Consider this example...

Let’s say if people say harmful things — take a classic case. There’s a football team called the Washington Redskins. I’m pretty sure most of its fans, the intent is not offense, but there is an offense there for many people. It’s called a harm, and there are some demands that name be changed. There is a public or social dimension to the name, that if certain groups are insulted enough times maybe there’s a demoralization or other kinds of prejudice become seen as more effective. How do you think through whether the Washington Redskins should be called the Washington Redskins, and does this not mean that on campus there should be some political correctness? - Tyler Cowen, A Conversation With Jonathan Haidt

Here are two conflicting ideas...

1. Change name
2. Keep name

Should coasianism be used to make a decision? Well... we could easily find out. We'd apply the pragmatarian model to this forum and then people could spend their fees on these two ideas. As a result, we'd know the value of each idea. If there's too much disparity between their values... then it would be pointless to use coasianism to resolve the conflict. The conflict would have already been resolved by the pragmatarian model. For example, if keeping the name was obviously far more valuable than changing it, then the name would be kept.

Would the conflict truly be resolved? Well... the more valuable that keeping the name is compared to changing it, the more obvious/definitive the public mandate for keeping the name. So a type of conflict would be resolved. But change is a constant so we shouldn't be surprised if the valuation of these two ideas changed over time. However, we would be able to clearly see the change in values over time.

[The Two Jerseys]

How do you determine winning? And once again the purpose of class is teaching, if for some reason people end up voting to go outside (say because they gamble badly) how will this forward the purpose of class? You are saying that the team with the most honest spenders wins, but that does not answer the question.

The purpose of class is teaching? Eh, the purpose of class is learning. So winning is making better decisions that facilitate learning. Does listening to music facilitate learning? If so, then whichever class has less cheaters is more likely to make the decision to play music during class. Does dancing every 15 minutes facilitate learning? If so, then whichever class has less cheaters is more likely to make the decision to dance every 15 minutes.

That also did not answer the question. You basically simply claimed that it would not happen with no reason to think it would not. You are assuming that people would use your system as you described, rather then trying to make money by voting on things people would disagree with. You have still not given a reason why this would be the case. So once again how does your system prevent those who deliberately wish to harm the government from doing so?

I already explained that we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Once we know the value of ideas, then we clearly wouldn't use coasianism for the least valuable ideas.

Consider this example...

Let’s say if people say harmful things — take a classic case. There’s a football team called the Washington Redskins. I’m pretty sure most of its fans, the intent is not offense, but there is an offense there for many people. It’s called a harm, and there are some demands that name be changed. There is a public or social dimension to the name, that if certain groups are insulted enough times maybe there’s a demoralization or other kinds of prejudice become seen as more effective. How do you think through whether the Washington Redskins should be called the Washington Redskins, and does this not mean that on campus there should be some political correctness? - Tyler Cowen, A Conversation With Jonathan Haidt

Here are two conflicting ideas...

1. Change name
2. Keep name

Should coasianism be used to make a decision? Well... we could easily find out. We'd apply the pragmatarian model to this forum and then people could spend their fees on these two ideas. As a result, we'd know the value of each idea. If there's too much disparity between their values... then it would be pointless to use coasianism to resolve the conflict. The conflict would have already been resolved by the pragmatarian model. For example, if keeping the name was obviously far more valuable than changing it, then the name would be kept.

Would the conflict truly be resolved? Well... the more valuable that keeping the name is compared to changing it, the more obvious/definitive the public mandate for keeping the name. So a type of conflict would be resolved. But change is a constant so we shouldn't be surprised if the valuation of these two ideas changed over time. However, we would be able to clearly see the change in values over time.

There's a little flaw in your example, in that the Washington Redskins are entirely owned by four people, and Dan Snyder, the only one of those four that actually matters, doesn't give a flying fuck if people are offended by the name. I would assume that he would give just as many flying fucks about pragmatarianism and coasianism were you to actually suggest this idea to him.

[Xerographica]

Well yeah... pragmatarianism is where taxpayers can choose where their taxes go. But then eventually I had an epiphany. For all intents and purposes, taxpayers are subscribers and their taxes are their fees. The government isn't the only organization with subscribers. Netflix also has subscribers. Same thing with The Economist. If it makes sense for taxpayers to choose where their taxes go, then it makes sense for subscribers of Netflix and The Economist to choose where their fees go.

Once subscribers of The Economist can choose where their fees go, then the articles (ideas) could be sorted by their value. Once subscribers of Netflix can choose where their fees go, then the content (ideas) could be sorted by its value. Once subscribers of the government can choose where their fees go, then public goods (ideas) could be sorted by their value.

In this thread I attached a poll that allows us to see the popularity of some public goods. With this information, we can sort the public goods by their popularity...

Space colonization
National defense
Public education
Biodiversity conservation
Other
Income equality
Infrastructure
Public healthcare
Diversity

If subscribers of the government could choose where their fees go, then we could sort these ideas by their value.

Why would it be beneficial to be able to sort ideas by their value? If you don't know the answer, then please read this post.

This website doesn't have subscribers... should it? Of course. Then the subscribers could choose where their fees go and we would be able to sort the threads/posts/ideas by their value.

You didn't have so much an epiphany as much as you saw your argument crumbling.

Now, with that out of the way, I can design a system which I am more familiar with: networking.

As many people know, I am studying networking and network security. Now, let's say there 10,000 subscribers to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). There 10,000 subscribers are my responsibility to distribute connections that are reliable to the connection tiers they have paid. Some have paid for higher speed than others. I have the control of several frame relay switches for this purpose, to allocate 10,000 different speed lines to 10,000 subscribers.

As anyone who works in frame relays knows, or should know, you commit to a certain speed. Meaning, you commit to give the customer the speed they pay for, but also you do not involve yourself into guaranteeing the speeds.

Say you have a frame relay setup where you have to give 500 of these customers DSL speeds from a shared T1 line. Do you find this is a bad idea and instead you attempt to use coasianism to see how much they value their DSL connections in order to know how Burst space you leave on their lines, or do you setup every line equitatively at the same amount of bursts specified by their fractal connection speed? Assume that for the purposes of this mental problem, that DSL lines have to share the same Burst block proportionately equitative as the industry standard. Why would it be a better idea, even though network engineers who have designed the frame relay infrastructure have actually set it up to where there is an equitative standard for burst blocks?

First you say that I saw my argument crumbling. Which is funny because your example immediately begins with determining speed according to people's willingness to pay (WTP). But then you ask whether coasianism should be used to allocate lines. Eh?

Listen guy, the only coherent argument that exists is based on Buchanan's Rule. We take it as an elementary economic fact that resources (ie time/attention/brainpower) are limited... and then we have to figure out how to allocate/distribute/use them. Do we want to evenly distribute them... or do we want to efficiently distribute them? The only way to efficiently distribute them is to figure out people's WTP. That's the point of pragmatarianism and coasianism.

My argument is that we have to figure out people's WTP. So it's ridiculous/absurd for you to say that my argument crumbles and then immediately launch into an example that's allocates society's limited resources based on people's WTP.

[Xerographica]

The purpose of class is teaching? Eh, the purpose of class is learning. So winning is making better decisions that facilitate learning. Does listening to music facilitate learning? If so, then whichever class has less cheaters is more likely to make the decision to play music during class. Does dancing every 15 minutes facilitate learning? If so, then whichever class has less cheaters is more likely to make the decision to dance every 15 minutes.


I already explained that we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Once we know the value of ideas, then we clearly wouldn't use coasianism for the least valuable ideas.

Consider this example...


Here are two conflicting ideas...

1. Change name
2. Keep name

Should coasianism be used to make a decision? Well... we could easily find out. We'd apply the pragmatarian model to this forum and then people could spend their fees on these two ideas. As a result, we'd know the value of each idea. If there's too much disparity between their values... then it would be pointless to use coasianism to resolve the conflict. The conflict would have already been resolved by the pragmatarian model. For example, if keeping the name was obviously far more valuable than changing it, then the name would be kept.

Would the conflict truly be resolved? Well... the more valuable that keeping the name is compared to changing it, the more obvious/definitive the public mandate for keeping the name. So a type of conflict would be resolved. But change is a constant so we shouldn't be surprised if the valuation of these two ideas changed over time. However, we would be able to clearly see the change in values over time.

There's a little flaw in your example, in that the Washington Redskins are entirely owned by four people, and Dan Snyder, the only one of those four that actually matters, doesn't give a flying fuck if people are offended by the name. I would assume that he would give just as many flying fucks about pragmatarianism and coasianism were you to actually suggest this idea to him.

There's a "little" flaw in your example... it's called the government. For the longest time gay people wanted to get married. But they couldn't... because the government didn't give a flying fuck what they wanted. Instead, the government gave a flying fuck what the majority wanted. When the majority wanted gays to get married... then, and only then, did the government give a flying fuck about gay people.

The concept of "ownership" and "rights" are entirely subjective/fluid/flexible. If the majority wants to vote for a law that makes "offensive" names illegal... then it can do so. And then government wouldn't give a flying fuck what Dan Snyder wants.

So the issue is whether we use voting or spending in order to determine what/who the government gives a flying fuck about. Personally, I prefer spending. Then, if Dan Synder doesn't get what he wants, at least he'll be fairly compensated.

[Xerographica]

In the morning class, there were 4 students who weren't willing to spend anything. What can we guess? We can guess that they could care less whether class is inside or outside. But what if it was raining/snowing/freezing outside? Would these 4 students still be perfectly ambivalent?

Not sure - it's a problem with your system that it actually is so overwhelmed by miscellaneous considerations and data points that what you're trying to convey gets lost in the noise.

It's actually worth noting that, while the voting class has had 100% participation in voicing their true opinions, in the morning you are down to 5-6 out of 14 (I think the hitchhiker's guide guy is voting his preference, but he's fixated on 42 cents). Less than half are bidding in communication of an actual preference. We're actually getting less pertinent information regarding inside/outside from your system than from voting already, and the preference data is trending downwards, while the other factors (namely, making money/gambling/reaping the margin) is on its way up.

We'll have to see if that trend continues ,but with three data points, it's definitely a trend now.

I'm too lazy... but is there a trend that trying to bet on the losing option is profitable? I'd be surprised if there was. If the gamblers realize that they are losing as often as they are winning... then what? In the morning class they can simply switch to hedging. But hedging is the equivalent of not participating in the decision making process. The more hedgers, the fewer decision makers. Do you want to steer the boat.... or do you want to profit? Clearly you want to steer the boat if your potential benefit from a certain direction is greater than your potential profit from hedging.

If your experiment does end up providing evidence that coasianism is defective, then it will be interesting to figure out why the outcome of this experiment was so different. There are only two differences with their model...

1. quadratic voting
2. equal compensation

The equal compensation encourages free-riding. And I fail to see how quadratic voting would be an improvement. This would leave the experiment itself. How does their experiment differ from your experiment?

[The Two Jerseys]

The concept of "ownership" and "rights" are entirely subjective/fluid/flexible. If the majority wants to vote for a law that makes "offensive" names illegal... then it can do so. And then government wouldn't give a flying fuck what Dan Snyder wants.

United States Constitution, Article I, Sections 9 and 10.

Look it up.

[Galloism]

Not sure - it's a problem with your system that it actually is so overwhelmed by miscellaneous considerations and data points that what you're trying to convey gets lost in the noise.

It's actually worth noting that, while the voting class has had 100% participation in voicing their true opinions, in the morning you are down to 5-6 out of 14 (I think the hitchhiker's guide guy is voting his preference, but he's fixated on 42 cents). Less than half are bidding in communication of an actual preference. We're actually getting less pertinent information regarding inside/outside from your system than from voting already, and the preference data is trending downwards, while the other factors (namely, making money/gambling/reaping the margin) is on its way up.

We'll have to see if that trend continues ,but with three data points, it's definitely a trend now.

I'm too lazy... but is there a trend that trying to bet on the losing option is profitable? I'd be surprised if there was.

On average it has been. There's been some winners and some losers.

If the gamblers realize that they are losing as often as they are winning... then what?

Well, if you win as often as you lose, you will win overall since, by some margin, you always get more win you win than you lose when you lose. The only true losers are the ones who play the way you envision.

In the morning class they can simply switch to hedging. But hedging is the equivalent of not participating in the decision making process. The more hedgers, the fewer decision makers. Do you want to steer the boat.... or do you want to profit? Clearly you want to steer the boat if your potential benefit from a certain direction is greater than your potential profit from hedging.

Except the trend is the opposite way. Fewer and fewer are "steering the boat" and more and more are exploiting the system for profit.

If your experiment does end up providing evidence that coasianism is defective, then it will be interesting to figure out why the outcome of this experiment was so different. There are only two differences with their model...

1. quadratic voting
2. equal compensation

The equal compensation encourages free-riding. And I fail to see how quadratic voting would be an improvement. This would leave the experiment itself. How does their experiment differ from your experiment?

The math is different, basically. Quadratic voting has a different mathematical outcome such that it's not so easily and obviously exploitable at first glance.

Easily exploited systems will be exploited. Systems harder to exploit may or may not be, but even if they are, will be at a lower rate. Your system is easily exploitable, thus it will be exploited. It's kind of a rule of man.

[Xerographica]

I'm too lazy... but is there a trend that trying to bet on the losing option is profitable? I'd be surprised if there was.

On average it has been. There's been some winners and some losers.

Trying to bet on the losing option has been profitable? Can you prove it with math? Or shall we simply take your word for it?

Except the trend is the opposite way. Fewer and fewer are "steering the boat" and more and more are exploiting the system for profit.

LOL. Imagine a class with 10 students. Let's say that 9 students perfectly hedge their bets but one student spends a penny on his preferred option. How much money was made from hedging? Do you see how massively stupid it is to predict that the trend will continue to an obviously absurd conclusion?

If your experiment does end up providing evidence that coasianism is defective, then it will be interesting to figure out why the outcome of this experiment was so different. There are only two differences with their model...

1. quadratic voting
2. equal compensation

The equal compensation encourages free-riding. And I fail to see how quadratic voting would be an improvement. This would leave the experiment itself. How does their experiment differ from your experiment?

The math is different, basically. Quadratic voting has a different mathematical outcome such that it's not so easily and obviously exploitable at first glance.

Easily exploited systems will be exploited. Systems harder to exploit may or may not be, but even if they are, will be at a lower rate. Your system is easily exploitable, thus it will be exploited. It's kind of a rule of man.

LOL. Really? The math makes quadratic voting harder to exploit? Care to elaborate? If you tried to do so then you'd make a fool of yourself. The primary thing that you're "exploiting" with my model is a person's ability to hedge. Do you seriously think that the "different math" of quadratic voting somehow prevents participants from making hedge deals with each other?