4th Grade Nation State

[SUNTHREIT]

Would council communism work in a class? I dunno.

Well it wouldn't work in a country so who knows

[Xerographica]

In the trade to determine who was in charge of the IRS... nobody was willing to spend any money on Jacob. Jacob himself was willing to spend his pennies on Laila. However... two students did put Jacob down as their preferred option. But their willingness to pay (WTP) was 0 pennies. Both students had pennies but they decided that saving them was more prudent than potentially spending them. Of course, if they had been willing to spend their pennies on Jacob then they would have actually received pennies.

The two students essentially voted for Jacob. They were willing to vote for him... but they were not willing to spend for him. They were willing to give him a thumbs up... but they were not willing to give him a penny.

So even when students run out of pennies they will still be able to communicate their preferences. But they won't be able to substantiate their preferences with payment.

To the extent that this is relevant to what I said at all, doesn't it invalidate your entire philosophy?

I fail to see how it does. Here's a summary of my philosophy...

Giving people the freedom to decide for themselves whether it’s truly worth it to throw the alternative uses of their own resources under the bus is the only way to prevent QIRE from being violated.

[Dazchan]

Monkeys are intelligent and don't smell as bad.

Do you go around smelling monkeys and primary school children to compare them?

While I don't go out of my way to smell primary school children, it does come with the territory of being a teacher.

You do not want to be in a room full of fourth grade boys on a summer afternoon. It isn't pleasant.

[The Two Jerseys]

But that's not how you said your proposed system will work.

You said you want to give the money to whoever didn't vote for Bob's flag. Unless Bob voted for another flag, Bob won't get paid for his work if his flag is chosen.

Bob therefore has no incentive to do work.

Yeah... coasianism is about the class spending their pennies to choose the class flag. It's not about Bob being compensated for the flag that he created. In theory, if students did give their pennies to Bob for his flag... then it should count as them paying taxes. His flag definitely isn't a private good... it's a public good. But not sure what department that would fall under.

Aiden is in charge of the IRS. It's going to be a lot of work keeping track of everybody's tax obligations and payments. How many students will choose to give their taxes to the IRS? If they do so then they'll essentially be compensating Aiden.

With the US government... we have to give our taxes to the IRS. But in Michelle's class... my ideal government... the IRS (Aiden) won't collect taxes. He'll simply be ensuring that all the students are paying their fair share. So if the students give their taxes to the IRS... it means that they will be compensating Aiden for doing his job.

All the students like to garden. Not sure what would happen if there was a Department of Gardening. The student in charge of this department would have to decide how to divvy up the revenue among all the students who gardened. Plus, the revenue could also be used to purchase plants/seeds and tools for the garden. This is assuming that the students wouldn't be able to specify how they wanted the Department of Gardening to spend their tax payment.

Do you even understand the concept of compensating individuals for their labor?

And how your "losers get the money" voting system doesn't compensate individuals for their labor?

[Lost heros]

What kind of school and what kind of teacher would allow something like this in their lesson plans? Like what. Also, I'm pretty late, but if I don't vote on anything doesn't that just mean I get paid.

[PaNTuXIa]

I don't think it's unethical. I think it's actually quite a good idea. The only problem is that my ideal form of governemt is anarcho-communism, which wouldn't work too well in a fourth grade class. Maybe if they were 6th or older.

[Galloism]

Because this is a closed system, what happens when one student runs out of pennies?

It's not technically a closed system. Michelle never specified whether or not the kids could bring pennies from home. Pretty early on... one student, Jacob, "coincidentally" found a penny near his desk. He mentioned it to Michelle and she said something like finders keepers. The very next day he again found a penny near his desk. And again he mentioned it to Michelle. This time she kinda gave him a hard time and asked him what was so special about that part of the classroom that pennies kept magically appearing.

For the second trade... Michelle was going through the valuation forms when she noticed that Christopher had put down around 50 cents for Aiden. She knew that it was more money than he was supposed to have. So she asked him about it and he showed her two quarters. The class all shouted at him... something... maybe about not being able to spend quarters. Michelle made him change his valuation... and he put down the rest of his pennies.

So there were two unwritten rules...

1. No outside money
2. Pennies only

Jacob seemed to be aware of both rules but wanted to "subtly" test the first rule. Christopher, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaware of either rule.

Michelle and I discussed beforehand whether it would be better to specify certain rules. She thought it would be interesting to not specify them and then see what happened. I agreed and voila!

After snipping irrelevant bullshit, what you appear to be telling me is that people who cheat well win tend to win.

... well, ain't that a peach.

[Pandeeria]

The issue is that creativity can only carry you so far. What will the means of production, y'know, a fundamental for civilization, be in a class room? Another things is that the decision making part of the 4th grader's brain is not developed, and will not be fully developed until their 20's. In my system, since obviously adults would still be running things, this will not be an issue, but since 4th graders don't make decisions very well, get upset rather easily, and often times don't understand what's going on around them, my system would probably not work. Not because it's a bad system, but because we're trying it on a bunch of fucking kids. Kids don't know how to make conclusions and come up with agreements like adults can.

But this "issue" is just as relevant for my preferred system as it is for your preferred system. It's not like my 4th graders are gifted while your 4th graders would be "special".

Here's one experiment I think would be interesting, and would help solve for variables (or rather, the lack of them):

The class room will be divided in half. This will also require a shit load of candy, to help simulate production in the most basic sense recognizable. It also has to be candy most or everyone actually likes, or the psychological factor just won't be present.

On one side of the classroom, there will be a designated few kids who will start off with a ton of candy. They will more or less represent the capitalist class, the business owners. They will have an unproportionally high amount of starting chocolate. The rest of the kids will start off with zero, one, or if they're lucky, 2 pieces of candy.

On the other side of the room, each kid will start off with an equal amount of chocolate. It's up to you to determine an exact amount that each starts with. Though if you want to get really scientific, what would be best is basically average the amount of chocolate each kid from the capitalist side of the room gets (add up all the candies, and divide that number by the number of students. In your friend's case, it would be 15), and the average is what each kid in the Socialist side gets. Both "societies" start out with an equal amount of wealth, but it's much more concentrated in the hands of a few on the capitalist side (hopefully trickle-down economics work!).

Now is where the most basic form of economics come in. See, for this test to be meaningful, we have to simulate the means of production. I think the best way to do it would be each kid has to answer a tough math problem. If they fail, they don't get any candy. If they can successfully answer it, it yields three pieces of candy. This applies to both sides of the class room.

However, this is where the twist comes in. The few "rich" kids on the capitalist side of the class room gets the chocolate that is produced from answering these questions. If it doesn't happen immediately, it might happen naturally (it might be interesting to just pull them "rich" kids aside and maybe suggest it) that these candy rich kids would "pay" their poorer counterparts a piece of chocolate if their poorer kids do the math problems for them. So while the labor (in this case, problem solving) of the candy-poor kid might yield 3 pieces of candy, all three pieces of candy go to the rich kids and the rich will decide to pay back their promised 1 piece of candy (got to pay your workers something or else they won't work for you at all!).

On the other side of the room, when someone answers a question right, instead of three pieces of candy going directly to a single person, it would simply be placed down in the middle of the table. From there, it can be decided not by the already present owner of chocolate (IE one of the candy-rich kids) but by the kids collectively who gets what. It would be the community (or really the Commune) how to divide it. Will they divide it equally? Will it lead to fighting and bickering? Will it lead to more candy, since most of it isn't going to a select few individuals, or will it to less candy as the kids become greedy and wish to not answer any questions and still expect to still get some candy?

After the test has ran it's course, simply ask the kids which system they liked more, which one worked out better, etc.

To keep things a least somewhat on track and a little sane, the teacher should give some pointers to both sides.

I still don't think this would exactly be great, but it'd definitely be interesting to say the least.

Why would you split a single classroom into capitalist versus communist when my classroom is already capitalist? Each student in my class started out with 20 pennies that Michelle and I gave them. After two trades... the pennies are very unevenly distributed. There's lots of wealth inequality. I really don't have a problem with this wealth inequality. You do have a problem with wealth inequality. So why not use an entire classroom to demonstrate the benefit of wealth equality?

Give each of your students 5 or 10 or 20 pennies. Allow them to spend their pennies via coasianism or some other form of trade. Then, on a regular basis, enforce wealth equality. Bob gives Sally one penny for cleaning the hamster cage. The teacher then takes the penny from Sally and gives it back to Bob. Of course that makes money largely pointless. So Bob can simply give Sally a thumbs up for taking the time and making the effort to clean the hamster cage.

My class needs a flag. So some students are going to take the time and make the effort to create some flags. Then the class will use coasianism to decide whose flag should be the class flag. If Bob's flag is the most valuable... then Sally can give him a penny. And nobody will take that penny away from Bob.

1. The class spots a deficiency (no flag)
2. Any students can allocate their labor to eliminating the deficiency (creating a flag)
3. Coasianism is used to choose whose flag is the most valuable
4. Students can give their pennies to whoever created the most valuable flag

This is capitalism... more or less. Clearly you have an issue with capitalism. So how would your class go about the process of creating/choosing a flag?

There's real, unreal and surreal. But what about better than real? Martin Luther King had a dream. His dream was better than reality. But not every dream is better than reality. So "dream" doesn't mean "better than real".

I told this to Michelle and she eventually came up with "megareal". It's not bad but I'm pretty sure that there's a better prefix. But it will do for now.

Right now we don't have a cure for cancer. This is real. For most people it would be megareal if there was a cure for cancer.

Every student can see that, as far as their classroom is concerned, there's a disparity between real and megareal. Maybe Bob's classroom has one goldfish. For Bob this is real. Perhaps for Bob it would be megareal if his classroom had a tank with some piranhas in it. But is a tank with piranhas more megareal for Bob than his classroom having a computer for each and every student?

Whose system would do the best job of eliminating the distance between real and megareal... yours or mine? Let's find out.

You split the class up to observe capitalism vs socialism. I thought that was self explanatory.

Also, you wouldn't be taking away a penny from Billy and give it to Sally. That's more or less state welfare, an organ of the state which would be abolished under the Communist system.

[PaNTuXIa]

Would council communism work in a class? I dunno.

Same here, essentially.

I don't think the students are ready to seize the Means of Production from their teachers just yet.

[Xerographica]

Here are the three coasianism trades that have occurred in Michelle's class...

1. Deciding which book to read (29 Sept 2016)...

2. Deciding who should be in charge of their IRS (7 Oct 2016)...

3. Deciding what the class insect should be (11 Oct 2016)...

The most valuable option was chosen (ie Praying Mantis). The students who did not get their preferred option did not have to spend their money. Instead, they received all the money spent on the most valuable option (MVO). The amount of money a student received was in proportion to their willingness to pay (WTP).

Michelle called me during her break and gave me a quick update...

- Daisy borrowed money from Elizabeth ("but i'm going to pay her back!")
- Some money was lost/stolen (didn't adequately put their money away... 1st graders also use the class)
- Jacob spent all his money ($1.04) on his preferred option (Praying Mantis). Biggest WTP to date.
- Christopher successfully argued for being able to spend his quarter. But he didn't choose MVO.
- Kids: "Can we bring pennies from home?"... Michelle: "I didn't say you couldn't"
- Jacob: "I have 5 dollars worth of pennies at home!"
- Allison started carrying purse with pennies in it

It quickly went lots of different directions at once.

[Xerographica]

Yeah... coasianism is about the class spending their pennies to choose the class flag. It's not about Bob being compensated for the flag that he created. In theory, if students did give their pennies to Bob for his flag... then it should count as them paying taxes. His flag definitely isn't a private good... it's a public good. But not sure what department that would fall under.

Aiden is in charge of the IRS. It's going to be a lot of work keeping track of everybody's tax obligations and payments. How many students will choose to give their taxes to the IRS? If they do so then they'll essentially be compensating Aiden.

With the US government... we have to give our taxes to the IRS. But in Michelle's class... my ideal government... the IRS (Aiden) won't collect taxes. He'll simply be ensuring that all the students are paying their fair share. So if the students give their taxes to the IRS... it means that they will be compensating Aiden for doing his job.

All the students like to garden. Not sure what would happen if there was a Department of Gardening. The student in charge of this department would have to decide how to divvy up the revenue among all the students who gardened. Plus, the revenue could also be used to purchase plants/seeds and tools for the garden. This is assuming that the students wouldn't be able to specify how they wanted the Department of Gardening to spend their tax payment.

Do you even understand the concept of compensating individuals for their labor?

And how your "losers get the money" voting system doesn't compensate individuals for their labor?

I acknowledged that coasianism isn't for compensating students for their labor. Coasianism is for compensating students who didn't get their preferred option. Pragmatarianism is for taxing their compensation but allowing them to choose which departments they give their taxes to. And it will be the departments that compensate the students for their labor. Well... unless there's a decent amount of tax allocation specificity.

While I do appreciate, or at least read, your feedback... ideally you would simply pitch your plan to a teacher and then show us how your own system compensates students for their labor. And then we can compare our results.

[Lost heros]

Here are the three coasianism trades that have occurred in Michelle's class...

1. Deciding which book to read (29 Sept 2016)...

(Image)

2. Deciding who should be in charge of their IRS (7 Oct 2016)...

(Image)

3. Deciding what the class insect should be (11 Oct 2016)...

(Image)

The most valuable option was chosen (ie Praying Mantis). The students who did not get their preferred option did not have to spend their money. Instead, they received all the money spent on the most valuable option (MVO). The amount of money a student received was in proportion to their willingness to pay (WTP).

Michelle called me during her break and gave me a quick update...

- Daisy borrowed money from Elizabeth ("but i'm going to pay her back!")
- Some money was lost/stolen (didn't adequately put their money away... 1st graders also use the class)
- Jacob spent all his money ($1.04) on his preferred option (Praying Mantis). Biggest WTP to date.
- Christopher successfully argued for being able to spend his quarter. But he didn't choose MVO.
- Kids: "Can we bring pennies from home?"... Michelle: "I didn't say you couldn't"
- Jacob: "I have 5 dollars worth of pennies at home!"
- Allison started carrying purse with pennies in it

It quickly went lots of different directions at once.

I really wish I was in this class when I was in fourth grade because I didn't give any shits about any of this shit and would be rolling in the pennies I wouldn't be using on these pointless things.

[Xerographica]

Anybody read this article in the NY Times?

Why You Should Bet Against Your Candidate by Carey K. Morewedge

It's amazingly similar to coasianism... which makes it beautifully curious that it's not coasianism. Morewedge didn't argue that voting should be replaced with spending. If I share coasianism with him... anybody want to predict/guess what his response would be?

[Galloism]

Anybody read this article in the NY Times?

Why You Should Bet Against Your Candidate by Carey K. Morewedge

It's amazingly similar to coasianism... which makes it beautifully curious that it's not coasianism. Morewedge didn't argue that voting should be replaced with spending. If I share coasianism with him... anybody want to predict/guess what his response would be?

I think it's funny when you point to an article which argues that it's smart and rational to bid on the option you don't want, and then argue that the bidding will reflect 'true desire' for a particular option.

[The New World Oceania]

If you say coasianism one more time I'm gonna scream.

[Xerographica]

If you say coasianism one more time I'm gonna scream.

If you scream, but nobody on the internet hears it, do you make a sound? I'll agree to say the c word one more time... but you have to agree to upload your scream to youtube. Of course you also have to verify that it's your scream.

[Neanderthaland]

If you say coasianism one more time I'm gonna scream.

If you scream, but nobody on the internet hears it, do you make a sound?

Yes.

[Xerographica]

Anybody read this article in the NY Times?

Why You Should Bet Against Your Candidate by Carey K. Morewedge

It's amazingly similar to coasianism... which makes it beautifully curious that it's not coasianism. Morewedge didn't argue that voting should be replaced with spending. If I share coasianism with him... anybody want to predict/guess what his response would be?

I think it's funny when you point to an article which argues that it's smart and rational to bid on the option you don't want, and then argue that the bidding will reflect 'true desire' for a particular option.

The article argues that it's smart and rational to hedge your bets. When you bet on the option that you don't want... it's a win-win situation. Either you get your preferred option... or you get compensated.

Of course with a basketball game... you might as well bet on the other team winning. But with voting... why not just allow the bets to determine the outcome? Then you bet on your own candidate. It's still a win-win situation. Either you get your preferred option... or you get compensated.

So... I take it that you're unwilling or unable to predict what Morewedge's response to the c-word would be?

[Xerographica]

If you scream, but nobody on the internet hears it, do you make a sound?

Yes.

I recently read an article about the conservation of energy in an expanding universe. I didn't understand it.

[Galloism]

I think it's funny when you point to an article which argues that it's smart and rational to bid on the option you don't want, and then argue that the bidding will reflect 'true desire' for a particular option.

The article argues that it's smart and rational to hedge your bets. When you bet on the option that you don't want... it's a win-win situation. Either you get your preferred option... or you get compensated.

Of course with a basketball game... you might as well bet on the other team winning. But with voting... why not just allow the bets to determine the outcome? Then you bet on your own candidate. It's still a win-win situation. Either you get your preferred option... or you get compensated.

So... I take it that you're unwilling or unable to predict what Morewedge's response to the c-word would be?

Well, I suspect very deep rich laughter. That's usually my response.

I mean, the simple fact is, the rational thing to do, in your system, is to bid on the thing you feel is most certain to lose - regardless of your feelings. Bring back slavery? I'll bid for that. Make Donald Trump dictator for life? I'll bid for that. If people actually DO use your system the way you intend, that's profit for me because I won't, and I will have more 'societal influence' (money) as a result. Ban fracking? That one's harder. Probably best to bid both sides and reap the margin (as long as transaction costs are not too high).

The problem is, if everyone is individually rational, then collectively your system fails to clarify what you're trying to clarify. Your system only will work is everyone (or most everyone) is individually irrational.

[Xerographica]

Bring back slavery? I'll bid for that.

My argument is that we should replace voting with spending... and your favorite counterexample is something that we're probably not going to vote on.

[Galloism]

Bring back slavery? I'll bid for that.

My argument is that we should replace voting with spending... and your favorite counterexample is something that we're probably not going to vote on.

But we might decide to spend on it. After all, how do you choose what issues to bid for/against?

[Xerographica]

My argument is that we should replace voting with spending... and your favorite counterexample is something that we're probably not going to vote on.

But we might decide to spend on it. After all, how do you choose what issues to bid for/against?

Just because we replace voting with spending doesn't mean that we need to eliminate public opinion polls/surveys. What would a public opinion poll about slavery look like?

Here's a public opinion poll about same sex marriage. Which years, exactly, should we have used spending? For reference...

When your favorite sports team is defeated, you’re disappointed, even dismayed. The same is true when your preferred political candidate doesn’t win. It hurts when your side loses. - Carey K. Morewedge, Why You Should Bet Against Your Candidate

Now there are lots of opponents of gay marriage who are hurting. Before there were lots of proponents of gay marriage who were hurting. When, exactly, should the people who get their preferred option compensate the people who don't get their preferred option?

[Neanderthaland]

Bring back slavery? I'll bid for that.

My argument is that we should replace voting with spending... and your favorite counterexample is something that we're probably not going to vote on.

Does it really matter?

It's not like we'd never vote on an issue where one response is worse than the other.

[Galloism]

But we might decide to spend on it. After all, how do you choose what issues to bid for/against?

Just because we replace voting with spending doesn't mean that we need to eliminate public opinion polls/surveys. What would a public opinion poll about slavery look like?

Here's a public opinion poll about same sex marriage. Which years, exactly, should we have used spending? For reference...

I'm asking how do we initiate a spending decision. Who decides "X is a valid topic to bid on?" Can I submit it?

Keep in mind, 20% of Donald Trump's supporters thought freeing the slaves was a bad idea.

Is that enough people to submit a topic for bidding?

Now there are lots of opponents of gay marriage who are hurting. Before there were lots of proponents of gay marriage who were hurting. When, exactly, should the people who get their preferred option compensate the people who don't get their preferred option?

Fuck people against equality. Seriously. Fuck em. They don't deserve compensation for something that doesn't injure them in any fucking way shape or form.

Giving them compensation only gives them more power to ban it again, and we will have to pay them over and over and over and over again on the same issue to keep a pro-equality status quo. And eventually, you will give them enough power to reverse equality. Then we do this whole damn thing again except the other way.

I am not paying bigots for being bigoted. That's retarded. I'm not going to say a person who is against equality deserves more money for being bigoted assholes.