The Least Blind Group Will Win

[Galloism]

Because they value the corn highly. You yourself have said that people should pay an amount of money for stuff equal to the value of that stuff, regardless of how much of it they want or how abundant it is.

Oh you're really going to have to quote me on this!!! Because I sure call shenanigans.

I said that value is a function of availability/importance. Poison oak is available enough... but I don't value it because I don't think it's at all important to me. Lemons, on the other hand, are certainly important to me... but I don't value them because my tree is full of them.

And yet, despite the nearly infinite availability of threads at no cost, being made thousands of times faster than you could even read them, you think people should pay for them what they "truly value" them at.

Given the functionally infinite availability, and your notion that "true value" is based on availability, wouldn't the value functionality be infinitely small? Billionths or trillionths or even quadrillionths of a cent?

Also, how does the customer know the availability of corn? He's not privileged to get internal corporate spoilage numbers.

[Neanderthaland]

Here's the thing though:
Suppose I really love Oldboy. I want the money I give to Netflix to reflect my preferences, so I put everything in my budget on that film to show the magnitude of my approval.

I've just wasted all my money. Because there just aren't enough people who love incest-themed vengeance movies to fuel the genre.

Whereas if I had felt free to express my opinions without sacrifice via a star system, Netflix would see that in addition to my fanatical love for incest-themed vengeance movies, I also like nature documentaries and Stranger Things. And those are things that have broader appeal. So they would know they would have me as a potential audience if they pursued that kind of content. Giving them more information then under your system.

LOL/WEEP

Guy, you just don't know how much better the world would be if we could all clearly see how many other people are in the same boat as us. Just because Oldboy wasn't very popular really doesn't mean that it isn't very valuable. I'd sure as heck be really tempted to spend quite a big chunk of my fees on it. How many other people are in the same boat as us? We don't know. We should know. The Least Blind Group Will Win. The blind man picked up his hammer and saw.

With the current system, creators/producers can't see demand depth, so it's only logical for them to focus on demand breadth. The logical, but extremely, unfortunate result is that we're all plagued with a surplus of the superficial and shallow. But the current system can really be changed. We just have to understand why it should be changed.

And under your system, they don't have either.

Because our hypothetical me, being a sensible person, is not going to invest in a project he doesn't think is going to produce results no matter how much he loves it. Meaning that people will not spend money on content they actually enjoy.

He also isn't going to split his finances to represent his true range of interests. Partially because he wants to focus his efforts a little, and partially because that's frankly a lot of work to invest in mild entertainment.

So under the star system, I can tell them what I enjoy and to what degree. While under your system they know a few things that I like that I think other people will also like.

[Neanderthaland]

Also Xero, no matter how many times I tell the ladies I'm just trying to communicate how much I value sex, I still get slapped.

[Xerographica]

Oh you're really going to have to quote me on this!!! Because I sure call shenanigans.

I said that value is a function of availability/importance. Poison oak is available enough... but I don't value it because I don't think it's at all important to me. Lemons, on the other hand, are certainly important to me... but I don't value them because my tree is full of them.

And yet, despite the nearly infinite availability of threads at no cost, being made thousands of times faster than you could even read them, you think people should pay for them what they "truly value" them at.

Given the functionally infinite availability, and your notion that "true value" is based on availability, wouldn't the value functionality be infinitely small? Billionths or trillionths or even quadrillionths of a cent?

I just said that value should be based on availability/importance. Sure there's a ton of threads but they sure aren't equally important.

There's a ton of food available at the supermarket. But this general availability really doesn't influence my valuation. I'm more concerned with the availability of the specific food that I consider to be important.

Also, how does the customer know the availability of corn? He's not privileged to get internal corporate spoilage numbers.

How do you know the availability of anything? You search for it. The easier it is to find, the more available it is. The harder it is to find, the less available it is.

Perhaps rather than using "important" it's better to use "relevant".

If we have a system with everybody searching for relevant things, and using their money to accurately broadcast how concerned they are with the availability of relevant things, then we'll maximize the abundance or relevant things.

For example... I personally think that movies that are both entertaining and educational are relevant. I've searched for such content but it seems relatively scarce. One of the few movies that I've found is The Man From Earth. I'd like to have the opportunity to spend my Netflix fees on this movie. Doing so would help broadcast that I perceive that there's a big shortage of movies that are both entertaining and educational. Of course my broadcast wouldn't be very wide if I'm the only person in this boat. The more people who are in the same boat as me, the more that they are willing to pay, the larger the broadcast, the brighter the value signal, the greater the incentive for creators/producers to respond to it and the greater the supply of movies that are both entertaining and educational.

Of course I can't predict that, if Netflix subscribers could allocate their fees, that there will be a big demand for movies that are both entertaining and relevant. But for sure Netflix subscribers would definitely spend a lot of fees on some type of movies. There's definitely going to be a "winner". There has to be a winner. Will it be a winner by a small margin or a small margin? I have no idea. But the bigger the margin, the more scarce and relevant that subscribers perceive it to be.

[Xerographica]

LOL/WEEP

Guy, you just don't know how much better the world would be if we could all clearly see how many other people are in the same boat as us. Just because Oldboy wasn't very popular really doesn't mean that it isn't very valuable. I'd sure as heck be really tempted to spend quite a big chunk of my fees on it. How many other people are in the same boat as us? We don't know. We should know. The Least Blind Group Will Win. The blind man picked up his hammer and saw.

With the current system, creators/producers can't see demand depth, so it's only logical for them to focus on demand breadth. The logical, but extremely, unfortunate result is that we're all plagued with a surplus of the superficial and shallow. But the current system can really be changed. We just have to understand why it should be changed.

And under your system, they don't have either.

Because our hypothetical me, being a sensible person, is not going to invest in a project he doesn't think is going to produce results no matter how much he loves it. Meaning that people will not spend money on content they actually enjoy.

He also isn't going to split his finances to represent his true range of interests. Partially because he wants to focus his efforts a little, and partially because that's frankly a lot of work to invest in mild entertainment.

So under the star system, I can tell them what I enjoy and to what degree. While under your system they know a few things that I like that I think other people will also like.

To be clear, the star giving feedback system and the fee spending feedback system aren't mutually exclusive. Personally though, if I was a creator/producer, then I'd sure give a lot more weight/credence to what people were actually willing to spend their fees on.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "projects". Oldboy is a movie that has already been produced. You'd simply have the option to spend as many of your fees as you wanted on it. And the more valuable it is, the brighter the value signal, the greater the incentive for producers/creators to see and respond to it, the greater the supply of similar/better (more valuable) movies.

There's going to be a big pool of money that lots of producers/creators are going to compete for.

If you're saying that it's unlikely that other people will spend many of their fees on Oldboy... eh... well. If you think that your grasp of the market is so good then you should be spending more time on Wall street and less time here.

Ideally, right beneath Oldboy we will be able to see all the subscribers who allocated fees to it... sorted by how many fees they allocated to it. Say your username is at the top of the list. Since I also love Oldboy I'd be curious to see which other movies you also love. So I'd click on your username and see a list of your favorite content sorted by your valuations. I'd also be able to see a list of your most recent valuations. Maybe on your page I'd find new content that I'd also love and be willing to spend lots of my fees on.

Of course I'd also be curious which books you also love. In this sense, Amazon has the jump on Netflix. Amazon could combine its Prime and Kindle Unlimited and give subscribers the option to allocate their fees to their favorite content. Heck, then it might as well add music as well. Then on your userpage I'd be able to see all your favorite movies, shows, books and songs sorted by your valuations of them.

You'd use your limited money to prioritize your favorite content in order to help me prioritize how I spent my limited time.

Each day there's a mountain of new content... but there's still only 24 hours in the day. It's going to be increasingly important to have a system that serves people the most valuable content. However, since values are subjective, no algorithm is going to come close to beating the market at determining the value of things. Eventually people will figure this out. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

[Grave_n_idle]

Still, despite what Xero may claim, throwing money at research won't do anything when there's only so many qualified researchers who can only do so much work in any given time period.

Well, if not everyone who can be working on the problem is already (and they aren't) more money can always buy the time of more researchers. But again, this is a question for another thread. Let's stop talking about it before we get told off for going off-topic.

The concept of 'research' is on-topic, and a very good example of why Xero's idea is junk.

Research can serve three potential masters - it can be for the purpose of finding something that is appropriate for an ideological argument (arguable a BAD use of research, from a scientist's point of view), it can be used to find something popular (for example, for a tv program - again, arguably a bad use of research from a purely scientific point of view), and it can be used to expand the boundaries of information (scientifically a legitimate use of research).

People with a specific agenda will choose the 'ideological argument' research to put their money towards.

People who want to be popular (or just subscribe to a popular view) will choose the 'popular' research to put their money towards.

A minority will put their money towards the 'information' research.

In other words, if we apply Xero's idea in the real world, to something as simple but important as research - it absolutely fails to allocate value in an appropriate or efficient way. The one thing it is designed to do.

[The Holy Therns]

At this point I'm convinced Xero just compulsively wastes money and wants everyone else to compulsively waste money too so he doesn't feel alone.

[Xerographica]

Well, if not everyone who can be working on the problem is already (and they aren't) more money can always buy the time of more researchers. But again, this is a question for another thread. Let's stop talking about it before we get told off for going off-topic.

The concept of 'research' is on-topic, and a very good example of why Xero's idea is junk.

Research can serve three potential masters - it can be for the purpose of finding something that is appropriate for an ideological argument (arguable a BAD use of research, from a scientist's point of view), it can be used to find something popular (for example, for a tv program - again, arguably a bad use of research from a purely scientific point of view), and it can be used to expand the boundaries of information (scientifically a legitimate use of research).

People with a specific agenda will choose the 'ideological argument' research to put their money towards.

People who want to be popular (or just subscribe to a popular view) will choose the 'popular' research to put their money towards.

A minority will put their money towards the 'information' research.

In other words, if we apply Xero's idea in the real world, to something as simple but important as research - it absolutely fails to allocate value in an appropriate or efficient way. The one thing it is designed to do.

You really think that you can accurately predict how American taxpayers would allocate their taxes? Seriously? Then it should be super easy for you to accurately predict how members of this website would allocate their fees. If we all paid a fee and could choose which threads we spent our fees on... then how would everybody's fees be divided among all the different topics?

[Maqo]

Because they value the corn highly. You yourself have said that people should pay an amount of money for stuff equal to the value of that stuff, regardless of how much of it they want or how abundant it is.

Oh you're really going to have to quote me on this!!! Because I sure call shenanigans.

I said that value is a function of availability/importance. Poison oak is available enough... but I don't value it because I don't think it's at all important to me. Lemons, on the other hand, are certainly important to me... but I don't value them because my tree is full of them.

Xero, it seems you are confusing marginal value with net value. You're confusing the quantity you have, with the overall supply.

Presumably the lemons you already have provide you with some value. Why would you have lemons if they don't?
Yet at the same time, you have plenty of lemons and don't need to buy more.

Hopefully this doesn't mean you think the actual value of lemons is 0 and there is a surplus.
Because you did think that, in your system, you would be justified in going to a supermarket and paying what you value lemons at ($0) for a truckload of lemons. Because you perceive there to be a worldwide surplus, because you personally already had enough.

Hopefully that doesn't seem right to you.
Yet as far as I can tell, your system allows this.
So long as your personal needs are sated, you can acquire infinitely many more of that same item for free.


So let's go back to the corn.
I currently have no corn. I want 1 corn. I see a farmer selling 4 corn.

Do I perceive a shortage or surplus in the supply of corn?
Certainly there is more than enough to fulfil my needs. Does that mean there is a surplus? Normally when we talk about surpluses and shortages were talking about the market as a whole, not one individual consumer. But it is very difficult for me to determine whether there is a whole market shortage of corn. I don't know how many other farmers are selling corn or how much they have left. I don't know how many other people still want to buy corn today, or how much. It's possible that I scour 10 stores trying to find corn, and finally get the very last ear in the city. But if I'm the last person who wants to buy corn today then that means corn was perfectly supplied, regardless of how difficult it was for me to find.

My perception of the entire market shortage or surplus is incredibly misinformed to the point of uselessness. Someone trying to base their actions from what I communicate about my perceived shortage would be better off ignoring me entirely.

If we're just talking about whether there is enough for me personally, then so long as there is corn available for me to buy then there is a surplus.

[Grave_n_idle]

You really think that you can accurately predict how American taxpayers would allocate their taxes? Seriously? Then it should be super easy for you to accurately predict how members of this website would allocate their fees. If we all paid a fee and could choose which threads we spent our fees on... then how would everybody's fees be divided among all the different topics?

It's not a matter of having some secret insight - it's a simple observation: quality and popularity are not connected.

Britney Spears is not a particularly good singer, has a narrow range, a nasal voice (which she has admittedly made work for her), no writing ability and no ability with other musical instruments. She is also one of the best-selling artists of all time (currently, safely within the top-40 all-time sales).

On the other hand, take for example Myra (more popularly known as 'Tori') Amos, who has a substantially broader range, has written thousands of her own songs, and is such a talented composer and instrumentalist that she was inducted into the Peabody Institute on a full-scholarship at a still-record-breaking age of 5. She has also sold a fraction of the number of records Britney has sold.

Sure, this is a microcosm - but it represents the whole. You can repeat this pattern over and over, across almost any (commercial) field.

And that's why your 'idea' is junk. It turns EVERY field into a 'commercial' field.

[Alvecia]

At this point I'm convinced Xero just compulsively wastes money and wants everyone else to compulsively waste money too so he doesn't feel alone.

Truthfully I think it's that they created their own little pet economic theory and are so proud of it they've become impervious to any criticism.
It's a known phenomena, scientists do it with pet theories sometimes. Cling to it despite evidence to the contrary.

[The Two Jerseys]

So I just saw on the morning news...

Netflix is changing its rating system.

No more stars, just thumbs up/down.

Read that Variety article, it's pretty enlightening:

Netflix VP of product Todd Yellin told journalists...that the company had tested the new thumbs up and down ratings with hundred of thousands of members in 2016...The result was that thumbs got 200% more ratings than the traditional star-rating feature...

However, over time, Netflix realized that explicit star ratings were less relevant than other signals. Users would rate documentaries with 5 stars, and silly movies with just 3 stars, but still watch silly movies more often than those high-rated documentaries. “We made ratings less important because the implicit signal of your behavior is more important,” Yellin said.

See Xero, even Netflix thinks your system is stupid...

[Xerographica]

So let's go back to the corn.
I currently have no corn. I want 1 corn. I see a farmer selling 4 corn.

Do I perceive a shortage or surplus in the supply of corn?

I think part of the problem is that you're applying a pragmatarian idea outside of a pragmatarian context. The only reason that people should pay their valuation of corn is if they are in a pragmatarian market. If you're not in a pragmatarian market, then go ahead and shop around for the cheapest corn. But if you are in a pragmatarian market, then consider the supply of corn and spend your tax dollars accordingly.

[Xerographica]

So I just saw on the morning news...

Netflix is changing its rating system.

No more stars, just thumbs up/down.

Read that Variety article, it's pretty enlightening:

Netflix VP of product Todd Yellin told journalists...that the company had tested the new thumbs up and down ratings with hundred of thousands of members in 2016...The result was that thumbs got 200% more ratings than the traditional star-rating feature...

However, over time, Netflix realized that explicit star ratings were less relevant than other signals. Users would rate documentaries with 5 stars, and silly movies with just 3 stars, but still watch silly movies more often than those high-rated documentaries. “We made ratings less important because the implicit signal of your behavior is more important,” Yellin said.

See Xero, even Netflix thinks your system is stupid...

LOL, The Two Jerseys, yeah... my system is all about the stars. Darn. Shucks. Oh well. Back to the drawing board. Hmmm.... what if subscribers could spend their fees on content?

[The Two Jerseys]

So I just saw on the morning news...

Netflix is changing its rating system.

No more stars, just thumbs up/down.

Read that Variety article, it's pretty enlightening:


See Xero, even Netflix thinks your system is stupid...

LOL, The Two Jerseys, yeah... my system is all about the stars. Darn. Shucks. Oh well. Back to the drawing board. Hmmm.... what if subscribers could spend their fees on content?

Well, to put it in terms that you would understand, they would allocate all their fees to The Wealth of Nations and maybe read it once, but would definitely read the Twilight series over and over and over and over...

[Alvecia]

LOL, The Two Jerseys, yeah... my system is all about the stars. Darn. Shucks. Oh well. Back to the drawing board. Hmmm.... what if subscribers could spend their fees on content?

Well, to put it in terms that you would understand, they would allocate all their fees to The Wealth of Nations and maybe read it once, but would definitely read the Twilight series over and over and over and over...

Hey now, they said silly, not awful.

[Maqo]

So let's go back to the corn.
I currently have no corn. I want 1 corn. I see a farmer selling 4 corn.

Do I perceive a shortage or surplus in the supply of corn?

I think part of the problem is that you're applying a pragmatarian idea outside of a pragmatarian context. The only reason that people should pay their valuation of corn is if they are in a pragmatarian market. If you're not in a pragmatarian market, then go ahead and shop around for the cheapest corn. But if you are in a pragmatarian market, then consider the supply of corn and spend your tax dollars accordingly.

It would help if you said something like that 20 pages ago.

Communication, Xero. Maybe people don't listen to to you because you're not making it clear that everything you talk about is how things might operate in your fantasyland.



But that aside, I don't understand how being in a pragmatarian market allows you to determine the optimal supply of corn more easily.

Theoretically this would be a very common occurrence in your system. I want some corn. The first shop I go to has none. The second shop has 5. I only need one.
As I gather, between when I put the corn in my basket to when I get to the checkout, I need to
- determine whether there is a market-wide shortage or surplus of corn
- determine the magnitude of said surplus
- determine the correct amount of money to allocate to the farmer, in order for him to change his production to be the optimal supply
- adjust the amount above to take in to account that I'm only one of billions of people who are also buying corn
- decide to spend that mimics money even though I could technically leave the store paying nothing, by claiming that I have a corn plant at home & thus place zero value on corn.

See, that sounds... wrong. On so many levels.
Do you really think that people can do that, accurately, for every single product they buy?

[Xerographica]

LOL, The Two Jerseys, yeah... my system is all about the stars. Darn. Shucks. Oh well. Back to the drawing board. Hmmm.... what if subscribers could spend their fees on content?

Well, to put it in terms that you would understand, they would allocate all their fees to The Wealth of Nations and maybe read it once, but would definitely read the Twilight series over and over and over and over...

Ooooh. To believe how they spent their time? Or to believe how they spent their money? Tough call. I spend lots of time in Church... but I also spend a ton of money on prostitutes. Am I a saint... or a sinner? Should I go to heaven... or hell?

[Xerographica]

You really think that you can accurately predict how American taxpayers would allocate their taxes? Seriously? Then it should be super easy for you to accurately predict how members of this website would allocate their fees. If we all paid a fee and could choose which threads we spent our fees on... then how would everybody's fees be divided among all the different topics?

It's not a matter of having some secret insight - it's a simple observation: quality and popularity are not connected.

Britney Spears is not a particularly good singer, has a narrow range, a nasal voice (which she has admittedly made work for her), no writing ability and no ability with other musical instruments. She is also one of the best-selling artists of all time (currently, safely within the top-40 all-time sales).

On the other hand, take for example Myra (more popularly known as 'Tori') Amos, who has a substantially broader range, has written thousands of her own songs, and is such a talented composer and instrumentalist that she was inducted into the Peabody Institute on a full-scholarship at a still-record-breaking age of 5. She has also sold a fraction of the number of records Britney has sold.

Sure, this is a microcosm - but it represents the whole. You can repeat this pattern over and over, across almost any (commercial) field.

And that's why your 'idea' is junk. It turns EVERY field into a 'commercial' field.

You're saying that quality and popularity are not connected. What am I saying? That taxpayers should be free to directly allocate their taxes. What are you saying? That taxpayers shouldn't be free to allocate their taxes because we're better off allowing representatives to allocate them. Except, how do we choose our representatives? Popularity contest.

Ouch, my most of me.

[Xerographica]

I think part of the problem is that you're applying a pragmatarian idea outside of a pragmatarian context. The only reason that people should pay their valuation of corn is if they are in a pragmatarian market. If you're not in a pragmatarian market, then go ahead and shop around for the cheapest corn. But if you are in a pragmatarian market, then consider the supply of corn and spend your tax dollars accordingly.

It would help if you said something like that 20 pages ago.

I'm pretty sure that I said it like 20 threads ago.

But that aside, I don't understand how being in a pragmatarian market allows you to determine the optimal supply of corn more easily.

Theoretically this would be a very common occurrence in your system. I want some corn. The first shop I go to has none. The second shop has 5. I only need one.
As I gather, between when I put the corn in my basket to when I get to the checkout, I need to
- determine whether there is a market-wide shortage or surplus of corn
- determine the magnitude of said surplus
- determine the correct amount of money to allocate to the farmer, in order for him to change his production to be the optimal supply
- adjust the amount above to take in to account that I'm only one of billions of people who are also buying corn
- decide to spend that mimics money even though I could technically leave the store paying nothing, by claiming that I have a corn plant at home & thus place zero value on corn.

See, that sounds... wrong. On so many levels.
Do you really think that people can do that, accurately, for every single product they buy?

It's a different mindset. With the current system, when you get/buy corn you have an impact on the supply. But in a pragmatarian system... the getting and the communicating wouldn't necessarily have to occur at the same time. At anytime you could say, "The world should have more corn!" and then you'd allocate $1000 tax dollars to the Dept of Corn. And maybe you won't actually have any corn for another month.

And maybe you wouldn't even research the corn supply before you allocated $1000 tax dollars to the Corn Dept or your favorite corn farmer. But generally though taxpayers would be rather inclined to make sure that they weren't wasting their taxes.

[Xerographica]

At this point I'm convinced Xero just compulsively wastes money and wants everyone else to compulsively waste money too so he doesn't feel alone.

Truthfully I think it's that they created their own little pet economic theory and are so proud of it they've become impervious to any criticism.
It's a known phenomena, scientists do it with pet theories sometimes. Cling to it despite evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps it's not technically my economic theory. James Buchanan published the theory in the 60s. He said that if people have to pay taxes anyways, then they'll have no incentive to conceal their true preferences for public goods.

Also, I'm all about trying to find actual and real evidence to the contrary. But are you interested in paying a monthly fee and using it to communicate your valuation of threads? Are you interested in paying a monthly fee and electing an awesome member to decide how it's divided among all the threads? If not, then you're clinging to your pet economic theory despite a lack of evidence to support it.

[Alvecia]

Truthfully I think it's that they created their own little pet economic theory and are so proud of it they've become impervious to any criticism.
It's a known phenomena, scientists do it with pet theories sometimes. Cling to it despite evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps it's not technically my economic theory. James Buchanan published the theory in the 60s. He said that if people have to pay taxes anyways, then they'll have no incentive to conceal their true preferences for public goods.

Also, I'm all about trying to find actual and real evidence to the contrary. But are you interested in paying a monthly fee and using it to communicate your valuation of threads? Are you interested in paying a monthly fee and electing an awesome member to decide how it's divided among all the threads? If not, then you're clinging to your pet economic theory despite a lack of evidence to support it.

I'm interested in not applyling a single economic theory to every single possible situation and instead am happy to use different methods for different situations based on the particular context said situations provide.

Threads for example, would not work in your system, because I value threads being free. I cannot communicate that I value threads being free because as soon as I use money to let people know that, they are no longer free, so I no longer value them.
Which would make them free, so I would value them again.
Which would make them not free, so I would no longer value them.
Which would make them free, so I would value them again.
Which would make them not free, so I would no longer value them.

[Salandriagado]

I go to a store that stocks Durian, but I don't see how your response is any kind of sensible response at all.

Besides which, I think you know even less about engineering and biology then you do about economics. A cure for cancer does not exist not because there's not a demand for it, but because it's likely impossible to make human biological systems maintain themselves perfectly forever, and when detrimental errors inevitably occur it often takes the form of cancer. If we knew a way to make living cells function flawlessly all the time, forget cancer, we could literally cure death.

What's the demand for immortality then? How much would you be willing to pay to be as healthy for as long as you want?

If you're willing to spend lots of money on Durians then clearly it's going to marginally shift society's resources accordingly. But Durian is something that you can buy. And if you buy it, then you get the benefit. It's a private good.

But what about public goods? There's the free-rider problem. So... taxes. But this really doesn't mean that some politician knows your demand for anything better than you do.

Have your representative guess your demand for Durians or donuts. Then have him or her guess your demand for environmental protection or space colonization. Let me know how good his or her guesses are.

Chances are that YOU don't even know your demand for environmental protection or space colonization. These are the kinda things that you can only truly know when given the option to allocate your tax dollars.

This emphasis is misleading. Individuals do not act so as to maximize utilities described in independently existing functions. They confront genuine choices, and the sequence of decisions taken may be conceptualized, ex post (after the choices), in terms of "as if" functions that are maximized. But these "as if" functions are, themselves, generated in the choosing process, not separately from such process. If viewed in this perspective, there is no means by which even the most idealized omniscient designer could duplicate the results of voluntary interchange. The potential participants do not know until they enter the process what their own choices will be. From this it follows that it is logically impossible for an omniscient designer to know, unless, of course, we are to preclude individual freedom of will. - James Buchanan, Order Defined in the Process of its Emergence

I know my valuations of imortality, and environmental protection, and space colonisation: they are all functionally infinite.

[Alvecia]

What's the demand for immortality then? How much would you be willing to pay to be as healthy for as long as you want?

If you're willing to spend lots of money on Durians then clearly it's going to marginally shift society's resources accordingly. But Durian is something that you can buy. And if you buy it, then you get the benefit. It's a private good.

But what about public goods? There's the free-rider problem. So... taxes. But this really doesn't mean that some politician knows your demand for anything better than you do.

Have your representative guess your demand for Durians or donuts. Then have him or her guess your demand for environmental protection or space colonization. Let me know how good his or her guesses are.

Chances are that YOU don't even know your demand for environmental protection or space colonization. These are the kinda things that you can only truly know when given the option to allocate your tax dollars.

I know my valuations of imortality, and environmental protection, and space colonisation: they are all functionally infinite.

Interesting how you managed to accurately communicate your value without the need for money

[Salandriagado]

They may not know exactly how I want the nation's tax dollars spent, but neither do I. I am not nearly well-informed enough about the innumerable issues facing a nation and the world to draw up a complete and detailed budget. But I do know what my ideals are, and my representative knows that their ideals match mine (or match mine closer than any other contender for the office), and will attempt to enact whatever policy they think most appropriate to make the world closer match my ideals. That's how representative government works, and it works quite well. Because people can vote with things other than money. They can also vote with votes.

Directly allocating your taxes would be optional. If you were super happy with how your representatives were spending your tax dollars then you'd have absolutely no reason to take the time or make the effort to spend them yourself.

Administrative overhead exists, and would obliterate any potential benefits from this.

This may come as a surprise to you, but no matter how highly you "rate" those books with your money, most people don't want to curl up with a nice economic treatise...

I guess you don't appreciate how many people purchased Piketty's book.

A tiny fraction of the number of people that purchased, say, the first Harry Potter book.

How much time and effort we put into things depends on their value. So if we don't correctly know the true value of things... chances are good that we'll misallocate way too much of our limited time and energy and brain cells.

The first sentence is false: that depends on a lot of things, most of which are nothing to do with their value. Your proposal guarantees that we will misallocate all of our limited resources.

It actually does it quite well. If someone likes a thread, they post on it, continuing the discussion and bringing it to the top of the page for more people to see and contribute to. Netflix subscribers communicate what sort of content they would like to see more of by what content they watch and how they rate it. Taxpayers get their taxes spent the way they want by electing the representatives who will spend their taxes the way they want. The system works quite well. Or rather, these three disparate systems that really don't have all that much in common with each other work quite well.

Spending time certainly is a sacrifice. But we use money for a reason. It's because it's a really convenient way to make a sacrifice. So it's a convenient way to communicate our valuation of things. Then the issue is ensuring that we use our money to accurately communicate our valuation of things. Hence the point of pragmatarian markets. The Least Blind Group Will Win.

No, we use money because carrying cows around to trade is inconvenient. We don't use it to "communicate" or "sacrifice" anything: we use it to buy shit, and that purchase communicates literally nothing other than "I have the funds necessary to purchase this item, and I value it higher than I value having that money sitting in my bank account.

Because you would probably also do a terrible job of it. Some people would do a good job allocating their taxes (mostly the career politicians that should be allocating everyone's taxes anyways), but almost everyone would be terrible at it, and most of them have better things to be doing with their time anyways.

First you argue that people who chose to allocate their taxes would do a terrible job. Then you argue that they have better things to do with their time. Which one is it?

Both of those statements are true.

How exactly we value the things we buy doesn't generally come into it because we're trying to pay as low a price as we can for the things we want.

Except, what about Netflix subscribers choosing where their fees go? You gonna try and pay as low a "price" as you can for the shows and movies you want? You can certainly pay nothing for them. But then how would anybody know how much you want them?

Erm, yes, necessarily: the total value of things on Netflix to me is greater than the cost of my Netflix subscription. This is true for literally every Netflix subscribers, otherwise they wouldn't be fucking Netflix subscribers. Therefore, everybody will always undervalue everything.

Come up with a coherent economic story. This should be your mission in life.

No it fucking shouldn't, and we already have one. You don't.

Yes, Congressmen have people whose entire job is to do research in order to provide recommendations on how taxes should be spent.

John Q. Public doesn't have that luxury.

John Q. Public doesn't have the luxury of researching the law... yet John Q. Public sure does have the freedom to fire his lawyer without having to persuade all the other lawyer's clients to do the same thing.

John Q Public doesn't have a lawyer, because lawyers are fucking expensive.

Here we must differentiate between goods and services that I can only buy a limited amount of (such as food), and those I can buy an almost unlimited amount of (such as movies).
In the case of the former, there's no easy way for, say, a grocer to know how much I want, say, bananas. But it also doesn't matter. However much I may want bananas, I can only eat so many, and purchasing further bananas wouldn't make sense. I might want bananas more than anything else in the world, but once I've had about five at most, I'm done. I'm full–literally. My demand has been completely met.
In the case of the latter, content creators (for this category consists of media and some services, which I can purchase infinitely and never be full of) know how much I like a kind of content based on how much of that kind of content I consume.
In both these cases, no matter how much I desire something, there's no reason for me to overpay for it. I pay as little as I can, but no more than I am willing, and if there is not enough supply to meet my demand, the supply will increase according to economic theory until there is enough.

Please keep it simple...

How much should you pay?

1. Movies
A. More than your valuation
B. Your valuation
C. Less than your valuation

2. Bananas
A. More than your valuation
B. Your valuation
C. Less than your valuation

In all cases the answer is "as little as you can get away with".

It's nearly impossible to say how many people would choose to allocate their tax dollars even though they would do a terrible job of it. But it doesn't matter if it's a majority or not. These people choosing poorly negatively impacts everyone else, so we don't let them, for the same reason that we don't let people commit crimes.

If you're arguing that the majority of people will choose poorly... then why should we have any confidence in the representatives that they choose?

Because they are choosing from a small selection of people who are all dedicating a large percentage of their time to learning about this shit. Delegating tasks to people who can spend most of their time specialising them is literally the basis of all economics and society beyond subsistence farming.

In both cases, as little as I can get away with.

So if Netflix gave you the option to spend your fees on your favorite content... then you'd spend absolutely none of your fees on your favorite content?

No, because in that case, I've already spent the money, and I'm not actually spending fees, I'm distributing votes. There's already a system for that: it's called the rating system, and it communicates my preferences far better than your crazy idea would.

A) I'm not arguing that a majority of people will allocate their tax dollars poorly, I'm saying it doesn't matter exactly how many would because each one that does is harming everyone in the country by doing so and having representatives do it is a more effective and more efficient system.

So if 99.9999% of taxpayers did an excellent job of allocating their taxes... but .0001% of taxpayers did a terrible job of allocating a grand total of $1 tax dollar... then it would be a terrible system?

Yes, because you'd literally have 300 million times the administrative overhead. How good a job you do is irrelevant. You also still don't remove the problem of overfunded departments.

B) Just because people would be bad at drawing up a budget doesn't mean that they are bad at choosing the representative who's ideals most closely align with theirs (though there is room for improvement there).

I can be bad at deciding how to spend my taxes but good at picking somebody to spend my taxes? Except, clearly you don't want me to have the option to fire my representative and spend my taxes myself. So evidently I'm incapable of knowing whether somebody is doing a good job of spending my taxes. Yet, I'm good at choosing somebody to spend my taxes.

Seriously?

Yup. Choosing from one of a small number of discrete options is easier than choosing from a continuum of literally trillions of different options.

If I could vote on my favorite content, I would. Thankfully, I already can, by watching the content and rating it highly.

It's no sacrifice to give your favorite content 5 stars. Therefore, in the market, we can simply replace dollar spending with star rating???

I asked for a coherent economic story and you really haven't been able to provide one.

I've already made the trade with Netflix: I gave them $10, and they gave me access to their system. Everything after that is just voting, and is utterly and completely meaningless beyond that, regardless of what stupid labels you choose to put on it.

If your boss allowed you to flap your arms fast enough to fly, would you do it?

It doesn't really matter if they "allow" me to communicate to them when what I'm saying is in a language they can't understand. Izandai and others have done a decent job of showing why the communications you make in this way are unintelligible.

What? If you spend all $10 dollars of your monthly Netflix fee on a chick flick, then I'm sure everybody would have absolutely no problem understanding that you really and truly loved it.

Similarly, if give my $10 to Netflix (which is the only actual spending going on here), then just watch that fucking chick flick, then exactly the same information is conveyed: that information is "add one to the number of people that you would expect to watch another film like this". Because it doesn't matter how much I like it at all: it only matters if I will pay to watch it or not.

By the inverse-ninja rule of economics, the most blind, most outnumbered group will always win.

If you're going to end all of your posts with a nonsense phrase, I'm going to recommend that everyone else end theirs with mine.

You may think this is unfair, but keep in mind: according to the inverse-ninja rule, this is your best chance of winning.

Divide $10 dollars among all your favorite books and then share your breakdown with all of us.

Almost all of them get $0, because I have more than 1,000 favourite books.

No, because star ratings, for the most part, carry no monetary value. Money only works as a medium of exchange because it, almost definitionally, has universal monetary value.

You only think I'm failing to describe a coherent economic system because you constantly misunderstand everything I say.

Giving stars isn't a sacrifice. Spending money, on the other hand, is a sacrifice. Making a sacrifice is how we prove and communicate importance. And knowing the importance of things is necessary because society's resources are limited. All the brainpower that you're allocating to this topic can't also be allocated to helping your little brother with his homework. Are you wasting your time and brainpower? It's hard to say because we don't really know how relatively important this topic truly is. And this is simply because NationStates isn't a pragmatarian market. We don't pay monthly fees that we can spend on threads. But we should because, The Least Blind Group Will Win.

And here we have yet another example of why this is stupid:

1) Allocating money after I've spent it (as in the Netflix example) isn't a sacrifice: it's literally just voting that happens to have a poll tax.
2) Bill Gates allocating $10,000 to something represents precisely zero sacrifice. Me allocating $10,000 to something represents an unimaginably vast sacrifice. Your system is completely blind to this difference.

Incidentally, it's very easy to see how important this topic is: it isn't. At all.

I have no idea what we're talking about anymore. I am unable to parse these sentences.

People who overestimate their competence tend to make less money. Making less money means paying less taxes. I'm advocating that taxpayers should be given the option to directly allocate their taxes.

The US just elected a massive counterexample to this. Competence is also different between different areas: I'm pretty competent in mathematics, but wouldn't be at all competent in allocating government spending. That's why we hire experts to do that for us.

If you agree that the free-rider problem, then you should support everybody making a reasonable minimum donation to non-profits. Then you would be endorsing my system (pragmatarian market).

No, because I actually understand the free-rider problem. (And specifically, I understand that it isn't nearly as big a problem as you seem to think that it is).

Here's the thing though:
Suppose I really love Oldboy. I want the money I give to Netflix to reflect my preferences, so I put everything in my budget on that film to show the magnitude of my approval.

I've just wasted all my money. Because there just aren't enough people who love incest-themed vengeance movies to fuel the genre.

Whereas if I had felt free to express my opinions without sacrifice via a star system, Netflix would see that in addition to my fanatical love for incest-themed vengeance movies, I also like nature documentaries and Stranger Things. And those are things that have broader appeal. So they would know they would have me as a potential audience if they pursued that kind of content. Giving them more information then under your system.

LOL/WEEP

Guy, you just don't know how much better the world would be if we could all clearly see how many other people are in the same boat as us. Just because Oldboy wasn't very popular really doesn't mean that it isn't very valuable. I'd sure as heck be really tempted to spend quite a big chunk of my fees on it. How many other people are in the same boat as us? We don't know. We should know. The Least Blind Group Will Win. The blind man picked up his hammer and saw.

With the current system, creators/producers can't see demand depth, so it's only logical for them to focus on demand breadth. The logical, but extremely, unfortunate result is that we're all plagued with a surplus of the superficial and shallow. But the current system can really be changed. We just have to understand why it should be changed.

We do know how much better the world would be: it would be massively worse, for reasons outlined many times in this thread.

I've been to a few of your threads and realized it's not even worth the effort to try to explain the real world to you, so yeah, I'll just be serving up some snark while other people do the legwork

But... what if you're the only person in the world who is genuinely truly capable of helping me understand the real world?

I'm not that good a teacher. Also, this is far more funny, and I value the humour from your continual self-destructive crap more than whatever minimal positive contribution to the world you might actually make. (And notice, I've communicated that valuation difference without ever spending anything).

Well, to put it in terms that you would understand, they would allocate all their fees to The Wealth of Nations and maybe read it once, but would definitely read the Twilight series over and over and over and over...

Ooooh. To believe how they spent their time? Or to believe how they spent their money? Tough call. I spend lots of time in Church... but I also spend a ton of money on prostitutes. Am I a saint... or a sinner? Should I go to heaven... or hell?

Neither: they should care about what will boost their future profits. That is: what are you more likely to buy a sequel to? And that is absolutely Twilight (given that no sequel to Wealth of Nations is coming), regardless of how you spread your money around.