Overcoming The Obstacle Of Distance

[UniversalCommons]

The Native Americans should have developed dogs further to this logic. They were one of the first groups to domesticate dogs. They used dogs as pack animals. The dogs back then were much larger. Therefore they should have turned them into riding animals. It follows the same logic as this thread. Then we would have Native American pack dogs and riding dogs. Dogs can be big enough to ride, there are the Chinese lion dogs. Plus it would make for good roleplaying.

[Camicon]

I don't have to make that argument until you explain why a theory regarding biological evolution would be at all applicable to explaining your own personal theory on human economic behaviour.

Since you're not going to say which parts of the handicap principle you think are irrelevant to human economics then we can do this step by step.

Step 1

The handicap principle is about costly signals. Do you agree that spending money is a costly signal?

The handicap principle is about signals being made reliable by the cost the signaller incurs by making them. This manifests in a myriad of different physical and behavioural characteristics.

Spending money is one action which, given the structure of our society, is unavoidable. Furthermore, the amount of money each individual has makes the act of spending money cost a different amount for each individual. Simply observing how much money a person spends on something tells us nothing without knowing how much money they have to spend.

As I said before, this has been explained to you multiple times. Trying to wrap your misunderstanding around a scientific theory only highlights your apparent unwillingness, or inability, to introspect.

[Cetacea]

The Native Americans should have developed dogs further to this logic. They were one of the first groups to domesticate dogs. They used dogs as pack animals. The dogs back then were much larger. Therefore they should have turned them into riding animals. It follows the same logic as this thread. Then we would have Native American pack dogs and riding dogs. Dogs can be big enough to ride, there are the Chinese lion dogs. Plus it would make for good roleplaying.

eerrr, I see your logic, but dogs have never been big enough to carry an adult human and the ancient wild dogs weren't big at all (think Coyote)

now riding Bears would have been awesome, you could have Grizzly v Polar Bar cavalry charges across the tundra lands

[Luziyca]

The internet, high-speed rail and air travel have made distance much less of a obstacle, in my opinion. If the hyperloop and the maglev goes into widespread use, then travelling the world will be less of an endeavour and more of a breeze.

Indeed. Though I'm not so convinced about the hyperloop or maglev.

[Xerographica]

Since you're not going to say which parts of the handicap principle you think are irrelevant to human economics then we can do this step by step.

Step 1

The handicap principle is about costly signals. Do you agree that spending money is a costly signal?

The handicap principle is about signals being made reliable by the cost the signaller incurs by making them. This manifests in a myriad of different physical and behavioural characteristics.

But why are reliable signals needed in the first place?

[Camicon]

The handicap principle is about signals being made reliable by the cost the signaller incurs by making them. This manifests in a myriad of different physical and behavioural characteristics.

But why are reliable signals needed in the first place?

Why did you ignore the part where I explained how you're wrong?

Spending money is one action which, given the structure of our society, is unavoidable. Furthermore, the amount of money each individual has makes the act of spending money cost a different amount for each individual. Simply observing how much money a person spends on something tells us nothing without knowing how much money they have to spend.

[Neanderthaland]

The Native Americans should have developed dogs further to this logic. They were one of the first groups to domesticate dogs. They used dogs as pack animals. The dogs back then were much larger. Therefore they should have turned them into riding animals. It follows the same logic as this thread. Then we would have Native American pack dogs and riding dogs. Dogs can be big enough to ride, there are the Chinese lion dogs. Plus it would make for good roleplaying.

Hard to beat a Comanche on a Warg.

[Neanderthaland]

But why are reliable signals needed in the first place?

Why did you ignore the part where I explained how you're wrong?

Spending money is one action which, given the structure of our society, is unavoidable. Furthermore, the amount of money each individual has makes the act of spending money cost a different amount for each individual. Simply observing how much money a person spends on something tells us nothing without knowing how much money they have to spend.

Because he always ignores that part.

Gallo has spent ages trying to get him to adequately address it.

[Camicon]

Why did you ignore the part where I explained how you're wrong?

Because he always ignores that part.

Gallo has spent ages trying to get him to adequately address it.

Oh, I know. I hop on the merry-go-round as well, when I come across Xero's threads.

There was a time he sent me a TG to let me know he was starting a new one, but he stopped at some point, so I've probably missed some of his antics.

[Xerographica]

But why are reliable signals needed in the first place?

Why did you ignore the part where I explained how you're wrong?

Spending money is one action which, given the structure of our society, is unavoidable. Furthermore, the amount of money each individual has makes the act of spending money cost a different amount for each individual. Simply observing how much money a person spends on something tells us nothing without knowing how much money they have to spend.

The handicap principle provides an explanation for costly signals. The reason that costly signals exist is because cheap signals provide unreliable information about importance.

Cause: untrustworthy cheap signals
Effect: costly signals

From my perspective this is relevant to economics. We spend money (a costly signal) because speaking/voting (cheap signals) provide unreliable information about importance.

To refute the relevance you have to provide another cause for spending money....

Cause: _______________
Effect: spending money

If unreliable cheap signals aren't the real cause of spending money... then what is the real cause?

[Camicon]

Why did you ignore the part where I explained how you're wrong?

The handicap principle provides an explanation for costly signals.

The handicap principle provides an explanation for behavioural and physical characteristics that seemingly lower a creature's fitness to survive.

The reason that costly signals exist is because cheap signals provide unreliable information about importance.

Cause: untrustworthy cheap signals
Effect: costly signals

From my perspective this is relevant to economics. We spend money (a costly signal)

Not for some people. Some people have millions of dollars burning a hole in their pocket.

... because speaking/voting (cheap signals) provide unreliable information about importance.

An assumption that we've shown you multiple times to be flawed.

To refute the relevance you have to provide another cause for spending money....

No, I don't, I can instead show how your reasoning uses faulty assumptions. When you base an argument on an assumption which I demonstrate is faulty then I don't need to refute the argument, because it no longer has any basis. Much like I don't have to refute an argument which is based on the assumption of a flat Earth.

Disproving your argument does not require that I present a competing argument.

[Xerographica]

The handicap principle provides an explanation for costly signals.

The handicap principle provides an explanation for behavioural and physical characteristics that seemingly lower a creature's fitness to survive.

I'm looking over our discussion on this topic and I think there was a problem at Step 1.

I asked you whether you agree that spending money is a costly signal. You didn't answer the question. Instead, you responded that people don't equally value money. Except, I didn't ask you whether people equally value money. I asked you whether you agree that spending money is a costly signal.

If you disagree that spending money is a costly signal then clearly you're going to disagree that the handicap principle is relevant to economics.

What if you agree that spending money is a costly signal? Then the question is whether the fact that people don't equally value money somehow makes the handicap principle irrelevant to economics. I don't think it would. As long as these two things are true...

1. People make costly signals (spend money)
2. People have an incentive to use cheap signals to deliberately exaggerate importance

... then the handicap principle is relevant to economics. It explains why we use costly signals.

[Salandriagado]

(Image)

This is a reconstruction of an American Wild Horse btw, smaller than the modern horse (and smaller even than true Tarpans).

No way of knowing if they were suitable for riding either -

I've got a pretty damned reliable way of telling if it's suitable for riding: it aint, unless you're tiny.

[Camicon]

The handicap principle provides an explanation for behavioural and physical characteristics that seemingly lower a creature's fitness to survive.

I'm looking over our discussion on this topic and I think there was a problem at Step 1.

I asked you whether you agree that spending money is a costly signal. You didn't answer the question. Instead, you responded that people don't equally value money. Except, I didn't ask you whether people equally value money. I asked you whether you agree that spending money is a costly signal.

No, I said that people value money differently depending on how much of it they have, making the cost of the "signal" when they spend their money different for each person. This makes spending money an incredibly unreliable indicator, because nobody has to disclose the entirety of their financial information when they buy a one-dollar candy bar. Do try and keep up.

If you disagree that spending money is a costly signal then clearly you're going to disagree that the handicap principle is relevant to economics.

I disagree that the handicap principle is relevant to your pet economic theory because you have yet to provide any evidence aside from "because I say so".

[UniversalCommons]

I was thinking of the Foo Dog, or lion. An even better choice for riding than dogs...

[Xerographica]

I'm looking over our discussion on this topic and I think there was a problem at Step 1.

I asked you whether you agree that spending money is a costly signal. You didn't answer the question. Instead, you responded that people don't equally value money. Except, I didn't ask you whether people equally value money. I asked you whether you agree that spending money is a costly signal.

No, I said that people value money differently depending on how much of it they have, making the cost of the "signal" when they spend their money different for each person.

Here are the two questions...

1. Is spending money a costly signal?
2. Do people have an incentive to use cheap signals to exaggerate importance?

The answer to both question is "yes" which is why the handicap principle is relevant to economics. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

This makes spending money an incredibly unreliable indicator, because nobody has to disclose the entirety of their financial information when they buy a one-dollar candy bar. Do try and keep up.

If you truly think that spending money is such an incredibly unreliable indicator then how much time do you spend arguing that we should abolish money?

[Camicon]

No, I said that people value money differently depending on how much of it they have, making the cost of the "signal" when they spend their money different for each person.

Here are the two questions...

1. Is spending money a costly signal?
2. Do people have an incentive to use cheap signals to exaggerate importance?

The answer to both question is "yes" which is why the handicap principle is relevant to economics. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

The answer to 1 is "sometimes, and it depends", because money is not a costly signal to someone who has more money than they could spend over the course of ten lifetimes. Spending money is not a reliable indicator, and an unreliable indicator is a worthless indicator.

This makes spending money an incredibly unreliable indicator, because nobody has to disclose the entirety of their financial information when they buy a one-dollar candy bar. Do try and keep up.

If you truly think that spending money is such an incredibly unreliable indicator then how much time do you spend arguing that we should abolish money?

I don't, because money is a medium to facilitate economic transactions, not a form of communication as you erroneously think it is.

[The Holy Therns]

And no, this really isn't yet another thinly veiled attempt to talk about my favorite topic. It really isn't. I swear. There's absolutely no connection between the two topics.

Oh, great!

If you truly think that spending money is such an incredibly unreliable indicator then how much time do you spend arguing that we should abolish money?

Oh, golly!

[Xerographica]

If you truly think that spending money is such an incredibly unreliable indicator then how much time do you spend arguing that we should abolish money?

I don't, because money is a medium to facilitate economic transactions, not a form of communication as you erroneously think it is.

If you don't believe that spending money is a form of communication (transmission of information) then why did you spend so much time arguing that spending money transmits inaccurate information about importance?

A. Spending money transmits information about importance
B. Spending money transmits inaccurate information about importance

"B" is only possible if "A" is true.

So which is it? Does spending money transmit inaccurate information about importance? Or does spending money not transmit any information?

Some researchers repeatedly set out a small amount of food for some monkeys in nature. The top ranking monkeys would tend to eat all of it and there wouldn't be any left for the lower ranking monkeys. What the researchers observed is that sometimes a lower ranking monkey would use a cheap signal to pretend that a predator was present. The higher ranking monkeys would quickly leave the food and seek shelter. This would give the lower ranking monkey the opportunity to eat some of the food.

If you agree that the monkey transmitted inaccurate information about the presence of a predator... you can't logically then argue that the lower ranking monkey didn't transmit any information.

The only way you can logically argue that spending money transmits inaccurate information is if you agree that spending money transmits information.

[Xerographica]

And no, this really isn't yet another thinly veiled attempt to talk about my favorite topic. It really isn't. I swear. There's absolutely no connection between the two topics.

Oh, great!

If you truly think that spending money is such an incredibly unreliable indicator then how much time do you spend arguing that we should abolish money?

Oh, golly!

You couldn't tell that I was protesting too much?

[The Holy Therns]

You couldn't tell that I was protesting too much?

I mostly can't really tell if you're thinking you're funny about it.

[Xerographica]

You couldn't tell that I was protesting too much?

I mostly can't really tell if you're thinking you're funny about it.

Recently I told a friend that a while back I had discovered a horde of tiny white snails in my garden. A few days later we were talking on the phone and she said that she thought she had found one of the tiny white snails on one of the plants that I had given her. She sent me a pic. It wasn't a tiny white snail... it was a tiny white scale (Ceroplastes sp). I gave her a hard time about confusing a scale for a snail. She said her identification error was only a misdemeanor and I said it more like a felony. For some reason that made her laugh.

I don't think I'm very funny. But I'm guessing that I'm funnier in real life than online. Then again, it's not like I can see if I make you chuckle. What's the evolutionary explanation for laughter anyways? Why do we provide feedback in the form of laughter when we think something is funny? How much would our behavior change if people didn't naturally, and often automatically, provide laughter feedback when they thought we did, or said, something funny?

Here are some relevant passages...

In human society, "primitive" as well as "civilized," a similar instinctive reaction is very strongly developed. It is perhaps possible to distinguish three steps or gradations of rising intensity in the social-defense attitude of the crowd. The first is laughing at an individual who behaves in an abnormal way. This serves the function of forcing the individual back into normal, that is to say conventional behavior. The next and higher intensity reaction is withdrawal; the individual has made himself "impossible" and his companions ignore him. This, viewed from the aspect of biological significance, is a still stronger stimulus to the abnormal person to behave normally. The highest intensity reaction is one of definite hostility, resulting in making the individual an outcast, and, in primitive societies, even of killing him. In my opinion it is of great importance for human sociology to recognize the instinctive basis of such reactions, and to study them comparatively in other social species. - Nikolaas Tinbergen

But this is precisely what the great artist does. He is able to bring together clashing colors, forms that fight each other, dissonances of all kinds, into a unity. And this is also what the great theorist does when he puts puzzling and inconsistent facts together so that we can see that they really belong together. And so also for the great statesman, the great therapist, the great philosopher, the great parent, the great inventor. They are all integrators, able to bring separates and even opposites together into unity.

We speak here of the ability to integrate and of the play back and forth between integration within the person, and his ability to integrate whatever it is he is doing in the world. To the extent that creativeness is constructive, synthesizing, unifying, and integrative, to that extent does it depend in part on the inner integration of the person.

In trying to figure out why all this was so, it seemed to me that much of it could be traced back to the relative absence of fear in my subjects. They were certainly less enculturated; that is, they seemed to be less afraid of what other people would say or demand or laugh at. They had less need of other people and therefore, depending on them less, could be less afraid of them and less hostile against them. Perhaps more important, however, was their lack of fear of their own insides, of their own impulses, emotions, thoughts. They were more self-accepting than the average. This approval and acceptance of their deeper selves then made it more possible to perceive bravely the real nature of the world and also made their behavior more spontaneous (less controlled, less inhibited, less planned, less "willed" and designed). They were less afraid of their own thoughts even when they were "nutty" or silly or crazy. They were less afraid of being laughed at or of being disapproved of. They could let themselves be flooded by emotion. In contrast, average and neurotic people wall off fear, much that lies within themselves. They control, they inhibit, they repress, and they suppress. They disapprove of their deeper selves and expect that others do, too. - Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

In the market economy the realization of technological innovations does not require anything more than the cognizance of their reasonableness by one or a few enlightened spirits. No dullness and clumsiness on the part of the masses can stop the pioneers of improvement. There is no need for them to win the approval of inert people beforehand. They are free to embark upon their projects even if everyone else laughs at them. Later, when the new, better, and cheaper products appear on the market, these scoffers will scramble for them. However dull a man may be, he knows how to tell the difference between a cheaper shoe and a more expensive one, and to appreciate the usefulness of new products. - Ludwig von Mises

[UniversalCommons]

There are other ways to do this. The Aztecs had running posts which allowed people to relay messages. Also, the Native Americans had smoke signals which is good for distance. Mexico had contact with Africa possibly in its earlier history. If they had more trade, it would have been possible for there to be signal drums. There is also the story of the ancient Peruvian balloon. It would have been interesting if the Nazca balloon had developed fully and spread into the Americas. There are a lot of possibilities. If the technology behind the Nazca lines had not stalled and the culture had not fallen the contact might have been a little different.

[Xerographica]

There are other ways to do this. The Aztecs had running posts which allowed people to relay messages. Also, the Native Americans had smoke signals which is good for distance. Mexico had contact with Africa possibly in its earlier history. If they had more trade, it would have been possible for there to be signal drums. There is also the story of the ancient Peruvian balloon. It would have been interesting if the Nazca balloon had developed fully and spread into the Americas. There are a lot of possibilities. If the technology behind the Nazca lines had not stalled and the culture had not fallen the contact might have been a little different.

You're definitely correct that there's more than one way to help overcome the obstacle of distance. The challenge is to see the correlation with trade. It's even more challenging to see the correlation between trade and development.

[Camicon]

I don't, because money is a medium to facilitate economic transactions, not a form of communication as you erroneously think it is.

If you don't believe that spending money is a form of communication (transmission of information) then why did you spend so much time arguing that spending money transmits inaccurate information about importance?

Because while money is not a form of communication it can give us important pieces of information, such as how much Person X is willing to spend on Product Y. And that information, in combination with other pieces of information, can help us draw other conclusions. Similarly to how running is not a form of communication, but how quickly someone is able to run a marathon can tell us a little bit about their level of fitness.

A. Spending money transmits information about importance
B. Spending money transmits inaccurate information about importance

"B" is only possible if "A" is true.

Not at all. B is true because the amount of money somebody spends on something is not indicative of how much they value it. A is, in fact, false; spending money is not indicative of how much someone values something.

So which is it? Does spending money transmit inaccurate information about importance? Or does spending money not transmit any information?

Spending money can tell us certain things about certain things. Just not what you think it does.

Some researchers repeatedly set out a small amount of food for some monkeys in nature. The top ranking monkeys would tend to eat all of it and there wouldn't be any left for the lower ranking monkeys. What the researchers observed is that sometimes a lower ranking monkey would use a cheap signal to pretend that a predator was present. The higher ranking monkeys would quickly leave the food and seek shelter. This would give the lower ranking monkey the opportunity to eat some of the food.

If you agree that the monkey transmitted inaccurate information about the presence of a predator... you can't logically then argue that the lower ranking monkey didn't transmit any information.

Dollars to donuts, the monkey didn't trick his buddies into thinking there was a predator nearby with money. I don't know what study you're talking about, because you didn't cite it (*hint*hint*), but Im guessing the monkey used their voice in some manner.

The only way you can logically argue that spending money transmits inaccurate information is if you agree that spending money transmits information.

Spending money can tell us certain things about certain things. Just not what you think it does.