Game Theory For Baby Names

[Bombadil]

You want money for the website but you haven't even told me how you're going to build it.

Why should I build it when I have no indication of how much you value this idea? You won’t even give me a price.

You know what a website is right, you have outlined the components of this website so you know it’s ingredients? Do you ask a chef how they cook it and a sample before ordering?

Market is for pricing something, nothing else, I have far more confidence in my circle of friends telling me if a restaurant is good, knowing their history of recommendations and taste, than some random population.

Much as if I was your friend and you knew the quality of my website build you’d price better than me being a random poster.

[Maqo]

Given that you seem to be the only person who is advocating to use this system, and you can't personally get it right, it seems like a very flawed system.

Oh SheeshKaBob man. "This system" is the market system. You got $50 bucks in your pocket for groceries. You go to the grocery store and decide how to divide your $50 dollars among all the products. Your receipt shows you exactly how you divided your dollars. Except, the products aren't sorted by their usefulness to you.

All I did is apply this same exact system to a list of songs. And here you are telling me that it's a very flawed system. And that I'm the only person who is advocating this system. LOL.

Here's another crazy system. Imagine if you could decide for yourself how you divide your minutes among all the forum threads. What do you think? Is this also a very flawed system?

Xero, serious question, but have you ever actually been in to a store? Have you ever used money to buy something?
I just don't understand how someone could possibly have the notions that you do if you've had any real life experience.

I'll try to decipher your analogy but it's just so... yeah.

In your scenario, with the songs, the situation is:
a) You already have the songs. You've listened to them, presumably you can keep listening to them, regardless of the amount you pay. I assume there are many more than just your top 10 songs that you can listen to. If you don't put 'The Killers - Mr Brightside' on your list, you still get full benefit from it.
In contrast, when I go to buy groceries, I only get the groceries I pay for. If I don't pay for apples, I don't get apples.

b) You got to choose what you allocated to everything. You could put $4 or $10 or $0 to a song, it doesn't matter, you still get the same amount of song.
In contrast, when I go to buy groceries, my choices are binary. I can pay $0 and get 0 apples, $1 and get 1 apple, $2 and get 2 apples. I can't pay $1 and get 4 apples or $4 and get 1 apple. The prices are dictated to me. I am a price taker.

Maybe thats a good way to phrase it; binary. As I've said before, you seem determined to determine the binary question presented to consumers as a qualitative question.

Before you gave the example of 'corn vs poison oak'. My local shop doesn't sell poison oak, so lets go with 'peas' instead.
How do you determine the division of societies resources between peas and corn?
Lets say my receipt showed that I spend $4 on peas and $6 on corn.
You seem determined to interpret that as "Maqo had $10, and when he was asked to divide societies resources between peas and corn, put $4 on peas and $6 on corn; he thinks that corn is 50% more valuable than peas".

But I didn't have that option. I took money to the store, and I was asked. "Do you want to swap $4 for these peas?" "Do you want to swap $6 for this corn?" "Do you want to swap $7 for this chocolate?" (Obviously I wasn't literally asked these questions, but that is effectively the choices posed through the price tags.) And I replied Yes / Yes / No. I never had the opportunity to put only $3 on peas, because if I tried that the store would refuse the swap (and probably kick me out).
The question posed to a consumer for every product is binary. Do you want to swap $X for Y goods, yes or no.



Can we tie this back to the op?
I think one of the major flaws in your 'market for baby names' is that the entire thing is ill defined, and as far as I can tell you've changed your mind about who is what in the analogy.
So can you fill out this little form and map out the analogy for us?
In the 'market for baby names:

• The product is:
• The producer is:
• The consumer is:
• There are (many) / (not many) substitute goods
• The product has (high) / (low) externalities
• Demand is probably (elastic) / (inelastic)
• Supply is probably (elastic) / (inelastic)
• The marginal cost is:

(anyone else have other questions?)

[Camicon]

In the real world, do you throw money at shit for no return whatsoever?

No. And I'm not arguing that people should waste their money. My argument is that people should have the easy opportunity to use their money to express their preferences. Just because there's a market for makeup really doesn't mean that I have to participate in it. Would I participate in a baby naming market if one was created? Maybe?
*snip*

There's nothing preventing people from throwing money at someone else to "express their preferences". It's just that nobody does it, because that's stupid. We use money to buy things that we need or want, not to tell someone else what we like.

There's nothing stopping you from trying to capitalize on the as of yet untapped "baby name market", but I suspect you'll find that nobody participates in it because there's no useful, tangible returns from it. When I "participate in the makeup market", by purchasing makeup, then I walk away with makeup. When I participate in your ridiculous "baby name market" then I maybe name a kid, and... that's it. Whoop-dee-frickin'-doo. I may be the reason that "John" wasn't named "Robbie", because the names of children I'll never meet matter sooooooooooooooo much to me.

[Salandriagado]

Based on your statements, it looks like they're both equally wrong.

Both are horribly inaccurate.

This is making me chuckle. What in the world? In the real world, do either of you guys evenly divide your money?

No. Nor do I do whatever the fuck you were doing with the first one.

[Forsher]

How about instead of using an analogy like that why don't you show us how your song-list exercise maps onto taking $10 to the supermarket, choosing some items, going up to the till, purchasing them and then going home? Make sure to explain whether one is the producer or the consumer, which one you want one to be (that is, the consumer) and how one interacts with others (which is the bit that makes it a market).

It doesn't perfectly map. A song is one product. An apple is one product. You can buy one apple, or two apples, or ten apples. But with the song, you're not going to buy two songs, or ten songs. You're going to buy one song and listen to it 20 times, or 50 times or 1000 times. You can't buy one apple and eat it 1000 times.

In order to get a closer map... we have to imagine something like Spotify. Subscribers pay $10/month and have unlimited access to the countless songs. With the current system, Spotify decides how to divide all the subscription dollars among the songs. This does not at all map to the supermarket. In order for a closer map, subscribers would have the opportunity to decide for themselves how they divide their subscription dollars among all the songs. The more useful a song is, the more dollars it's going to receive.

What you constantly seem to forget is the fundamental economic question...

How should society's resources be divided?

The market system is where consumers answer this question by dividing their dollars. Spotify is not currently a market system. Neither is Netflix. Neither is Youtube. Neither is NationStates.

Congratulations... you have just realised the supermarket analogy was very, very dumb.

Spotify is both a firm and a product. It is our demand for Spotify, for Youtube and even for Google that matters. When we use things like these were are participating in the Market for Spotify etc. It is a market system... you're just really bad at perceiving markets... probably because you understand very little basic economics.

More to the point is that in economics we might not think of Kashmir and Trampled Under Foot as being different products (whether complements or substitutes). We'd just draw up our market for music and go "At this price, the consumer listens to this much music in accordance with their utility, budget and what the supplier's up to". Because of how Spotify works, this is another way of representing the Market for Spotify. Or maybe we'd think in terms of purchasable units, whether that's through albums or individual songs, regardless of who's selling (e.g. iTunes, a record shop)... and this way makes it quite the same as dealing with a market for bread or for potatoes or whatever.

A market metaphor might be used to represent how a consumer listens to music. In some sense the supplier is, in fact, the consumer now. What they supply is "time to listen to music in". We know that everyone suffers from a scarcity of time so the most salient question is obviously how much time is available to listen to music in. It's like a related goods set-up but instead of butter or milk solids it's music-time and other uses-time. The next question now that we know how much time can be available is to think about how much time will be used up. Time is still our currency so that's the budget constraint taken care of. The next question is the utility of listening to music and everything that isn't doing that. This is like how consumer utilities for butter and milk-solids ultimately follow through to what the producer's going to offer. Based on the utility set up, the consumer will spend however much time to purchase however much listening to music time.

There's your market metaphor. But I personally don't think it's a market. Can we aggregate the demand for three people together? Kind of. Can we aggregate the supply from three people? No, we can't by definition of what it is they're selling (whatever happens I can't acquire more hours in the day from another person: it doesn't work that way).

Aside from failing to convey preferences Xero's daft list exercise goes wrong because he pretends that it's some innovative idea. He keeps asking us if we'd want to spend money to promote music. That's NOT a new idea: it's advertising (which economists don't really like, if you ask me). The consumer of advertising is a firm... they go up to advertising suppliers (e.g. Google, Facebook) and say they want however much advertising. In exchange the firm expects to get something out of it. In most situations their logic is "if we advertise, we'll sell more units" but in some cases advertising is done for ideas... remember that compulsory euthanasia ad I linked to earlier? It wasn't for a real campaign (nor were these bad boys) but it something that marketers are actually asked to do. Where Xero has cocked up is that he's assuming that purchasing advertising is always of value to people as though it's like "breathing".

Where Xero's really screwed up is in thinking that the only way to advertise involves our spending money. If I want to promote an ideology I've lot of different ways of doing it that are unpriced, which I choose to buy all the time. For example, it's why I was in this thread so much. And, yeah, he might try to say "but buying advertising is the most useful way of promoting [concern]" but if that was true, we'd be doing it already.

Ultimately we're back where we always were: Xero has an idea, doesn't stop to see if it has anything to do with how real people actually behave. And that, Xero, is the actual question of economics as a discipline. Scarcity is examined through real life. (I am reminded of this sketch.)

tl;dr -- Xero, come back with something that maps with the theory and with real life

[Xerographica]

Time is still our currency so that's the budget constraint taken care of. The next question is the utility of listening to music and everything that isn't doing that. This is like how consumer utilities for butter and milk-solids ultimately follow through to what the producer's going to offer. Based on the utility set up, the consumer will spend however much time to purchase however much listening to music time.

You can only prefer minutes over dollars if you perceive that minutes are a more accurate measure of usefulness. Because, if you perceived that minutes and dollars are equal measures of usefulness... then you would be indifferent which was used. I'd say, "Spotify should replace minutes with dollars." You'd say, "That's fine, the results will be exactly the same." There would be no debate/discussion/disagreement.

Given that you do obviously oppose replacing minutes with dollars, then you must perceive that minutes are a superior measure of usefulness. Personally, I have absolutely no reason to believe that minutes are a superior measure of usefulness. I obviously spend a lot more time in my threads than in other people's threads. Given the opportunity, I'd also spend a lot more dollars on my threads than on other people's threads.

What about books? From my perspective, by far the most useful book in the world is Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Let's say that Spotify and Amazon Kindle Unlimited were combined. If the Wealth of the Nations was one of the available titles, how would I divide my time between reading it and listening to music? I wouldn't spend any of my time reading the Wealth of Nations. I already read it. Instead, I'd spend far more time listening to music. Therefore, music is more useful to me than the Wealth of Nations? No. As usual, you forget the most fundamental economic question...

How should society's resources be divided?

Society's attention is an incredibly valuable resource. How do I want it divided between the Wealth of Nations and music? The only useful way to answer this question is by dollar division...

$10: Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations
$0: Blonde Redhead - Tons Confession
$0: Jamie xx - Gosh
$0: Weekend Wolves - You
$0: Hello Seahorse! - La Flotadera
$0: Kid Simius - The Flute Song
$0: Rone - Down for the Cause
$0: Jan Blomqvist - More
$0: Moderat - Running
$0: Bomb the Bass & Lali Puna - Recut

This really isn't how I divide my time between these things. But it is how I want society's attention divided between them.

[Forsher]

Time is still our currency so that's the budget constraint taken care of. The next question is the utility of listening to music and everything that isn't doing that. This is like how consumer utilities for butter and milk-solids ultimately follow through to what the producer's going to offer. Based on the utility set up, the consumer will spend however much time to purchase however much listening to music time.

You can only prefer minutes over dollars if you perceive that minutes are a more accurate measure of usefulness. Because, if you perceived that minutes and dollars are equal measures of usefulness... then you would be indifferent which was used. I'd say, "Spotify should replace minutes with dollars." You'd say, "That's fine, the results will be exactly the same." There would be no debate/discussion/disagreement.

Given that you do obviously oppose replacing minutes with dollars, then you must perceive that minutes are a superior measure of usefulness. Personally, I have absolutely no reason to believe that minutes are a superior measure of usefulness. I obviously spend a lot more time in my threads than in other people's threads. Given the opportunity, I'd also spend a lot more dollars on my threads than on other people's threads.

What about books? From my perspective, by far the most useful book in the world is Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Let's say that Spotify and Amazon Kindle Unlimited were combined. If the Wealth of the Nations was one of the available titles, how would I divide my time between reading it and listening to music? I wouldn't spend any of my time reading the Wealth of Nations. I already read it. Instead, I'd spend far more time listening to music. Therefore, music is more useful to me than the Wealth of Nations? No. As usual, you forget the most fundamental economic question...

How should society's resources be divided?

Society's attention is an incredibly valuable resource. How do I want it divided between the Wealth of Nations and music? The only useful way to answer this question is by dollar division...

$10: Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations
$0: Blonde Redhead - Tons Confession
$0: Jamie xx - Gosh
$0: Weekend Wolves - You
$0: Hello Seahorse! - La Flotadera
$0: Kid Simius - The Flute Song
$0: Rone - Down for the Cause
$0: Jan Blomqvist - More
$0: Moderat - Running
$0: Bomb the Bass & Lali Puna - Recut

This really isn't how I divide my time between these things. But it is how I want society's attention divided between them.

There's your market metaphor. But I personally don't think it's a market. Can we aggregate the demand for three people together? Kind of. Can we aggregate the supply from three people? No, we can't by definition of what it is they're selling (whatever happens I can't acquire more hours in the day from another person: it doesn't work that way).

Aside from failing to convey preferences Xero's daft list exercise goes wrong because he pretends that it's some innovative idea. He keeps asking us if we'd want to spend money to promote music. That's NOT a new idea: it's advertising (which economists don't really like, if you ask me). The consumer of advertising is a firm... they go up to advertising suppliers (e.g. Google, Facebook) and say they want however much advertising. In exchange the firm expects to get something out of it. In most situations their logic is "if we advertise, we'll sell more units" but in some cases advertising is done for ideas... remember that compulsory euthanasia ad I linked to earlier? It wasn't for a real campaign (nor were these bad boys) but it something that marketers are actually asked to do. Where Xero has cocked up is that he's assuming that purchasing advertising is always of value to people as though it's like "breathing".

Where Xero's really screwed up is in thinking that the only way to advertise involves our spending money. If I want to promote an ideology I've lot of different ways of doing it that are unpriced, which I choose to buy all the time. For example, it's why I was in this thread so much. And, yeah, he might try to say "but buying advertising is the most useful way of promoting [concern]" but if that was true, we'd be doing it already.

Ultimately we're back where we always were: Xero has an idea, doesn't stop to see if it has anything to do with how real people actually behave. And that, Xero, is the actual question of economics as a discipline. Scarcity is examined through real life. (I am reminded of this sketch.)

tl;dr -- Xero, come back with something that maps with the theory and with real life[

[Maqo]

Xero, I know it is probably years too late for this, but are you able to restrict your examples and analogies to private commodity goods? Stuff you can regularly buy at a grocery store.

The reason being that things like baby names and 400 year old books and digital songs are non-traditional goods which introduce unnecessary complexity to the situation.

Given that it is still not clear to anyone but yourself exactly how your idea functions, you should try to wprk from a very simple foundation and build up to more complicated concepts once the easy ones sorted out.

[The Two Jerseys]

This really isn't how I divide my time between these things. But it is how I want society's attention divided between them.

I'll save you some time and money: society doesn't care what you think.

[Xerographica]

Xero, I know it is probably years too late for this, but are you able to restrict your examples and analogies to private commodity goods? Stuff you can regularly buy at a grocery store.

The reason being that things like baby names and 400 year old books and digital songs are non-traditional goods which introduce unnecessary complexity to the situation.

Given that it is still not clear to anyone but yourself exactly how your idea functions, you should try to wprk from a very simple foundation and build up to more complicated concepts once the easy ones sorted out.

Here's how simple it is. There are 10 people stranded on an island. There are two uses of their labor...

A = catching fish
B = harvesting coconuts

How should the 10 people divide their labor between A and B? The more people that do A, the less people available to do B. The opportunity cost of A is B.

Is there an optimal division? If so, how is it achieved?

From my perspective, the optimal division of labor depends on each person deciding how they divide their dollars between A and B. Let's add a non-traditional good...

A = catching fish
B = harvesting coconuts
C = belly dancing

Nothing fundamental changes. Sure, C is a non-traditional good. But does this mean that we should measure its usefulness in applause? Of course not. That would be seriously stupid. How in the world could C be allocated with applause while A and B are allocated by dollars?

What happens if C starts to receive more applause? Does it mean that more people need to belly dance? If so, then where, exactly, are these people going to come from? Obviously they can only come from either A or B. What should be even more obvious is that it's impossible to correctly compare the relative usefulness of the three activities. The reason that we can't correctly compare their usefulness is because we use two completely different methods of measuring it. We use applause to measure the usefulness of C and dollars to measure the usefulness of A and B.

It doesn't matter how many different activities are added to this island economy... it's still the same issue...

1. The island's limited labor has to be divided between all the different activities.
2. It's impossible to optimally divide labor if more than one way is used to measure the usefulness of labor.
3. There can only be one best way to measure the usefulness of labor.

[Xerographica]

I had totally forgotten about this...

Here's one idea that I kinda like. On congress's website there would be a page for ideas. People could sign in and publicly share their ideas and valuate other people's ideas. The more valuable an idea was... the higher it would be on the list... and the more likely it is that congress would see it. People who shared valuable ideas would get paid for doing so. This would give people a big incentive to share their valuable ideas with congress and the public. So there'd be no need for millions of people to write a letter that says, "Please increase the tax rate"... they'd simply go to congress's website... find the idea for congress to increase the tax rate... and decide how much money they wanted to spend on that idea. Of course they could also see if anybody has suggested their preferred tax rate. If so, they could see how much money had been allocated to it and decide how much they wanted to spend on it.

This actually appears to be your first reasonable idea ever!
At least, it's not so unreasonable that I can't dismiss it within two seconds. I'm sure a little bit more time might help me.

This was not easy to refind.

[Camicon]

Xero, I know it is probably years too late for this, but are you able to restrict your examples and analogies to private commodity goods? Stuff you can regularly buy at a grocery store.

The reason being that things like baby names and 400 year old books and digital songs are non-traditional goods which introduce unnecessary complexity to the situation.

Given that it is still not clear to anyone but yourself exactly how your idea functions, you should try to wprk from a very simple foundation and build up to more complicated concepts once the easy ones sorted out.

Here's how simple it is. There are 10 people stranded on an island. There are two uses of their labor...

A = catching fish
B = harvesting coconuts

How should the 10 people divide their labor between A and B? The more people that do A, the less people available to do B. The opportunity cost of A is B.

Is there an optimal division? If so, how is it achieved?

From my perspective, the optimal division of labor depends on each person deciding how they divide their dollars between A and B. Let's add a non-traditional good...

A = catching fish
B = harvesting coconuts
C = belly dancing

Nothing fundamental changes. Sure, C is a non-traditional good. But does this mean that we should measure its usefulness in applause? Of course not. That would be seriously stupid. How in the world could C be allocated with applause while A and B are allocated by dollars?

What happens if C starts to receive more applause? Does it mean that more people need to belly dance? If so, then where, exactly, are these people going to come from? Obviously they can only come from either A or B. What should be even more obvious is that it's impossible to correctly compare the relative usefulness of the three activities. The reason that we can't correctly compare their usefulness is because we use two completely different methods of measuring it. We use applause to measure the usefulness of C and dollars to measure the usefulness of A and B.

It doesn't matter how many different activities are added to this island economy... it's still the same issue...

1. The island's limited labor has to be divided between all the different activities.
2. It's impossible to optimally divide labor if more than one way is used to measure the usefulness of labor.
3. There can only be one best way to measure the usefulness of labor.

You realize there are other factors that have an influence, right? If there are few fish to catch, it doesn't make sense to have lots of people fishing. If there are few coconuts, it doesn't make sense for lots of people to gather coconuts. If there are low levels of fish and coconuts, then it would actually make sense for few people to both catch fish and gather coconuts, because both of those activities expend energy; if the number of coconuts you gather barely changes whether or not you have one person or ten people gathering coconuts, because of the limited supply of coconuts, having ten people gather coconuts would be an unnecessary expenditure of energy.

There's also the matter of distance to consider: if the island is large, then gathering coconuts by hand may not be very efficient, and having someone build a wheelbarrow or some kind of other cart/litter would make your coconut gathering more effective. There's the matter of storage: gathering more fish than everyone can eat at that moment could result in some of that fish spoiling, wasting potential food. There's the matter of shelter: islands can see a lot of inclement weather, and shelter and clothing would be absolutely necessary for people to survive long-term. The list goes on...

And on......

And on.........

And as I explained before, it makes absolutely no sense for an island of ten people to use fucking money to determine where they should be directing their efforts.

For starters, money is used to effect more efficient trade, and a community of ten people stranded on an island have next to no use for trade, unless they all brought personal luxury goods with them to this island. And in that case they wouldn't use money, they would use a barter system. Money would have no place on your theoretical island.

Secondly, ten people stranded on an island have little to no margin for error. If they want to survive then they need the most experienced person making decisions. If one person is a farmer, probably best to let them manage the supply of coconuts so that they are cultivated in a sustainable manner. If one person is a fisherman, probably best to let them manage the supply of fish, so that they caught in a sustainable manner. If one person is a carpenter, probably best to let them manage the construction of shelter, so that nobody has a roof fall on them in the middle of the night. Giving everyone in the group equal say in every matter would be stupid, and would get everyone killed.

[Xerographica]

If they want to survive then they need the most experienced person making decisions. If one person is a farmer, probably best to let them manage the supply of coconuts so that they are cultivated in a sustainable manner.

The farmer should determine how many coconuts are supplied?

[Camicon]

If they want to survive then they need the most experienced person making decisions. If one person is a farmer, probably best to let them manage the supply of coconuts so that they are cultivated in a sustainable manner.

The farmer should determine how many coconuts are supplied?

Is that what I said? Can you not read? Here, let me retype it for you.

"If one person is a farmer, probably best to let them manage the supply of coconuts so that they are cultivated in a sustainable manner."

Maybe an explanation as well?

Coconuts don't just magically appear. They are fruits, grown on plants. And if you and your group are depending on those plants for survival, then you need to make sure those plants don't die. Ideally, you want them to grow larger and stronger, supplying you with bigger, better fruit. Caring for and growing the supply of coconuts would necessitate not eating some, and planting them instead. This is something that a farmer would be better suited to do than Average Joe, who has somehow managed to kill the last six cactus plants he's owned.

Now, stop ignoring the rest of my post.

[Xerographica]

The farmer should determine how many coconuts are supplied?

Is that what I said? Can you not read? Here, let me retype it for you.

"If one person is a farmer, probably best to let them manage the supply of coconuts so that they are cultivated in a sustainable manner."

How, exactly, does your system determine the optimal number of coconuts to supply?

[Camicon]

Is that what I said? Can you not read? Here, let me retype it for you.

"If one person is a farmer, probably best to let them manage the supply of coconuts so that they are cultivated in a sustainable manner."

How, exactly, does your system determine the optimal number of coconuts to supply?

The optimal number of coconuts is however many allows the group of ten to live. That will change depending on how much fish they eat, how much work they do, etcetera. There's no market to consider, no system. Trade would not be a thing on this island.

Now stop ignoring the rest of my post.

[Xerographica]

How, exactly, does your system determine the optimal number of coconuts to supply?

The optimal number of coconuts is however many allows the group of ten to live. That will change depending on how much fish they eat, how much work they do, etcetera. There's no market to consider, no system. Trade would not be a thing on this island.

Now stop ignoring the rest of my post.

I can't deal with the rest of you post if I don't understand how your system determines the optimal supply of coconuts. In your system do people simply say how many coconuts they want? Or does the coconut farmer simply pile up the coconuts and everybody can take as many as they want?

[Camicon]

The optimal number of coconuts is however many allows the group of ten to live. That will change depending on how much fish they eat, how much work they do, etcetera. There's no market to consider, no system. Trade would not be a thing on this island.

Now stop ignoring the rest of my post.

I can't deal with the rest of you post if I don't understand how your system determines the optimal supply of coconuts. In your system do people simply say how many coconuts they want? Or does the coconut farmer simply pile up the coconuts and everybody can take as many as they want?

There is no system. The "demand" for coconuts is determined by what the group of ten need to survive, by their nutritional and caloric requirements. The "supply" of coconuts is determined by what the island's ecosystem is capable of sustaining, and what the group of ten is capable of cultivating.

[Xerographica]

I can't deal with the rest of you post if I don't understand how your system determines the optimal supply of coconuts. In your system do people simply say how many coconuts they want? Or does the coconut farmer simply pile up the coconuts and everybody can take as many as they want?

There is no system. The "demand" for coconuts is determined by what the group of ten need to survive, by their nutritional and caloric requirements. The "supply" of coconuts is determined by what the island's ecosystem is capable of sustaining, and what the group of ten is capable of cultivating.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs?

[Forsher]

If they want to survive then they need the most experienced person making decisions. If one person is a farmer, probably best to let them manage the supply of coconuts so that they are cultivated in a sustainable manner.

The farmer should determine how many coconuts are supplied?

Xero... in real life economists believe that under some extremely stringent conditions the best way allocating society's resources (as measured against the interests of that society) is through a market. These same economists also believe that there aren't any examples of such a market, except maybe market gardening. This is economics as is taught the world over.

Economists also hold that in other situations where markets exist that attention should be paid to the structures of those markets. In particular, I would hesitate to argue that most economists think intervention is appropriate in every case. But economists do think about different kinds of intervention and have many different ideas about what to do in the face of the inevitable truth of market failure (i.e. the situation where the market's equilibrium isn't the socially optimum one). That being said, in many contexts (such as the Edgeworth Box) economists actually find their discipline can't decide which exact allocation is the best (in my experience this happens when there are multiple pareto--efficient bundles).

One of the big things that economists, especially those familiar with game theory (which is a key part of modern economics, yes, but a lot of economists are quite old), believe is that the aggregation of private assessments doesn't reach social optima. The classic example of this is in the case of externalities. That's certainly something the student of economics will encounter really early on. But perhaps more powerful and relevant to this thread is the Prisoner's Dilemma... the mutual best responses of the players fail to maximise the social benefit. The failure of the Nash Equilibrium/s to arrive at socially optimal payoffs is also the problem of Braess' Paradox, an idea which is attracting increasing attention the world over.

The lesson of economics when it comes to allocation is very simple: private evaluations of benefit does not arrive at the socially optimal allocation in practice.

This is not to say that economists don't like markets. As I said above it's not even to say that economists always hold that (some kind of) intervention is necessary. What it does say is that Xero's beliefs proceed based on some very very wrong premises about economics and the way markets work. It is to say that in the case of the island of 10 it may well be the case that not creating a market would be a good idea. But it could easily be the case that the solution is to determine how much can be caught/harvested and to create a market for those rights would let the market system work on the island of 10. Or it might not be.

The idea that Xero has with his lists is very dumb for similar reasons. As I have said, it completely fails to understand that different people have different incentives. It also doesn't recognise that it's one of the most pervasive facets of modern life: it's advertising. The reason for this is that Xero thinks the system could be used to determine the "correct" (socially optimum) allocation of Moderat - Running or Wealth of Nations. But the truth is that there are markets for those things... they don't exist together in a single market... and Xero's asking us if we'd like to buy some advertising for these products. We don't. We don't get value from that. But there are other ways of promoting things, and we might be into those... which have exactly the same impact as buying advertising except for the bit where we just might get utility from those pursuits.

There are things that Xero says (and this is one of them) which might be interesting... were they handled by someone who had a competent and consistent (hell, maybe even just a plain old) command of the underlying concepts.

[Camicon]

There is no system. The "demand" for coconuts is determined by what the group of ten need to survive, by their nutritional and caloric requirements. The "supply" of coconuts is determined by what the island's ecosystem is capable of sustaining, and what the group of ten is capable of cultivating.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs?

A group of ten people stranded on an island, each depending on the other for their own personal continued survival, would necessarily be communistic in nature, yes. When your survival depends on the survival of another then their wants and needs become as important as your wants and needs.

Now, will you respond to the rest of my post? Or are you going to keep ignoring it, as you are wont to do with anything too challenging?

[Xerographica]

The idea that Xero has with his lists is very dumb for similar reasons. As I have said, it completely fails to understand that different people have different incentives. It also doesn't recognise that it's one of the most pervasive facets of modern life: it's advertising. The reason for this is that Xero thinks the system could be used to determine the "correct" (socially optimum) allocation of Moderat - Running or Wealth of Nations. But the truth is that there are markets for those things... they don't exist together in a single market... and Xero's asking us if we'd like to buy some advertising for these products. We don't. We don't get value from that. But there are other ways of promoting things, and we might be into those... which have exactly the same impact as buying advertising except for the bit where we just might get utility from those pursuits.

What I'm suggesting, as far as promotion is concerned, is basically crowdfunded advertising. There's already crowdfunding, and there's already advertising. What's wrong with combining these two things?

Imagine a Begonia society. It costs $20/year to be a member. The society takes some of this money and spends it on promotion. Isn't this crowdfunded advertising? Don't the members of the society all chip in to help promote their cause?

[Xerographica]

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs?

A group of ten people stranded on an island, each depending on the other for their own personal continued survival, would necessarily be communistic in nature, yes. When your survival depends on the survival of another then their wants and needs become as important as your wants and needs.

Now, will you respond to the rest of my post? Or are you going to keep ignoring it, as you are wont to do with anything too challenging?

First you said that "there is no system" and now you're saying that there is a system... communism. You believe that communism can determine the optimal division of labor. Does this belief only apply to societies with 10 people? Or does your belief also apply to larger societies?

[Forsher]

The idea that Xero has with his lists is very dumb for similar reasons. As I have said, it completely fails to understand that different people have different incentives. It also doesn't recognise that it's one of the most pervasive facets of modern life: it's advertising. The reason for this is that Xero thinks the system could be used to determine the "correct" (socially optimum) allocation of Moderat - Running or Wealth of Nations. But the truth is that there are markets for those things... they don't exist together in a single market... and Xero's asking us if we'd like to buy some advertising for these products. We don't. We don't get value from that. But there are other ways of promoting things, and we might be into those... which have exactly the same impact as buying advertising except for the bit where we just might get utility from those pursuits.

What I'm suggesting, as far as promotion is concerned, is basically crowdfunded advertising. There's already crowdfunding, and there's already advertising. What's wrong with combining these two things?

Imagine a Begonia society. It costs $20/year to be a member. The society takes some of this money and spends it on promotion. Isn't this crowdfunded advertising? Don't the members of the society all chip in to help promote their cause?

But the truth is that there are markets for those things... they don't exist together in a single market... and Xero's asking us if we'd like to buy some advertising for these products. We don't. We don't get value from that. But there are other ways of promoting things, and we might be into those... which have exactly the same impact as buying advertising except for the bit where we just might get utility from those pursuits.

Your point is completely trivial and has no generalisable consequences.

[Xerographica]

What I'm suggesting, as far as promotion is concerned, is basically crowdfunded advertising. There's already crowdfunding, and there's already advertising. What's wrong with combining these two things?

Imagine a Begonia society. It costs $20/year to be a member. The society takes some of this money and spends it on promotion. Isn't this crowdfunded advertising? Don't the members of the society all chip in to help promote their cause?

But the truth is that there are markets for those things... they don't exist together in a single market... and Xero's asking us if we'd like to buy some advertising for these products. We don't. We don't get value from that. But there are other ways of promoting things, and we might be into those... which have exactly the same impact as buying advertising except for the bit where we just might get utility from those pursuits.

Your point is completely trivial and has no generalisable consequences.

You're not being very clear. What are you saying?

1. Crowdfunded advertising is a bad idea
2. A website for crowdfunded advertising is a bad idea