The Relationship Between Cooperation And Feedback

[Neutraligon]

Because there is no method by which I can show my preferred books. I have already explained this.

What prevents you from sorting the 10 books according to their importance/relevance/benefit/usefulness to you? The fact that you haven't read them all? None of us have read them all.

Importance for what, for teaching the kids I babysit to read/enjoy reading? To learning about the context of various quotes from the bible, to learning how Darwin thought about evolution? The importance/ relevance/benefit/usefulness changes based on the scenario. What I think is important right now could easily change the second I have to babysit, or find a book for pleasure, or to find a book to debate a person with.

I have never claimed that I believe god does not exist. And sure I cannot tell you what will convince you that your beliefs are bad. What I can do is point out that your reasoning is flawed. Since you said you do not want BS beliefs, pointing out your flawed reasoning should be convincing. So either you do not want BS beliefs, or you do not care that your reasoning is flawed. Like I said earlier, I think that your donating/polling question is flawed at it's most basic premise, to the point where it does not matter who makes the poll. I already explained what I think is needed for this to work, and I do not think it is possible to meat the criteria here. I do not think I can come up with a question that would be interesting enough people would want to donate just for the chance to do the poll. I do think there would be enough people willing to donate to some organization, but if that where the case they probably have an idea of how much they are willing/able to donate and so the amount they spend will not match with book preference or willingness to pay to push their book (it is more related to how much they are willing to donate to the organization of their choice, with the book thing being incidental).

You don't think it's possible to use this forum to effectively compare the difference between voting and donating.

Correct, not only do I not think it will be effective, I think it would also be utterly useless to try. A complete waste of my time.

You might be right, but it doesn't hurt to try. If guessing the demand for things was so easy, then markets wouldn't be so useful.

Yes it would hurt, since it would waste my time even more then NSG currently does. More then that beyond number of participants I do not think there is a method to determine which is "better."

The rest of the post is more of same with a different topic. You have started with IM and yourself, moved on to books and now on to beer. And surprise surprise the beer people said no to you.

[The Two Jerseys]

Because there is no method by which I can show my preferred books. I have already explained this.

What prevents you from sorting the 10 books according to their importance/relevance/benefit/usefulness to you? The fact that you haven't read them all? None of us have read them all.

I have never claimed that I believe god does not exist. And sure I cannot tell you what will convince you that your beliefs are bad. What I can do is point out that your reasoning is flawed. Since you said you do not want BS beliefs, pointing out your flawed reasoning should be convincing. So either you do not want BS beliefs, or you do not care that your reasoning is flawed. Like I said earlier, I think that your donating/polling question is flawed at it's most basic premise, to the point where it does not matter who makes the poll. I already explained what I think is needed for this to work, and I do not think it is possible to meat the criteria here. I do not think I can come up with a question that would be interesting enough people would want to donate just for the chance to do the poll. I do think there would be enough people willing to donate to some organization, but if that where the case they probably have an idea of how much they are willing/able to donate and so the amount they spend will not match with book preference or willingness to pay to push their book (it is more related to how much they are willing to donate to the organization of their choice, with the book thing being incidental).

You don't think it's possible to use this forum to effectively compare the difference between voting and donating. You might be right, but it doesn't hurt to try. If guessing the demand for things was so easy, then markets wouldn't be so useful.

Today on the BeerAdvocate forum I posted my very first thread...

On this website there is a list of the 250 top rated beers according to users. This is essentially a beer treasure map.

Imagine if a new treasure map of beers was created. The beers on this list would be ranked by donations to this website. For example, let's say that you love the beer "Keene Idea". You could make a $10 donation to this website for this beer, which would increase its ranking by $10 dollars. The more money that you donated to this website, the more influence that you'd have on this treasure map. Improving this map would essentially be a perk of donating.

Which treasure map would be better? My best guess is that the donating treasure map would be much better. This is simply because actions speak louder than words. People's spending decisions are more reliable than their words at revealing their true preferences.

Economics is incredibly important. Beer depends on economics. Get the economics right, the beer supply will be wonderful. Get the economics wrong, the beer supply will be terrible.

Here's an important economic insight. Whenever you buy beer you help to improve its ranking. How beer is ranked determines how society's limited resources are divided between it and the alternatives... such as wine. Beer and wine are constantly competing for resources and the contest is determined by consumer choice.

Buying creates a treasure map for all products...beer, wine and so on. So right now there already is a treasure map that is based on actions rather than words. We already use our money to rank beers.

The thing is, buying and donating really aren't the same thing. This means that the beer treasure maps that they create will be different. My best guess is that the donating treasure map will be better.

How much money would this raise for this website? That's a good question. Right now the internet has a huge problem. The traditional revenue model of banner ads isn't working... most people use ad-blockers. As a result, more and more websites are putting their content behind paywalls. But obviously this greatly limits access to it.

It's entirely possible that the internet's biggest problem can be solved by treasure maps created by donors.

What are your thoughts?

Immediately after posting the thread I saw a notification that it had to be approved by the moderators before it would be made public. An hour later I went to check whether it had been approved. It hadn't been. Instead, I was banned... for spam. Hah.

If you happen to run across a website/organization that's willing to test the difference between voting and donating... and you think the test would be effective... then please let me know.

So the beer folks didn't want to listen to you proselytize about how opinion polls should be replaced with paid advertising?

I'm fucking shocked...

[Neutraligon]

No.

What would it take to convince you that donating is better than voting?

I don't know, but the methodology you put forward here would not, because the methodology is fundamentally flawed. The first thing that would have to happen is that YOU WOULD NOT TELL ANYONE YOUR PREFERENCE. In fact, better yet, you would be silent beyond creating the question, creating the donation page, and creating the poll.

[Xerographica]

What prevents you from sorting the 10 books according to their importance/relevance/benefit/usefulness to you? The fact that you haven't read them all? None of us have read them all.

Importance for what, for teaching the kids I babysit to read/enjoy reading? To learning about the context of various quotes from the bible, to learning how Darwin thought about evolution? The importance/ relevance/benefit/usefulness changes based on the scenario. What I think is important right now could easily change the second I have to babysit, or find a book for pleasure, or to find a book to debate a person with.

You can't rank the books because your preferences change? The blAAtschApen, Anywhere Else But Here, Galloism and myself have all ranked the books. Our preferences don't change?

Yes it would hurt, since it would waste my time even more then NSG currently does.

To be clear, nobody would force you to participate in the book ranking thread.

You have started with IM and yourself, moved on to books and now on to beer.

Heh

[Xerographica]

What prevents you from sorting the 10 books according to their importance/relevance/benefit/usefulness to you? The fact that you haven't read them all? None of us have read them all.


You don't think it's possible to use this forum to effectively compare the difference between voting and donating. You might be right, but it doesn't hurt to try. If guessing the demand for things was so easy, then markets wouldn't be so useful.

Today on the BeerAdvocate forum I posted my very first thread...

On this website there is a list of the 250 top rated beers according to users. This is essentially a beer treasure map.

Imagine if a new treasure map of beers was created. The beers on this list would be ranked by donations to this website. For example, let's say that you love the beer "Keene Idea". You could make a $10 donation to this website for this beer, which would increase its ranking by $10 dollars. The more money that you donated to this website, the more influence that you'd have on this treasure map. Improving this map would essentially be a perk of donating.

Which treasure map would be better? My best guess is that the donating treasure map would be much better. This is simply because actions speak louder than words. People's spending decisions are more reliable than their words at revealing their true preferences.

Economics is incredibly important. Beer depends on economics. Get the economics right, the beer supply will be wonderful. Get the economics wrong, the beer supply will be terrible.

Here's an important economic insight. Whenever you buy beer you help to improve its ranking. How beer is ranked determines how society's limited resources are divided between it and the alternatives... such as wine. Beer and wine are constantly competing for resources and the contest is determined by consumer choice.

Buying creates a treasure map for all products...beer, wine and so on. So right now there already is a treasure map that is based on actions rather than words. We already use our money to rank beers.

The thing is, buying and donating really aren't the same thing. This means that the beer treasure maps that they create will be different. My best guess is that the donating treasure map will be better.

How much money would this raise for this website? That's a good question. Right now the internet has a huge problem. The traditional revenue model of banner ads isn't working... most people use ad-blockers. As a result, more and more websites are putting their content behind paywalls. But obviously this greatly limits access to it.

It's entirely possible that the internet's biggest problem can be solved by treasure maps created by donors.

What are your thoughts?

Immediately after posting the thread I saw a notification that it had to be approved by the moderators before it would be made public. An hour later I went to check whether it had been approved. It hadn't been. Instead, I was banned... for spam. Hah.

If you happen to run across a website/organization that's willing to test the difference between voting and donating... and you think the test would be effective... then please let me know.

So the beer folks didn't want to listen to you proselytize about how opinion polls should be replaced with paid advertising?

I'm fucking shocked...

To be clear, it was the moderators at that particular beer forum that didn't want to hear my preaching. In the first beer forum they "tolerated" my preaching for 9 pages. One guy did want to trade me for IM. :/

[Galloism]

Nah, it has nothing to do with "ranking". Just because an organization receives more money doesn't make it better than another organization that receives less.

If people give a lot more money to the Red Cross than to the KKK... it has nothing to do with "ranking"... or... prioritizing... or... hierarchy... or... relative usefulness... or... relative importance... or... the social order?

Not really no.

Think about this - the NRA gets 350m a year in funding. That’s more than Doctors Without Borders, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Boy Scouts of America, The Mayo Clinic, Shriner’s Hospitals, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

And a whole lot of other valid charities.

What does this tell us?

Would you rather have no water or no shelter? Which do you allocate more money to?

I'd rather have no shelter. I allocate a lot more money to shelter.

Exactly, despite the fact you value it less.

If I'm stranded on a deserted island, then initially I'd prioritize water over shelter. But if I get my water supply squared away... then my priorities would change. How could they not? If I have more than enough water, but no shelter, would you expect me to continue endeavoring to acquire even more water?

Your priorities never changed. You’ve just met your higher level need and are working your way down to lower level needs.

Proof:

You’re half finished with your shelter, and whatever you were using for water storage bursts, leaving you with no water. Do you finish your shelter or immediately drop that project to focus on water?

You think in some cases voting is better than spending at communicating our priorities. How could this only be true in some cases? It can't be.

I mean, given spending is terrible at communicating our priorities, voting is probably always better than spending if your goal is communicating priorities.

Most people don’t spend to communicate priorities though. They spend as it’s a function of trade. They’re trading - all communications resulting therefrom are purely accidental and only somewhat probative.

Economics doesn't work like that. Like I said, you can kick and scream all you want, you can obfuscate all you want, but we're going to figure out the truth about voting and spending.

This thread is showing the truth fantastically. How much information have you gleaned from your “spending poll” yet? How much “communication” did you get?

[Xerographica]

If people give a lot more money to the Red Cross than to the KKK... it has nothing to do with "ranking"... or... prioritizing... or... hierarchy... or... relative usefulness... or... relative importance... or... the social order?

Not really no.

Think about this - the NRA gets 350m a year in funding. That’s more than Doctors Without Borders, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Boy Scouts of America, The Mayo Clinic, Shriner’s Hospitals, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

And a whole lot of other valid charities.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that gun ownership is more important to Americans than those other causes. Do you think the ranking would be better if donating was replaced with voting?

Your priorities never changed.

Priorities always change. Circumstances change, preferences change, people change. Everything changes. No man steps in the same river twice.

Most people don’t spend to communicate priorities though. They spend as it’s a function of trade. They’re trading - all communications resulting therefrom are purely accidental and only somewhat probative.

People don't randomly spend their money. So of course how they spend their money is going to communicate their priorities.

Economics doesn't work like that. Like I said, you can kick and scream all you want, you can obfuscate all you want, but we're going to figure out the truth about voting and spending.

This thread is showing the truth fantastically. How much information have you gleaned from your “spending poll” yet? How much “communication” did you get?

It tells me that there's a huge difference between what people will vote for and what they will donate for. Yet, I really don't hear you advocating that donating should be replaced with voting.

You're telling us two economic stories that crazily contradict each other. Sorry, but one of your stories is terribly wrong. We're going to figure out which story is BS... even if it's the last thing we do.

[The Two Jerseys]

Not really no.

Think about this - the NRA gets 350m a year in funding. That’s more than Doctors Without Borders, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Boy Scouts of America, The Mayo Clinic, Shriner’s Hospitals, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

And a whole lot of other valid charities.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that gun ownership is more important to Americans than those other causes. Do you think the ranking would be better if donating was replaced with voting?

And what good will ranking those charities do, exactly?

Your priorities never changed.

Priorities always change. Circumstances change, preferences change, people change. Everything changes. No man steps in the same river twice.

So why do we keep getting identical threads from you?

Most people don’t spend to communicate priorities though. They spend as it’s a function of trade. They’re trading - all communications resulting therefrom are purely accidental and only somewhat probative.

People don't randomly spend their money.

Yet you want them to with your stupid spending poll...

So of course how they spend their money is going to communicate their priorities.

If I spend more on the rent than on food, does that mean I prioritize shelter over food? Or that one just costs more than the other?

This thread is showing the truth fantastically. How much information have you gleaned from your “spending poll” yet? How much “communication” did you get?

It tells me that there's a huge difference between what people will vote for and what they will donate for. Yet, I really don't hear you advocating that donating should be replaced with voting.

You're telling us two economic stories that crazily contradict each other. Sorry, but one of your stories is terribly wrong. We're going to figure out which story is BS... even if it's the last thing we do.

No, they don't contradict each other.

Giving money to a charity helps people in need, which makes donors feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Ranking charities in a poll does jack shit.

[Galloism]

Not really no.

Think about this - the NRA gets 350m a year in funding. That’s more than Doctors Without Borders, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Boy Scouts of America, The Mayo Clinic, Shriner’s Hospitals, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

And a whole lot of other valid charities.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that gun ownership is more important to Americans than those other causes. Do you think the ranking would be better if donating was replaced with voting?

Irrelevant question. You think that curing children of cancer is less relevant and important than gun rights? You think that Gun Rights are more relatively useful than freedom of speech, religion, and assembly combined?

Your priorities never changed.

Priorities always change. Circumstances change, preferences change, people change. Everything changes. No man steps in the same river twice.

Having water doesn't change your priority from water. We CAN change your priority though, but it requires a change in extant circumstances not affected by supply.

Let's suppose instead of a tropical island, you're in the arctic, and shelter means death when the temperature dips over night. Your container for holding water still bursts, and your shelter isn't finished. Which will you go without, water or shelter?

In that circumstance, you'll go without water. This is because water is no longer prioritized over shelter. By the way, this is still true even if your shelter is in good shape. You STILL prioritize shelter over water, because you can go a few days without water, but no shelter means death overnight.

Most people don’t spend to communicate priorities though. They spend as it’s a function of trade. They’re trading - all communications resulting therefrom are purely accidental and only somewhat probative.

People don't randomly spend their money.

People randomly spend money all the time.

So of course how they spend their money is going to communicate their priorities.

Not really no, otherwise we'd pay more for water than any other good (aside from the arctic, where we'd spend more on shelter).

This thread is showing the truth fantastically. How much information have you gleaned from your “spending poll” yet? How much “communication” did you get?

It tells me that there's a huge difference between what people will vote for and what they will donate for. Yet, I really don't hear you advocating that donating should be replaced with voting.

Because charities can't do their jobs with votes. They have to pay people for services, buy goods, etc. It has nothing to do with "communicating" how much you like a charity and everything to do with empowering the charity to do its job.

In aviation, we use the maxim "aviate, navigate, communicate". It's said in that order on purpose. Aviate is ALWAYS the #1 priority, from the time you start the aircraft motor until you shut it down. When aviation is going well, and you have room to spare, you can navigate to where you're going. When both aviation and navigation is going well, you can communicate to air traffic control.

But even when things are going perfect and you're doing all three things seamlessly (and reading the paper for good measure), your #1 priority is always to aviate.

You're telling us two economic stories that crazily contradict each other. Sorry, but one of your stories is terribly wrong. We're going to figure out which story is BS... even if it's the last thing we do.

There's really no contradiction here. A nuanced approach involves seeing what works with certain problems, and that's what we've done. When economics fails, due to the preference revelation problem, significant externalities (both positive and negative), there's nothing wrong with saying "well, that solution didn't work for THAT problem, so we need to do something different".

Economics has faults. Politics also has faults. We haven't figured out a third solution yet. We just need to migrate things from economics to politics when economics fails, and migrate from politics to economics when politics fails. The trick is figuring out what works best (which may or may not be the same as working well) with a certain problem and applying that solution.

There's nothing contradictory about this, but it has been largely a trial & error process throughout history.

[Xerographica]

It tells us that gun ownership is more important to Americans than those other causes. Do you think the ranking would be better if donating was replaced with voting?

And what good will ranking those charities do, exactly?

Donors would pool their donations and it would be distributed based on how voters ranked the charities. It's basically participatory budgeting. This would do a lot of good if you assume that voting is better than donating at ranking things.

Priorities always change. Circumstances change, preferences change, people change. Everything changes. No man steps in the same river twice.

So why do we keep getting identical threads from you?

In this thread I linked to a couple blog entries by PZ Myers. Have I ever even mentioned him in my other threads?

People don't randomly spend their money.

Yet you want them to with your stupid spending poll...

No, I want them to donate to this forum, which would give them the perk of participating in the donating poll.

So of course how they spend their money is going to communicate their priorities.

If I spend more on the rent than on food, does that mean I prioritize shelter over food? Or that one just costs more than the other?

How you divide your limited dollars accurately reflects how you want society's limited resources to be divided.

It tells me that there's a huge difference between what people will vote for and what they will donate for. Yet, I really don't hear you advocating that donating should be replaced with voting.

You're telling us two economic stories that crazily contradict each other. Sorry, but one of your stories is terribly wrong. We're going to figure out which story is BS... even if it's the last thing we do.

No, they don't contradict each other.

Giving money to a charity helps people in need, which makes donors feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Ranking charities in a poll does jack shit.

If you applied participating budgeting to the entire non-profit sector, then ranking charities in a poll would determine how all the donated dollars were divided among them. So should charities be ranked by donating or voting?

[The Two Jerseys]

And what good will ranking those charities do, exactly?

Donors would pool their donations and it would be distributed based on how voters ranked the charities. It's basically participatory budgeting. This would do a lot of good if you assume that voting is better than donating at ranking things.

So gun owners would be giving money to gun control groups, gun control advocates would be giving money to the NRA, conservative Christians would be funding Planned Parenthood, and atheists would be donating to religious charities. And they'd all be fine with that.

No, there's absolutely no flaws with this system...

So why do we keep getting identical threads from you?

In this thread I linked to a couple blog entries by PZ Myers. Have I ever even mentioned him in my other threads?

This is me not caring one bit.

Yet you want them to with your stupid spending poll...

No, I want them to donate to this forum, which would give them the perk of participating in the donating poll.

Still randomly spending money there...

If I spend more on the rent than on food, does that mean I prioritize shelter over food? Or that one just costs more than the other?

How you divide your limited dollars accurately reflects how you want society's limited resources to be divided.

Except it doesn't, because the landlord says that rent costs $X and the supermarket says that food costs $Y, and if I don't like it that's tough shit.

No, they don't contradict each other.

Giving money to a charity helps people in need, which makes donors feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Ranking charities in a poll does jack shit.

If you applied participating budgeting to the entire non-profit sector, then ranking charities in a poll would determine how all the donated dollars were divided among them. So should charities be ranked by donating or voting?

Why should charities be ranked in the first place?

[Xerographica]

It tells us that gun ownership is more important to Americans than those other causes. Do you think the ranking would be better if donating was replaced with voting?

Irrelevant question. You think that curing children of cancer is less relevant and important than gun rights? You think that Gun Rights are more relatively useful than freedom of speech, religion, and assembly combined?

Obviously I think that the most important thing is testing and comparing different ranking systems. Why aren't you down for the cause?

People randomly spend money all the time.

So why didn't you randomly donate to this forum in order participate in the donating poll? How many people do you think will randomly donate to this forum in order to participating in the book ranking donating poll?

Because charities can't do their jobs with votes. They have to pay people for services, buy goods, etc. It has nothing to do with "communicating" how much you like a charity and everything to do with empowering the charity to do its job.

You and Two Jersey's love voting so much but neither of you have heard of participatory budgeting.

You're telling us two economic stories that crazily contradict each other. Sorry, but one of your stories is terribly wrong. We're going to figure out which story is BS... even if it's the last thing we do.

There's really no contradiction here. A nuanced approach involves seeing what works with certain problems, and that's what we've done. When economics fails, due to the preference revelation problem, significant externalities (both positive and negative), there's nothing wrong with saying "well, that solution didn't work for THAT problem, so we need to do something different".

Economics has faults. Politics also has faults. We haven't figured out a third solution yet. We just need to migrate things from economics to politics when economics fails, and migrate from politics to economics when politics fails. The trick is figuring out what works best (which may or may not be the same as working well) with a certain problem and applying that solution.

There's nothing contradictory about this, but it has been largely a trial & error process throughout history.

You really don't hear yourself. You complain about how poorly donating ranks charities, you argue that people randomly spend their money all the time, but you don't seem to want to rank charities using voting, yet you argue that voting is a good way to rank some things.

Don't worry. We're going to get your economic story straight if it's the last thing we do.

[Xerographica]

Donors would pool their donations and it would be distributed based on how voters ranked the charities. It's basically participatory budgeting. This would do a lot of good if you assume that voting is better than donating at ranking things.

So gun owners would be giving money to gun control groups, gun control advocates would be giving money to the NRA, conservative Christians would be funding Planned Parenthood, and atheists would be donating to religious charities. And they'd all be fine with that.

No, there's absolutely no flaws with this system...

Ever heard of the public sector? You don't remember I might have mentioned once or twice about liberals paying for war and conservatives paying for welfare?

In this thread I linked to a couple blog entries by PZ Myers. Have I ever even mentioned him in my other threads?

This is me not caring one bit.

And I'm supposed to discern this... based on... the fact that you aren't spending any money?

No, I want them to donate to this forum, which would give them the perk of participating in the donating poll.

Still randomly spending money there...

I guessed you missed where Galloism said that people randomly spend their money all the time.

Why should charities be ranked in the first place?

Ranking is the same thing as prioritizing, which is the same thing as determining how to allocate society's resources.

What's your preferred ranking of the 10 books?

War and Peace
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
The Cat in the Hat
50 Shades of Grey
12 Rules For Life
The Wealth of Nations
The Origin Of Species
The Bible
Principia
A Theory of Justice

Do you predict that your preferred ranking will be closer to the voting ranking or the donating ranking?

[Galloism]

Irrelevant question. You think that curing children of cancer is less relevant and important than gun rights? You think that Gun Rights are more relatively useful than freedom of speech, religion, and assembly combined?

Obviously I think that the most important thing is testing and comparing different ranking systems. Why aren't you down for the cause?

I think our comparison between systems in this thread is doing splendidly.

People randomly spend money all the time.

So why didn't you randomly donate to this forum in order participate in the donating poll? How many people do you think will randomly donate to this forum in order to participating in the book ranking donating poll?

Because when I randomly spend money, it's not to indulge you. It's usually to indulge myself or my wife. Sometimes it's to indulge other relatives and friends. Occasionally I'll indulge a stranger if someone looks like they need help.

By the way, it's hilarious you expect us to randomly spend money, by your own admission, while arguing people don't randomly spend money.

Because charities can't do their jobs with votes. They have to pay people for services, buy goods, etc. It has nothing to do with "communicating" how much you like a charity and everything to do with empowering the charity to do its job.

You and Two Jersey's love voting so much but neither of you have heard of participatory budgeting.

I have. It's not a bad idea exactly, but I will note it does result in deliberation and deciding on a unified budget, which all organizations need. It's also not based on the relative contributions TO the organization's budget, but merely a deliberative democratic process with numbers.

There's really no contradiction here. A nuanced approach involves seeing what works with certain problems, and that's what we've done. When economics fails, due to the preference revelation problem, significant externalities (both positive and negative), there's nothing wrong with saying "well, that solution didn't work for THAT problem, so we need to do something different".

Economics has faults. Politics also has faults. We haven't figured out a third solution yet. We just need to migrate things from economics to politics when economics fails, and migrate from politics to economics when politics fails. The trick is figuring out what works best (which may or may not be the same as working well) with a certain problem and applying that solution.

There's nothing contradictory about this, but it has been largely a trial & error process throughout history.

You really don't hear yourself. You complain about how poorly donating ranks charities, you argue that people randomly spend their money all the time, but you don't seem to want to rank charities using voting, yet you argue that voting is a good way to rank some things.

Charities use voting all the time. Boards of directors vote on how the charity is to be run using the budget they have.

I don't think it's relevant to "rank charities" at all. If our high school sports booster club raised a million dollars, I wouldn't give a penny if it was the best organization on the planet.

Don't worry. We're going to get your economic story straight if it's the last thing we do.

The fact that you can't see it's already straight is amusing to me.

[The Two Jerseys]

So gun owners would be giving money to gun control groups, gun control advocates would be giving money to the NRA, conservative Christians would be funding Planned Parenthood, and atheists would be donating to religious charities. And they'd all be fine with that.

No, there's absolutely no flaws with this system...

Ever heard of the public sector? You don't remember I might have mentioned once or twice about liberals paying for war and conservatives paying for welfare?

And you want to piss them off further by forcing their voluntary contributions to go in part to causes that they oppose?

This is me not caring one bit.

And I'm supposed to discern this... based on... the fact that you aren't spending any money?

I bet you're terrible at organizing boycotts.

Still randomly spending money there...

I guessed you missed where Galloism said that people randomly spend their money all the time.

I guess you missed the part where you yourself said they don't.

Why should charities be ranked in the first place?

Ranking is the same thing as prioritizing, which is the same thing as determining how to allocate society's resources.

It's not the same thing.

Video games are ranked well ahead of the rent on the list of things that I want to spend money on, yet I pay the rent more than I buy video games.

What's your preferred ranking of the 10 books?

War and Peace
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
The Cat in the Hat
50 Shades of Grey
12 Rules For Life
The Wealth of Nations
The Origin Of Species
The Bible
Principia
A Theory of Justice

Do you predict that your preferred ranking will be closer to the voting ranking or the donating ranking?

I refuse to rank a list of books that I haven't read.

[Erythrean Thebes]

The usefulness of something is an assessment you can make about most anything, at any time. I agree that if you examined the usefulness of my reply, it's readability would be one factor. This builds to my argument that our idea of usefulness really comes from a mentality. People key into the usefulness of their situation for certain reasons. Not everybody would ask themselves if my reply was useful. I believe that you do because of a certain manner of thinking you have.

I'm not sure if I'm exceptional in this regard. When you're reading the replies to this thread... don't you naturally and automatically judge their usefulness to you? It can't be the case that all the posts in this thread are equally useful to you. Just like it can't be the case that all the threads in this forum are equally useful to you. I'm guessing that you don't read every thread. I'm also guessing that you don't randomly pick threads to read. Evidently there was something about this thread's title..."The Relationship Between Cooperation And Feedback"... that you found useful.

Organisms that don't automatically and naturally judge the usefulness of things aren't going to do so well. Naturally, the more correctly an organism judges the usefulness of things, the better it will do. Here's a short video clip of a coywolf judging that a goose egg is less useful than a roadkill.

Voting and donating are two very different ways that a group of people can judge the usefulness of things. Will voting or donating more correctly judge the usefulness of things? From my perspective, the correct answer is "donating". In order to discern whether my answer is truly correct... we really need to conduct more experiments. Science is incredibly useful.

It depends but I think you need to have a certain frame of reference if you're thinking in terms of the usefulness of things. Usefulness is always situational, even if the context of the situation is just the parameters of being human.

[Xerographica]

I just posted the book thread... Ranking Books - Voting VS Donating.

[Senkaku]

Xero has it ever occurred to you in literally years here that if literally everyone, pretty much regardless of political persuasion, recognizes your ideas as stupid and tells you so, and do so consistently and with great verbosity, that perhaps, just perhaps, rather than every single person on this forum being too blinkered and myopic to see the true shining light of your glorious vision, your ideas maybe are in fact extremely dumb?

And if it HAS occurred to you, what led you to conclude that everyone here is just to stupid to really grasp your greatness, and then to follow up on that, why are you still trying to convince us instead of literally anyone else who'd be more likely to get it? I'm sure there are some forward-thinking visionaries out there somewhere beyond the baying circlejerk of NSG, right? Maybe some of them could even help you bring your brilliant insights to life and apply them on a global scale!

[The Two Jerseys]

Xero has it ever occurred to you in literally years here that if literally everyone, pretty much regardless of political persuasion, recognizes your ideas as stupid and tells you so, and do so consistently and with great verbosity, that perhaps, just perhaps, rather than every single person on this forum being too blinkered and myopic to see the true shining light of your glorious vision, your ideas maybe are in fact extremely dumb?

99⁴⁴/₁₀₀% sure the answer will be that we're all idiots in need of enlightenment.

And if it HAS occurred to you, what led you to conclude that everyone here is just to stupid to really grasp your greatness, and then to follow up on that, why are you still trying to convince us instead of literally anyone else who'd be more likely to get it? I'm sure there are some forward-thinking visionaries out there somewhere beyond the baying circlejerk of NSG, right? Maybe some of them could even help you bring your brilliant insights to life and apply them on a global scale!

I do believe Xero has tried that approach, and I wouldn't be surprised if these visionaries have blocked his e-mail address...

[Vectrova]

I just posted the book thread... Ranking Books - Voting VS Donating.

making yet another identical thread while this one is still going on is tasteless.

[Senkaku]

Xero has it ever occurred to you in literally years here that if literally everyone, pretty much regardless of political persuasion, recognizes your ideas as stupid and tells you so, and do so consistently and with great verbosity, that perhaps, just perhaps, rather than every single person on this forum being too blinkered and myopic to see the true shining light of your glorious vision, your ideas maybe are in fact extremely dumb?

99⁴⁴/₁₀₀% sure the answer will be that we're all idiots in need of enlightenment.

That has been the answer in the past, yes.

And if it HAS occurred to you, what led you to conclude that everyone here is just to stupid to really grasp your greatness, and then to follow up on that, why are you still trying to convince us instead of literally anyone else who'd be more likely to get it? I'm sure there are some forward-thinking visionaries out there somewhere beyond the baying circlejerk of NSG, right? Maybe some of them could even help you bring your brilliant insights to life and apply them on a global scale!

I do believe Xero has tried that approach, and I wouldn't be surprised if these visionaries have blocked his e-mail address...

In which case, it's just possible they might consider the implications of that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Probably not lol but possible