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People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

freakonomics.com

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Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#351

Post by backpropaganda »

ballenf wrote: post #296
smhost wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did he mean at 1:09:22 ( https://youtu.be/R1R2jH4PQEo?t=1h09m22s ) when he says "nobody complains about multiplying one fraction by another because it looks reasonable, but it turns out it isn't reasonable at all"?

He explains that it was a "triumph of Greek mathematics" to prove that multiplying the top and bottom of a fraction is how you multiply two fractions. That is, we accept as true that you can multiply fractions this way, but we kind of just got lucky that it does work that way. Proving that it always works is non-trivial, but that is totally glossed over in math classes, doing a disservice to students. This is in cont…

Dividing fractions is also easy. Did you mean summing fractions? Because, yeah, summing fractions is significantly harder than multiplying fractions, simply due to pure misfortune.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#352

Post by jhanschoo »

rvern wrote: post #135
ppeetteerr wrote: post #34

This is probably the greatest argument for big government. If we were to eliminate the supervision of the establishment over the safety and security of everyday life, it would be very time consuming to handle every single aspect of it. There is always the issue of an overreaching government, and that's where the left/right party split comes in. Each party either creates more regulation and protection or take some awa…

No, this is one of the greatest arguments for small government or no government. People are more rational when the cost to them of being irrational is larger. Voting for good policies is a public good. When a voter is one among three hundred millions of citizens, only 1/300,000,000 (on average) of the benefits of the vote befall the individual voter. This gigantic externality means that the democratic market will sev…

Other commenters have addressed how your claim that people behave more rationally when government is small. I would like to address the fact that even if we assume that citizens behave rationally, this does not mean that behavior maximizing personal benefit translates to behavior maximizing net benefit.

Consider, for example, the international politics arena, wherein there is no government over state actors, and where sufficiently important players pursue sufficiently rational actions, since the cost of not pursuing it is so high. Yet even with good evidence that current human activities are leading to future food and environmental insecurity via climate change, the rational actors have been struggling to coordinate on a plan.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#353

Post by wizzairflyer »

rebuilder wrote: post #270
opo wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found your comment insightful, but I have to ask about this: >...I spent 6 months in prison as a conscientous objector. Could you elaborate? Under what conditions does a conscientious objector face a lengthy prison term?

In Finland, as a male, refusal to perform military or civil service is a crime punishable by approximately 6 months of imprisonment. I understand that very recently that has been put on hold as a result of a legal challenge on the grounds that a certain religious minority is exempted from such service, the claim being that this constitutes inequal treatment.

>a legal challenge on the grounds that a certain religious minority is exempted from such service, the claim being that this constitutes inequal treatment.

Kind of amazing that this is ground for a legal challenge but the fact that female aren't drafted isn't. That's one of the part of Western societies around which I can't wrap my mind.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#354

Post by mikekchar »

backpropaganda wrote: post #351
ballenf wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He explains that it was a "triumph of Greek mathematics" to prove that multiplying the top and bottom of a fraction is how you multiply two fractions. That is, we accept as true that you can multiply fractions this way, but we kind of just got lucky that it does work that way. Proving that it always works is non-trivial, but that is totally glossed over in math classes, doing a disservice to students. This is in cont…

Dividing fractions is also easy. Did you mean summing fractions? Because, yeah, summing fractions is significantly harder than multiplying fractions, simply due to pure misfortune.

I may be wrong, but I think the issue is: what does it mean to divide x by 1/2? It means to multiply it by 2. We can easily understand that dividing by 2 means to split something into 2 pieces. What does it mean to split something into 1/2 pieces? Why does dividing by 1/2 mean to multiply it by 2 and does it always work that way? Can you prove it?

Summation of fractions is much easier to visualise, even if it is harder to calculate.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#355

Post by RugnirViking »

mcguire wrote: post #332
mjevans wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually a strong argument for requiring a 'super majority' to decide any major decision.

Then no decision would be made, which is a decision. When was the last time someone got a supermajority with more than a small number of voters?

To be fair in some situations where it is not internal political pressure that caused the vote in the first place, large majorities can occur; see the falkland islands referendum on joining argentina

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#357

Post by anticensor »

mjevans wrote: post #254
1996 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good catch! It reminded me the same thing, Macross. There is indeed something keeping working class humans dependants: a focus on growth at all costs (including population growth). It is pervasive (the ideology is reinforced with ads) and makes you desire for example the latest iPhone X. With a permanent growth, the basic problem is all humans are still born with a dependancy on housing and food (and other fancier th…

"The social contract", how an individual and society interact (and are depended upon each other), is broken. In the old days if someone didn't like how things were going there were spaces with (far less) people that they could go off in to and do their own thing; if it mattered that much. In less old days someone was part of a community. They did things that supported the community and return the community supported…

> everyone wants a short term solution with no long term planning or costs.

Except for a few, who are treated like fools or motors.

> Everyone is a disposable cog in a machine that doesn't care about them.

The same as above. However, the cogs work more than motors, where it should have been the opposite.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#358

Post by simonh »

I think people are dumb, and I'm not being derogatory about 'the 'masses' or any such crap. I'm unbelievably dumb. It often takes me a ridiculously long time to come to a solution to a problem, where the answer seems like it should be obvious. Instead my slow, feeble mammal brain takes forever to grope blindly around the issue before getting any traction.

Lets say there is a scale of sentience that goes from 1, which is the lowest level of sentience necessary to develop a technological civilization, up to who knows how high. Where are we on that scale? Well, given that we literally, in evolutionary terms, only just barely got our civilization off the ground we're pretty clearly very close to 1. I discussed this with my brother and he pointed out most of us are below that, because we get taken along for the ride by people who are at 1.0 or higher. They're the geniuses that truly drive innovation forward.

So we are literally at the dumbest, most intellectually feeble level of sentience required to get where we are, otherwise we'd have done it sooner.

Re: People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard

#359

Post by anticensor »

lwelyk wrote: post #139
raywalters wrote: post #118

Having worked front line tech support, I have to disagree. People are inherently dumb, and choose to stay that way in many cases.

I'm sure your car mechanic, doctor, electrician, plumber, etc feel the same about you. You can't know how to do everything.

The opposing view is also true: You cannot ignore everything.
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