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Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

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Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#31

Post by mistermann »

clairity wrote: post #6

anything that starts off with "left" and "right" as an underlying political model is already hopelessly lost in poor thinking. this particular model is especially prone to tautological "evidence" of its own potency but it's simply uncovering a bias embedded in its own premises. start with a more realistic multidimensional model of political space and then maybe we can have productive conversations about things like i…

> tautological "evidence"

Do you (or anyone else) have any idea if this is a formal term in any discipline, or did you come upon it on your own? I notice people engaging in this all the time in arguments, and having thought about it a fair amount I think it is almost impossible to avoid doing unless one is paying extremely close attention to their word choice, as typically (~only) happens during technical discussions.

> start with a more realistic multidimensional model of political space

This seems like a good idea... But how might one go about doing it?

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#32

Post by WalterBright »

aeternum wrote: post #20
WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sad that free markets are viewed as an "extreme" position.

Purely free markets also have some very well-known failure cases: tradgedy of the commons, ability of a large participant to drop prices to eliminate competition then raise prices, inability of market forces to handle extreme tail risk like major natural disasters.

> tradgedy of the commons,

Communal ownership is not free market, hence the tragedy of the commons is not a failure of the free market.

> ability of a large participant to drop prices to eliminate competition then raise prices,

Has never happened successfully.

> inability of market forces to handle extreme tail risk like major natural disasters.

The free market does very well at rushing supplies into disaster areas. At least until the government put a stop to that with anti-gouging laws. So now, disaster victims have to wait around until the government gets its act together, which takes a lot longer.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#33

Post by WalterBright »

liotier wrote: post #15
WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sad that free markets are viewed as an "extreme" position.

Free markets indeed is an extreme position: efficiency in trade requires regulation.

Free markets require a government to enforce contracts, property rights, and ensure there's no force or fraud in the transactions.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#35

Post by somenameforme »

aeternum wrote: post #20
WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sad that free markets are viewed as an "extreme" position.

Purely free markets also have some very well-known failure cases: tradgedy of the commons, ability of a large participant to drop prices to eliminate competition then raise prices, inability of market forces to handle extreme tail risk like major natural disasters.

There is one issue with your argument here, an increasingly relevant one in contemporary times. You are implying that since one choice can be shown to be provably bad, it must therefore be the case that another is better by default.

But this assumes that there are good choices, and that there are bad choices. Reality, unfortunately, is often not so kind, and instead leaves us to choose only between bad choices and horrible ones. And so emphasizing the flaws of one choice, says very little about the desirability of an alternative.

In some ways I think game theory is most appropriate for chaotic systems. The goal is not to pick the system that works the best, under some ideal set of criteria, but the one that works the least-worst under the most hostile set of criteria.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#36

Post by mistermann »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #23
nh23423fefe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

This view is actually very narrow-minded, much more than simply having views you aren't able to deftly articulate or defend against a dedicated opponent. It compresses an absolutely huge realm of human experience (believing things???) into a very small one (arguing about them on the internet), and then tries to judo it so the first doesn't matter unless you can ably commit to the second. Tragic reduction of your worl…

Is this to say that the proposition has no truth or validity to it, that there are not people who hold extremely confident opinions on certain matters but are literally not able to accurately substantiate their claims in detail in a logically consistent manner given sufficient time?

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#37

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

cardanome wrote: post #25

They have not controlled for the most obvious variable: class. Obviously higher class individuals would score higher on their intelligence test having received better education It should not surprise anyone that people higher up the class hierarchy have more moderate, centrist views while those that are struggling and for which radical change is an objective need because the current system is not working for them, em…

No post body was provided.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#38

Post by paganel »

nh23423fefe wrote: post #5
bediger4000 wrote: post #2

If true, this would explain tensions here on HN when discussion of economic issues happens. HN readers are self selected high cognitive ability people.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Can you really be said to hold a view that you can't even evangelize.

Yeah, most definitely, I realise as I get older (I'm in my early 40s now) that life is quite complicated and there's almost no "evangelical"-like truth to it. Especially not when it comes to economics, that's for sure.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#39

Post by giraffe_lady »

mistermann wrote: post #36
giraffe_lady wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This view is actually very narrow-minded, much more than simply having views you aren't able to deftly articulate or defend against a dedicated opponent. It compresses an absolutely huge realm of human experience (believing things???) into a very small one (arguing about them on the internet), and then tries to judo it so the first doesn't matter unless you can ably commit to the second. Tragic reduction of your worl…

Is this to say that the proposition has no truth or validity to it, that there are not people who hold extremely confident opinions on certain matters but are literally not able to accurately substantiate their claims in detail in a logically consistent manner given sufficient time?

The idea that beliefs are only valid if you are able to adequately articulate them to the standards set by someone else is invalid, yes.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#40

Post by orthecreedence »

cardanome wrote: post #25

They have not controlled for the most obvious variable: class. Obviously higher class individuals would score higher on their intelligence test having received better education It should not surprise anyone that people higher up the class hierarchy have more moderate, centrist views while those that are struggling and for which radical change is an objective need because the current system is not working for them, em…

As I've done better financially in life, I've become more radical. I'm one data point, but my experience contradicts your conclusion.

I think in my case, it was a realization that I'm not working harder than other people or even working things that matter more than anybody else (in fact, on the contrary) and that at least 90% of my success can be attributed to luck. So if my success is not due to my deeds but rather a randomized lottery, then there's no point in preserving the status quo.

And that's only analyzing one aspect: me. There are a lot of other reasons the world should change beyond what benefits just me.

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