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Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

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Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#71

Post by WalterBright »

aeternum wrote: post #61
WalterBright wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't climate change the result of communal ownership of the air? As for space, the orbits are full of dangerous space junk. A classic tragedy of the commons.

Much of the most heavily polluted land in the US is privately owned, so I don't see how that eliminates the issue. I'd be much more concerned with issues like groundwater contamination, seeping gasses, and toxic waste dumping.

> groundwater contamination, seeping gasses, and toxic waste dumping

Are all not allowed in a free market. A free market does not condone damaging other people or their property.

BTW, US military bases are on some of the most polluted ground because they polluted it.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#72

Post by openfuture »

jackmott42 wrote: post #67
scarmig wrote: post #16

People like the sense that their views are coherent. Intelligent people are more likely to see how their point of view is incoherent. So they adopt points of view that are more coherent. Our world, both in its material basis and the ideology under/overlying it, is a messy hodgepodge, so those points of view tend to be radical i.e. a rejection of the existing basis of the world.

Or they just pick the view that benefits them, with no regard to how it affects others. Smart people definitely do better in a fuck you got mine economy than dumb people.

Or they pick the view that benefits everybody but nobody wants that because they are busy exploiting something that gives them relative advantage and don't see how they would be better off if they would have less relative advantage but better commons. Smart people have historically often been left destitute for their convictions.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#73

Post by WalterBright »

anigbrowl wrote: post #57
WalterBright wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

This would be such a beautiful world if only people were more selfish!

The beauty of the free market is that instead of suppressing selfish motives, it enables them in a way that benefits society. It's why Americans live the highest standard of living in the world.

Socialism fails because it relies on altruistic behavior, which is in short supply in humans.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#74

Post by kiliantics »

hackerlight wrote: post #30

Could be because the people who even know what those extremes are tend to be high IQ. It could still be true that self selecting into these beliefs conditional on knowing they exist predicts lower IQ. E.g, people who knows what ararcho-syndicalism is have a mean IQ of 125. People who believe it's a good idea are a subset of this group with an IQ of 115. So it appears that the belief predicts IQ but it's actually the…

Yeah but Noam Chomsky thinks anarcho-syndicalism is a good idea so it's clearly the superior choice of the true intellectual :p

and if that's not convincing enough, how about Alexander Grothendieck

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#75

Post by anigbrowl »

WalterBright wrote: post #73
anigbrowl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be such a beautiful world if only people were more selfish!

The beauty of the free market is that instead of suppressing selfish motives, it enables them in a way that benefits society. It's why Americans live the highest standard of living in the world. Socialism fails because it relies on altruistic behavior, which is in short supply in humans.

> in a way that benefits society

So when accusations of price gouging arise (say in the aftermath of a disaster), you're saying that it's the government interfering while the people in the disaster area area are eager to pay top dollar for suddenly-rare commodities like water or hand sanitizer? If I see regular-seeming people complaining about prices, should I assume they're covert government agents?

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#76

Post by twblalock »

anigbrowl wrote: post #57
WalterBright wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

This would be such a beautiful world if only people were more selfish!

Selfishness is inevitable. You can either try to deny it and end up with a broken system where people are still selfish anyway, or you can channel it toward beneficial goals.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#77

Post by twblalock »

anigbrowl wrote: post #75
WalterBright wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of the free market is that instead of suppressing selfish motives, it enables them in a way that benefits society. It's why Americans live the highest standard of living in the world. Socialism fails because it relies on altruistic behavior, which is in short supply in humans.

> in a way that benefits society So when accusations of price gouging arise (say in the aftermath of a disaster), you're saying that it's the government interfering while the people in the disaster area area are eager to pay top dollar for suddenly-rare commodities like water or hand sanitizer? If I see regular-seeming people complaining about prices, should I assume they're covert government agents?

Those things are often suddenly rare because people hoard them, which can be prevented by allowing supply and demand to properly work. Prices should go up if goods are in more demand. In addition, the higher prices will motivate sellers to send more products to the impacted area. That eventually leads to price stabilization at the intersection of the supply and demand curve, i.e. how things are supposed to work.

Do the higher prices mean some people won't get any water? Yes! But if you artificially suppress prices, there will also be some people who don't get water, because other people will hoard it.

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#78

Post by JamesBarney »

openfuture wrote: post #70
hackerlight wrote: post #30

Could be because the people who even know what those extremes are tend to be high IQ. It could still be true that self selecting into these beliefs conditional on knowing they exist predicts lower IQ. E.g, people who knows what ararcho-syndicalism is have a mean IQ of 125. People who believe it's a good idea are a subset of this group with an IQ of 115. So it appears that the belief predicts IQ but it's actually the…

My hot take is that people who believe in IQ have low IQ.

What does it mean to not believe in IQ?

Does that mean these high IQ people don't think IQ exists. It obviously exists. It's a real measure that people use.

It's not like midichlorian count which is a measure from Starwars. Which doesn't exist because it only exists in the movies and doesn't measure something real (the force).

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#79

Post by legitster »

I suspect this isn't limited to economic attitude. Intelligence is likely associated all over the place to having strong opinions about things in every which way.

> Conservative economic attitudes have been theorized as symptoms of low cognitive ability.

This has to be the most formalized way of saying "only dumb people could be conservatives".

Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

#80

Post by mountainriver »

legitster wrote: post #79

I suspect this isn't limited to economic attitude. Intelligence is likely associated all over the place to having strong opinions about things in every which way. > Conservative economic attitudes have been theorized as symptoms of low cognitive ability. This has to be the most formalized way of saying "only dumb people could be conservatives".

Eh strong opinions are usually morally based, and have little to do with intelligence.
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