Live data from Hacker News

Working on Economics with Fable 5

wilsoniumite.com

61–70 of 84 posts

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#61
post #35

This is a topic I'm interested in, but the presentation and exposition on the website leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, it does make you sound like a crank. Almost all of the theory and predictions presented seems to be those of regular classical economics, per Smith, Riccardo, and particularly George. You can find them in Wealth of Nations, Progress and Poverty. This surprises people who have been failed by our educa…

So, like, legit pro AI tip, at least for 3rd-quarter 2026... whenever you're working on something interesting, ask the AI about prior art, or to do a scan of the scientific literature. Whether it's economics, health, or something algorithmic at work, at least the AIs I've used (as we've not all spent all the time with all the models) are still generally inclined to give you exactly what you ask for. They may do a goo…

> why this is already well known, probably well known to be a bad and wrong idea.

This is still pointing the LLM in a specific direction . You might want to prompt something like “give me a summary of relevant literature” and avoid sharing your point of view. Wdyt?

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#63

This is a topic I'm interested in, but the presentation and exposition on the website leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, it does make you sound like a crank. Almost all of the theory and predictions presented seems to be those of regular classical economics, per Smith, Riccardo, and particularly George. You can find them in Wealth of Nations, Progress and Poverty. This surprises people who have been failed by our educa…

[flagged]

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#64
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it’s a heuristic. Lots of very valuable heuristics exist.

And I'd agree if that's what GP said.

What name do you use for an approach that probably gets a better than random success rate (without guaranteeing that)?

I’m leaving out the ‘pseudo-scientific’ part of GP’s description, since it doesn’t entail anything technically.

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The optimal form of taxation is none

Coincidentally, that's also the optimal number of libertarians.

Most libertarians think government institutions and their services are essential for society to function. They aren't anarchists after all.

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#66
post #27

My high-school economics teacher taught us Georgism is the optimal form of taxation. He gave us a bunch of dense math to back up that claim, but I can remember none of it.

There is no optimal form of taxation, only trade-offs. There is shifting burdens from good to good or person to person. I find it no surprise that so many of the loudest proponents for georgism are highly compensated tech workers with low physical consumption - exactly the demographic that would be favored most under that system.

Georgism makes it possible for the government to profit off the infrastructure it builds, which makes it possible to fund public transportation projects without the tax payer having to pay income tax.

Instead the people who benefit from the infrastructure have the bill for the public transportation system rolled into their land value tax.

Right now in the current system you pay both income taxes and then you pay the landlord again because to him as the monopoly owner of land, the public infrastructure is pure producer surplus.

The demographic that would be favoured under that system is people who work for a living and the people being disadvantaged are the ones sitting on land or extracting the producer surplus.

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#67
post #35

This is a topic I'm interested in, but the presentation and exposition on the website leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, it does make you sound like a crank. Almost all of the theory and predictions presented seems to be those of regular classical economics, per Smith, Riccardo, and particularly George. You can find them in Wealth of Nations, Progress and Poverty. This surprises people who have been failed by our educa…

So, like, legit pro AI tip, at least for 3rd-quarter 2026... whenever you're working on something interesting, ask the AI about prior art, or to do a scan of the scientific literature. Whether it's economics, health, or something algorithmic at work, at least the AIs I've used (as we've not all spent all the time with all the models) are still generally inclined to give you exactly what you ask for. They may do a goo…

[dead]

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#68
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'd agree if that's what GP said.

What name do you use for an approach that probably gets a better than random success rate (without guaranteeing that)? I’m leaving out the ‘pseudo-scientific’ part of GP’s description, since it doesn’t entail anything technically.

I was talking about the root comment that just said "it's AI because this website said so", not the one about treating it like a heuristic. I agree with that.

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coincidentally, that's also the optimal number of libertarians.

Most libertarians think government institutions and their services are essential for society to function. They aren't anarchists after all.

They should really hold a group discussion then and talk about how they present themselves to the outgroup.

Because in my experience talking with them, most don't, and the vast majority are anti-federal organizations of any kind. And these have been multiple discussions over the course of 20+ years.

Re: Working on Economics with Fable 5

#70
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may well be, but also Pangram is ridiculously transparent pseudoscience. Let's not play pretend that it's authoritative, please. Edit: Just for fun I just defeated it with AI-generated text that it reported as 100% human-written. Great stuff. Truly genius scam.

Pangram 4?

Whatever is deployed on their website 13 hours ago
Post reply on HN