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Markets are competitive if and only if P != NP

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Re: Markets are competitive if and only if P != NP

#171

Post by WorldMaker »

dinfinity wrote: post #169
WorldMaker wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are incredible compared to "no labs at all" and "no way to run experiments" as the above poster lamented. Mudflation aka hyperinflation aka situations where "the money printer goes brr too fast" have happened in the real world. Sometimes at "extremely" small scale (for macroeconomics) such as company town scrip, but they've happened and affected real people's lives. But also, if Bitcoin is real then videogame ec…

> They are incredible compared to "no labs at all" That is a nonsensically low bar. You basically destroy the entire scale by labeling the bare minimum as such. > Mudflation aka hyperinflation aka situations where "the money printer goes brr too fast" That is not what mudflation is at all. >> They are toy universes. > So are most experiments, fundamentally. Nonsense. Most experiments are performed on actual real worl…

>> Mudflation aka hyperinflation aka situations where "the money printer goes brr too fast"

> That is not what mudflation is at all.

No, I think it is more that you are used to the more straight-jacketed post-EverQuest form of the term rather than the original circumstances that gave rise to the term in the first place. MUDs didn't have "expansion packs" or DLC. The original form of the term had more to do with infinitely printable currency ("grindable" drops from game spawned enemies) and its effects in trying to balance a larger economy. EverQuest did help to popularize the term in the way its expansions packs particularly badly handled that inflation, but those expansion pack balancing woes were never the cause of that inflation, only a symptom. The cause was (and has always been) "grinding" and "grinding mindset".

> Maybe try telling them that they should look into the economy of Animal Crossing

That is exactly what I'm trying to do. We have some good science from videogames but not enough of it. Dismissing videogame economies as "toy universes" that don't matter doesn't help science. Animal Crossing has inadvertently demonstrated some of the symptoms of that economic question. Imagine if a game was designed to intentionally simulate that as a lab experiment.

I don't think we're going to agree on that, but I think on the spectrum of "macroeconomics isn't a science because it has no laboratories and isn't reproducible in experiments" to "macroeconomics is a science but its laboratories are videogames and we have under studied them and especially aren't building enough reproducible studies", I am happy to be on the side of it that sees hope in better macroeconomic science even if it isn't currently taken seriously enough.

Re: Markets are competitive if and only if P != NP

#172

Post by random3 »

calf wrote: post #164
random3 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a vast generalization of the cost to verify a problem/solution. - P means polynomial - NP means nondeterministic polynomial Roughly polynomial (P) represents the upper bound of the cost to verify, and the polynomial characterization says that given a problem with a certain input (e.g. the input can be the number of training examples in ML training set or the number of constraints/conditions in a general problem—…

Sorry, what's the significance of finiteness? The upper bound on an NFA is exponential steps of state transition splitting, thus P ⊆ NP ⊆ EXP, the class of exponential time algorithms.

the finiteness, in a sense, makes it non-exponential. it boils down to the core characterstic of polynomials (equivalently "algebraic") of being finite series (compare with formal power series that don't have this limitation) of constant powers. Hence, given an input, you can get something that is a polynomial of that input, that makes it a finite sum of constant! powers of that input.

The sum is finite (vs formal power series which can be infinite) The powers are constant (this is what makes it non-exponential)

Re: Markets are competitive if and only if P != NP

#173

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

imtringued wrote: post #163
ajkjk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implications are not significant..? the real world is messy enough that this will not ever apply.

Neoclassical economics is based around the idea that markets are 100% efficient. If they are only 99% efficient the whole thing falls apart, because the standard defense of neoclassicals against exponentially growing defects in the economy is that they never happen in the first place. The moment you permit a 1% defect rate, the cascade starts and it is only a matter of time for things to go wrong.

Reminds me of the spiraling wealth gap as an outcome of markets.

Re: Markets are competitive if and only if P != NP

#174

Post by WorldMaker »

dinfinity wrote: post #169
WorldMaker wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are incredible compared to "no labs at all" and "no way to run experiments" as the above poster lamented. Mudflation aka hyperinflation aka situations where "the money printer goes brr too fast" have happened in the real world. Sometimes at "extremely" small scale (for macroeconomics) such as company town scrip, but they've happened and affected real people's lives. But also, if Bitcoin is real then videogame ec…

> They are incredible compared to "no labs at all" That is a nonsensically low bar. You basically destroy the entire scale by labeling the bare minimum as such. > Mudflation aka hyperinflation aka situations where "the money printer goes brr too fast" That is not what mudflation is at all. >> They are toy universes. > So are most experiments, fundamentally. Nonsense. Most experiments are performed on actual real worl…

> > They are incredible compared to "no labs at all"

> That is a nonsensically low bar. You basically destroy the entire scale by labeling the bare minimum as such.

Ah, yeah, I wasn't using it for "scale". "incredible" also often connotes "in ways that you wouldn't believe". Your long posts disputing me are somewhat validation that I used the right turn of phrase there.

Re: Markets are competitive if and only if P != NP

#175

Post by dinfinity »

WorldMaker wrote: post #174
dinfinity wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are incredible compared to "no labs at all" That is a nonsensically low bar. You basically destroy the entire scale by labeling the bare minimum as such. > Mudflation aka hyperinflation aka situations where "the money printer goes brr too fast" That is not what mudflation is at all. >> They are toy universes. > So are most experiments, fundamentally. Nonsense. Most experiments are performed on actual real worl…

> > They are incredible compared to "no labs at all" > That is a nonsensically low bar. You basically destroy the entire scale by labeling the bare minimum as such. Ah, yeah, I wasn't using it for "scale". "incredible" also often connotes "in ways that you wouldn't believe". Your long posts disputing me are somewhat validation that I used the right turn of phrase there.

> "incredible" also often connotes "in ways that you wouldn't believe". It does not. The English word you're looking for there is "surprisingly".

"This kid is good at hockey in ways you wouldn't believe."

Which of these sentences means the same as the above?

A. This kid is incredibly good at hockey.

B. This kid is surprisingly good at hockey.

> Your long posts disputing me are somewhat validation that I used the right turn of phrase there.

I think you've just invented a new fallacy.

Re: Markets are competitive if and only if P != NP

#176

Post by dinfinity »

WorldMaker wrote: post #171
dinfinity wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are incredible compared to "no labs at all" That is a nonsensically low bar. You basically destroy the entire scale by labeling the bare minimum as such. > Mudflation aka hyperinflation aka situations where "the money printer goes brr too fast" That is not what mudflation is at all. >> They are toy universes. > So are most experiments, fundamentally. Nonsense. Most experiments are performed on actual real worl…

>> Mudflation aka hyperinflation aka situations where "the money printer goes brr too fast" > That is not what mudflation is at all. No, I think it is more that you are used to the more straight-jacketed post-EverQuest form of the term rather than the original circumstances that gave rise to the term in the first place. MUDs didn't have "expansion packs" or DLC. The original form of the term had more to do with infin…

1. The definitions simply disagree with you:

"Hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation."

"Mudflation is a term for the type of inflation found in MUDs (Multi User Dungeon) games. MMORPGs, these days. It's caused by fluctuations in the game economy, caused by player exploits or poorly designed patches. Mudflation almost always kicks in after a major patch or an expansion, when new, better quality items are added to the game economy. These generally have the effect of greatly lowering the value of all pre-existing items."

2.

> Dismissing videogame economies as "toy universes" that don't matter doesn't help science.

Straw man. I never said they did not matter, nor did I say that research of them isn't useful. I said that research is severely limited due to the lack of complexity and you have provided nothing to disprove that.

I would argue that your way of communicating about this is actually a bit of evidence that this kind of research is probably going to be detrimental to policy making: Overestimating the value and use of such research is exactly the same thing that happens with traditional macroeconomic research, with policy makers and the general public treating the theories and hypotheses like laws of nature.

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