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The room the economy can't see

wilsoniumite.com

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Re: The room the economy can't see

#31

Post by multjoy »

infecto wrote: post #24
ixtli wrote: post #9

Very good and well-written. I wish we would also acknowledge that the market, by disincentivizing spend on stuff like this, is performing well. It is optimizing. The reason it matters to acknowledge this up front is so that we can, as the article says, get to the rule below all this which is that the market is default. This is a clear and thorough example of how the profit motive does not lead to the life any of us w…

Or what if the average consumer wants to live a different life than what you want? I long for the memories of my childhood where I spent it outside for hours on end or when I had the opportunity to use the phone line to use the internet but I am not fully convinced what people what are third spaces. It’s hard to answer and I think partially for better or worse why markets are often a useful tool to o help figure it o…

What people generally want is time, and then if you have time you obviously need to spend it somewhere. If not work or home, then literally a third space.

>t’s hard to answer and I think partially for better or worse why markets are often a useful tool to o help figure it out

The point of the article is that the markets are blind to this sort of social good.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#32

Post by fzeindl »

Isn‘t this an example for something that will pay off later? Public baths come to mind. Those generally don‘t make sense from an economic point of view and are prohibitively expensive for private owners to build and maintain.

But they pay off by keeping society clean and healthy and prevent loss of workforce from mental or physical disease?

Re: The room the economy can't see

#33

Post by pebbly_bread »

phkahler wrote: post #22

>> A basic floor of income that everyone gets, Surely the author has to know that providing UBI is just going to lead to inflation of rent, food, and transportation.

It would, leading to more resources going towards producing those goods. A UBI is price signal indicating the needs no/low income people matter.

Maybe it would be too politically unpopular, lead to too much spending on vices, or some other issue, but inflation shouldn't be a concern unless those particular goods are of a fixed quantity over the long term.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#34

Post by thrance »

Zigurd wrote: post #23

Markets are only free when both sides of a deal can walk away from that deal. Free marketers go on about state coercion, but their idea of a free market is at least as coersive as the regulatory state.

I would argue they're even worse. By taking away funding for public institutions, they're removing very important freedoms, like the freedom to live a long and healthy life, to get an education, to have a functional postal service, to know what will become of the climate and to prepare for its evolutions, etc.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#35

Post by jstummbillig »

ixtli wrote: post #9

Very good and well-written. I wish we would also acknowledge that the market, by disincentivizing spend on stuff like this, is performing well. It is optimizing. The reason it matters to acknowledge this up front is so that we can, as the article says, get to the rule below all this which is that the market is default. This is a clear and thorough example of how the profit motive does not lead to the life any of us w…

I mean the market is spending on stuff like this; this is just a form of youth center, no? We pay for those, as we pay for schools or parks.

And it does have positive externalities: Trust, parents, neighbourhood, school outcomes, crime outcomes

It's hot. Maybe I am missing something.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#36

Post by tehwebguy »

infecto wrote: post #24
ixtli wrote: post #9

Very good and well-written. I wish we would also acknowledge that the market, by disincentivizing spend on stuff like this, is performing well. It is optimizing. The reason it matters to acknowledge this up front is so that we can, as the article says, get to the rule below all this which is that the market is default. This is a clear and thorough example of how the profit motive does not lead to the life any of us w…

Or what if the average consumer wants to live a different life than what you want? I long for the memories of my childhood where I spent it outside for hours on end or when I had the opportunity to use the phone line to use the internet but I am not fully convinced what people what are third spaces. It’s hard to answer and I think partially for better or worse why markets are often a useful tool to o help figure it o…

All of those things you long for have been nuked by the economy too.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#37

Post by alephnerd »

infecto wrote: post #20
alephnerd wrote: post #11

How much of this is just due to changing tastes? For example, Minecraft, Roblox, or an Xbox live subscription are the new lobbies for younger generations. Heck, the article mentions Internet cafes but those died out once computer and smartphone penetration reached high double digits. There are fewer of these third spaces because there is less demand for them than before due to changing preferences, as could be seen w…

I suspect this is the real key. Reminds me of a lot of other discussions similar to this where it boils soon to folks overweighting their own desires and underweighting the average consumer. I remember growing up going to my local PC repair shop into their back work area. They smoked, played Ultima Online during the day and had other friends that came and hung out. That is how a bygone era, different but similar to t…

Yep. It's essentially a form of techie Gen X and Millenial nostalgia, and does come off a boomer-ish, hence why all old people are termed "boomers" now.

HN is rife with it and it shows how out of touch it's becoming demographically.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#38

Post by cousin_it »

clickety_clack wrote: post #16
ixtli wrote: post #9

Very good and well-written. I wish we would also acknowledge that the market, by disincentivizing spend on stuff like this, is performing well. It is optimizing. The reason it matters to acknowledge this up front is so that we can, as the article says, get to the rule below all this which is that the market is default. This is a clear and thorough example of how the profit motive does not lead to the life any of us w…

An alternative view is that rooms like these would be a lot more feasible if market pricing of real estate was not being artificially driven up by planning restrictions. Historically, communities were able to afford their own versions of this in their own localities, but this isn’t possible anymore because of property prices. There was a community hall where I grew up that was funded like this along with a local spor…

Well, the planning restrictions don't just come from nowhere. People pay for them (with their lobbying time, lost rent and so on) because they want them. There's a market for "no poors in the neighborhood", an unpleasant market, but a market nonetheless.

Add to that the fact that there's plenty of cheap housing in places with no jobs. So, what should we do? Should we fight against the "no poors in the neighborhood" market in rich cities? Or should we make more jobs appear in other cheaper places instead? I don't know the answer, to be honest.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#40

Post by alephnerd »

sublinear wrote: post #39

I'm fully prepared to be downvoted into oblivion and called naive or worse, but in the USA we have non-profit organizations. You might have heard of things like the YMCA, BGCA, etc.

Additionally, most municipalities run community centers and libraries which provide programming. The issue is there is declining interest in participating in these kinds of activities.

It's a societal cultural shift, and those are not things that can be shifted by policy as can be seen with various failed attempts at social engineering in Singapore and China.

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