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Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
51–60 of 197 posts
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ho…
It doesn't need to be a purely free market. I'm very much a proponent of free markets but there's also a need for some amount of thoughtful regulation.
Allowing market participants to discharge toxins into the local water supply is not in society's interests but is quite possible in a purely free-market system.
There's now a good amount of evidence that a hybrid system: mostly free-market, with some regulation, and some kind of social safety net is the least-bad choice.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
>Communal ownership is not free market, hence the tragedy of the commons is not a failure of the free market.
Ah yes so in this free-market utopia shall we purchase bottled air from Nestle for our breathing needs?
Shall all aerospace companies pay a toll to the estate of Yuri Gagarin whenever they launch a rocket? He was the first in space so must have the most logical claim to the ownership rights. His estate could then help us avoid Kessler syndrome.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I see you answered a question other than the one that was asked.
Would you mind answering the one that was asked?
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#55While the degree of economic extremism (perhaps better described as investment or fluency) seems to correlate well with intelligence, I think it's unlikely that one can decide whether a given economic philosophy is the 'smarter' choice. Economic preferences may not be the outcome of pure rationality so much as differing values which in turn are based on different criteria of emotional satisfaction.
There is some evidence* that these value preferences are independent of experience and established quite early in life. It might be that a lot of theoretical sophistication is an elaborate rationalization of the axiomatic preferences rather than objective assessments of 'reality'.
It's also worth considering that preferential attachment and assortivity could lead to clustering of particular value systems at local, regional, or national levels. A policy which is 'natural' and 'efficient' in a society where one value system prevails might not work elsewhere, because the people there to be more competitive, or more cooperative, or more risk averse. Their aggregate economic outcomes would then be poorer because the policy is at odds with their social norms.
* https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
The speculated-upon correlation with big 5 personality factors in the current paper is intriguing and worthy of further research.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#56Earlier 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.…
>Communal ownership is not free market, hence the tragedy of the commons is not a failure of the free market. Ah yes so in this free-market utopia shall we purchase bottled air from Nestle for our breathing needs? Shall all aerospace companies pay a toll to the estate of Yuri Gagarin whenever they launch a rocket? He was the first in space so must have the most logical claim to the ownership rights. His estate could…
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.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
This would be such a beautiful world if only people were more selfish!
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#58anything 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…
Conflict tends toward dualism, and politics is inherently about conflict. The space of possible positions is indeed very wide and multidimensional, but the process of effective contention and coalition building drives everything into two sides. Actors who don't want to do this can avoid falling into that binary, but they're also then less engaging in politics than philosophy.
"drives everything into two sides."
Mostly true for political systems that are set up as dual parties. Turns out if you have a system that encourages a more open political ecosystem, there are more "sides" that people can end up on.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#59They 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…
> They have not controlled for the most obvious variable: class.
What's the distinction you're making between household income and class?
> The hypothesis that the positive association between higher intelligence and economic extremism would be replicated was tested using a linear model with total intelligence score as the independent variable, and economic extremism as the dependent variable, controlling for age, gender, education level, and >>.
Re: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes
#60I think the way more interesting thing in this is buried in the table of correlations for study 3. - the positive correlation between intelligence and income at 30 is 0.11, and highly significant, p - the positive correlation between intelligence and income at 42 is 0.05, highly significant, p - the positive correlation between income at 30 and income at 42 is 0.11, highly significant, p I.e. what you earn when you'r…
> the positive correlation between income at 30 and income at 42 is 0.11
I'm surprised this correlation is so low, most people have already started their main career at 30, do people really change career that much between 30 and 42? Only reason I see it can be that low is that they have women who quit work or something, otherwise I'd expect high earners to continue to be high earners at that age and vice versa.