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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

#91
post #76
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's optimizing for something, but ultimately, markets can also be outcompeted by central planning in some sectors. I view the market more as playing the role of a modern God, something that "works in mysterious ways" and is "omnipresent, omnisapient, and benevolent". Not something we would dare to question, because it’s way too complicated for our little minds to understand. Instead we just need to believe in it.

What's an example where central planning outcompetes the market?

Wartime production mobilization, public health (vaccine procurement, disease eradication), natural monopolies like power grids.

Public transport, water and sewage systems, infrastructure like roads and bridges are more of a hybrid model with a strong planning component, and private contractors (who consume a lot of public funds and often misuse them).

Re: The room the economy can't see

#92
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are so wrong. this is not ai.

Parts of it seem not to be, but the bulk of it is. Here is a particularly clear example of opus-4.8-speak. > Now, I want to be careful here, because this is the part where it would be very easy to start waving my arms around. Every single one of these has many causes. Suburbs and cars. Television, and then phones. A long list of things that have nothing to do with me at all. I am not going to claim I have found the o…

Watching trust in online content of any kind disintegrate in realtime due to AI in a forum that on balance breathlessly touts AI is surreal.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#93
post #82
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That objection applies to the other options as well. Believe in... I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own. I don't like zoning codes because too often they are placing restrictions that restrict freedom for some value that isn't objective.

> That objection applies to the other options as well. True. > I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own. What about when it doesn't? Markets consolidate. They form monopolies and duopolies. The only counterbalance in this situation, the only entities more powerful than massive multinational corporations, are governments and regulators. I think the problem is the faith that any system will self…

Every system can be captured by wealthy interests. Markets are not unique there. Once in a rare while someone not wealthy captures a system - but they inevitably use that capture to become wealthy so it doesn't really matter.

Classical liberalism is the least likely for that to happen to, but it has happened there too over and over in history as well. I still support classical liberalism, which is not the same as supporting the market even though classical liberalism ends up being a market.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#94
Here is where we’ve found those rooms: 1. In scouts gatherings at churches or campgrounds (zero religious connotation - just use of unused space during the week). 2. In play dates with other families. 3. In sports clubs that have regular practice. 4. In local libraries which are a fantastic resource, especially for caregivers of young kids. 5 In local elementary schools where playgrounds are open and older kids can ride bikes in the yard. 6. In local parks. The market tries to capture the surplus capacity of people with no other obligations or kids. The hard part is finding the trustworthy people who will be a part of your community and the fellow families who want the same community for their children. Trust-based communities will carpool, and take turns for hosting play dates, and ignore messes to enable social interaction, and keep screen time off to ensure social interaction instead of zombie mode. There is market incentive to it and it is rare and it is hidden because it is rare and fodder for abuse. Trust networks exist in parallel to the market but they take offering value to receive value and not in a monetary way and they are also very unevenly distributed. The market profiting from gambling, and addiction, and alcohol means there are fewer safe places for this kind of network to build. But it can be started with as little as 2-3 families banding together.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#95
post #78

>> 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.

Radical concept: you could provide UBI in the form of housing, food and transportation

What's happens to the price of construction when the state suddenly commissions millions of homes?

Re: The room the economy can't see

#96
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" m…

> There's a market for "no poors in the neighborhood", an unpleasant market, but a market nonetheless. I place freedom as a higher value than the market. Thus while I recognize that market exists, I don't allow anyone to serve it. Your ability to keep poor people away ends at your property line. They can walk on the sidewalks in front of your house because roads (a sidewalk is just another road) are not your property…

The primary issue is the people that live in "no poors allowed" area can literally push the poors out of a voting area and thus use their "no poors allowed" policies to take over local governments. Which ultimately allows them to expand the "no poors allowed" zones.

Another major issue is there's a false impression about what's profitable when it comes to property ownership. That, in turn, drives up the price of property in a way no amount of "tent cities" can really compete with. In particular, landlords are using their freedoms to price fix and gouge. They've all realized that it's better to have 50% occupancy with 10x what a competitive market could bear (netting them 5x the profit of competition) then it is to shoot for 70% or 100% occupancy at a competitive market rate. And the cost of joining their ranks is high enough that there's really no option for a spoiler to come in and disrupt the market.

Further, we have the freedom of airbnb which has recognized that if you pay a rate that's 30x the cost of rent you only need rent a property out once a month to turn a profit. And, as it turns out, that rate is often somewhat competitive with a hotel.

All these freedoms give property owners massive extractive power against the working class.

Zoning, IMO, is a red herring to the real problem. You can fix it, you can not fix it. It really doesn't matter because builders very often are participating in exactly the same structure and they aren't going to build themselves out of profit. Looser restrictions will mostly just mean they'll spend even less delivering homes while still charging the same rates because their rates are based not on a market but rather on the income of their tenets.

The fix is a brutal one. The poors need to understand the predicament and vote for politicians that will serve their interests and not the interests of the property owners. A very hard uphill battle because property owners have a lot of money and politicians can be unfortunately easy to buy.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#97
post #45
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's optimizing for something, but ultimately, markets can also be outcompeted by central planning in some sectors. I view the market more as playing the role of a modern God, something that "works in mysterious ways" and is "omnipresent, omnisapient, and benevolent". Not something we would dare to question, because it’s way too complicated for our little minds to understand. Instead we just need to believe in it.

That objection applies to the other options as well. Believe in... I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own. I don't like zoning codes because too often they are placing restrictions that restrict freedom for some value that isn't objective.

Depends which objection you mean...

But your choices are more limited than you might think. Ultimately what's available to you is decided by the economic machinery upstream.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#98
post #65

I think the premise here is wrong; the market is perfectly capable of coming up with communal spaces. Some of the nicest buildings in a small town can be the churches, for example. The issue is creating a space for a group of teenagers to exist in would be a legal hornets nest that anyone touching it would get stung by. It is a sex scandal waiting to happen, a fight waiting to happen, a drug den waiting to happen and…

"it is that in practice there is probably going to be a soft ban on this sort of space"

I looked around in my area, and the is not a soft ban on this sort of space. No need to guess about probabilities. How about in the country where you live? No need to guess; what's the reality?

Re: The room the economy can't see

#99
post #45
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's optimizing for something, but ultimately, markets can also be outcompeted by central planning in some sectors. I view the market more as playing the role of a modern God, something that "works in mysterious ways" and is "omnipresent, omnisapient, and benevolent". Not something we would dare to question, because it’s way too complicated for our little minds to understand. Instead we just need to believe in it.

That objection applies to the other options as well. Believe in... I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own. I don't like zoning codes because too often they are placing restrictions that restrict freedom for some value that isn't objective.

Markets create the illusion of choice between monopolies.

I don't like monopolies because they restrict my freedom far more than zoning codes do.

Ultimately markets are not a democratic choice. You can choose a Mac or a PC, or Amazon vs Netflix.

You (often) can't choose to join a union, to get affordable healthcare that won't bankrupt you, or to have a national policy that prioritises the needs of renters over the profits of private equity.

Re: The room the economy can't see

#100
post #45
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's optimizing for something, but ultimately, markets can also be outcompeted by central planning in some sectors. I view the market more as playing the role of a modern God, something that "works in mysterious ways" and is "omnipresent, omnisapient, and benevolent". Not something we would dare to question, because it’s way too complicated for our little minds to understand. Instead we just need to believe in it.

That objection applies to the other options as well. Believe in... I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own. I don't like zoning codes because too often they are placing restrictions that restrict freedom for some value that isn't objective.

> I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own.

Are you making your own choices?

Do you sincerely believe that when one of the largest pillars of the American economy right now is staffed from top to bottom with PhD holders who use everything they know about psychology to make you think certain ways? To want shit you don't need? To make you play games you don't like? To make you consume art that makes you feel nothing? To make you hate people you don't know? To make you eat food that makes you feel shitty? Do you really make your own choices?

To be clear this is not meant as an attack. I'm just saying there are trillions of dollars on the line in making people, at scale, make choices. Do you really believe you are an island, free from influence? Do you honestly think your wants, needs, desires are not socially informed?

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