Hacker News Reader

Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

Markets can strategically plan though. It's why turkey doesn't cost several thousand dollars a pound every November in the US.

View on HN

That is because the same happens every year. Even a bad AI or child (using OPs example) can plan for that. But when it comes to events that happen sporadically markets seem to have issues where most sane adults would be able to handle it.

It's probably a sane choice for most products to -not- prepare for very rare disasters like a hundred year pandemic. After all, markets optimize for profit, not convenience or safety.

These shortages will all smooth out relatively soon. It can cost a lot of money to be prepared for everything.

Sometimes the most efficient option is not the safest or happiest or winning option. If our prime goal was cheapest lumber 99% of the time, then sure a traditional market is very good at that. I would happily pay for 1% more expensive lumber all the time to avoid paying for 1000% more expensive lumber (read: not being able to buy lumber) when I really need it.

Would you pay 40% more for lumber to avoid 1000% price spikes though?

>> But when it comes to events that happen sporadically markets seem to have issues where most sane adults would be able to handle it.

The market is made up of sane adults. It's a feature, not bug. Fortunately. Or unfortunately.

Markets allow the type of behavior that we see “sane” adults engaging in by design. So if you update the design or the rules of the market, you will observe different behavior from its participants.

“Sane adults” only do well when predicting in hindsight, where algorithms are unbeatable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com