3,114 karma · joined June 29, 2011
"[Capitalism] is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." - John Updike
However, since we aren't able to structure all of society (genetics yet, physics maybe never), Rawls has to wait. Even ignoring historic wealth, things like IQ, new ideas/discoveries, etc aren't distributed fairly. This is to say we need a system which can be fair given that the starting point (at our current level of technology) isn't fair. This is a lower level of fairness than Rawlsian. Think of it like a group of people asking what the rules of poker should be after the hands are dealt -- hard but perhaps possible.
This is to say that having discarded the second part of Rawls' Theory of Social Justice, we still have the first part: "each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others"
From this you get Aquinas' construction of free trade from natural moral law, followed by modern economics proofs for prices being the answer to an optimization problem over aggregate utility in the presence of scarce goods (you give the good you don't need to whomever can give you the most goods you do need. If everyone does this, society is the most well off it can be in aggregate).
This seems to me fair in the sense of after-the-cards-are-dealt poker rules, if we could control the laws of physics and change our genetic code I do agree we could do better.
Since scarcity ceasing sounds improbable, and I expect people will continue preferring fair systems to unfair ones, I expect capitalism will survive.
Yes, that was how I read GGP's comment. I think you are overstating the degree of control that we have over society.
For example, I have often heard the case that society influences young women into roles that eventually prevent them from becoming engineers. Gendered children's toys are often used as an example of this. However, gendered toy preference exists before socialization has occurred (it has been demonstrated in 3-8 month old infants[1]). The same gendered toy preference that exists in humans has also been demonstrated in vervet monkeys[2] and rhesus monkeys[3].
[1] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-008-9430-1
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643016/
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/
With those references now provided, I think it's safe to say gendered toy preference in humans is much bigger than simply a question of which toys we encourage children to buy -- there seems to be a considerable amount of genetics involved.
Hopefully now you are understanding what I meant when I defined reality for you. As I said I believe this is also what GGP was referring to.
So with that background out of the way:
> In case you missed my point, we aren't talking about physics here, but about society, which is a reality we create.
> It's like if you described a complicated social problem you've observed and I shrugged and said "physics, eh?".
A. How do you know it's a problem with the "reality we create" and not a problem with the reality we are stuck with? (Again, this is how I read GGP)
B. If we can trace the problem to something akin to male vervet monkeys preferring to play with Tonka trucks... what are we to do about it beyond ensuring that P(loan | race=1) = P(loan | race=2)?
I ask B because the idea of forcing my life choices onto someone else makes me feel ill. It reminds me of being forced to join the basketball team in high school, which I hated (though others seemed to love). The sick feeling compounds when I consider doing it purely on the basis of their race or gender in contexts where their race or gender is causal... and that's usually the course of action people on your side of this discussion recommend.
The thing scientists (especially physicists) are trying to model.
This is because if P(loan | black_zip) is profitable > 0, any bank primarily motivated by profit will approve such loans. [this is the statement I believe you meant]
If P(loan | black_zip) isn't profitable > 0 after correcting for race, this would mean is that the neighborhood itself signaled something about the person's likelihood of paying back the loan. Perhaps theft is very common, employment is very sparse or seasonal, vandalism/arson of property is common, etc... because we already corrected for race it amounts to saying "don't approve housing loans for neighborhoods where people regularly burn down houses" or similar. This doesn't seem discriminatory to me.
So while I do agree there are discriminatory issues not addressed by the formalism, your example seems to be handled by using the normal economic models for what decisions a bank should make given a model P(loan).
Basically a fair hiring process as defined by the above would be:
P(hire | features) = P(hire | race=1, features) = P(hire | race=2, features)
This may sound a bit silly or unnecessary, but unless this formula is specifically enforced, if a race were correlated with expected profit of a hire, a hiring algorithm might accidentally infer race from the other features. You can see the paper for an extended discussion.
With that background out of the way, let's consider hiring based on quotas. Since hiring takes place continuously across time, in order to maintain a quota across time we would need to change P(hire | race=1) based on the current composition of the company. Therefore P(hire | race=1) != P(hire | race=2) at least some of the time. Therefore it's discriminatory according to the above definition.
Of course, you may not like the definition. I would be very interested to hear an alternate formalization of non-discrimination!
Banks can't magically choose to write loans at unprofitable terms. They also can't write loans at noncompetitive rates in any sort of realistic quantity. These two forces (fear of principal loss through nonpayment/default, and loss of customers due to competition) dictate bank rates.
> If banks start lending $1MM to employees on the basic wage that is how much basic housing costs.
No. It will only cost that much for people unwilling to move away from highly competitive markets where construction is barred. For those living in areas which can be developed, housing prices will also be dictated by the cost of construction, which is presumably less than $1MM. Buyers will be pocketing the difference between the available $1MM and the cost of construction. This is to say that banks do not dictate prices for housing, but rather are only (sometimes) enabling (fools?) to go higher in an auction.
If banks did set prices for housing, they would have to also be setting the price of, for example, construction. Which is not the case, as that is dictated by the supply and demand of labor and materials.
Put another way: I'm sure in wherever you are, not every housing option is the same price. Do you honestly believe that banks are somehow dictating those price differences? If not, what is that force, and does accounting for it also account for the effect of increased credit availability on house prices? (A: supply and demand, yes)
> recently in the UK the govt said they would "help" buyers by contributing a certain % for buyers. Housing went up by that amount.
Yes, just like if you give everyone a raise by x% you'll see housing jump by that amount. As I've said in this thread several times already. This jump does not, however, represent a change in real cost to consumers (a change in the what percentage of their labor is being spent on a given good). As I've also said in this thread several times already.
> This is a waste of my time, I'm out.
Cya.
This is a separate point from real estate costs increasing historically -- that is caused by supply and demand. People are (as your graph nicely shows) choosing not to move as more people enter a given area, driving up the cost of real estate. This is to say that their demand is inelastic.
Unless you are suggesting banking as an industry is engaged in trust like behavior, they're not able to set the terms of rates in a way that will change their risk-free profit from a given individual at a given market price. If the price rises due to a supply and demand imbalance, they may be able to charge more to offset the increased risk of the purchase they are financing.
If the banks weren't giving the same risk adjusted rates to everyone, you can at least make the argument now that you've got two consumers (the bank is essentially donating money for the purchase to the buyer). But I don't see where that gets us here.
NO. Prices are set by supply and demand. No one is being forced to take out a loan, and if they could buy a given home with a lower loan, they would. Hence the loan is only enabling demand. You could say the same thing about employment, or inheritance, or tax breaks. The only reason prices change is because supply or demand changes.
You are basically saying that you'd like everyone to just accept their lot in life, and not compete with you for your current house. And in exchange you'll not compete with those in houses you'd prefer. And you're blaming the banks because they're helping those who don't agree that you deserve the hose more than they do.
When supply is scarce, prices go up. The value of the good does not go up. What is that extra price doing? That's you bribing the owner of the good to sell to you, and not to some other guy. You're paying to make the price so high that the next guy in line would rather live somewhere else, share a room, or go homeless.
> http://i.imgur.com/oWxV1po.jpg
The image, though interesting looking, is missing context. What units is the Y-axis in, and why does the X-axis only go to (what I assume is) 2012?
> People live in one home, whether we work 3 or 7 days.
People aren't born with homes. If you lost yours, someone would move in. Where do you think this other person is currently living? Why do you deserve your home more than they do? How should homes be allocated if not by whoever is willing and able to pay the most? Who will make new homes in this new system of yours? (an especially worrying problem since I think you suggested all the construction workers only need to work 3 days per week, and housing is already scarce)
This is wrong. The reason rent is going up is because there's more demand than supply. Reducing the amount of money everyone has by a constant factor (in this case 3/5) will not change the supply/demand imbalance, so it won't solve the problem. Put another way: the reason rent is so high is to prevent some people from being able to purchase the product. There's not enough of it to go around. You're basically blaming the best known system for allocating scarce goods for the fact that scarce goods exist.
If you look at countries that try to act on the above notion, you'll find that high prices are replaced with impossibly long lines. And shortages. This is because reducing the price will only increase the demand for that good.
A better world view would be: if the baby boomers hadn't all had kids at the same time, we wouldn't be experiencing housing shortages. This theory (though incomplete) at least puts demand increases front and center. You could also blame cities for not allowing/supporting the construction of new housing. That theory (though incomplete) at least puts the supply shortages front and center.
> Google's motto — "Don't be evil" — is in part a branding play, but it's also characteristic of a kind of business that's successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence.
> Monopolists can afford to think about things other than making money; non-monopolists can't. In perfect competition, a business is so focused on today's margins that it can't possibly plan for a long-term future. Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits.
The McKinsey study (at least to my reading[1]) establishes correlation, not causation. It could well be the other way around, ie: basically everyone agrees that diversity is an ethically good thing... so perhaps profitable companies are more diverse because they can afford to be, rather than being more profitable because they're diverse.
This seems falsifiable btw... we could brainstorm perks that companies offer when they're doing well, and see how closely the correlation there matches McKinsey's observed 35% overperformance.
[1] From the summary at http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-... - The pdf is behind a paywall, sadly.
1. A small subset of the startup ecosystem wants to fund diverse founders, and is willing to compromise on startup quality to do so.
2. A larger subset of the startup ecosystem recognizes that fact, and won't invest in diverse founders (all things being equal) because they are worse due to group #1 funding worse companies.
3. Everyone else knows about #1 and #2, and so are cautious about funding diversity.
I'm curious if you have considered this way of looking at the world, and know of any data that would let me conclude it was less accurate than the version you outlined above.
Perhaps because the diversity racket is in some way related to the group of people causing Jessica to avoid sharing thoughts online? If you can silence all the people not in your group, your group's size will appear a lot larger than it really is.
The point of discussion isn't to create some sort of internet that might one day be studied and determined to contain useful information, the point of discussion is that those who participate can learn and improve. Sometimes this necessitates saying things that have already been said. That's not a problem.
As for the notion that sometimes discussing things with people in significantly different circumstances to yourself might not be the highest value discussion you could have, I agree. However it's still fun, interesting, etc. Better use of time than Netflix, that's for sure.
A gendered toy preference has been demonstrated in infants at 3-8 months (!!) using eye tracking software[1]. To make matters even weirder, the same gendered toy preference has also been demonstrated in rhesus monkeys[2] and vervet monkeys[3].
From [2]: "We present here striking evidence of a sex difference in rhesus monkey preference for human gender-stereotyped toys paralleling that reported in humans, suggesting that gender differences in toy choice may reflect evolved sex differences in activity preferences not primarily resulting from socialization processes."
[1] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-008-9430-1
Perhaps what's happening is that established bad practices are becoming more noticeable as technology advances (in this case, the subjects of stories can post at little or no cost a widely read rebuttal)
> There are stories that were completely made up by Estonian teenagers, with no connection to facts at all, which were widely republished and shared
It sounds like we agree that factual inaccuracies, both on the detail and summary level are harmful. However, in my view, connection with the facts of the matter is only important in that it represents a commitment on the part of the journalist to educate the public on a specific topic. Education toward a more accurate position is the key here.
For example, it was recently pointed out that flossing has no RCTs to support it. This is to not say that flossing has no supporting evidence. Flossing has a tremendous amount of longitudinal evidence to support it. There is also little to no evidence of any kind to discourage flossing. Despite this, the New York Times reported the story as "maybe there's no need [to floss]"[1]. That's a very misleading representation of expert opinion, presumably done to increase readership.
I fail to see how the NYTimes' version of the story is somehow preferable to a hypothetical fact free version written (as in your example) by an Estonian teenager. At least the fact free version is easier to discard as rubbish. One can only wonder how many dental problems the NYTimes' spinned version of the story will cause.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/health/flossing-teeth-cavi...
It's an 84 person study, done using EEG (a very rough measure of electrical activity in the brain), claiming a result largely related neurotransmitter release (ie not the sort of thing EEGs are usually used to measure). You should take their claims with a huge helping of salt.
Self-defeating example: betting on red in roulette is a bad idea. Having your friend bet on red is a better but still bad idea. Having a stranger bet on red, and buy you a drink if he wins... It's free money.
Applied example: starting an electric car company (at least looked like) a bad idea.... trying 1,000 different approaches to a light bulb, especially after 500 failures (at least looked like) a bad idea... etc.
While I have you here: why didn't you check that before replying? (I'm actually really confused why this seems to happen constantly on HN. These are really easy things to check before posting.)
If the distribution of income had gone unchanged, the spread of wealth would also be unchanged. But it has changed, see http://inequality.org/wealth-inequality/ or the source of your choice.
If the distribution of income had gone unchanged, the percentage of the population receiving minimum wage would have gone unchanged. But it has changed, see http://www.weeklystandard.com/bls-percentage-of-hourly-worke... or the source of your choice.
I could go on... but I think that's probably sufficient. While I have you here, quick question: why did you let yourself get away with saying "I suspect" rather than just looking it up? It takes all of 10 seconds to do and once you get in the habit you'll be right way more often.
> I suspect that the distribution of incomes in the US remains fairly similar to what it was 40 years ago. Thus, if the median has remained the same, then the average probably also has.
The metric in question isn't the distribution's median. It's the percentage of children earning less than their parents.
median: sup k : { Count(xi >= k) / Length(xi) <= 0.5 }
earns more: Count(xi >= pi)/Length(xi)
These are very different values. So while I'll need to think more about the idea that medians say something about distribution similarities, thankfully those thoughts don't pertain here. For another example, of "earns more" not behaving the way you're expecting: if you set the earnings of everyone's parents to their wage - $0.01, we'd have a 0% "earns more" but extremely similar distributions.
Actually no, though this is a fairly standard misunderstanding of statistics. For an easy counter-example imagine generation one being [0, 100] and generation two being [1, 2]. Average wealth goes down, while every element is higher than 50% of the previous generation.