quadrangle

Yes, and I'm aware of that. So, I'm skeptical of recommends ALSO, but I don't reduce the standing of a product in my mind because it's recommended, I'm just wary still.

If I know that product X exists, and someone tells me they like it, it's a wary slight-increase in trust. Unless the person is someone I can identify as being into corporate advertised crap.

If I know that product X exists, and I then see an ad for it, it reduces my inclination to consider buying it.

If I can find out that the "organic" recommendation was a paid influencer situation, that's the worst.

To be clear, the ad concern doesn't apply to companies advertising their own products. I don't feel awful about going to a restaurant and at the restaurant they are advertising a new dish.

Maybe you didn't read me clearly.

I get the subconscious thing, sure. I subconsciously find brands REPELLENT if I think they are familiar options likely because they are popular with ad-susceptible people.

What happens in practice for me is that I don't buy a lot of stuff besides core needs in general. But when I do, I'm super resistant, I have a defensive posture as a consumer. And the one time I let my guard down a bit is when I have the impression of some product just being good quality stuff that is advertised only in organic ways.

I mean, put another way: I don't have bias against searching for a class of products, finding a website of product X, and reading from the company about the virtues of it. I'm not as open to that as if a trusted friend recommends it, but I'm not opposed to it. But if I find out that the company paid for Facebook ads or whatever, it pushes it into a subconscious category in my head which is something like "this product is out to trick me into buying it", and I have a gut-level mistrust from that point on.

I probably hate ads more than most people but when I hear or see an ad, it kills my willingness to engage with a business. I mean, this isn't entirely conscious. I was thinking about whether my kid would like those creative boxes from KiwiCo that I heard good things about organically. Then, I heard an ad for them on a podcast, and I noticed a new extra resistance and hesitation to buy anything from them.

I don't want to be a sucker for ads. I don't want to support businesses that support our ad-polluted world. With my limited capacity to donate directly to creative work (which I'd incidentally rather do as part of a coordinated general public than just unilaterally), I favor donating to those who forgo ads rather than reward or support anything that accepts ads.

Now, I've hated ads for a long time. But I was still surprised how much I no longer feel fine considering KiwiCo. Now that I heard their ad, I feel like I don't want to be one of those people who is seen as following ads, and I don't want to support them. I imagine there's other products that don't budget as much for ads that I should go out of my way to seek out instead.

So for anyone like me, if you do paid ads, you just harmed your credibility with me.

Yeah, but eating lunch always comes with some risks. At some point, that's not within the frame of saying "no free lunch".

I was NOT doing a literal interp. That would mean getting hung up on what counts as "lunch" and not recognizing that it's a metaphor. That's not what I was doing. Everything I've posted is about critiquing what I see as the implications and ramifications and arguments of the metaphor, recognizing it as the aphorism that it is.

Does "no free lunch" mean that if lunch is normally $10 and today it's $0, it's because someone is paying the price some other way (like it's externalized)?

Or does "no free lunch" mean the drastically broader (and perhaps unfalsifiable) claim everything in the world has ramifications?

Maybe it depends on the context.

But like if someone who enjoys doing programming happens to find and fixe a bug in some software and then everyone can get the bugfix with the next update and the update was going to happen anyway, then the bugfix can be free. It can be 100% improvement, no compromise, no cost, nothing externalized. If you want to argue otherwise, you end up with the same form of argument that is the same logic as the reductio ad absurdem point that we had to have all the costs of the world existing in order for that programmer to be there and do the bugfix.

I read that many ancient farming societies used lottery to rotate which farmers used which plots each year.

You know, there's an unfair advantage if you get access to the best land and then that grows you the best crops and then profit and so on. So, everyone gets chances to farm different plots.

I agree with you about the problems with corporate land ownership.

Yes, and we can force "no free lunch" to be true if we use enough nuclear bombs to wipe out life on earth or something.

But like clean air is/was analogous to the abundant fruit tree in the comic I posted. And it TURNED INTO polluted air through people ruining it just like the fruit BECAME non-free when Og claimed it and made others work to get any.

"No free lunch" is an aphorism used by people who don't want to let there be free lunches. It's not inherently true.

Even though the comic is a comic, it's not about actual fertility goddesses making food, it's about prehistoric people making up ideas like that while they expressed their gratitude for the abundance of nature.

Look, I'm a REAL person. You know how I get apples in apple season? I walk to a park near my house where there are decades-old apple trees. I don't know who planted them. Nobody today does anything to care for them. They just do what trees do. And the majority of the apples fall on the ground because nobody picked them. And I walk over to the park and I pick apples and eat them.

Oh, but I had to WALK there you say. And I had to WORK to have a home in this town. And we have to have a working society in order to pay the City to keep the park from being sold to a developer who would cut down all the trees. Or that I have to do the work of EATING the apple, like chewing it and so on.

I mean, this is just endless.

It's quite simple: Either "no such thing as a free lunch" is falsifiable and I've falsified it with real evidence OR it's unfalsifiable because you'll claim that any tangential aspect of existence that can be called "work" makes the apple not free. Either way, the aphorism is no good.

"Too good to be true" is a better aphorism because it isn't used to imply that everything good always has a catch. It doesn't say "Anything great is too good to be true", it just asserts that things that seem great can be too good to be true (they have some catch). And that's useful because we should think about all the catches and context of things. But that doesn't mean we should become cynics who just deny that anything great is ever possible.

I think the reason for the semantics comes from the assertion that increasing the money supply always correlates (usually argued as causes) price increases. In one of your quotes "inexorable consequence".

Are there examples of people talking about money supply inflation where they aren't bringing up price at all?

I mean, the argument that I'm making is that nobody cares at all about money supply in itself, they only care about the consequences. So, it makes sense that the language evolved to focus on the actual issue that matters.

The assertion that the connotation is "utterly confusing and misleading" seems quite hyperbolic. And the assertions about "inexorable consequence" and so on are similarly extreme in their overconfidence.

At any rate, given that price index and such is very clearly the case now (as in the government link I posted earlier), I will stick to my assertion that today it does mean price increases. But I am willing to qualify that and acknowledge that it's not a universal or historically consistent meaning.

This was not true for almost all of human history. So, are you just saying "there's no LONGER such a thing as a free lunch"?

If you want to just be contrarian, you'll say that it's not "free" if you have to CHEW your lunch.

Either "free" is effectively meaningless or our world is full of free things. Uncompromised free things. Sunlight, air, water, fruit on wild plants…

I mean this is just nature. You know why Birds of Paradise have unbelievably fancy plumage? It's partly sexual selection, but the reason they can afford to spend 99% of their time doing bizarre dances and pruning their plumes and setting up their special dance areas is because their FOOD IS FREE basically. They live in an abundant ecosystem where it's trivial enough for them to get food. It just grows or is around, and when they want to eat, they just go eat. If that's not "free" then you're just denying the concept of "free".

I mean, let's go further, if truly, literally nothing is "free" than the word "free" has no meaning.

Look the world I live in, my reality is one where sorting through stuff is indeed a HUGE problem, but it's not caused strictly by things being free and abundant.

We have tons of examples of noise and bulk that needs curation that is the cause of people working to make yet more stuff when its not needed. People flood the market with junk trying to capture some of the value. There are tons of duplicate apps or websites each trying to get their money or attention-to-ads. But the greatest free-and-abundant stuff like Wikipedia with no limits and restrictions — that has the capacity to reduce the trends of people making duplicate stuff.

I mean, there's lots of examples of excessive production which takes more to sort through which is caused by things being locked-down. Whereas if the best stuff were just free, there would be less incentive for anyone to make and market duplicate products.

But I agree with your "complex resource management game" framing, I'm just saying that free and abundant is not the problem. One problem is that we aren't just having the best free and abundant stuff so that we can stop all the noise and duplication.

Your link doesn't contradict the price-inflation view.

> its original meaning - a rise in the general price level caused by an imbalance between the quantity of money and trade needs

and in the PDF:

> an inflating currency has but one origin — the central bank— and one solution— a less expansive money growth rate

This is inherently problematic because there's no clear self-contained reason that inflating currency is a problem that needs a solution. If it failed to lead to price inflation or other effects, then it doesn't matter.

> A good’s real price, or value, was defined as the effort required to produce it

Well, people have and do talk like that, but it's dumb. That definition fits "cost" not "price".

But anyway, I don't need to be picky. Sure, I accept that "inflation in money supply" is not only reasonable use of the metaphor of inflation but is indeed historically how it was used. And as the paper accepts, the definition has changed. That's how the world works.

I still suspect that even 100-150 years ago, if inflation in the money supply didn't have any affect on prices, people would not have said the same things about it. All the quotes seem to assume that money supply inflation leads to price increase.

As to the use today, it's unarguable. See https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/statistics/inflation

> Inflation can be defined as the overall general upward price movement of goods and services in an economy.

That simply is the definition today. And I think it was always the implication anyway.

You're confused here. Price inflation specifically means the same products have a higher price. If you have more money and more productivity so you can buy more with the more money, that's not inflation.

Inflation is short for "price inflation" not "money supply inflation" and not a synonym for "economic growth"

Better to just say that you can't make free lunches out of money. The standard can't-eat-money point.

There ARE such things as free lunches, and the "no free lunch" quip is a meme that serves as propaganda for the idea that everything in life should have a price (and if it doesn't, it means the price is hidden). That's just not true. Some things in life are abundant and need no pricing and have nothing hidden.

https://ia902809.us.archive.org/2/items/NinasAdventuresFree/...

Well, I happen to believe that capitalism at its worst does veer on pseudo-totalitarianism. I think the anti-West critics are mostly correct in their criticism even while they are typically wrong in their defenses/apologies for situations in Russia or China. They play a biased game where they focus on the failings elsewhere and the successes on their side instead of giving a fair critique all around.

Freedoms to think freely, protest, have free media, these things are deeply and profoundly important. But so is real economic democracy. China has neither, the U.S. has the former freedoms but a very crappy practically-absent economic democracy. By economic democracy, I don't mean dogmatic libertarian laissez-faire free markets (though that would be better than corrupt markets with regulatory capture dictated by monopolists). I mean where regular citizens have the whole combo of informed power to set economic policy rather than have it dictated to them by the elite. Stuff like participatory-budgeting.

Anyway, I'm just saying that my critique and concerns about Russia have NO connection to any defense of the West, though I will readily give credit wherever it is due for the things that are good and fair, which the West has some of.

And yes, I agree completely that just giving blunt labels is not a helpful way to discuss things with anyone. The tact we need is to be interested in people's views enough that we can describe them and have people say "that's right, that's my view" and only from there can we start discussing where and why our views differ.

That all makes sense and is a thoughtful response, thanks.

Now, I had the impression that the lack of such laws before was effectively at the whim of Putin in practice. Like, the moment he felt such more-totalitarian laws were in his interest, he could have them. There's no effective checks-and-balances that would stop him. So, press freedoms and so on were at his pleasure so to speak, even though I acknowledge that they are real to a degree.

But consider https://www.thisamericanlife.org/763/the-other-mr-president for example. This is mostly old stories with minor updated intro.

> Disinformation and propaganda works differently in Putin’s Russia than it did during the Soviet Union. Instead of tamping down the opposition, the Russian government works to control the opposition.

Focus on Vladislav Surkov

> instead of tamping down the opposition like the old days, Surkov built a new system where there was opposition, but he dictated what the opposition stood for. You do not allow political parties to create their own agendas. You just write these agendas for them. … He also decided that he cannot allow any grassroot activities which would not be vetted by Kremlin. So he decided that he will create also youth movements and write agenda for them. … In 2004, Vladimir Putin decided that governors shouldn't be elected anymore. They should be appointed by him. It's a long story. But at first, every other political party besides Putin's was against the idea, genuinely against it. But then Surkov manipulated them over to his side. It helped that he controlled their funding and the number of seats they got in the Duma.… And then the parties went through this whole drawn-out public drama, which had all the trappings of democracy. The bill was submitted. There were arguments for and against it, protests around the country. People announce they've changed their minds. There were several votes. And finally, after three months, it passes. All of this, Vasily says, was scripted by Surkov's people.

So I don't independently know this to be true, but this looks to me like effective pseudo- totalitarianism-light. A government that finds they can have power by avoiding looking or acting totalitarian but which reliably can make the situation be whatever they want it to be. I don't know what to call this, but it's not the opposite of totalitarian, it's not non-totalitarian. And it seems like it can just switch to regular totalitarianism if those in power so choose it.

I agree that Russia isn't a quintessential example of "totalitarian". At some level, this can be just about clarifying semantics. But when I pointed out the new law criminalizing journalism that criticizes the current war, you pushed back on that. You gave an emphasis toward the other direction. So, that seemed more arguing about the nature of the situation and not just semantics.

I'm not calling you a liar.

I also myself wasn't the one who brought up "totalitarian" but instead was just pushing back on the dismissal of it.

My impression is that there's a new fuzzy authoritarianism that Putin has developed where a government with few reliable checks on totalitarianism chooses to have a lot of democratic-theater that includes real stuff. Like a Reality TV show, it's not actually all scripted, it's not all actors, and they allow real sincere opposition to do and say things, but it's all within the directors of the show deciding how much natural stuff to allow or even encourage in order to keep up the public view of the legitimacy of their government. It's like an intentional non-totalitarianism out of an understanding of the brittleness of actual totalitarianism, and they just take care that things are controlled and limited just enough that it actually maximizes the power of the non-totalitarian government.

So, it ends up being a question of "totalitarian" for real versus "might as well be totalitarian where it counts", and I'm NOT asserting even that I'm sure Russia is even the latter, but I'm rejecting the strength of the assertions about freedom of the press and other things used as evidence of non-totalitarianism.

And anyway, I agree completely about the propaganda in the rest of the world. I have no illusions about any of that, and I don't think the U.S. or EU are really democratic. We can see quite blatantly that policies have very little correlation to overall public support but instead correlate only to the support of the wealthy.

What's your point? That because Russia has allowed various freedoms and the severe stifling of them over the past two weeks has a lot farther it could potentially go? And therefore "totalitarian" is an unfair judgment as long as a government hasn't yet stifled all the freedoms that they could?

If focusing on the word "war" is a straw-man (which it isn't), then what's with you spending this whole thread being concerned with the word "totalitarianism"?

If (I assume this is a big if) we accept the reporting of many international reports over the past week or so, then your claim about independent and oppositional media operating freely/fairly/online/offline and legally is basically bullshit. The story as I understand it is that Putin long ago decided that allowing some space (with some influencing and limitations) for oppositional media was a good thing that supported his claims about the system being fair. But it was always a choice of his to allow it, a politically strategic decision. And he had ways of keeping its influence constrained. But he doesn't now feel that it's okay with the current war, so that's that.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/vladimir-putin-s-ne...

Yes, block pricing makes sense. Prices are SUPER valuable as are other market dynamics! The same should be used for electricity and gasoline and many other things.

But the free-market dogmatists aren't interested in using markets and prices effectively, they are interested in their self-concept as people who really "get it" and understand all the complex dynamics of economics. Once you let messy ideas like externalities and market-interference/regulation like block pricing and on and on and on… this becomes very threatening to their identity as it pushes them toward having to say "gosh, it's so complex, and I don't understand it all".

Charities do exist in the free market, yes. They are also a tiny tiny fraction of what's needed to address wider social problems. No charity efforts are comparable to or have the potential to replace something like Social Security and Medicare.

> pushes prices down

Except in the cases where it doesn't, such as luxury brands that exist to show off how expensive something is or for people to believe something is better because of the higher price — and this phenomenon is widespread throughout tons of aspects of the economy. Brands exist that sell essentially commodities at inflated prices through the power of advertising.

> Wealth increases and abounds in a free market.

According to the model you believe in, but that model isn't reality. Reality includes the fact that the wealthiest places on the planet (I mean larger societies, not places like off-share tax havens that just cater to the ultra-wealthy) have markets (but not completely free ones) and a history full of grotesque exploitation. The U.S. built it's initial wealth on slavery, genocide, and theft, and the non-free aspects of U.S. corporate behavior is still today a major factor of life.

You might indeed be right about wealth in truly free markets. But you don't have any controlled experiment on a society-size scale to even use for evidence since no case like that exists. And applying the ideas from one model to other situations doesn't mean it just becomes the model somehow.

I guess you've never bought touch-screen-compatible gloves… they are the norm now, even cheap gloves from a dollar-store as well as higher end ones. It needs to have material that is conductive.

Random link I found for you https://www.everprogloves.com/how-do-touch-screen-gloves-wor...

> You can publish news and analysis that denounce the government and call for it to stop the war

So you say, but:

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/05/1084729579/russian-law-bans-j...

Oops, so much for being okay with publishing and protesting. It's now criminal to call it a "war" even if you don't take a position against it.

> charge fees for those services based on actual free market supply and demand

There's something to be said for this, but it doesn't work to just flip to the opposite extreme. As long as there are wealth inequities, then free-market supply-and-demand turns into the idea that anyone poor shall have nothing, not even the capacity to travel on streets or drink water. If they don't want to just up and die, they can get a loan to do these things and go into a cycle of indentured servitude for life.

The free market has never had any solution to such issues. Supply-and-demand works best when all the players have the same overall capacity to pay for things, and that's not how reality works out.

Societies prosper when efforts are made to make sure everyone has the foundations from which to build a productive life. That means health care, shelter, basic food and water, safety, capacity to get around (transportation of some sort), and access to information (education, libraries etc). If everyone has that stuff, they have the chance to add productivity to society rather than be a drain in the form of disease, crime, and so on.

I thought it was obvious that I was saying that governments should eliminate sales tax. It wasn't in the slightest a suggestion for how software deals with the status quo that has sales taxes. I understand it's not going to happen any time soon and is totally out of the hands of the software developers. I didn't think any of this needed to be said though, I thought everyone would already understand that implication from my comment.

The answer is obvious: get rid of sales taxes. They are the stupidest most regressive taxes we have. They are cumbersome, and they screw with price transparency, and they shouldn't exist.

Incidentally, I support taxes in general and think we need more taxes on a lot of things. But taxes add cost to specific activities, and so they should be used to reduce those activities. Now, we don't want the perverse incentive of government relying on tax revenue and thus otherwise wanting to promote the activity. So, we need to find a balance in all these things. But like taxes on stock-trading would be good. And we should probably increase property taxes and just do the simple thing where property tax rates go up the more properties an entity holds (that makes it harder for investment companies to buy up all the properties and gouge everyone with high rents).

But for all the justified complexity of tax policy decisions, sales taxes are the worst and should just be eliminated.

Sounds like a significant-other who is paranoid, and then when you leave them because they are crazy, they use it to justify their paranoia and become a stalker.

Okay, not really a good analogy but sorta good

Well, that doesn't explain why it would stand out as such a hit because that explanation would apply to tons of songs that weren't hits or celebrated like that one.

Down by the Old Mill Stream is nice. I like that one. It's not pretentious or corny, and the harmonies are interesting enough.

Let Me Call You Sweetheart is also totally fine.

But yeah, I get your point. I was like huh "Woodman, Woodman, Spare That Tree" wazzat… oh… um, cringe