Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
clyde

Philosophy & Economics

Recommended Posts

The list of fallacies is just a helpful heuristic intended to decrease the chances of confusion.

A diagram of how to make a good argument wouldn't hurt though.

 

I see it as a self-teaching tool, mostly. A lot of times, someone makes an argument on the internet (like, "Complaining about this certain thing is pointless when there are starving children in Africa!") and, at that point, it's very helpful to be able to look at an extensive chart or list and say, "Oh, that's a fallacy of relative privation, with overtones of a false dilemma," rather than just be like, "Your argument seems a bit overstated." At least, that's how I always use them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I thought this was interesting. Based on what Thomas Sowell is saying here, it seems that income-disparity is still a growing problem even as the racial income-disparity is being corrected.



As I look through the Libertarian section of Youtube, I becoming increasingly frustrated with the tendency to end the video before someone can respond to Milton Friedman's punchlines.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Affordable housing also creates a deadweight loss in the economy by artificially lowering the price of housing, making what could have been more expensive housing cost less, giving less money to the developers, construction workers, and realtors that would have worked on that more expensive housing, thus creating less jobs that normal and probably causing more abuse which is linked to poverty as those hypothetical people now have less money to spend which would have created yet more jobs on down the line.

Yay economics, yay the world being complicated! Or as SMBC put it:

b3YAaYz.png

Why wouldn't building affordable housing employ the same quantity of people and end up providing habitats for the many poor rather than mansions for a few rich folks?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Why wouldn't building affordable housing employ the same quantity of people and end up providing habitats for the many poor rather than mansions for a few rich folks?

 

This regards the concept of market efficiency. People with a good want to charge as much as possible to sell it (wouldn't you?) and people buying want it for free (right?). Free of other distractions, such as assuming neither has a gun to the others head (either literal or proverbial), they'll meet in the middle. This should reach "pareto efficiency". Wherein neither party could gain more out of that deal without harming the other. Right away you can see where this is going, if you move from this, another party gaining more than they should, you move away from the maximum amount of "good" being done.

 

Moving on to show why. Unfortunately affordable housing introduces a third factor, which is to say the government points the proverbial gun at the builders head, at some point at least on down the line of mayors and zoning and which builder want to do what, and says "build it". This has all kinds of effects, positive on those who get the housing initially, but negative on everyone else. Now the equation becomes unbalanced, someone, somewhere will get it.

 

First, the housing developers wanted to build bigger, nicer houses. If they didn't after all then there wouldn't be a need to force "affordable housing". These bigger houses that would have gone on the land would have taken more people to build, being bigger and nicer. They would have needed better materials, benefiting the people selling those materials more, as better materials usually have better margins for the seller. But those houses aren't there, and now there are less nice houses for people that can afford them to choose from. Which means the developers can charge more than they would have for the remaining nicer houses, but not so much more that they'd make up for the amount they just lost by not building the nicer homes where the affordable ones went. The people buying these nice houses would also be charged more than they would have, leaving them less money to spend on other things. And there's a million knock on effects from there.

 

E.G. Scenario 1: The nice homes are built, say for $250,000 apiece. This money goes to the construction workers, the materials, the zoning, the original land owner, the delivery of all these things to where they need to go, the electricity used, etc. Then sold for $275,000 apiece, the extra going to the realtor and company that "built" the homes and etc. Scenario 2: The affordable homes are built, say 2x times as many for the ease of math (condos verse houses, call them), but being not as nice they cost say, $120,000 apiece. Even at 2x more being builts, that's $10,000 less than per the original homes (2x 120,000 = 240,000). And, in this scenario, the housing may be charged less by government mandate. In scenario 1 the realtor and housing developer split $25,000 a house, maybe now there's no realtor that could have otherwise had a job, and the developer might get $5,000 a unit (and that's paying for the people that planned and co-ordinate the development and etc.)

 

So what happened? Less money changes hands than it would have ordinarily. And money changing hands is where wealth and the whole economy actually comes from (obviously if people just hoarded all their money no one would do anything because no one would be paying for anything :P). The world now has less "wealth" than it did, and through that less jobs than it did, and since domestic abuse is linked to poverty the government mandated to build affordable housing has now, indirectly and through a long chain of causality, probably caused more domestic abuse. Economics is weird and hard to decipher like that, or as Futurama put it "top vodoo economists". But it works well enough to the point where we can say affordable housing is probably actually bad on the whole. Here's the super long, 97 reference strong Wikipedia article on the matter that's probably weirdly edited and super dryly written as most wikipedia articles are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_housing but still backs up my claim.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The main thing about affordable housing projects to me is that it approaches the problem from the wrong end, ie. the quality of the house rather than the inequality of income.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

All I know about economics is that the mathematical notation for it is awful. Hey, I think that's calculus hidden under there!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/detroit-must-ensure-it-does-not-contravene-human-right-to-water-un-official-catarina-de-albuquerque-says-9559768.html

“At the DWAS Department — it’s not our goal to shut off water. We want people’s water on, just like they do; but you do have to pay for your water…That’s the bottom line.”

I fail to accept this bottom line. It is my opinion that the bottom line is that people die without water access. Clean-water tech needs to step up it's game before we start getting charged for air too.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The fellas that grow cocoa beans for chocolate get to try chocolate for the first time. 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

and now here comes the reality fairy to ruin this for you: http://www.metafilter.com/141455/This-is-why-white-people-are-so-healthy#5661910

 

I read the post. I didn't see anything that invalidated my interest in the video or the reality of it. It was a nice additional perspective to read, but not some sort of exclusive conclusion that reveals a conspiratorial agenda or whatever you seem to be implying.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah. That post only reinforces the message that I received from the video (perhaps others interpret it differently).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Wait a minute, people were interpreting this video as an endearing, heartwarming gesture to the cocoa farmers, instead of a horrible indictment of how monstrous and unfair our production queues are?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, the entire premise of the video is "We have no fucking clue what chocolate is and further no real concept of what cocoa is even used for." and that commenter who says she worked with people in the same area who grow the same thing completely denies that's true (and as a farmer from a long line of farmers, I completely agree. It would be incredibly unlikely for a farmer (especially the landowner in the video) to not know what the crop they're growing is used for, or what the end product is even called. What is the first question you would ask if you were one of the laborers when asked to pick these weird inedible beans and didn't know what they would be used for?), and further goes to mention more than one domestic brand of chocolate, and even the cheap alternative to chocolate references it in its name (Chocomax). I'm not saying everyone involved has an idea of the depth of the western worlds obsession with chocolate, or have necessarily eaten chocolate of any quality, but they sure as shit know what it is and why they spend day after day in the sun working with it. At the very least they'd be curious why anyone wants to buy this disgusting little bean, and so much of it.

I don't really know how it can be interpreted other than as a not terribly realistic depiction of the understanding of laborers even at the base of our production cycles and a probably realistic depiction of the conditions of those people's lives. Any 'message' beyond "FEEL BAD FOR THEM" is probably less a direct point and more of just reality. Our production chains are indeed unfair and horrific. We don't need to also portray people at the bottom of it as ignorant to get that point across.
 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm fascinated by how real-estate in London is being used as currency or bonds or investments or whatever you would call it. This is an odd side-effect.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjHo5BZM7V0

Somewhat unrelated, but this reminds me a lot of what's happening in SF now. The dollar has strengthened massively against every other currency leading wealthy foreign investors to park their capital in U.S. real estate. Considering how absurd housing prices are now in the city, don't think this is going to end well for any party. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Here's an hour long documentary that seems like a pretty good introduction to why worker-cooperatives are an important alternative to capitalism. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To me the difference between coercion and persuasion is trying to convince someone using conclusions vs reasons. For example if I were to convince you to believe in the Christian god, a coercive method would be telling you what is right and wrong, what is good or bad, etc. A persuasive means would be for me to make a moral argument that is reflective of the christian ideology (I.e. best of all possible worlds theory). Basically coercion is saying if you accept my conclusion my reasons will make sense, and persuasion is saying if you accept my reasons my conclusion make sense. I'm sure there are holes in that reasoning, but I think its helped guide my actions in such a way that I try not to in some way demand people agree with what I am saying.

Edit: Just realized I basically revived an age old topic in this thread, sorry for the derailment if any.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To me the difference between coercion and persuasion is trying to convince someone using conclusions vs reasons. For example if I were to convince you to believe in the Christian god, a coercive method would be telling you what is right and wrong, what is good or bad, etc. A persuasive means would be for me to make a moral argument that is reflective of the christian ideology (I.e. best of all possible worlds theory). Basically coercion is saying if you accept my conclusion my reasons will make sense, and persuasion is saying if you accept my reasons my conclusion make sense. I'm sure there are holes in that reasoning, but I think its helped guide my actions in such a way that I try not to in some way demand people agree with what I am saying.

Edit: Just realized I basically revived an age old topic in this thread, sorry for the derailment if any.

 

It's not like there was a big discussion going when you changed the topic. That's an oddly philosophical way of going at the coercion/persuasion distinction, and I'm not sure it works well when applied to more material examples. "Fill out this government census form or we will fine you $100" is clearly coercive, but "Participate in this research study and we will pay you $100" is not (at the very least we can surely agree that it's less coercive). By your definition, it seems they would have to be the same though. I'm also not clear whether they'd both be coercive, or both persuasive, by your definition. I guess persuasive because "You want to have $100 more than you otherwise would" is more a reason than a conclusion?

 

You also seem to be presupposing that coercion is inherently bad or to be avoided. Seat belt laws coerce people to wear seat belts, and that's clearly a net positive.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think of coercive tactics as reactionary or negative reinforcement (wear your seatbelt or we'll fine you), and persuasive tactics as proactive or positive reinforcement (PSAs about seatbelts reducing death in accidents). This can be extended to drunk driving too -- get a DUI and your life is fucked versus public initiatives about how drunk driving puts you and everyone around you in danger, or programs some colleges have that will provide you with a ride at a discounted rate (sometimes free) if you can't get yourself home.

This is complicated by things like the ACA which has a persuasive element (you have to get insured, so we'll help you pay for it if it's a high burden) and a coercive element (but if you don't get insurance, we'll fine you). The real world is usually messy like that, though!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's not like there was a big discussion going when you changed the topic. That's an oddly philosophical way of going at the coercion/persuasion distinction, and I'm not sure it works well when applied to more material examples. "Fill out this government census form or we will fine you $100" is clearly coercive, but "Participate in this research study and we will pay you $100" is not (at the very least we can surely agree that it's less coercive). By your definition, it seems they would have to be the same though. I'm also not clear whether they'd both be coercive, or both persuasive, by your definition. I guess persuasive because "You want to have $100 more than you otherwise would" is more a reason than a conclusion?

You also seem to be presupposing that coercion is inherently bad or to be avoided. Seat belt laws coerce people to wear seat belts, and that's clearly a net positive.

Yeah, it's certainly not a strong distinction and as you mentioned the two can exist at the same time. Certainly choice factors in as well, but I do generally see coercion as negative reinforcement and persuasion as positive reinforcement. I don't necessarily think one is bad and the other is good, just that coercion requires acceptance whereas in persuasion acceptance is a choice. I can think of a number of examples where both are at play, particularly when it comes to taxes and the like (compulsory payments vs. Write offs for example). I think coercion can be used in a way that is good, or used for good, it's just that coercion is far easier and more easily lends itself to bad things.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Has anyone here been coerced and now feel positive about it? Or is coercion just something that can sometimes be done to other people for good reasons?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've got no personal examples, but there are definitely situations where it comes up. Some people only wear seat belts because the law coerces them to (proof: some people still don't wear seat belts, so of those who do, they're surely not all doing it for safety). There are enough car accidents yearly that surely one such coerced person got into an accident, and while they may not think about it, I'm sure that if you pointed it out, they'd be quite glad they were coerced to wear a seat belt. To give a similar example, I'm sure there are plenty of drunk people who, once sober, were glad that their friends/bartenders/etc refused to let them drive.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Now that you mention it, one time I got really drunk and decided to swim across the Mississippi. My friends threatened physical coercison once we were on the levy. In retrospect, I'm glad they did that. I would have probably drowned.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Now that you mention it, one time I got really drunk and decided to swim across the Mississippi. My friends threatened physical coercison once we were on the levy. In retrospect, I'm glad they did that. I would have probably drowned.

 

As someone who grew up on the banks of the mighty Mississip' that's a pretty monumentally terrible idea and I'm glad your friends stopped you.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×