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1.) The Bee Sting model doesn't imply that the poor have a completely flat utility function - just a huge drop-off at some point and then a gradually decreasing

1.) The Bee Sting model doesn't imply that the poor have a completely flat utility function - just a huge drop-off at some point and then a gradually decreasing plateau from there on. Indeed, the poor do seek to improve their utility functions - with booze and drugs and short-term gratification - in ways that would never allow them to overcome that seemingly insurmountable drop-off. The initial drop-off is the chief characteristic of the Bee Sting model. 2.) Utility functions are mathematical tools, and our interpretations of and use for them don't exist in a moral vacuum. Why should tax policy seek to minimize it's effect on our utility functions at all? Why not take $40000 from Warren Buffet AND the primary school teacher? Local movement on one's utility function is important, but so is absolute position, with all of the attendant moral implications.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
1.) If the utility function of the poor wasn't flat, they would make some effort to cure a few bee stings. 2) Tax policy should minimize impact on our utility because the goal is (in principle) to harm people as little as possible. This is why we consider it fair to take $1 million from Buffet but nothing from a poor person - the loss of $1 million will harm Buffet less than the loss of $50 would hurt a poor person. If Karelis is right, taking $50 from a poor person won't hurt them at all - what's one more bee sting?
- CountSessine 16y ago
 1.) No, if the utility function of the poor wasn't flat, they would make some effort to address, not cure, a few bee stings. And in fact they do address those bee stings - they booze and drug themselves into numbness. There's no point in curing anything less than all the bee stings, because of the huge drop-off in their utility function. Would it make any sense at all for you to attend 1/2 of medical school if you wouldn't eventually enjoy the pay-off of becoming a doctor? Would doing half the monumental amount of work to start a successful business make you rich? And yet you probably wouldn't think that you have a flat utility function, would you? 2.) This is only relevant if you make the flat-utility function assumption, which I don't think is true.
 - yummyfajitas 16y ago
 If U(4 bee stings) > U(5 bee stings), a poor person would attempt to eliminate a bee sting since they would increase utility by doing so. The fact that there is a spike at x=0 bee stings is irrelevant, it does not make it pointless to go from 5 stings to 4, it just means that going from 1 to 0 makes you happier than going from 5 to 4. If Karelis asserts there is no utility gain in going from 5 to 4 bee stings, then Gain = 0 = U(4 bee stings) - U(5 bee stings), or U(4 bee stings) = U(5 bee stings). That's a flat utility function. Would it make any sense at all for you to attend 1/2 of medical school if you wouldn't eventually enjoy the pay-off of becoming a doctor? Would doing half the monumental amount of work to start a successful business make you rich? And yet you probably wouldn't think that you have a flat utility function, would you? You've just described exactly what a flat utility function means. U(0 years of med school) = U(half of med school). And similarly, there would be no harm in kicking people out of med school who would not finish anyway.
- btilly 16y ago
 Your argument misses the fact that there is a huge difference between not having money and being impoverished. Sure, adding one more impossible task on top of everything else a person who views the world as a set of impossible challenges does not significantly change that person's miserable life. (Your odds of collecting are admittedly low though.) However there are plenty of other people with similar incomes who manage to make ends meet. For those people, adding the additional burden can easily make all the difference between holding everything together and having their lives fall apart. That's a huge change in utility. (I can name two of these off of the top of my head.) Furthermore there are other people who are temporarily impoverished. They weren't so. Now they are so. They may be better soon. Punitive measures like the ones you suggest can greatly lessen their odds of coming out of poverty. (I can easily name multiple friends of mine who were temporarily homeless with no resources, who managed to reconstruct their lives.) There are two excellent reasons why the bee sting theory of poverty can be correct, which would invalidate your conclusion that it is not bad to heavily tax the poor.
- GavinB 16y ago
 If Karelis is right, taking $50 from a poor person won't hurt them at all - what's one more bee sting? Karelis's viewpoint is that they wouldn't have spent the $50 to alleviate the bee sting. They would have spent it on something that did give them utility. That nice thing (that they really couldn't afford!) what is taken away with the extra taxation. That said, I think the point you make is reflected in a lot of real public policy. Poor areas get the worse public services, the most pollution, etc. They have so many bee stings that they can't be bothered to complain about one more.
- zasz 16y ago
 1) It doesn't have to be completely flat, just fairly close to it. A "bee sting" is perhaps too mild a way of describing the problems of a poor person. Is it easier to understand what Karelis is talking about if you imagine a poor person who, instead of four bee stings, has three out-of-wedlock children, ignorance of contraception, a third-grade education, and a drug habit? Solving any one, or any two, or three, of these problems, still wouldn't be enough to lift them out of poverty, which seems like a pretty obvious point. 2) I suppose this might be seen as biting the bullet and admitting to an indefensible point, but I do not find it hard to imagine that if I were poor and desperate, and some asshole came and took my last $50, and I had absolutely nothing, nothing else with no hope of being able to improve things, I wouldn't care. I was already fucked anyway.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

1.) If the utility function of the poor wasn't flat, they would make some effort to cure a few bee stings. 2) Tax policy should minimize impact on our utility because the goal is (in principle) to harm people as little as possible. This is why we consider it fair to take $1 million from Buffet but nothing from a poor person - the loss of $1 million will harm Buffet less than the loss of $50 would hurt a poor person. If Karelis is right, taking $50 from a poor person won't hurt them at all - what's one more bee sting?

CountSessine 16y ago
1.) No, if the utility function of the poor wasn't flat, they would make some effort to address, not cure, a few bee stings. And in fact they do address those bee stings - they booze and drug themselves into numbness. There's no point in curing anything less than all the bee stings, because of the huge drop-off in their utility function. Would it make any sense at all for you to attend 1/2 of medical school if you wouldn't eventually enjoy the pay-off of becoming a doctor? Would doing half the monumental amount of work to start a successful business make you rich? And yet you probably wouldn't think that you have a flat utility function, would you? 2.) This is only relevant if you make the flat-utility function assumption, which I don't think is true.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
 If U(4 bee stings) > U(5 bee stings), a poor person would attempt to eliminate a bee sting since they would increase utility by doing so. The fact that there is a spike at x=0 bee stings is irrelevant, it does not make it pointless to go from 5 stings to 4, it just means that going from 1 to 0 makes you happier than going from 5 to 4. If Karelis asserts there is no utility gain in going from 5 to 4 bee stings, then Gain = 0 = U(4 bee stings) - U(5 bee stings), or U(4 bee stings) = U(5 bee stings). That's a flat utility function. Would it make any sense at all for you to attend 1/2 of medical school if you wouldn't eventually enjoy the pay-off of becoming a doctor? Would doing half the monumental amount of work to start a successful business make you rich? And yet you probably wouldn't think that you have a flat utility function, would you? You've just described exactly what a flat utility function means. U(0 years of med school) = U(half of med school). And similarly, there would be no harm in kicking people out of med school who would not finish anyway.
btilly 16y ago
Your argument misses the fact that there is a huge difference between not having money and being impoverished. Sure, adding one more impossible task on top of everything else a person who views the world as a set of impossible challenges does not significantly change that person's miserable life. (Your odds of collecting are admittedly low though.) However there are plenty of other people with similar incomes who manage to make ends meet. For those people, adding the additional burden can easily make all the difference between holding everything together and having their lives fall apart. That's a huge change in utility. (I can name two of these off of the top of my head.) Furthermore there are other people who are temporarily impoverished. They weren't so. Now they are so. They may be better soon. Punitive measures like the ones you suggest can greatly lessen their odds of coming out of poverty. (I can easily name multiple friends of mine who were temporarily homeless with no resources, who managed to reconstruct their lives.) There are two excellent reasons why the bee sting theory of poverty can be correct, which would invalidate your conclusion that it is not bad to heavily tax the poor.
GavinB 16y ago
If Karelis is right, taking $50 from a poor person won't hurt them at all - what's one more bee sting? Karelis's viewpoint is that they wouldn't have spent the $50 to alleviate the bee sting. They would have spent it on something that did give them utility. That nice thing (that they really couldn't afford!) what is taken away with the extra taxation. That said, I think the point you make is reflected in a lot of real public policy. Poor areas get the worse public services, the most pollution, etc. They have so many bee stings that they can't be bothered to complain about one more.
zasz 16y ago
1) It doesn't have to be completely flat, just fairly close to it. A "bee sting" is perhaps too mild a way of describing the problems of a poor person. Is it easier to understand what Karelis is talking about if you imagine a poor person who, instead of four bee stings, has three out-of-wedlock children, ignorance of contraception, a third-grade education, and a drug habit? Solving any one, or any two, or three, of these problems, still wouldn't be enough to lift them out of poverty, which seems like a pretty obvious point. 2) I suppose this might be seen as biting the bullet and admitting to an indefensible point, but I do not find it hard to imagine that if I were poor and desperate, and some asshole came and took my last $50, and I had absolutely nothing, nothing else with no hope of being able to improve things, I wouldn't care. I was already fucked anyway.