3 ms·

>If we assume people's willingness to hire a cleaner is a function of how dirty their house is (and how could it not be?) Because: a) lots and lots and lots o

>If we assume people's willingness to hire a cleaner is a function of how dirty their house is (and how could it not be?) Because: a) lots and lots and lots of people clean their own house and maybe they're the ones buying the vast majority of the roombas, not people with maids. b) just because your roomba cleans up your pet hair really well upstairs doesn't necessarily mean you will want your cleaner to stop coming on tuesdays. c) tolerance for dirt to me seems like a textbook example of something that has a high demand elasticity

lmm 9y ago
> lots and lots and lots of people clean their own house and maybe they're the ones buying the vast majority of the roombas, not people with maids Surely the one substitutes for the other. The thought "I'm spending longer than I want to cleaning, and my house still isn't as clean as I'd like, and I've had more money lately, I can afford to..." could be completed "hire a cleaner" or "buy a roomba". > tolerance for dirt to me seems like a textbook example of something that has a high demand elasticity What do you mean? Different people will have their threshold in different places, certainly, and the amount they're willing to pay will vary, but I don't see how that changes anything. I'm generally struggling to understand what your model is here. Are you saying people make the decision about whether to hire a cleaner when they're born and then never change it?
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >Surely the one substitutes for the other. If a roomba approximated a maid, perhaps. It very much does not. >I'm generally struggling to understand what your model is here. Are you saying people make the decision about whether to hire a cleaner when they're born and then never change it? No, I'm saying that: A) building a neoclassical economic model on this at all is pointless because of the assumptions you'd have to make. You've just tried to make about four assumptions in order to build your model and they weren't just poor assumptions, they were cringeworthy assumptions. B) the total number of people who actually own roombas or roomba like devices suggests to me that the effect on cleaner employment is likely, in any case, to be < noise.
  - lmm 9y ago
    > If a roomba approximated a maid, perhaps. It very much does not. It fulfils some of the same functions, some of what some buyers are buying for. A milkshake is not a close approximation to a muffin, but McDonalds found that they did substitute for each other in terms of what people bought for breakfast. > A) building a neoclassical economic model on this at all is pointless because of the assumptions you'd have to make. You've just tried to make about four assumptions in order to build your model and they weren't just poor assumptions, they were cringeworthy assumptions. You're essentially saying "give up trying to understand the world", to which I can only respond "no" (compare the opening quote on http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/24/probabilities-without-models/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/24/probabilities-without-m... ). I think all the assumptions I gave were true and reasonable; if you can actually make a case for why any of them is wrong I will listen, but just dismissing them is not constructive.
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      >A milkshake is not a close approximation to a muffin I would say it is. They have similar calorific content, they are similarly portable and they are similarly stuffed full of sugar. >You're essentially saying "give up trying to understand the world" ...and now you're using a cringeworthy straw man. I'm saying "if you're going to make a claim like "roombas are killing jobs", it probably shouldn't be based on a model that makes 4 really reaching assumptions, each of which are completely unproven and quite likely wrong. Oh, but the New York Times and a few economists thinks robot kills jobs, so this fits in with everybody's groupthink, so that's ok, right? >I think all the assumptions I gave were true and reasonable; if you can actually make a case for why any of them is wrong This is reminding me of the conversation I had with my vicar who asked me to disprove god's existence if I thought I was so smart. >just dismissing them is not constructive. I disagree. I think it's very constructive to dismiss unproven assumptions that are probably wrong, but neatly fit into some kind of groupthink. It's how a lot of science is advanced.
      - lmm 9y ago
        > I would say it is. They have similar calorific content, they are similarly portable and they are similarly stuffed full of sugar. Exactly - they're superficially very different, but what they provide to the buyer is very similar. Just as with Roombas and cleaners. > it probably shouldn't be based on a model that makes 4 really reaching assumptions, each of which are completely unproven and quite likely wrong So put up or shut up: which assumption do you think is wrong, and what do you think the appropriate replacement is? > This is reminding me of the conversation I had with my vicar who asked me to disprove god's existence if I thought I was so smart. It's reminding me of the tortoise who denies modus ponens - if you deny the ability to make inferences then where do we even go from there? > I disagree. I think it's very constructive to dismiss unproven assumptions that are probably wrong, but neatly fit into some kind of groupthink. It's how a lot of science is advanced. Saying "groupthink" as a meaningless buzzword isn't constructive either. Science advances by questioning assumptions but you have to actually do the work of considering an alternative; science doesn't advance by people introducing a question like "but what if effects didn't follow causes" and then just stopping there.

lmm 9y ago

> lots and lots and lots of people clean their own house and maybe they're the ones buying the vast majority of the roombas, not people with maids Surely the one substitutes for the other. The thought "I'm spending longer than I want to cleaning, and my house still isn't as clean as I'd like, and I've had more money lately, I can afford to..." could be completed "hire a cleaner" or "buy a roomba". > tolerance for dirt to me seems like a textbook example of something that has a high demand elasticity What do you mean? Different people will have their threshold in different places, certainly, and the amount they're willing to pay will vary, but I don't see how that changes anything. I'm generally struggling to understand what your model is here. Are you saying people make the decision about whether to hire a cleaner when they're born and then never change it?

crdoconnor 9y ago
>Surely the one substitutes for the other. If a roomba approximated a maid, perhaps. It very much does not. >I'm generally struggling to understand what your model is here. Are you saying people make the decision about whether to hire a cleaner when they're born and then never change it? No, I'm saying that: A) building a neoclassical economic model on this at all is pointless because of the assumptions you'd have to make. You've just tried to make about four assumptions in order to build your model and they weren't just poor assumptions, they were cringeworthy assumptions. B) the total number of people who actually own roombas or roomba like devices suggests to me that the effect on cleaner employment is likely, in any case, to be < noise.
- lmm 9y ago
  > If a roomba approximated a maid, perhaps. It very much does not. It fulfils some of the same functions, some of what some buyers are buying for. A milkshake is not a close approximation to a muffin, but McDonalds found that they did substitute for each other in terms of what people bought for breakfast. > A) building a neoclassical economic model on this at all is pointless because of the assumptions you'd have to make. You've just tried to make about four assumptions in order to build your model and they weren't just poor assumptions, they were cringeworthy assumptions. You're essentially saying "give up trying to understand the world", to which I can only respond "no" (compare the opening quote on http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/24/probabilities-without-models/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/24/probabilities-without-m... ). I think all the assumptions I gave were true and reasonable; if you can actually make a case for why any of them is wrong I will listen, but just dismissing them is not constructive.
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    >A milkshake is not a close approximation to a muffin I would say it is. They have similar calorific content, they are similarly portable and they are similarly stuffed full of sugar. >You're essentially saying "give up trying to understand the world" ...and now you're using a cringeworthy straw man. I'm saying "if you're going to make a claim like "roombas are killing jobs", it probably shouldn't be based on a model that makes 4 really reaching assumptions, each of which are completely unproven and quite likely wrong. Oh, but the New York Times and a few economists thinks robot kills jobs, so this fits in with everybody's groupthink, so that's ok, right? >I think all the assumptions I gave were true and reasonable; if you can actually make a case for why any of them is wrong This is reminding me of the conversation I had with my vicar who asked me to disprove god's existence if I thought I was so smart. >just dismissing them is not constructive. I disagree. I think it's very constructive to dismiss unproven assumptions that are probably wrong, but neatly fit into some kind of groupthink. It's how a lot of science is advanced.
    - lmm 9y ago
      > I would say it is. They have similar calorific content, they are similarly portable and they are similarly stuffed full of sugar. Exactly - they're superficially very different, but what they provide to the buyer is very similar. Just as with Roombas and cleaners. > it probably shouldn't be based on a model that makes 4 really reaching assumptions, each of which are completely unproven and quite likely wrong So put up or shut up: which assumption do you think is wrong, and what do you think the appropriate replacement is? > This is reminding me of the conversation I had with my vicar who asked me to disprove god's existence if I thought I was so smart. It's reminding me of the tortoise who denies modus ponens - if you deny the ability to make inferences then where do we even go from there? > I disagree. I think it's very constructive to dismiss unproven assumptions that are probably wrong, but neatly fit into some kind of groupthink. It's how a lot of science is advanced. Saying "groupthink" as a meaningless buzzword isn't constructive either. Science advances by questioning assumptions but you have to actually do the work of considering an alternative; science doesn't advance by people introducing a question like "but what if effects didn't follow causes" and then just stopping there.