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It'd be nice to be able to at least see the math that is used to calculate and budget road repairs then compare them with value that that particular road brings

It'd be nice to be able to at least see the math that is used to calculate and budget road repairs then compare them with value that that particular road brings in. More broadly, some kind of (global?) effort to accurately calculate externalized costs of all kinds. Gotta catch'em all!

conanbatt 8y ago
You know who gets 100% of their income from an externality? public officials that propose dumb laws. How are we going to get that money back?
- tareqak 8y ago
  If you start measure externalities, then you can start predicting their expected value. Proposers of dumb laws will have to spend more effort in showing that their law is effective at whatever thing that they are trying to affect. The feedback loop will become more apparent and hopefully tighter. You won't be able to recoup that money back, but you would be able to demonstrate negligence / malice / incompetence more effectively and deal with them then as appropriate.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> More broadly, some kind of (global?) effort to accurately calculate externalized costs of all kinds. So, to do this, you first need to one: (1) Develop a means to measure individual experienced utility, and (2) Develop the correct mechanism for aggregating utility across time and individuals. Analysis which go beyond purely financial impacts now tend to get around this by only considering a narrow range of non-financial externalities, assigning them dollar values by various means, and just treating them as financial externalities. This provides answers, but as to whether they are “accurate” in any deeper sense other than being exactly what you get when you make the assumptions about value that they do is debatable. (But then, that's true of how we aggregate financial externalities, too, because we treat a $ as having equal utility wherever it is, though we know that not to be the case.)

conanbatt 8y ago

You know who gets 100% of their income from an externality? public officials that propose dumb laws. How are we going to get that money back?

tareqak 8y ago
If you start measure externalities, then you can start predicting their expected value. Proposers of dumb laws will have to spend more effort in showing that their law is effective at whatever thing that they are trying to affect. The feedback loop will become more apparent and hopefully tighter. You won't be able to recoup that money back, but you would be able to demonstrate negligence / malice / incompetence more effectively and deal with them then as appropriate.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> More broadly, some kind of (global?) effort to accurately calculate externalized costs of all kinds. So, to do this, you first need to one: (1) Develop a means to measure individual experienced utility, and (2) Develop the correct mechanism for aggregating utility across time and individuals. Analysis which go beyond purely financial impacts now tend to get around this by only considering a narrow range of non-financial externalities, assigning them dollar values by various means, and just treating them as financial externalities. This provides answers, but as to whether they are “accurate” in any deeper sense other than being exactly what you get when you make the assumptions about value that they do is debatable. (But then, that's true of how we aggregate financial externalities, too, because we treat a $ as having equal utility wherever it is, though we know that not to be the case.)