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sum(negatives) > sum(positives) is perfectly legitimate -- it's not extremely pointless, nor is it particularly difficult to assess. It's (quite literally) a "p
by beambot 7y ago
sum(negatives) > sum(positives) is perfectly legitimate -- it's not extremely pointless, nor is it particularly difficult to assess. It's (quite literally) a "pros vs. cons" analysis. It can be complex to quantify, but we do so all the time through modeling. The function needn't be linear in the parameters, and many parameters can intangible (e.g. societal, moral, etc) that are subject to jurisdiction, norms, culture, etc.
In fact, we do similar comparisons all the time: Annual employee performance reviews, asset appraisals (stock, realestate, bonds, etc), and internal rate of return (IRR) or risk-adjusted rate of return. The models are just models -- they can easily suffer from incomplete data, history, sentiment, and bias, intangibles, sentiment -- but the world makes the decision based on these models all day, every day.
- iudqnolq 7y agoYou're right that assessing a model like that is perfectly legitimate, but all the models you mention are much more limited and well-understood than multiple sectors of the economy. The original post in this chain claimed "a good chunk" of the modern economy was net-negative. I don't believe we make similarly hard to quantify calculations every day. It's also important to note that all the examples you give have a lot more data supporting them than any of these internet comments. If the original poster actually built a model of a "good chunk" of the economy and proved it was net-negative and zero-sum I wouldn't have been dismissive.