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I admit I may have had the tone of "you shouldn't think of humans on those terms," but I emphasize that the point I wanted to make was precisely that the reduct

I admit I may have had the tone of "you shouldn't think of humans on those terms," but I emphasize that the point I wanted to make was precisely that the reductionist economic perspective fails to describe how loneliness works. Friendship (and relationships in general) do not align with this sort of model. To me, attributing these messy interpersonal connections to markets is somewhat handwave-y; it's an unfalsifiable just-so story to explain the behavior, and I think it does more harm than good to think about it on these terms. Again, I would direct you to the Atlantic article I linked above about Tinder. It makes a stronger case than I could that viewing relationships in this way ends up backfiring.

luckylion 7y ago
I don't really see how friendships and relationships in general don't align with that sort of model. Can you reduce them to purely mathematical transaction values? Of course not. Are they totally unlike any other markets where two people "trade" and both feel they get something of value? For voluntary relationships (i.e. it's different for your immediate family than for random people you meet): I don't think so. A market-model-based explanation doesn't deny that there's some non-trivial background, it just seeks to analyze how things happen, and it does an okay job in most cases. The Atlantic article (which I'm obviously not the target audience for, I find them hard to read with all their side stories and presenting n=1 anecdotes as meaningful) seems to not argue about the idea that they are markets, but rather that we shouldn't consider them as markets when we are engaged in it, i.e. if you're having a good time with A, you shouldn't wonder whether you could have had a slightly better time if you had met with B. Don't treat your friendships as you might buying a cell phone. Even business relationships have shifted in that direction, in my experience, it's a pretty recent thing to "shop around" and switch providers because you might save a few bucks. That's a different issue though, I don't believe that's happening because economists or sociologists use market-models to analyze relationships. Tinder and the commoditization of dating, like-count-fetishizing etc are not a thing because somebody said "hey, you know how car sales work? we should manage our relationships that way". Rather, it's how humans work on a very low level and these technologies and trends are just exposing that by giving people a way to visibly act on it. This isn't new, and pointing it out doesn't cause it, neither will it vanish if we just don't mention it and pretend it's not real.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  "I don't really see how friendships and relationships in general don't align with that sort of model. Can you reduce them to purely mathematical transaction values? Of course not." This is why you cannot use a mathematical model to model behavior that cannot be mathematically reduced. I'm extremely confused how you can claim there's any accuracy in thinking something as a testable model on something that cannot be tested as a model.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    You cannot reduce any decisions on any markets, at some point you're going "huh, I guess free will or the universe or randomness? idk", but that doesn't make the models useless. They can be tested. Take Tinder, make predictions how people behave differently if e.g. you change the gender balance, test it. My point about "you cannot reduce it" isn't about the model, but about relationships themselves. You can't just go "look, here's the fact sheet" because it's way too complex and we don't know all the variables etc pp, but overall, in larger numbers, you can very much use models to predict general behavior. Not on an individual level, but very much so on a group level. Much like in any market, where you will always have outliers that act totally different than what your models predict, but you'll also have the bulk that behaves the way your model predicts. If they don't, your model isn't good. That's not the case for models looking at relationships as markets though.

luckylion 7y ago

I don't really see how friendships and relationships in general don't align with that sort of model. Can you reduce them to purely mathematical transaction values? Of course not. Are they totally unlike any other markets where two people "trade" and both feel they get something of value? For voluntary relationships (i.e. it's different for your immediate family than for random people you meet): I don't think so. A market-model-based explanation doesn't deny that there's some non-trivial background, it just seeks to analyze how things happen, and it does an okay job in most cases. The Atlantic article (which I'm obviously not the target audience for, I find them hard to read with all their side stories and presenting n=1 anecdotes as meaningful) seems to not argue about the idea that they are markets, but rather that we shouldn't consider them as markets when we are engaged in it, i.e. if you're having a good time with A, you shouldn't wonder whether you could have had a slightly better time if you had met with B. Don't treat your friendships as you might buying a cell phone. Even business relationships have shifted in that direction, in my experience, it's a pretty recent thing to "shop around" and switch providers because you might save a few bucks. That's a different issue though, I don't believe that's happening because economists or sociologists use market-models to analyze relationships. Tinder and the commoditization of dating, like-count-fetishizing etc are not a thing because somebody said "hey, you know how car sales work? we should manage our relationships that way". Rather, it's how humans work on a very low level and these technologies and trends are just exposing that by giving people a way to visibly act on it. This isn't new, and pointing it out doesn't cause it, neither will it vanish if we just don't mention it and pretend it's not real.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
"I don't really see how friendships and relationships in general don't align with that sort of model. Can you reduce them to purely mathematical transaction values? Of course not." This is why you cannot use a mathematical model to model behavior that cannot be mathematically reduced. I'm extremely confused how you can claim there's any accuracy in thinking something as a testable model on something that cannot be tested as a model.
- luckylion 7y ago
  You cannot reduce any decisions on any markets, at some point you're going "huh, I guess free will or the universe or randomness? idk", but that doesn't make the models useless. They can be tested. Take Tinder, make predictions how people behave differently if e.g. you change the gender balance, test it. My point about "you cannot reduce it" isn't about the model, but about relationships themselves. You can't just go "look, here's the fact sheet" because it's way too complex and we don't know all the variables etc pp, but overall, in larger numbers, you can very much use models to predict general behavior. Not on an individual level, but very much so on a group level. Much like in any market, where you will always have outliers that act totally different than what your models predict, but you'll also have the bulk that behaves the way your model predicts. If they don't, your model isn't good. That's not the case for models looking at relationships as markets though.