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> It's clear however that, for a lot of reasons, this system optimizes for short term rewards and not for long term planning. This system optimizes for the agg

> It's clear however that, for a lot of reasons, this system optimizes for short term rewards and not for long term planning. This system optimizes for the aggregate weighted time preference of its participants. To whatever extent its imputed time preference might be too high, this is almost entirely due to inefficiencies introduced by fiat money and loose monetary policy. If your annualized discount rate is 3% and the fed offers you a loan for 0.25%, you're going to take it and consume now. This increases the effective societal time preference. Also, most people are probably a lot higher-time-preference than you are (inferring from the fact that you're on HN), so a lot of this is probably just you (and me) disagreeing with them.

cambalache 6y ago
> This system optimizes for the aggregate weighted time preference of its participants. As long as its participants have money or other kind of power. Vast swaths of the population lack both so are excluded from that "optimization" , an optimization which of course it is not weighted per capita but per money/influence.
- centimeter 6y ago
  That's what I mean by "weighted". There are a lot of people with a little NPV and a few people with a lot of NPV, but the little people (in aggregate) grossly outweigh the big people. The preferences of people who make less than $80k/yr vastly dominate the preferences of people who make more than $80k/yr.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    But they dont, largely. Powerful people do what they want. Income inequality has increased dramatically in the last 40 years, same for net worth inequality, educational costs, medical costs, number of working hours needed to raise a family. Do you think this is the outcome of a system where the voice of the large majority is heard? Sorry, but that is a disingenuous or a naive take.
    - centimeter 6y ago
      > Do you think this is the outcome of a system where the voice of the large majority is heard? No - it's because we live in an anti-natalist neoliberal-progressive society and not a capitalist society. Capitalism would perform better on all axes you describe for the reasons I describe. Even Soviet communism would probably perform better than what we have now on many of those axes.

cambalache 6y ago

> This system optimizes for the aggregate weighted time preference of its participants. As long as its participants have money or other kind of power. Vast swaths of the population lack both so are excluded from that "optimization" , an optimization which of course it is not weighted per capita but per money/influence.

centimeter 6y ago
That's what I mean by "weighted". There are a lot of people with a little NPV and a few people with a lot of NPV, but the little people (in aggregate) grossly outweigh the big people. The preferences of people who make less than $80k/yr vastly dominate the preferences of people who make more than $80k/yr.
- cambalache 6y ago
  But they dont, largely. Powerful people do what they want. Income inequality has increased dramatically in the last 40 years, same for net worth inequality, educational costs, medical costs, number of working hours needed to raise a family. Do you think this is the outcome of a system where the voice of the large majority is heard? Sorry, but that is a disingenuous or a naive take.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    > Do you think this is the outcome of a system where the voice of the large majority is heard? No - it's because we live in an anti-natalist neoliberal-progressive society and not a capitalist society. Capitalism would perform better on all axes you describe for the reasons I describe. Even Soviet communism would probably perform better than what we have now on many of those axes.