4 ms·

That's a pretty shitty unit. Using those units, it's nontrivial to even compare two measurements made in the same country with the same currency, only one gen

That's a pretty shitty unit. Using those units, it's nontrivial to even compare two measurements made in the same country with the same currency, only one generation apart in time. When dealing with a decent unit like meters, you don't need to choose from one of several competing models of distance-inflation to account for the difference in a meter in 2001 and 2021.

ExtraE 5y ago
I didn’t say it was a good unit, just that it was one. That being said, I’d argue “2001 dollars” is a unit, not “dollars”. You’ll often see data in econ journals cite something in that type of unit. Another angle on this is that comparing wealth across time is nontrivial (and the money isn’t to blame). How do you compare the value of a iPhone in 2020 to a landline in 1980? It’s possible, but nontrivial. Our units (in some messy imperfect way) reflect that (and other factors).
- freshair 5y ago
  > I’d argue “2001 dollars” is a unit, Why though? Why dollars in a particular year, rather than dollars in general? Sure the value of a dollar changes from year to year, but the value of a dollar also changes constantly in any given year too. Over the past year, the value of a US dollar relative to a Euro has fluctuated by more than 10 cents. In fact the relative values of currencies fluctuate constantly, near-enough to instantaneously. But this isn't reflected in the pricing of most consumer goods; the price of common household goods in a grocery store might vary a few times a week, but not thousands of times an hour. So in one context the value of a dollar seems to vary constantly, but in another context the value of a dollar is substantially more stable. So a dollar doesn't even have a set particular value at any instant in time; it depends on what kind of store you're standing in. If happiness is a metric with units even worse than this, then I see little hope for any scientific study of happiness.
dTal 5y ago
There's no global reference frame for distance or wealth. You can't point to a spot in space and say "the Earth was here 1000 years ago". All you can say is that A is x meters from B, right now. And likewise you can't compare wealth now with wealth 50 years ago - it's not a coherent concept, when you could buy a house on a blue collar wage, but not a smartphone at any price. What you can do is say that person A is twice as wealthy as person B.
- freshair 5y ago
  But as I describe in my other comment, the value of a dollar varies not only with time but also with location and context. There are places in America today where $200 a month from a blue collar job will keep a roof over your head. In other parts of the country, $200 is worth substantially less for the same purpose. Say what you want about stellar kinematics, but measuring meters simply is not so fraught as this.

ExtraE 5y ago

I didn’t say it was a good unit, just that it was one. That being said, I’d argue “2001 dollars” is a unit, not “dollars”. You’ll often see data in econ journals cite something in that type of unit. Another angle on this is that comparing wealth across time is nontrivial (and the money isn’t to blame). How do you compare the value of a iPhone in 2020 to a landline in 1980? It’s possible, but nontrivial. Our units (in some messy imperfect way) reflect that (and other factors).

freshair 5y ago
> I’d argue “2001 dollars” is a unit, Why though? Why dollars in a particular year, rather than dollars in general? Sure the value of a dollar changes from year to year, but the value of a dollar also changes constantly in any given year too. Over the past year, the value of a US dollar relative to a Euro has fluctuated by more than 10 cents. In fact the relative values of currencies fluctuate constantly, near-enough to instantaneously. But this isn't reflected in the pricing of most consumer goods; the price of common household goods in a grocery store might vary a few times a week, but not thousands of times an hour. So in one context the value of a dollar seems to vary constantly, but in another context the value of a dollar is substantially more stable. So a dollar doesn't even have a set particular value at any instant in time; it depends on what kind of store you're standing in. If happiness is a metric with units even worse than this, then I see little hope for any scientific study of happiness.

dTal 5y ago

There's no global reference frame for distance or wealth. You can't point to a spot in space and say "the Earth was here 1000 years ago". All you can say is that A is x meters from B, right now. And likewise you can't compare wealth now with wealth 50 years ago - it's not a coherent concept, when you could buy a house on a blue collar wage, but not a smartphone at any price. What you can do is say that person A is twice as wealthy as person B.

freshair 5y ago
But as I describe in my other comment, the value of a dollar varies not only with time but also with location and context. There are places in America today where $200 a month from a blue collar job will keep a roof over your head. In other parts of the country, $200 is worth substantially less for the same purpose. Say what you want about stellar kinematics, but measuring meters simply is not so fraught as this.