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At best this boils down to the idea that people don’t always know what’s best for them and a disaster is necessary to move things forward. Occasionally maybe th

At best this boils down to the idea that people don’t always know what’s best for them and a disaster is necessary to move things forward. Occasionally maybe that’s the case but it’s pure luck when it happens. It’s the same as saying that energy efficient modern windows are more efficient in the long term so if someone doesn’t want to replace their old aluminum window, breaking it will actually be good for them. Maybe, but it’s not something that required the accidental destruction... I guess I just dislike this notion that getting lucky somehow disproves the fallacy. Fallacies are about errors of reasoning, not about conclusions or outcomes.

eru 5y ago
> At best this boils down to the idea that people don’t always know what’s best for them [...] It doesn't simmer down to quite such a small volume. The problem is that even if everyone knew what was better for them, they might still not be able to coordinate on getting there. The phenomenon described in the linked article is mostly about coordination problems. Not so much about decisions that individuals could make. See https://equilibriabook.com/ https://equilibriabook.com/ for a book length treatment.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  Indeed, even when everyone has perfect knowledge of their best life and everyone else's you can still get deadlocked due to (lack of) coordination and trust. One could argue that all of the truly interesting problems in economics are about coordination.
setr 5y ago
> At best this boils down to the idea that people don’t always know what’s best for them and a disaster is necessary to move things forward. That doesn’t sound right — this is more like the collective benefits at the cost of the individual. It’s very likely that those who lived in the now-destroyed areas are worse off than they had been — though their children may now have better prospects. The same with the window: having energy efficient windows doesn’t cover the damage of the lost window — but it improves the quality of life for people going forward. I think they key is that the improvements are inefficient to implement, but if it’s inevitable (the broken window is already broken; the fire can’t be stopped; they’re a sunk cost) the improvements suddenly become viable. That is, the improved option has to significantly superior to the current situation, because it has to be better than the object in question and the cost to replace. Once the window is broken, it simply needs to be better.

eru 5y ago

> At best this boils down to the idea that people don’t always know what’s best for them [...] It doesn't simmer down to quite such a small volume. The problem is that even if everyone knew what was better for them, they might still not be able to coordinate on getting there. The phenomenon described in the linked article is mostly about coordination problems. Not so much about decisions that individuals could make. See https://equilibriabook.com/ https://equilibriabook.com/ for a book length treatment.

jkhdigital 5y ago
Indeed, even when everyone has perfect knowledge of their best life and everyone else's you can still get deadlocked due to (lack of) coordination and trust. One could argue that all of the truly interesting problems in economics are about coordination.

setr 5y ago

> At best this boils down to the idea that people don’t always know what’s best for them and a disaster is necessary to move things forward. That doesn’t sound right — this is more like the collective benefits at the cost of the individual. It’s very likely that those who lived in the now-destroyed areas are worse off than they had been — though their children may now have better prospects. The same with the window: having energy efficient windows doesn’t cover the damage of the lost window — but it improves the quality of life for people going forward. I think they key is that the improvements are inefficient to implement, but if it’s inevitable (the broken window is already broken; the fire can’t be stopped; they’re a sunk cost) the improvements suddenly become viable. That is, the improved option has to significantly superior to the current situation, because it has to be better than the object in question and the cost to replace. Once the window is broken, it simply needs to be better.