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I commented elsewhere but I studied Econ in college because it was a particular interest of mine. I hated it. I also wanted to understand it, so that I could kn

I commented elsewhere but I studied Econ in college because it was a particular interest of mine. I hated it. I also wanted to understand it, so that I could know why it rubbed me the wrong way and live intentionally to push against it. There was this moment when I was in a grad course and the professor was talking about self-optimizing markets. That's when it hit me. I literally stood up in the class, interrupted everything and went like "wait, the math isn't optimizing for income inequality". It was kind of funny watching more than 100 little economists in training suddenly start tearing apart the equation at once. You could literally hear the sound of frantic spreadsheeting and charting. In the end, the professor himself said that it was true, you could achieve a fully "optimized" economy with literally everything being owned by a handful of people. Made me think. How is a system supposed to be beneficial for us all when the mathematics at its core don't actually consider societal benefit? If an economy is fully "optimized" but everyone is sick, sad, and angry - is it actually optimal? A mathematical model can make sense without being sensible. This is why I have an implicit distrust of algorithms and other systems of optimization.

maxboone 4y ago
You can be pareto optimal / efficient without a everyone having a 1/n share. The idea of optimization is that everyone gets the best possible set. E.g. Alice prefers tomatoes, Bob prefers mangos. Thus, Alice ends up with 100% of the tomatoes, Bob with 0%. Unfortunately it's mostly the externalities and irrationality / wrong assumptions that fail us. An economy is not optimal (or pareto efficient) iff people are disproportionally sick, sad and angry because of economical reasons (and don't trade this sickness, sadness and angriness for something that gives them more utility).
underdeserver 4y ago
That's the cold, hard truth of capitalism: It converges on the rich-get-richer, economies-of-scale winner-takes-all endgames. Used to be you needed lots of skilled workers to get anything done. You had to pay them. Now with automation and tech and specialization due to global free trade, you only need skilled workers in a handful of professions, the value of doing anything else steadily decreases.
- bozhark 4y ago
  the concept of no-skill workers is a myth
lucb1e 4y ago
> How is a system supposed to be beneficial for us all when the mathematics at its core don't actually consider societal benefit? It isn't, but you could vote someone into power that makes it so. Theoretically, of course. In practice, it seems to me that people like a show of muscle and witty rhetoric more than a show of good math. Most commonly, it's the poor that vote for the worst possible options which are projected to be the worst for the country (both rich and poor, and often disproportionately the poor). (Where "poor", to keep things in perspective, means someone living off of benefits or minimum wage, i.e. comfortable compared to the richest ten percent in an average African country.) Not that the rich always vote cleverly, I don't have to look further than my own parents and grandparents to see that much, but e.g. christian parties are still better than voting for xenophobia and racism (e.g. Wilders), both if you follow the math on what immigration nets us and if you simply consider the amount of worldsuck.
jahewson 4y ago
> you could achieve a fully "optimized" economy with literally everything being owned by a handful of people. Wait, no. That would only be true if all the other people were unable to perform any valuable work. Otherwise it would be more efficient to hire them and profit by selling their goods/services to one of the other handful of rich people.

maxboone 4y ago

You can be pareto optimal / efficient without a everyone having a 1/n share. The idea of optimization is that everyone gets the best possible set. E.g. Alice prefers tomatoes, Bob prefers mangos. Thus, Alice ends up with 100% of the tomatoes, Bob with 0%. Unfortunately it's mostly the externalities and irrationality / wrong assumptions that fail us. An economy is not optimal (or pareto efficient) iff people are disproportionally sick, sad and angry because of economical reasons (and don't trade this sickness, sadness and angriness for something that gives them more utility).

underdeserver 4y ago

That's the cold, hard truth of capitalism: It converges on the rich-get-richer, economies-of-scale winner-takes-all endgames. Used to be you needed lots of skilled workers to get anything done. You had to pay them. Now with automation and tech and specialization due to global free trade, you only need skilled workers in a handful of professions, the value of doing anything else steadily decreases.

bozhark 4y ago
the concept of no-skill workers is a myth

lucb1e 4y ago

> How is a system supposed to be beneficial for us all when the mathematics at its core don't actually consider societal benefit? It isn't, but you could vote someone into power that makes it so. Theoretically, of course. In practice, it seems to me that people like a show of muscle and witty rhetoric more than a show of good math. Most commonly, it's the poor that vote for the worst possible options which are projected to be the worst for the country (both rich and poor, and often disproportionately the poor). (Where "poor", to keep things in perspective, means someone living off of benefits or minimum wage, i.e. comfortable compared to the richest ten percent in an average African country.) Not that the rich always vote cleverly, I don't have to look further than my own parents and grandparents to see that much, but e.g. christian parties are still better than voting for xenophobia and racism (e.g. Wilders), both if you follow the math on what immigration nets us and if you simply consider the amount of worldsuck.

jahewson 4y ago

> you could achieve a fully "optimized" economy with literally everything being owned by a handful of people. Wait, no. That would only be true if all the other people were unable to perform any valuable work. Otherwise it would be more efficient to hire them and profit by selling their goods/services to one of the other handful of rich people.