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> I am not trying to "maximize total welfare" where one way to accomplish that is to allow a bad actor to get ridiculously wealthy at the expense of everyone el
by ifyoubuildit 3y ago
> I am not trying to "maximize total welfare" where one way to accomplish that is to allow a bad actor to get ridiculously wealthy at the expense of everyone else (even if the total paid by everyone else is less than the bad actor makes).
I don't know if parents suggestion leads to this or not, but I don't understand why we should have a problem with "maximizing total welfare" just because some entity would become ridiculously wealthy. Don't we want to incentivise that sort of behavior? Whether they're "bad" or not?
- horsawlarway 3y agoBecause welfare cannot be boiled down to simply "More dollars are here". My problem with this is the same as my problem with using the average instead of the median. Imagine two situations with a small group of 10 people: In situation #1: All ten people have 10 dollars to their name. Net across the group is 100 bucks. In situation #2: 1 person (we'll call him Bob) has 1000 dollars, and every other person is 100 dollars in debt. Net across the group is 100 bucks. Which one of those do you want to live in? According to our "Money is literally all we care about because we're morally bankrupt" maximization strategy, these situations are identical, and everyone should be thrilled. In reality... Bob is living the high life and everyone else is too poor to matter. Great for Bob in the short term, terrible for social stability, because those 9 other folks are starting to think he looks mighty tasty right about now.