3 ms·

All models are wrong, some are useful. I don't think this is useful. Do Americans care twice as much about health as Swedes do, given that they spend twice th

All models are wrong, some are useful. I don't think this is useful. Do Americans care twice as much about health as Swedes do, given that they spend twice the amount (% of GDP) on healthcare? Does random-SV-billionaire care three thousand times as much as I do about time, given that he has spent $300k on an AP watch, and I've spent $100 on a swatch?

monktastic1 3y ago
While I agree with your overall point, your final sentence is addressed in the essay (see "up to a positive scalar factor").
- skulk 3y ago
  So if this positive scalar factor adjusts different people's values, why can't it also adjust a single person's value from time-to-time, or mood-to-mood? I can find very few interesting conclusions to draw from this article.
bee_rider 3y ago
Could the first just be an issue in the ambiguity of the word “care?” A person hurtling toward the edge of a cliff cares a whole lot more about their brakes than a person driving down a nice calm road, this doesn’t indicate that the former person is generally interested in brakes, they just have some emergency driven care.
semitones 3y ago
Americans would love to spend less on health if they could - health is a unique category here, because allowing your health to completely run down to "zero" means you die, which is unique from other markets. Also, someone that spends $300k on a watch isn't doing it because they care about time.
aetherson 3y ago
I think you can plausibly give explanations here: Does the billionaire care more than you do about looking extremely wealthy, and do Americans care more than Swedes about not fighting with doctors and pharmaceutical companies than Swedes? I think reasonably yes. But, to your point about useful models, even if you do grant that on some level society does "care" more about something when it expends more money on it, can you tell from the outside view what it actually cares about? Most things that we spend money on are hopelessly complicated, and, like, some of the value we get out of, say, our expenditures on schools are "political favor for Democrats through the Teacher's Union" (and some of what we get from our expenditures on police are "political favor for Republicans through the Policeman's Union.") So do you get much useful information by saying, "Ah, we spend $X on thing A and $Y on thing B"? I mean, not much.
- tacitusarc 3y ago
  This is a good observation that further clarifies: while money may indicate that people care about _something_, that something is not necessarily obvious. Maybe the point of the watch is too look wealthy, or maybe there's a different motivation altogether. Conversely, this indicates that _not_ giving money doesn't necessarily indicate not caring, which still rather undermines the point of this post.
- Sharlin 3y ago
  > and do Americans care more than Swedes about not fighting with doctors and pharmaceutical companies than Swedes? Uh, I'm pretty sure Swedes on average fight a lot less with doctors and pharmaceutical companies (and insurance companies) than Americans. The whole point of centralized healthcare is that it's both cheaper and less energy-draining for individuals because there's a small number of professional people paid to do the "fighting" (negotiating) on behalf of millions of other people. But just like one USD in India is worth more than one USD in the US, it's not fruitful to naively compare the "amount of caring" by using GDP% as a proxy if the contexts are different enough. That doesn't invalidate the basic point of the article. The reason the US spends so much is that the US system is incredibly inefficient due to various coordination problems. If the US spent twice the money per capita and as a result had twice as good healthcare as Sweden then, certainly, you could say that the US cares much more about health than Sweden. But that's not the case.
  - aetherson 3y ago
    I mean, I don't know how much Sweden fights with its doctors, but its doctors get paid vastly less than US doctors, and the US would have to fight its doctors really hard to get them to accept Swedish-style salaries. And, like, it's always hard to get into the nitty gritty of why US healthcare costs so much, there's a lot of different things going on, but similarly you might say, "Okay, maybe the US has a 'coordination problem,'" but what does that cash out to? Hospital administration salaries? Again, are you gonna pick that fight? Providing extremely inefficient end-of-life care that still has at least some arguable benefit? Are you gonna pick that fight?

monktastic1 3y ago

While I agree with your overall point, your final sentence is addressed in the essay (see "up to a positive scalar factor").

skulk 3y ago
So if this positive scalar factor adjusts different people's values, why can't it also adjust a single person's value from time-to-time, or mood-to-mood? I can find very few interesting conclusions to draw from this article.

bee_rider 3y ago

Could the first just be an issue in the ambiguity of the word “care?” A person hurtling toward the edge of a cliff cares a whole lot more about their brakes than a person driving down a nice calm road, this doesn’t indicate that the former person is generally interested in brakes, they just have some emergency driven care.

semitones 3y ago

Americans would love to spend less on health if they could - health is a unique category here, because allowing your health to completely run down to "zero" means you die, which is unique from other markets. Also, someone that spends $300k on a watch isn't doing it because they care about time.

aetherson 3y ago

I think you can plausibly give explanations here: Does the billionaire care more than you do about looking extremely wealthy, and do Americans care more than Swedes about not fighting with doctors and pharmaceutical companies than Swedes? I think reasonably yes. But, to your point about useful models, even if you do grant that on some level society does "care" more about something when it expends more money on it, can you tell from the outside view what it actually cares about? Most things that we spend money on are hopelessly complicated, and, like, some of the value we get out of, say, our expenditures on schools are "political favor for Democrats through the Teacher's Union" (and some of what we get from our expenditures on police are "political favor for Republicans through the Policeman's Union.") So do you get much useful information by saying, "Ah, we spend $X on thing A and $Y on thing B"? I mean, not much.

tacitusarc 3y ago
This is a good observation that further clarifies: while money may indicate that people care about _something_, that something is not necessarily obvious. Maybe the point of the watch is too look wealthy, or maybe there's a different motivation altogether. Conversely, this indicates that _not_ giving money doesn't necessarily indicate not caring, which still rather undermines the point of this post.
Sharlin 3y ago
> and do Americans care more than Swedes about not fighting with doctors and pharmaceutical companies than Swedes? Uh, I'm pretty sure Swedes on average fight a lot less with doctors and pharmaceutical companies (and insurance companies) than Americans. The whole point of centralized healthcare is that it's both cheaper and less energy-draining for individuals because there's a small number of professional people paid to do the "fighting" (negotiating) on behalf of millions of other people. But just like one USD in India is worth more than one USD in the US, it's not fruitful to naively compare the "amount of caring" by using GDP% as a proxy if the contexts are different enough. That doesn't invalidate the basic point of the article. The reason the US spends so much is that the US system is incredibly inefficient due to various coordination problems. If the US spent twice the money per capita and as a result had twice as good healthcare as Sweden then, certainly, you could say that the US cares much more about health than Sweden. But that's not the case.
- aetherson 3y ago
  I mean, I don't know how much Sweden fights with its doctors, but its doctors get paid vastly less than US doctors, and the US would have to fight its doctors really hard to get them to accept Swedish-style salaries. And, like, it's always hard to get into the nitty gritty of why US healthcare costs so much, there's a lot of different things going on, but similarly you might say, "Okay, maybe the US has a 'coordination problem,'" but what does that cash out to? Hospital administration salaries? Again, are you gonna pick that fight? Providing extremely inefficient end-of-life care that still has at least some arguable benefit? Are you gonna pick that fight?