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I agree that no human organization will always make the best decisions. That's why I'm advocating for a larger number of human organizations making decisions in

I agree that no human organization will always make the best decisions. That's why I'm advocating for a larger number of human organizations making decisions independently (as much as is possible in the world today). I was also being somewhat soft in my language, so let me amend it to, sometimes the government makes bad choices and fails to invest in crucial areas. Are you advocating for more organizations created as cooperatives and the like? I think that would be great too. However a lot of ambitious projects like curing diseases, inventing new materials, building spacecraft, and more require a lot of money. It's much easier to start on these things if you can skip fundraising from thousands of individuals.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
As a thought-experiment, suppose you have a society in year X in which a substantial majority of people are opposed to putting resources into some project. Time passes, it is now year Y and an individual has managed to amass control over sufficient resources to at least begin this project. More time passes, it is now year Z and the project requires further investment. The individual who initiated it seeks public funding to continue the work? 1. is it appropriate in a democratic society that an individual can direct resources on a large scale into projects rejected by most people in that society? 2. should the society consider funding the continuation of the project? If the answer to (1) seems immediately clear to you, consider your answer in the case that the project is "Invade our largest neighboring country" or "Develop new bioweapons that will only affect people of a certain genetic makeup" or even, somewhat realistically, "Develop ways to burn fossil fuels on sufficient scale to alter the composition of the atmosphere". What is the qualification possessed by the very rich, other than "well, they're rich", that should entitle them to make such decisions?
- rockemsockem 3y ago
  Qualifications aren't in play here. It's effectively random capital allocation. So they have been randomly entitled to those decisions. This seems far better than having a single entity to do so. A majority of Americans disapproved of the Apollo program. So the government does not avoid doing unpopular things. I whole heartedly agree with 1. Society in aggregate doesn't support all the things that would benefit it. In the case of 2, if society has suddenly decided that in fact it does support the project from 1 now, then yes, it should of course fund it. And this actually really demonstrates the value of private investment. A project can be started that most people don't think is worthwhile and then it can show benefits and the general population can support it further. That's wonderful. I don't recall proposing no government. Those first two were illegal and the government willingly ignored the third in the past, so IDK why you think the government would have done differently.
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
It's not just government that fails and makes bad choices. So I'm not interested in questions that frame the distinction as being between private decision making and public decision making. We have agree that no human organization will always make the best decisions, so the question is how do we try to improve the chances? There was a lot of interest in this in the 1960s, but it fell away as neoliberalism triumphed, and with it the idea that some sort of multiplicity of private actors will always make the best possible choice that we could. I don't believe this, especially since "multiplicity" has frequently come down "a few, maybe 2 or 3". Yes, I love cooperatives, though they are hard to make sustainable and successful. Big projects requiring lots of resources should be hard to start, and should start only when we agree that devoting lots of resources to the problem is the right thing to do, via a democratic process. Problems that require very few resources do not need to meet such standards, and efforts to solve them can come and go as people feel like doing.
- rockemsockem 3y ago
  The number of private actors capable of acting in a space has not been that small since like the 50s, if ever. You're trying to equate this to corporate cases like Apple and Google in smartphone OSes, but this is far broader. This is the entire economy. I feel like you're thinking just about corporations, which is a different conversation IMO. You can even look at space exploration as an example since when we talk about rich people everyone thinks of Elon now. There are so many space companies started with private investment. SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, Armadillo Aerospace, Rocket lab, Polaris, a planetary resources, and more that I've never heard of. That's way more than 2 or 3. I think humanity is at its best when it can organize into small groups working on big things that can be made available and/or useful to everyone else and that's just really hard to do without money. I don't want to spend my time allocating capital. Randomly assigning the job to as many of those interested in doing so as possible seems like the best solution, with augmentation from the government of course.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

As a thought-experiment, suppose you have a society in year X in which a substantial majority of people are opposed to putting resources into some project. Time passes, it is now year Y and an individual has managed to amass control over sufficient resources to at least begin this project. More time passes, it is now year Z and the project requires further investment. The individual who initiated it seeks public funding to continue the work? 1. is it appropriate in a democratic society that an individual can direct resources on a large scale into projects rejected by most people in that society? 2. should the society consider funding the continuation of the project? If the answer to (1) seems immediately clear to you, consider your answer in the case that the project is "Invade our largest neighboring country" or "Develop new bioweapons that will only affect people of a certain genetic makeup" or even, somewhat realistically, "Develop ways to burn fossil fuels on sufficient scale to alter the composition of the atmosphere". What is the qualification possessed by the very rich, other than "well, they're rich", that should entitle them to make such decisions?

rockemsockem 3y ago
Qualifications aren't in play here. It's effectively random capital allocation. So they have been randomly entitled to those decisions. This seems far better than having a single entity to do so. A majority of Americans disapproved of the Apollo program. So the government does not avoid doing unpopular things. I whole heartedly agree with 1. Society in aggregate doesn't support all the things that would benefit it. In the case of 2, if society has suddenly decided that in fact it does support the project from 1 now, then yes, it should of course fund it. And this actually really demonstrates the value of private investment. A project can be started that most people don't think is worthwhile and then it can show benefits and the general population can support it further. That's wonderful. I don't recall proposing no government. Those first two were illegal and the government willingly ignored the third in the past, so IDK why you think the government would have done differently.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

It's not just government that fails and makes bad choices. So I'm not interested in questions that frame the distinction as being between private decision making and public decision making. We have agree that no human organization will always make the best decisions, so the question is how do we try to improve the chances? There was a lot of interest in this in the 1960s, but it fell away as neoliberalism triumphed, and with it the idea that some sort of multiplicity of private actors will always make the best possible choice that we could. I don't believe this, especially since "multiplicity" has frequently come down "a few, maybe 2 or 3". Yes, I love cooperatives, though they are hard to make sustainable and successful. Big projects requiring lots of resources should be hard to start, and should start only when we agree that devoting lots of resources to the problem is the right thing to do, via a democratic process. Problems that require very few resources do not need to meet such standards, and efforts to solve them can come and go as people feel like doing.

rockemsockem 3y ago
The number of private actors capable of acting in a space has not been that small since like the 50s, if ever. You're trying to equate this to corporate cases like Apple and Google in smartphone OSes, but this is far broader. This is the entire economy. I feel like you're thinking just about corporations, which is a different conversation IMO. You can even look at space exploration as an example since when we talk about rich people everyone thinks of Elon now. There are so many space companies started with private investment. SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, Armadillo Aerospace, Rocket lab, Polaris, a planetary resources, and more that I've never heard of. That's way more than 2 or 3. I think humanity is at its best when it can organize into small groups working on big things that can be made available and/or useful to everyone else and that's just really hard to do without money. I don't want to spend my time allocating capital. Randomly assigning the job to as many of those interested in doing so as possible seems like the best solution, with augmentation from the government of course.