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> In that case I can take just about any situation that has a "shortage", then reintroduce prices. Did I just solve the shortage? If there was a situation wher

> In that case I can take just about any situation that has a "shortage", then reintroduce prices. Did I just solve the shortage? If there was a situation where price was unable to rise, and you found some way to enable price to start rising again thereby seeing a reversion to a price-based mechanism, yes, you 'solved' the shortage. > For example, if there's a lottery then simply allow resale after the lottery runs. Or just allow price to rise in the first place, not requiring a lottery to fall back on at all. If you can wave your magic wand like that so easily, I'm not sure what you've gained in the indirection? Of course, in reality, if price is unable to rise before the lottery, for whatever reason, it's probably still not able to rise after the lottery. Sure, if it is policy driven you might be able to change the policy, but, again, why not change it right from the get go? You don't need to wait. > We can establish a ballpark for what a sensible price is for most things. Okay, let's put that to the test. OpenAI releases true AGI tomorrow. What's the sensible price for it? I've picked my number. Now you pick yours and let's see if we're in the same ballpark. What happens if you aren't in the same ballpark as me? Does that not invalidate your claim? My intuition is that the only way we can come to agree on a ballpark is if we actually stop and talk about the numbers. Which is all well and good, but just saying "there's a shortage" does not get us there. "Shortage" does not communicate anything here. > If every house costs $1-10, there is not a shortage. If every house costs $1B-10B, there is a shortage. I think over 90% of people you ask would agree with those two statements. But what have you communicated with the use of shortage? Let's remove shortage and just say "Every house costs $1-10" and "Every house costs $1B-10B". What information was lost in the removal of "there is/there is not a shortage"? Are you trying to use shortage as an indication of your emotions? As in, "Every house costs $1B-10B, there is a shortage." being roughly analogous to "Every house costs $1B-10B, I feel that is too expensive."? If that's the case, how can others agree? What grounds would you disagree on? You can't logically dispute how someone else is feeling. That like you saying "My romantic partner is great, I love them." with the retort "I disagree, you actually hate them!". It is nonsensical.

Dylan16807 3y ago
I have no more detail to give to my argument, so I'll keep this very brief. > It is nonsensical. You can have that opinion, but I find the idea that price-based distribution makes shortages stop being shortages, with no change in supply, significantly more nonsensical. > What information was lost in the removal of "there is/there is not a shortage"? Shortage is less information but it's also easier to say. For more realistic numbers the word shortage is more than an order of magnitude easier to communicate than raw statistics.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > with no change in supply This may be your misunderstanding. The 'equation', for lack of a better word, is supply and demand, not just supply. Market conundrums can normally be solved by change in either supply or demand. A shortage occurs when a situation prevents price from rising, thereby warding off a change in demand. This is where an alternative selection mechanism — examples including a lottery, needs-based, or first-come, first-served — will typically step in to solve the dispute given the constraints in supply. > Shortage is less information Less information than what? As you can see, when we removed shortage in the above examples, the reader was left with the exact same information. No information was lost at all. Shortage added absolutely nothing.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > This may be your misunderstanding. The 'equation', for lack of a better word, is supply and demand, not just supply. Market conundrums can normally be solved by change in either supply or demand. > A shortage occurs when a situation prevents price from rising, thereby warding off a change in demand. This is where an alternative selection mechanism — examples including a lottery, needs-based, or first-come, first-served — will typically step in to solve the dispute given the constraints in supply. Raising the price so high that demand disappears is not a way to alleviate a shortage. If 95% of the houses in the world disappeared overnight, that would cause an extreme housing shortage, even if it's a perfect free market where anyone with X amount of money can still get a house. You can always find a point on the demand curve that fits any supply situation. That doesn't stop there from being shortages. "Shortage" is not a niche word that only applies when supply and demand has been prevented. > Less information than what? As you can see, when we removed shortage in the above examples, the reader was left with the exact same information. No information was lost at all. Shortage added absolutely nothing. This is like saying "If I give a three minute explanation, and also a 20 second summary, the summary added absolutely nothing." The advantage of the summary is that you can use it in lieu of the full explanation and it's a lot quicker.
    - randomdata 3y ago

Dylan16807 3y ago

I have no more detail to give to my argument, so I'll keep this very brief. > It is nonsensical. You can have that opinion, but I find the idea that price-based distribution makes shortages stop being shortages, with no change in supply, significantly more nonsensical. > What information was lost in the removal of "there is/there is not a shortage"? Shortage is less information but it's also easier to say. For more realistic numbers the word shortage is more than an order of magnitude easier to communicate than raw statistics.

randomdata 3y ago
> with no change in supply This may be your misunderstanding. The 'equation', for lack of a better word, is supply and demand, not just supply. Market conundrums can normally be solved by change in either supply or demand. A shortage occurs when a situation prevents price from rising, thereby warding off a change in demand. This is where an alternative selection mechanism — examples including a lottery, needs-based, or first-come, first-served — will typically step in to solve the dispute given the constraints in supply. > Shortage is less information Less information than what? As you can see, when we removed shortage in the above examples, the reader was left with the exact same information. No information was lost at all. Shortage added absolutely nothing.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > This may be your misunderstanding. The 'equation', for lack of a better word, is supply and demand, not just supply. Market conundrums can normally be solved by change in either supply or demand. > A shortage occurs when a situation prevents price from rising, thereby warding off a change in demand. This is where an alternative selection mechanism — examples including a lottery, needs-based, or first-come, first-served — will typically step in to solve the dispute given the constraints in supply. Raising the price so high that demand disappears is not a way to alleviate a shortage. If 95% of the houses in the world disappeared overnight, that would cause an extreme housing shortage, even if it's a perfect free market where anyone with X amount of money can still get a house. You can always find a point on the demand curve that fits any supply situation. That doesn't stop there from being shortages. "Shortage" is not a niche word that only applies when supply and demand has been prevented. > Less information than what? As you can see, when we removed shortage in the above examples, the reader was left with the exact same information. No information was lost at all. Shortage added absolutely nothing. This is like saying "If I give a three minute explanation, and also a 20 second summary, the summary added absolutely nothing." The advantage of the summary is that you can use it in lieu of the full explanation and it's a lot quicker.
  - randomdata 3y ago