6 ms·

Going a little further with this idea: how well do unequal outcomes reflect equal treatment? People like Pareto would say some people get better outcomes only b

Going a little further with this idea: how well do unequal outcomes reflect equal treatment? People like Pareto would say some people get better outcomes only because they make better life decisions; people like Veblen would say some people get better outcomes because they make better life decisions, like the decision of which parents to be born to. It's highly likely that outcomes reflect both decisions and chance (including initial aptitudes for decision making), but I'm unsure anyone to this point has been able to demonstrate what the breakdown between those two factors might be. (and indeed Pareto predicted that people will tend to fundamentally lean to favouring one or the other explanation, and only secondarily come up with rationalisations that support their basic worldview)

bilbo0s 2y ago
In fairness, honest evaluations of those factors is nearly impossible for humans. We all have some level of emotion that affects our thinking in this regard. I’ve not seen anyone convince the girl who got into Stanford or Harvard with straight A’s and a 36 ACT; that the girl who also got straight A’s and a 36, but didn’t get in, was less privileged. (After all, the girl that didn’t get in likely landed at Northwestern or Duke, or what have you.) The Harvard/Stanford person will almost always reliably come up with reasons outside of privilege that they were selected. As would most of us if we were in that position. It’s almost human nature level impulses evoking our thoughts in these kinds of situations.
punpunia 2y ago
What is the difference between 'decision' and 'chance'? What 'decisions' we make are illusions created by chance; discourse is saturated with this false dichotomy.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Are you suggesting that all is predetermined? Or have I misunderstood? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd#Fate_in_Germanic_mythology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd#Fate_in_Germanic_mytholog... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus#:~:text=Democritus%20held%20that,churning%20in%20chaos%2c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus#:~:text=Democritus%... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus#Fire_as_symbolic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus#Fire_as_symbolic or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination#Hinduism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination#Hinduism or ???
  - punpunia 2y ago
    Yes, or rather, that things are determined. I think such an idea is plainly correct. The idea that people have the ability to 'make decisions' or to 'do otherwise' has no physical or even logical basis. It is the kind of life-centric thinking that we are special bits of matter that somehow has some ability to transcend cause and effect. Most philosophers resolved this by redefining free will to mean something other than 'the ability to do otherwise' since that definition is logically incoherent.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  “ What 'decisions' we make are illusions created by chance” Everything except for this sentence that is :D
gradschoolfail 2y ago
Every ___ & their mother has a worldview… I submit that what pple should focus in trading are ikigais… (although i suspect Pareto could have hidden a hint or two. — here , i have a set of locally pareto-optimal short term life goals, how to make a market?) (Previously i had wanted to trade experts’ (meta)underwear, but that turned out more to be like the market for million-dollar abstract art which nobody has seen in person! The seller of ikigais, otoh, has almost certainly a glimpse at the very least — Citoyen, dissect his favorite joke!) EDIT: do. Not. Trust a physicist who tells you that the calculation (or optics alignment) was fun. However. Trust a mathematician (or economist) who happily flips burgers to support their habit. Informatiker/logician: depends on how alexithymic they are, the correlation may surprise you :) Update: eg Kip Thorne highlighted the joy of having detractors eat crow. Thankfully did not pass on the bag of having “his intuition shredded” or “trying his best to stay away from being bored” or some such inanity :)
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Doesn't pareto-optimality require first agreeing on which cone be the positive one? A market for million-dollar abstract art which it's possible[0] to see in person: https://www.artbasel.com https://www.artbasel.com (also suspected by artist friends to be a good way to reward questionable deeds with KYC-friendly[1] gains — pecunia non olet) KST as a Bartle Killer[2]? That, more than "low stakes", might explain the apparent knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth nature of academic strife? What is the physicist's equivalent of a favourite wheelbarrow? Best quick and dirty breadboard damping kludge? Honeycomb vs sheer mass? [0] ok, I haven't been, but I was in town during it once, so I'm pretty confident it exists and is visible. [1] let's not even mention the cash-onion that is the restaurant business. [2] there is a theory that all the working dog breed behaviours can basically be explained by selecting for overexpression of a particular phase of prey drive and underexpression of the rest. I guess Nobel Prizes in Physics grew out of some small ur-mammal wanting to model its meals well enough to figure when it'd zig and when it'd zag, and overexpressing this to the point that humans attempt to model the whole damn universe?
  - gradschoolfail 2y ago

bilbo0s 2y ago

In fairness, honest evaluations of those factors is nearly impossible for humans. We all have some level of emotion that affects our thinking in this regard. I’ve not seen anyone convince the girl who got into Stanford or Harvard with straight A’s and a 36 ACT; that the girl who also got straight A’s and a 36, but didn’t get in, was less privileged. (After all, the girl that didn’t get in likely landed at Northwestern or Duke, or what have you.) The Harvard/Stanford person will almost always reliably come up with reasons outside of privilege that they were selected. As would most of us if we were in that position. It’s almost human nature level impulses evoking our thoughts in these kinds of situations.

punpunia 2y ago

What is the difference between 'decision' and 'chance'? What 'decisions' we make are illusions created by chance; discourse is saturated with this false dichotomy.

082349872349872 2y ago
Are you suggesting that all is predetermined? Or have I misunderstood? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd#Fate_in_Germanic_mythology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd#Fate_in_Germanic_mytholog... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus#:~:text=Democritus%20held%20that,churning%20in%20chaos%2c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus#:~:text=Democritus%... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus#Fire_as_symbolic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus#Fire_as_symbolic or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination#Hinduism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination#Hinduism or ???
- punpunia 2y ago
  Yes, or rather, that things are determined. I think such an idea is plainly correct. The idea that people have the ability to 'make decisions' or to 'do otherwise' has no physical or even logical basis. It is the kind of life-centric thinking that we are special bits of matter that somehow has some ability to transcend cause and effect. Most philosophers resolved this by redefining free will to mean something other than 'the ability to do otherwise' since that definition is logically incoherent.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
“ What 'decisions' we make are illusions created by chance” Everything except for this sentence that is :D

gradschoolfail 2y ago

Every ___ & their mother has a worldview… I submit that what pple should focus in trading are ikigais… (although i suspect Pareto could have hidden a hint or two. — here , i have a set of locally pareto-optimal short term life goals, how to make a market?) (Previously i had wanted to trade experts’ (meta)underwear, but that turned out more to be like the market for million-dollar abstract art which nobody has seen in person! The seller of ikigais, otoh, has almost certainly a glimpse at the very least — Citoyen, dissect his favorite joke!) EDIT: do. Not. Trust a physicist who tells you that the calculation (or optics alignment) was fun. However. Trust a mathematician (or economist) who happily flips burgers to support their habit. Informatiker/logician: depends on how alexithymic they are, the correlation may surprise you :) Update: eg Kip Thorne highlighted the joy of having detractors eat crow. Thankfully did not pass on the bag of having “his intuition shredded” or “trying his best to stay away from being bored” or some such inanity :)

082349872349872 2y ago
Doesn't pareto-optimality require first agreeing on which cone be the positive one? A market for million-dollar abstract art which it's possible[0] to see in person: https://www.artbasel.com https://www.artbasel.com (also suspected by artist friends to be a good way to reward questionable deeds with KYC-friendly[1] gains — pecunia non olet) KST as a Bartle Killer[2]? That, more than "low stakes", might explain the apparent knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth nature of academic strife? What is the physicist's equivalent of a favourite wheelbarrow? Best quick and dirty breadboard damping kludge? Honeycomb vs sheer mass? [0] ok, I haven't been, but I was in town during it once, so I'm pretty confident it exists and is visible. [1] let's not even mention the cash-onion that is the restaurant business. [2] there is a theory that all the working dog breed behaviours can basically be explained by selecting for overexpression of a particular phase of prey drive and underexpression of the rest. I guess Nobel Prizes in Physics grew out of some small ur-mammal wanting to model its meals well enough to figure when it'd zig and when it'd zag, and overexpressing this to the point that humans attempt to model the whole damn universe?
- gradschoolfail 2y ago