4 ms·

I've never heard of the specific mechanism the article talks about, but it is so full of flaws that I do not consider it a good source of thought about the topi

by nkmnz 1y ago

I've never heard of the specific mechanism the article talks about, but it is so full of flaws that I do not consider it a good source of thought about the topic. Just the most obvious example where the author didn't put much effort into understanding their own text: > Three art patrons each contribute [money] to the local public art museum. [...] They each expect to experience [money] worth of individual utility from enjoying the [...] art. > [...] utility of saved lives is experienced only once by each of the cancer patients – the three contributors don’t experience that utility (other than feeling good about those lives being saved, but that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize). This approach of intellectual unsoundness - i.e., accepting the social and individual utility of enjoying the arts, but denying any such utility for enjoying the saved lives – is present throughout the article. And I haven't started with the author comparing random cases of contributions that differ in multiple dimensions where using a ceteris paribus approach would immediately show that his arguments are shallow...

refulgentis 1y ago
I'm confused, aren't those flaws the article is pointing out, not claims the article is making?
- em-bee 1y ago
  the article claims that a contributor to art benefits from enjoying the art and a contributor to cancer research doesn't (except for feeling good), and therefore quadratic funding would favor art contributions and disfavor cancer research contributions. GP claims (and i agree) that contributors to cancer research do benefit beyond feeling good. eg because they, or someone they care about might have or get cancer later and benefit from the research. the challenge is that measuring benefit is hard.
- zoogeny 1y ago
  I read it as claims the article was making. I too was confused, but perhaps that is just the communication? I think the article was going for a comparison between extrinsic motivation (which they seem to claim the original quadratic funding requires) and intrinsic motivation. It seems they just chose a poor example. The article attempts to quantize the expected reward for the extrinsic motivation ("They each expect to experience €6,000,000 worth of individual utility") while it fails to quantize the expected reward for the intrinsic motivation ("But in the selfish scenario, total utility is 3 times higher, because the utility is experienced independently by each contributor, whereas utility of saved lives is experienced only once by each of the cancer patients). I believe, it has to do with their narrow conception of "experience". I don't know how any rational person could expect to "experience" €6,000,000 worth of art as my first criticism. Now, it would be fair to say that the implication that the wealthy benefactors expect that experience could be seen as a criticism of quadratic funding. But to roll with that ludicrous expectation for the sake of argument and then to fail to give a similar expectation of reward from the experience of saving 60 lives is not a fair argument. If I can "imagine" the benefactor expecting €6,000,000 worth of experience for knowing the art is on display at the local museum, I could "imagine" the benefactor expecting some non-zero-euro amount of experience for knowing 60 people survived cancer. If we quantify the "experience" in euros for the first scenario, it seems unfair not to quantify the "experience" for the second scenario. In this case it is about being consistent in argument, which the article fails to do.
- gowld 1y ago
  The article sets up (1) a straw man (2) with impossible to measure numbers. The author acknowledges the second fundamental flaw in the whole enterprise, but not the first.
  - jwarden 1y ago
    What straw man? The assumptions underlying the theory of QF are spelled out cleanly in the original QF paper. The article is just enumerating these assumptions and showing they don't hold in reality. The numbers in the example are indeed impossible to measure. But QF is claiming *optimality* -- that it maximizes social welfare -- when certain assumptions hold. To show that QF does not maximize social welfare when these assumptions don't hold, it suffices to show a single hypothetical counterexample.
    - nkmnz 1y ago
      I don't hold any cards in the game - if QF is bollocks, so be it, I couldn't care less. The reasons why I've commented are: 1) the article does a really bad job at using words that matter to me, like "utility". If any theory – QF or OPs own line of thought – tells me that funding cancer research doesn't have utility for the person funding it, that theory is BS. I don't need a badly made up hypothetical counterexample for this. 2) The author contradicts themselves: "QF assumes that all utility is direct utility, benefiting the contributor only." – but then they go on and calculate the utility of spending money on saving lives not based on the utility of the contributors, because "that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize" (btw, who is "we"!?), but based on some arbitrary made-up value and number of saved lives.
      - imtringued 1y ago
        Actually, everything you complain about is highly irrelevant. It can't be overstated how irrelevant your objection is. > (other than feeling good about those lives being saved, but that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize). Your interpretation of this statement is that the contributors have a fixed marginal utility for every single dollar, so that they will consider the situation where they spend $1,000,000 per live saved to be superior to the situation where they spend $100,000. In other words, you're saying that welfare is a veblen good for the donor. The author makes the argument that the mere act of spending more money to save lives is not the type of utility we should strive for to maximize social welfare. Your utility in question is not about feeling good about saving people regardless of cost, it's about feeling good about saving people, precisely because it costs money and you personally spent money to do it. By the way, why is that "your utility"? Why am I putting words in your mouth? Because you're disagreeing with the author and therefore necessarily put yourself at odds with the authors objection to the first interpretation. Hence you must necessarily agree with it, otherwise you're just trolling and that would be uncharitable of me to accuse you of. So, yes, you must have mistakenly chosen the silly interpretation.
jwarden 1y ago
> accepting the social and individual utility of enjoying the arts, but denying any such utility for enjoying the saved lives But in the part of the article you quoted above, the author (me) specifically acknowledges the utility of enjoying saved lives. But this is a critique of the quadratic funding mechanism, which is a public goods funding mechanism meant to maximize the utility each individual independently derives from enjoying public good. The whole point of the article is to critique this assumption -- to point out that people's motives are sometimes altruistic (they derive utility just from knowing other people benefit), but the optimality of QF assumes this vicarious utility does not exist. As the article states "When individuals make contributions for purely altruistic reasons, they don’t directly experience the utility themselves. And yet the optimality of QF assumes that all utility is direct utility, benefiting the contributor only."
- gowld 1y ago
  Do you have any evidence that these supposed assumptions exist? No one donates $100K to the opera because they enjoy attending opera $1M worth. It's absurd to accuse any opera organization of assuming that. Someone buys a ticket to the opera for $100 because they enjoy attending opera >$100 worth. They donate $100K because they want other people to enjoy opera, or for personal advertising purposes, not charitable social purposes.
  - jwarden 1y ago
    > Do you have any evidence that these supposed assumptions exist? By existing, so you mean “hold in reality?” The point of the article is that the assumption that underly QF do not hold in reality.
    - andrewflnr 1y ago
      I believe they were asking for evidence that (significant numbers of) people hold those assumptions.
      - TJSomething 1y ago
nyeah 1y ago
I don't think you're distinguishing consistently or clearly between the OP and the theory being examined in the OP.
- nkmnz 1y ago
  Maybe. It would help if the author were consistently distinguishing between his own assumptions and those he's examining, e.g.: > that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize Who is "we"? I read it as "the author applying the assumptions of QF", yet the whole point he makes there in the name of QF would contradict the previous statement of his that "QF assumes that all utility is direct utility".
FabHK 1y ago
If you haven't heard of the topic of the article before, why do you impugn the article then? From your comment it seems like you can't distinguish what the QF proposal is assuming (and the author is criticizing as unrealistic) from claims of the author. The author makes no statement about the utility of enjoying the arts vs the utility of saving lives. They're making up hypothetical examples with specific properties that demonstrate problems with QF.
- nkmnz 1y ago
  Sorry to say, but your observation is wrong. They do make explicit statements about the utility of enjoying the arts: > They each expect to experience €6,000,000 worth of individual utility from enjoying the additional €9,000,000 of art. > Net social welfare: > Total Utility = 3 × €6,000,000 = €18,000,000 ...just to go ahead and to deny any relevancy of the utility of saved lives: > the three contributors don’t experience that utility (other than feeling good about those lives being saved, but that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize).

by nkmnz 1y ago

refulgentis 1y ago

I'm confused, aren't those flaws the article is pointing out, not claims the article is making?

em-bee 1y ago
the article claims that a contributor to art benefits from enjoying the art and a contributor to cancer research doesn't (except for feeling good), and therefore quadratic funding would favor art contributions and disfavor cancer research contributions. GP claims (and i agree) that contributors to cancer research do benefit beyond feeling good. eg because they, or someone they care about might have or get cancer later and benefit from the research. the challenge is that measuring benefit is hard.
zoogeny 1y ago
I read it as claims the article was making. I too was confused, but perhaps that is just the communication? I think the article was going for a comparison between extrinsic motivation (which they seem to claim the original quadratic funding requires) and intrinsic motivation. It seems they just chose a poor example. The article attempts to quantize the expected reward for the extrinsic motivation ("They each expect to experience €6,000,000 worth of individual utility") while it fails to quantize the expected reward for the intrinsic motivation ("But in the selfish scenario, total utility is 3 times higher, because the utility is experienced independently by each contributor, whereas utility of saved lives is experienced only once by each of the cancer patients). I believe, it has to do with their narrow conception of "experience". I don't know how any rational person could expect to "experience" €6,000,000 worth of art as my first criticism. Now, it would be fair to say that the implication that the wealthy benefactors expect that experience could be seen as a criticism of quadratic funding. But to roll with that ludicrous expectation for the sake of argument and then to fail to give a similar expectation of reward from the experience of saving 60 lives is not a fair argument. If I can "imagine" the benefactor expecting €6,000,000 worth of experience for knowing the art is on display at the local museum, I could "imagine" the benefactor expecting some non-zero-euro amount of experience for knowing 60 people survived cancer. If we quantify the "experience" in euros for the first scenario, it seems unfair not to quantify the "experience" for the second scenario. In this case it is about being consistent in argument, which the article fails to do.
gowld 1y ago
The article sets up (1) a straw man (2) with impossible to measure numbers. The author acknowledges the second fundamental flaw in the whole enterprise, but not the first.
- jwarden 1y ago
  What straw man? The assumptions underlying the theory of QF are spelled out cleanly in the original QF paper. The article is just enumerating these assumptions and showing they don't hold in reality. The numbers in the example are indeed impossible to measure. But QF is claiming *optimality* -- that it maximizes social welfare -- when certain assumptions hold. To show that QF does not maximize social welfare when these assumptions don't hold, it suffices to show a single hypothetical counterexample.
  - nkmnz 1y ago
    I don't hold any cards in the game - if QF is bollocks, so be it, I couldn't care less. The reasons why I've commented are: 1) the article does a really bad job at using words that matter to me, like "utility". If any theory – QF or OPs own line of thought – tells me that funding cancer research doesn't have utility for the person funding it, that theory is BS. I don't need a badly made up hypothetical counterexample for this. 2) The author contradicts themselves: "QF assumes that all utility is direct utility, benefiting the contributor only." – but then they go on and calculate the utility of spending money on saving lives not based on the utility of the contributors, because "that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize" (btw, who is "we"!?), but based on some arbitrary made-up value and number of saved lives.
    - imtringued 1y ago
      Actually, everything you complain about is highly irrelevant. It can't be overstated how irrelevant your objection is. > (other than feeling good about those lives being saved, but that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize). Your interpretation of this statement is that the contributors have a fixed marginal utility for every single dollar, so that they will consider the situation where they spend $1,000,000 per live saved to be superior to the situation where they spend $100,000. In other words, you're saying that welfare is a veblen good for the donor. The author makes the argument that the mere act of spending more money to save lives is not the type of utility we should strive for to maximize social welfare. Your utility in question is not about feeling good about saving people regardless of cost, it's about feeling good about saving people, precisely because it costs money and you personally spent money to do it. By the way, why is that "your utility"? Why am I putting words in your mouth? Because you're disagreeing with the author and therefore necessarily put yourself at odds with the authors objection to the first interpretation. Hence you must necessarily agree with it, otherwise you're just trolling and that would be uncharitable of me to accuse you of. So, yes, you must have mistakenly chosen the silly interpretation.

jwarden 1y ago

> accepting the social and individual utility of enjoying the arts, but denying any such utility for enjoying the saved lives But in the part of the article you quoted above, the author (me) specifically acknowledges the utility of enjoying saved lives. But this is a critique of the quadratic funding mechanism, which is a public goods funding mechanism meant to maximize the utility each individual independently derives from enjoying public good. The whole point of the article is to critique this assumption -- to point out that people's motives are sometimes altruistic (they derive utility just from knowing other people benefit), but the optimality of QF assumes this vicarious utility does not exist. As the article states "When individuals make contributions for purely altruistic reasons, they don’t directly experience the utility themselves. And yet the optimality of QF assumes that all utility is direct utility, benefiting the contributor only."

gowld 1y ago
Do you have any evidence that these supposed assumptions exist? No one donates $100K to the opera because they enjoy attending opera $1M worth. It's absurd to accuse any opera organization of assuming that. Someone buys a ticket to the opera for $100 because they enjoy attending opera >$100 worth. They donate $100K because they want other people to enjoy opera, or for personal advertising purposes, not charitable social purposes.
- jwarden 1y ago
  > Do you have any evidence that these supposed assumptions exist? By existing, so you mean “hold in reality?” The point of the article is that the assumption that underly QF do not hold in reality.
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    I believe they were asking for evidence that (significant numbers of) people hold those assumptions.
    - TJSomething 1y ago

nyeah 1y ago

I don't think you're distinguishing consistently or clearly between the OP and the theory being examined in the OP.

nkmnz 1y ago
Maybe. It would help if the author were consistently distinguishing between his own assumptions and those he's examining, e.g.: > that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize Who is "we"? I read it as "the author applying the assumptions of QF", yet the whole point he makes there in the name of QF would contradict the previous statement of his that "QF assumes that all utility is direct utility".

FabHK 1y ago

If you haven't heard of the topic of the article before, why do you impugn the article then? From your comment it seems like you can't distinguish what the QF proposal is assuming (and the author is criticizing as unrealistic) from claims of the author. The author makes no statement about the utility of enjoying the arts vs the utility of saving lives. They're making up hypothetical examples with specific properties that demonstrate problems with QF.

nkmnz 1y ago
Sorry to say, but your observation is wrong. They do make explicit statements about the utility of enjoying the arts: > They each expect to experience €6,000,000 worth of individual utility from enjoying the additional €9,000,000 of art. > Net social welfare: > Total Utility = 3 × €6,000,000 = €18,000,000 ...just to go ahead and to deny any relevancy of the utility of saved lives: > the three contributors don’t experience that utility (other than feeling good about those lives being saved, but that’s not the kind of utility we’re trying to maximize).