"No atheists in foxholes" seems to confirm that theory.
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Replying to @robinhanson
> main gain from religion is to help deal with stressful situations that happen a lot more to the poor. "main"? Evidence doesn't support that. "Marginal" ? Yes.
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Replying to @MorlockP @robinhanson
Can you tell this in small-brain words for me?
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Replying to @VectorOfBasis @robinhanson
Robin has said "as X declines, Y declines". I agree. He has just described behavior "at the margin". Basically "slope of the curve at the area being studied".https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/College/margins.html …
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Replying to @MorlockP @robinhanson
So TL;DR when economists say "at the margin" they mean derivative of some function?
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Replying to @VectorOfBasis @robinhanson
this is maybe, yes, my view, but
@robinhanson is an economist, and I'm just a hobo farmer LARPing on the internet, so I bow to Robin's definition (if he offers one)1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @MorlockP @robinhanson
(Screen from the link you provided.) So margin ~slope. But how does it work in the case of religion, as you wrote? What properties would some quantity have to be considered as the main benefit of religion - this I think I understand. But what's the marginal benefit of religion?pic.twitter.com/A50SXsRlvZ
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Replying to @VectorOfBasis @robinhanson
I suggest that there can be different marginal benefits, at different points on the curve, or perhaps on the membrane (in a multi dimensional space). One benefit might be military unit cohesion, another might be reducing anxiety from poverty, a third might be crime reduction. >
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so if Robin is looking at a slice through N space where the axis is wealth, he might see that at THIS point on the membrane, marginal wealth decreases religiosity and, yes, here on the curve, the marginal value of religion is poverty anxiety reduction
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but perhaps a different slice through the state space, comparing two cultures of equal wealth but different amounts of foreign raiders and warlords, we might find that the marginal value of religion is small unit cohesion
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and it would be wrong in the first example to move from "marginal value" to "MAIN value", and it would be wrong in the second example to move from "marginal value" to "MAIN value"
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