Abraham Thomas@athomasq·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @zem42@zem42 @vgr but in this case we're not supporting art, we're supporting a bottled-water, fancy coffee, artistic snowflake lifestyle.11
Venkatesh Rao@vgr·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @athomasq@athomasq @zem42 Am wary of judging others' consumption. I support via market mechs on merits of the output. What they do with $ not my biz11
Abraham Thomas@athomasq·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @vgr@vgr @zem42 Precisely! I think this is my view in a nutshell.1
zem@zem42·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @athomasq@athomasq @vgr i dislike that view because it means the production end optimises for popularity. i do agree other strats have impl. issues.2
Abraham Thomas@athomasq·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @zem42@zem42 @vgr saying "implementation issues" skips the crux. markets are the worst form of resource alloc ever devised, except for all others.31
zem@zem42·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @athomasq@athomasq @vgr markets right now seem to be suffering both from perverse incentives towards artificial scarcity and rich-get-richer effects4
Abraham Thomas@athomasq·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @zem42@zem42 @vgr *strongly* disagree on artificial scarcity. we live in an age of abundance. 2nd point is valid; rich do get richer. rentiers.21
zem@zem42·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @athomasq@athomasq @vgr we also live in an age where we produce enough food for everyone but not everyone gets it.1
Venkatesh Rao@vgr·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @zem42@zem42 @athomasq Also: food aid = subsidies to warlord kleptocracies. If there's better way to distro food than markets, we haven't found it1
zem@zem42·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @vgr@vgr @athomasq yes, but that doesn't mean the market isn't patently suboptimal too. food goes waste and people starve => something lacking.1
Venkatesh Rao@vgrReplying to @zem42@zem42 @athomasq What space of mechs are you defining your "optimium" over. It's also a tragedy that most sunlight in earth's nbhd is wasted8:13 PM · Jul 27, 2015
Venkatesh Rao@vgr·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @vgr@zem42 @athomasq Analytical issue is the non-constructive (in math sense) existence claims of better mechs based on "visible waste" proofs1
zem@zem42·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @vgr@vgr @athomasq here is qn: does "i would rather no one gets this than that you get it free" count as artificial scarcity and/or perverse?1
Venkatesh Rao@vgr·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @zem42@zem42 @athomasq Depends on meaning of "gets." Can of worms, esp with food. How does anything "get" from source to sink? Maersk largesse?2
zem@zem42·Jul 27, 2015Replying to @vgr@vgr @athomasq corps gambling on charging high for things w/ low incremental cost to recoup high dev cost seems globally suboptimal to me