This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Hypothetical scenario: the San Francisco Homeless Union approaches the Motte with a unique offer. We have the opportunity to trade with the homeless of SF; moreover, we've gotten a special dispensation from the government to allow us to trade with them without any regulations around wages etc. They've also been cut off from any direct government services. Although the homeless are far less effective than us at creating both widgets and symbols, this is our chance to use the principle of comparative advantage to benefit all the involved parties. We appoint you CEO: what do you do and how do we make a profit?
Answer: you run and we don't. Economic organization works by embedding information into the structure of the organization so that humans don't need to worry about it, but that requires abstraction. The leakier the abstraction, the less effective the organization, to the point where it becomes unprofitable as the costs to manage the leakiness outrun any possible economic value created. Actual existing homeless people can't provide a reliable enough labor abstraction to create any economic value.
Comparative advantage might always exist mathematically, but whether it results in trade depends on the costs of the trade. In my homeless example, there are management costs; the reason I don't hire a maid living in Manila to do my housework is (mostly) travel costs; and a hypothetical GAI wouldn't want to trade with humans if including us in its economic organization created more costs than economic value. (Granted, it would be better at designing systems to minimize those costs than humans currently are.)
This isn't a counterexample to comparative advantage. It's true that the opportunity cost of using resources to employ the homeless people can exceed the expected benefits, but that's still ranking according to opportunity cost: the opportunity cost of their employment relative to other uses of those resources.
I actually mentioned an example of such non-trades in the post you replied to:
Notice that this can happen for all sorts of reasons other than GAI, and the huge absolute advantage of the GAI does not create the non-trades.
To repeat, the law of comparative advantage doesn't mean that everyone gets employed. It means that rational people use their resources on the basis of an opportunity cost ranking, rather than an absolute advantage basis.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link