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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5270 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for April 2023

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.

These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful. Here we go:

Quality Contributions to the Main Motte

@ymeskhout:

@gattsuru:

@johnfabian:

Contributions for the week of April 3, 2023

@Soriek:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@grendel-khan:

@ymeskhout:

Recognition Diplomacy

@naraburns:

@07mk:

@FiveHourMarathon:

Contributions for the week of April 10, 2023

@HlynkaCG:

@TracingWoodgrains:

@FlyingLionWithABook:

@Soriek:

@RandomRanger:

Transitive Reasoning

@Lewyn:

@self_made_human:

@roystgnr:

@RandomRanger:

@TracingWoodgrains:

Contributions for the week of April 17, 2023

@gattsuru:

@ControlsFreak:

@faul_sname:

Identity Politics

@throwawaygendertheorist:

@RenOS:

@SophisticatedHillbilly:

@FCfromSSC:

Contributions for the week of April 24, 2023

@naraburns:

@faul_sname:

@Dean:

@self_made_human:

Discriminating Taste

@RenOS:

@Unsaying:

@Esperanza:

@FCfromSSC:

@MonkeyWithAMachinegun:

@laxam:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

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We can say that we prefer it when gains from trade are divided as evenly as possible, but there is nothing morally wrong about selling something for a price that a customer is willing to freely pay.

I'm quite skeptical of this statement, at least at the margins. Trade is pretty clearly give-and-take negotiation, and it's not obvious to me why the economics which emerge from such interactions should set their roots all the way down to the level of fundamental moral axioms. If I'm dying of thirst in a desert, and someone offers to sell me a bottle of water for 90% of all my future earnings, and I have a handgun, I am going to get water and they are maybe going to get dead. They didn't care much for my life, after all, so why should I care much for theirs?

The fact that negotiated trade works well in low-pressure environments doesn't mean that it's infallible. It works because it's so much easier and better than the alternatives that there's not much contest, not because it's one of the basic building-blocks of the universe. Deform conditions to the point that it's not easier and better than the alternatives, and people will switch. Expecting otherwise is simply foolish.

All this is to say that trades can be imbalanced, and there are levels of imbalance that undermine confidence in the win-win nature of trading. This isn't much of an issue under normal conditions, but rampant AI isn't normal conditions.

Trade is pretty clearly give-and-take negotiation, and it's not obvious to me why the economics which emerge from such interactions should set their roots all the way down to the level of fundamental moral axioms.

That was kind of my point. Saying that someone has a right to an even share of the gains from trade is making a moral statement. It's saying that anything other than an even share is morally wrong, a violation of someone's rights. It's not.

All this is to say that trades can be imbalanced, and there are levels of imbalance that undermine confidence in the win-win nature of trading.

If its not win-win, then don't make the trade. Like your bottle of water example: given I have a gun, I wouldn't make that trade. Would you make that trade? Certainly not. My point is, if you willingly take a trade (and no fraud is involved, you know what you're trading for and you get what you expect) then the person trading with you has not done anything wrong.

The difference is in monopoly scenarios, which is kind of the root of the problem. If the desert man engineered the situation in which you are dying of thirst then I'd say they did something wrong. The reason someone isn't already selling the product at marginal cost is monopoly power, so when the monopolist comes around and only demands 5000% of the marginal cost instead of 10000% it's maybe not as generous as it seems.

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