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 -
Do you want to incentivize people to make things or to buy things and hold them?
Ignoring that the prices are so high because you aeent allowed to make enough of them because those who are holding it are getting too high on their own supply to let it be any oher way.
The whole point of wealth creation is to have wealth. If we were less wealthy, we might produce more, but we'd necessarily be worse off.
Circular reasoning. Wealth is the things you have in absolute, not relative. Expensive assets is relative. We want more assets in total.
I'm not following you. The point of wealth is to be able to spend it on things. We produce things, then we have them, then we use them up. That use we get is why we worked to produce them. How is that circular reasoning?
You're saying that once we have things, we don't want to work as hard to produce more things, so we should have less stuff. But having less stuff defeats the purpose of producing it. The entire point is to have stuff we can use, not to produce it for the sake of producing.
I'm saying that wealth quite literally is having MORE things that we want. And more things implies cheaper, not more expensive.
This is a bad thing because it implies by definition we don't have enough assets. We are asset poor. Things that we truly are wealthy in and have an abundance of are cheap.
Wealth is measured in terms of what goods and services it can buy. Higher real asset prices have more purchasing power and make society richer, controlling for the quantity of those assets.
Asset prices can be high because the quantity of assets is low or because the demand for assets is high.
We are clearly in the second situation, and that's clearly what's implied by "asset pricing bubble", which is a good situation to be in. It raises the value of existing wealth, which increases our purchasing power and causes more wealth to be created.
How is society richer by having less of something?
Certain parts of society is richer, society as a whole no.
It's simple really society A has 5 assets and 10 services per capita, and society B has 4 assets and 10 services per capita, those assets and services are identical. Society A is wealthier. And You can exchange 2 services for 1 asset as opposed to 2.5 services for 1 asset in B.
Which society is richer again?
You are twisting economics in knots to sidestep the simple idea that "more is better".
I'm not sure where the misunderstanding is. By "controlling for the quantity of those assets", I mean that the quantity stays the same. So society wouldn't have less of anything.
There is no law of economics that says the total value of assets has to equal the quantity of goods and services produced in a given period.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link