Voting VS Spending

[trdsf]

First off, this isn't my forum.  It's up to the owner to decide whether or not to conduct my experiment.  Secondly, you might be right that the experiment will not provide any insight into the difference between voting and donating.  Then again, you might be wrong.

You have fundamental flaws in methodology, in assumptions, and in goals.  It's not that I might be wrong -- I might well be -- but you need to go back to the drawing board and re-think what you want to accomplish.  You have completely and repeatedly failed to address the flaws I have pointed out.  Shall I assume that you either accept my analyses, or that you cannot refute them and won't admit it?

I have shown you the errors you've made.  Simply asserting that I might be wrong, or just ignoring them, does not fix the flaws in your proposal.  Fixing them is not my job, and you certainly won't get me to agree to them in their current state.

It's true that giving your money to Moore doesn't eliminate your right to speak for yourself, but it does, or should, diminish your volume/influence.  You want to increase Moore's influence without sacrificing any of your own.  Well yeah, but no. 

Let's say that, before you give Moore your $20 dollars, you have him sign a contract that stipulates he won't spend any of that money to influence the rankings of skeptics.  Then that's perfectly fine.  Sure it's strange... but if both of you agree to this limitation on his influence... then so be it.  While you're at it though... why not also stipulate that he not be permitted to spend any of your money on hookers and cocaine?  Or perhaps it would be easier if you simply made a list of all the things that you would permit him to spend your money on. 

If the owner of this forum agrees to conduct my proposed experiment... and you end up donating $100... perhaps you could inform the owner that you only allow him to spend your $100 to help maintain and improve this forum.  This way, you really don't have to worry about him donating the $100 dollars to the NRA.

This may not be the most delusional thing I've ever heard, but it bids fair for the title.

What you're talking about here would grind all commerce to a screaming halt as every person or organization in business would be forced to negotiate individual contracts with every single individual customer.  This isn't the bleeding edge of extreme economic libertarianism, it leaps blithely over the edge and falls off screaming.

I simply cannot fathom where you get the idea that my decision to spend money necessarily must mean either increasing someone else's influence, or surrendering some of my own.  I am forced to conclude that in your world, money is the only thing, and that reason, logic and evidence all must bow before almighty Mammon.


Lastly, are you ever going to directly address the specific flaws I have pointed out in your proposal, or are you just going to ignore them again and go "but but but run the experiment anyway"?  Because if that's all you have, we're done, I have no more time that I care to waste on someone who can't be bothered to argue their own case with anything more than "but you might be wrong!"  Whether or not I'm right about voting has nothing to do with the flaws that I have pointed out in your position.

Since you've ignored them again, here they are in brief:

I can't know exactly how valuable $100 dollars is to you

AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHY YOUR SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK.  I can't make it any clearer than you just made it yourself.

It's true that a billionaire can drop thousands of dollars at no personal expense.  A billionaire certainly can donate $10,000 to this forum in order to influence the donating rankings.

That completely destroys its ability to reliably measure actual demand because it can be overridden on the whim of one or two people.  It doesn't matter at all whether it will happen, it's that it can happen that destroys your "experiment".

You're asserting A is superior to B.  You're going to run simultaneous trials of A and B.  And then you're going to use B to measure whether A is accurate, when one of your assumptions is that B is less accurate than A.

Do you genuinely not see the flaw here?

You continue to fail to address the problem of resources.  A billionaire can drop thousands of dollars at no meaningful personal expense, while it would be difficult for me to spare $100 -- you keep talking about 'cost' but the costs are absolutely not the same, relative to the donor.  That $100 costs me a lot more than those thousands cost a billionaire, but your system does not account for that.

You're simply not measuring what you think you're measuring.  The fact that one person with high resources can come in and completely change your results based on nothing more than their own resources negates your entire argument that you're measuring public preferences.

You have not refuted any of the points I have brought up:

• that finance-based preference distorts rather than reveals public intent;
• that making public preference subject to the whims of individual and group resources thwarts public will rather than clarifies it;
• that when money isn't a significant factor, public intent is better revealed; and
• that it is possible to allow weighted preferences without tying it to individual resources.

I will further posit the following:

• Weighting votes to personal resources is explicitly anti-democratic since it allows a small handful of individual with large resources to completely overwhelm the majority;
• No amount of money validates a poorly-reasoned position; and
• No amount of money invalidates reliable evidence.

[Xerographica]

Trdsf, imagine that you're in a huge store with Michael Moore.  This store has everything.  You give $20 dollars to Moore and tell him that he can spend it on anything he wants, except for the goods marked "voting".  For example, he can spend his money on disaster relief (ie give it to the Red Cross)... but he can't spend his money to try and make prostitution legal.  The legality of prostitution is marked "voting". 

Does this story make sense to you?  It sure doesn't make any sense to me.  It reminds me of the Bible story about the Garden of Eden.  God told Adam that he could eat the fruits from all the trees in the garden... except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  This story never made any sense to me.  Why, exactly, was this particular fruit forbidden?  What, exactly, was the problem with Adam eating it and gaining knowledge of good and evil?  Obviously he got punished for eating it... but I never understood exactly why God didn't want Adam to eat it.  What was God's concern? 

For some reason you think it's beneficial to prevent Moore from spending his money to try and make prostitution legal.  But I have no idea why you think it's beneficial for this particular good.  Why should it be off-limits?  Perhaps you're sure that he'll spend the wrong amount of money on it?  But why would that be the case?  Why aren't you also sure that he'll spend the wrong amount of money on disaster relief?  Why do you trust his judgement when it comes to disaster relief, but distrust his judgement when it comes to the legality of prostitution? 

I said that I can't know how valuable $100 dollars is to you, and you replied that this is exactly why my system doesn't work.  But this really does not at all explain why you trust Moore when it comes to disaster relief but distrust him when it comes to the legality of prostitution. 

You also said that my system doesn't work because the results can be skewed by a few really rich people.  But this is just true for disaster relief as it is for the legalization of prostitution. 

So what's the explanation for your double standard? 

You say that there are fundamental flaws in my proposed experiment.  Yet, you initially opposed my experiment because you said that it was already being conducted.  This experiment that you think is being currently conducted is where you got your evidence that voting is better than donating.  So if, as you said, they are the same experiment... and mine is fundamentally flawed... it means that the current experiment is also fundamentally flawed... which would make your own evidence highly suspect.

[Baruch]

You are proposing an unenforcable contract.

With blockchain you get an un-deniable contract.  Enforcement is only for those things the government considers important to itself.

[trdsf]

Yup, we're done here.  You obviously can't defend your own position, you just try to argue against stuff I never said.  I refuse to have a debate with a dishonest disputant.

[Jason78]

Nothing would prevent the side with the most money from making things legal or illegal.

Don't you see a problem here?   If I own a coal mine and I use my money to make sure no one else can run a mining operation, then I've effectively secured a monopoly for myself and there's nothing the voting public can do about it.

[Baruch]

Don't you see a problem here?   If I own a coal mine and I use my money to make sure no one else can run a mining operation, then I've effectively secured a monopoly for myself and there's nothing the voting public can do about it.

Yes, divorce of economics from politics, is a delusion.  You can't have one with out the other.  So non-ideological use of money, is not really disinterested, it is just un-self-aware.

[Xerographica]

Don't you see a problem here?   If I own a coal mine and I use my money to make sure no one else can run a mining operation, then I've effectively secured a monopoly for myself and there's nothing the voting public can do about it.

How did you outspend the entire public?   What's your premise? 

A. The public didn't have enough money to outspend you (you're wealthier than the entire public). 
B. The public did have enough money to outspend you, but preferred to spend it on other things. 

Earlier in this thread I shared the following economics joke.  Two economists are walking along when they happen to end up in front of a Tesla showroom.  One economist points to a shiny new car and says, "I want that!"  The other economist replies, "You're lying." 

The premise is that the economist did have enough money to buy the car, but obviously he preferred to spend it on things that were more important to him. 

People's wants are unlimited.  Society's resources, however, are not.  In the absence of consumer choice, which is the same thing as consumer prioritization, society's limited resources aren't going to be put to their most valuable uses.  The inefficient allocation of society's limited resources doesn't truly benefit anybody.  Nobody really benefits when too much, or too little, money is spent on enforcing antitrust.  But only you can truly know just how important competition is to you. 

Also, when was the last time that you bought something directly from a mining company?  It's mostly companies that buy from mining companies.  Every company wants to be a monopoly, but no company wants to have to buy from a monopoly.  All the money that a company spends trying to become a monopoly is money that it can't spend trying to prevent other companies from becoming monopolies. 

My main point though is that the proof is in the pudding.  We can simply use voting and donating to rank prominent atheists.  If a few wealthy individuals mess up the donating rankings, then we'll have evidence that voting is better than donating.  There's a big problem when there's so much opposition to such a relatively simple and easy experiment that would raise money for this forum that we all use. 

[Baruch]

Citizenship is supposed to be democratic-socialist.  Each voter gets a 1-dollar vote per election.  What do you have against democratic-socialism?

[Xerographica]

Citizenship is supposed to be democratic-socialist.  Each voter gets a 1-dollar vote per election.  What do you have against democratic-socialism?

There isn't any evidence that voting is better than spending at ranking things.  Imagine if you lived in a society that regularly threw virgins into a volcano.  Would you have anything against this tradition?  If so, then what would you have against it? 

[Baruch]

There isn't any evidence that voting is better than spending at ranking things.  Imagine if you lived in a society that regularly threw virgins into a volcano.  Would you have anything against this tradition?  If so, then what would you have against it?

We have a tradition of eating and drinking ... have you stopped doing these superstitions?  Actually we regularly throw teenage virgins at each other in the US, both sexes.  No chaperones here ;-)

As far as voting being a ranking, you miss the point of elections.  Elections aren't about epistemology (finding out what the public thinks), they are acquiring the unforced consent of the sheeple to whatever diabolical stuff the owners have in mind (disguising a tax as national health insurance, or negative interest rates).  An illusion of participation is required.  I have been in a few participatory exercises, and they are exhausting and boring (1988 election).  It is no wonder that people kvetch about politics but don't do anything effective about it.  Study ancient Athens or Republican Rome, and you can see what politics is really about.

[Xerographica]

We have a tradition of eating and drinking ... have you stopped doing these superstitions?  Actually we regularly throw teenage virgins at each other in the US, both sexes.  No chaperones here ;-)

As far as voting being a ranking, you miss the point of elections.  Elections aren't about epistemology (finding out what the public thinks), they are acquiring the unforced consent of the sheeple to whatever diabolical stuff the owners have in mind (disguising a tax as national health insurance, or negative interest rates).  An illusion of participation is required.  I have been in a few participatory exercises, and they are exhausting and boring (1988 election).  It is no wonder that people kvetch about politics but don't do anything effective about it.  Study ancient Athens or Republican Rome, and you can see what politics is really about.

I hate politics, I really want it to be creatively destroyed by economics.  You haven't shared any thoughts on how differently voting and donating would rank prominent atheists.  Which ranking do you guess that you'd prefer... the voting ranking or the donating ranking? 

What if we used voting and donating to rank beers?  Which ranking do you think you'd prefer?  I'm pretty sure that the voting ranking of beers would simply show us the most popular beers... which might not necessarily be the most valuable beers. The donating ranking, on the other hand, would show us the most valuable beers... which might not necessarily be the most popular beers.  Does this make sense? 

[Jason78]

How did you outspend the entire public?   What's your premise? 

Because I own the only fricking coal mine in the country.   And with a monopoly secured I can make sure that no one can even approach the amount of money I have.   Even collectively.

[Xerographica]

Because I own the only fricking coal mine in the country.   And with a monopoly secured I can make sure that no one can even approach the amount of money I have.   Even collectively.

The higher the price of coal, the more sparingly it's used and the more incentive there is for entrepreneurs to find and develop alternative forms of energy.  Anyways, have you at all addressed my main point in this thread?  Rather than simply debating voting versus spending, we should conduct our own experiment to see how voting and donating rank prominent atheists.  Do you object to this experiment?

[Baruch]

I hate politics, I really want it to be creatively destroyed by economics.  You haven't shared any thoughts on how differently voting and donating would rank prominent atheists.  Which ranking do you guess that you'd prefer... the voting ranking or the donating ranking? 

What if we used voting and donating to rank beers?  Which ranking do you think you'd prefer?  I'm pretty sure that the voting ranking of beers would simply show us the most popular beers... which might not necessarily be the most valuable beers. The donating ranking, on the other hand, would show us the most valuable beers... which might not necessarily be the most popular beers.  Does this make sense?

Can the right hand destroy the left hand?  Yes, I have heard of futurists who think technology can solve our political problems (usually Internet voting schemes circa 2000).  The original liberal ideal was don't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing, and vice versa (secret ballots and no aristocracy fixing events).  Make politics and economics independent of each other.  But that policy has been a total failure.  It only works if there is no wealth in society for the wealthy to aggregate.  America temporarily got the aristocracy out of their business (yes Washington was a real estate speculator offended by the restrictions placed on pioneers going West of the Alleghenies).  The owners have rights, and they have a right to enslave their human property, even if there are more jobs to be done now than picking cotton.  People have no f***ing rights to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.  Get past all that powdered wig and wood/ivory dentures stuff.

[trdsf]

Anyways, have you at all addressed my main point in this thread?

Why?  You can't be bothered to address ours.