Voting VS Spending

[Xerographica]

Then you're asserting the purest sort of elitism, where those with the money make the rules, and fuck everyone else.  Again, that's explicitly and entirely opposed to the notion of 'public will'.

You're assuming that, if we conduct my proposed experiment, enough people will recognize that the spending ranking is better than the voting ranking.  It's rather bizarre for you to assume this, given how much time and energy you've allocated to arguing that voting is clearly better than spending. 

Regarding elitism... this isn't what I am asserting.  But even if it was, what I care about are results.  Deng Xiaoping is my hero.  He went around saying that it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.  If albinos or AIs or aliens come up with the best rankings then so be it.  Right now I am not really happy with the current rankings.  I'm sure that you've heard of the Kardashians... I'm not at all sure that you've heard of John Quiggin or Andrew Gelman or Cait Lamberton or Joseph Henrich or or or or... it's a long list. 

Society's limited and valuable attention is being severely misallocated, and I'm pretty sure it's primarily because of voting on Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Reddit, Google and and and and... it's a long list.  Given how many different things are ranked by voting... I figure it's a really good idea to conduct an experiment to directly compare voting and spending. 

[trdsf]

I assume no such thing.  I have given evidence why your proposed system cannot work, and you have yet to provide the slightest shred of contradictory evidence other than to bleat "but but but I don't think so!"

Funnyâ€"but predictableâ€"how you completely ignore this:

No, what you're saying is that a new $50,000 Mercedes or 50 used $1000 Yugos are better than a $30,000 Cadillac for no reason more than that it costs more, and that under your system you'd have to judge the one Mercedes and the 50 Yugos as identical.

You're measuring nothing that has anything to do with public will.

The fact that you would be forced to value one Mercedes and fifty Yugos identically under your system demonstrates that it doesn't measure anything.

[Xerographica]

I assume no such thing.  I have given evidence why your proposed system cannot work, and you have yet to provide the slightest shred of contradictory evidence other than to bleat "but but but I don't think so!"

The picture you paint doesn't strike me as a very accurate depiction of our exchange.  I've shared the relevant thoughts of three Nobel economists and numerous other highly respected thinkers.  Can you name even one prominent thinker that you have shared in our discussion?  Do you think I'm simply supposed to take your word over theirs? 

I've done my homework, which is how it's really easy for me to tell that you have not.  Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, this has turned into a pissing contest.  Right now we are in adversarial mode rather than in collaborative and cooperative mode. 

Speaking of collaboration and cooperation... Vitalik Buterin and Glen Weyl recently joined forces to use Ethereum to test Quadratic Voting (QV).  QV is a hybrid between voting and spending.   Basically, you can buy as many votes as you want, but the more you buy, the more expensive they become.

One particular example of a possible area for collaboration, and which illustrates some of the challenges involved, is the use of QV to address the substantial governance problems blockchain-based communities have faced. There have been many attempts to use votes to gauge community sentiment when deciding on potentially controversial protocol changes, but so far they have been criticized either for being too vulnerable to manipulation by sockpuppets (fake accounts) and malicious voting by non-community-members or for being too skewed toward reflecting the views of a small group of wealthy coin holders. Some form of QV could present a moderate alternative, as participants’ differing strength of views and stake in the community are taken account, but because the cost of buying many votes quickly becomes prohibitive (1000 votes would cost 1,000,000 credits) the ability for a small elite to disproportionately affect outcomes is limited. - Vitalik Buterin and Glen Weyl, Liberation Through Radical Decentralization

This is perfectly relevant to our discussion.  So why didn't you share it?  Obviously you weren't aware of it.

The reason why it's so easy to overlook important things is because all our perspectives are very limited.  However, our perspectives aren't equally limited, which is why it's so beneficial to know the group's perspective.  The question is whether the group's perspective is more effectively revealed by voting or spending.  I'm guessing that spending is far more effective than voting... but I could be wrong. 

If I'm wrong, then my proposed experiment would help prove this.  It would demonstrate that voting is more effective than spending. 

Vitalik Buterin and Glen Weyl are working together to test an alternative to voting and spending.  Personally, I think QV is better than voting and worse than spending... but I could be wrong.  What matters though is that those two guys are collaborating to actually test a ranking system. 

You and I theoretically could set our differences aside and help test whether voting or spending is better.  Or, we could simply continue with our pissing contest.  Personally I prefer collaboration and cooperation.   

[trdsf]

Bull.  You attack things I haven't said, and dodge direct statements that point out fatal flaws in your proposal.  Like this very simple one:

Funnyâ€"but predictableâ€"how you completely ignore this:

No, what you're saying is that a new $50,000 Mercedes or 50 used $1000 Yugos are better than a $30,000 Cadillac for no reason more than that it costs more, and that under your system you'd have to judge the one Mercedes and the 50 Yugos as identical.

You're measuring nothing that has anything to do with public will.

The fact that you would be forced to value one Mercedes and fifty Yugos identically under your system demonstrates that it doesn't measure anything.

And of course, you went right back to whining "but but but just run it anyway!"

Well, I don't run this site, so I don't decide that, but *if* asked my advice, I would say this is one of the sloppiest, most poorly thought out, least supported models I have seen in a very long time, and I wouldn't support running it if you paid me.  It needs considerable revision to the model, the methodology, and the underlying explanation.

Your fundamental premise, that spending represents public will better than actual public will represents public will, is falsified prima facie.

You are incapable of responding to direct statements without resorting to either non sequiturs, straw men, or just variations on "Nuh-uh!"

It would be a greater waste of my time to try to fix as completely broken an idea as you present here than it would be to continue what you call a 'pissing contest'.  It could have been a conversation if you didn't have this near-religious obsession with dollars über alles.  Do what you will; since you refuse to even countenance the idea that maybe, just maybe you could take a second look at what you're doing, I have better things to do than waste my time with bad theories, broken models, and just plain bullshit.

[Cavebear]

I have filled in that blank multiple times this thread, and you know I have.  You just refuse to address the issues I have raised and for you to pull this stunt now simply confirms that you're a dishonest debater.  You don't see what you don't want to see, which is what makes this exercise exactly like debating a creationist.

I have been perfectly clear what my objections to your thesis, assumptions and methodology are.

The problem with debating dishonest debaters is that they will stay dishonest regardless of any facts presented to them.  Not that I won't also throw facts at them.  But I think it is important to realize that your target audience is not the dishonest debaters but the people who read the posts.  They may agree with you, and that is all that really matters.   

[Baruch]

The problem with debating dishonest debaters is that they will stay dishonest regardless of any facts presented to them.  Not that I won't also throw facts at them.  But I think it is important to realize that your target audience is not the dishonest debaters but the people who read the posts.  They may agree with you, and that is all that really matters.

Totally disagree with you ;-)  Having people agree with you is great if you are running for office ... or are a manager of sheeple.

Also don't presume that Xero is dishonest ... he seems obsessive-compulsive to me.  If we were speaking to him, I would say he is mostly deaf, but we are texting, so maybe mostly blind?

There are no honest debates.  One shows up to a knife fight with a gun, and the guy with a gun wins!  It is about power, not about truth.  You can't handle the truth, no monkey can.

[Xerographica]

Trdsf, have you ever tried Modelo Negra?  The other day my neighbor gave me one and it was the first time that I tried it.  It was pretty good.  My neighbors, friends and family as a group have collectively tried a much greater variety of beers than I have tried.  The same is true of the members of this forum. 

Imagine if we all used voting and donating to rank beers.  Would the voting ranking and the donating ranking be the same?  Probably not.  They would probably be pretty different so naturally most of us are going to prefer one of the rankings more than the other.  If you prefer the voting ranking then this will confirm your belief that voting is better than spending.  If, on the other hand, you prefer the spending ranking then this will contradict your belief that voting is better than spending. 

This experiment would simply facilitate a direct comparison of voting and spending.  That's really all it needs to do in order for each one of us to decide for ourselves whether voting or spending is better. 

Yesterday, like many days, I allocated my attention to the Crooked Timber blog, where I found this blog entry, which directed my attention to this article...

Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life: An antidote to chaos was born as an answer to a question posed on the internet discussion forum Quora: “What are the most valuable things everyone should know?” Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, proposed a list of maxims, which became popular with Quora users. As Peterson tells us in his book’s introduction (“Overture”), the list received 120,000 views and 2,300 “upvotes”. “My procrastination-induced musings hit a nerve. I had written a 99.9 percentile answer.” “You win Quora. We can just close the site now”, read one comment, as recounted by Peterson. - Kate Manne, Reconsider the lobster

What difference would it have made if Quora used spending instead of voting to rank/prioritize answers? Would Peterson's answer still have been so highly ranked? Would he still have written his book? Would Kate Manne still have allocated her attention to reading and reviewing it? Would I still have directed your attention to Crooked Timber's blog entry and Manne's review?

You have this belief that voting is better than spending at allocating everybody's valuable attention.  I believe that the opposite is true.  My proposed experiment would test our beliefs.  Clearly you don't think that my experiment would do a good job of testing your belief.  But what experiment would do a good job of testing your belief?  If you don't test your belief then how can you be sure that it isn't bullshit? 

From my perspective, all I need for my belief to be tested is to see a direct comparison of voting and spending.  If the voting ranking is better than the spending ranking, then this would falsify my belief that spending is better than voting. 

What, if anything, would falsify your belief that voting is better than spending? 

[Xerographica]

Totally disagree with you ;-)  Having people agree with you is great if you are running for office ... or are a manager of sheeple.

Also don't presume that Xero is dishonest ... he seems obsessive-compulsive to me.  If we were speaking to him, I would say he is mostly deaf, but we are texting, so maybe mostly blind?

There are no honest debates.  One shows up to a knife fight with a gun, and the guy with a gun wins!  It is about power, not about truth.  You can't handle the truth, no monkey can.

Naturally I don't personally perceive that I am a dishonest debater.  I honestly and genuinely don't understand trdsf's strenuous objection to my proposed experiment.  Why in the world does he so strongly oppose a direct comparison of voting and spending? 

[Baruch]

Naturally I don't personally perceive that I am a dishonest debater.  I honestly and genuinely don't understand trdsf's strenuous objection to my proposed experiment.  Why in the world does he so strongly oppose a direct comparison of voting and spending?

You implicitly challenge his politics.  I don't presume to take you as a political opponent.  There are actual philosophers who do full time research on voting/preference systems.  And there is "Experimental Philosophy".  You might be both of those, who knows?

I don't take your hobby as of great interest, but don't take that personally.  People would be bored with mine too.

[Cavebear]

What difference would it have made if Quora used spending instead of voting to rank/prioritize answers? Would Peterson's answer still have been so highly ranked? Would he still have written his book? Would Kate Manne still have allocated her attention to reading and reviewing it? Would I still have directed your attention to Crooked Timber's blog entry and Manne's review?

You have this belief that voting is better than spending at allocating everybody's valuable attention.  I believe that the opposite is true.  My proposed experiment would test our beliefs.  Clearly you don't think that my experiment would do a good job of testing your belief.  But what experiment would do a good job of testing your belief?  If you don't test your belief then how can you be sure that it isn't bullshit? 

From my perspective, all I need for my belief to be tested is to see a direct comparison of voting and spending.  If the voting ranking is better than the spending ranking, then this would falsify my belief that spending is better than voting. 

What, if anything, would falsify your belief that voting is better than spending?

Spending is defined as wealth.  Voting is defined as "one person, one vote", not "one dollar one vote". 

Your obvious assumption is that wealthy peoples' votes SHOULD could more than "one person, one vote".  Congratulations on joining TrumpWorld...

[trdsf]

The problem with debating dishonest debaters is that they will stay dishonest regardless of any facts presented to them.  Not that I won't also throw facts at them.  But I think it is important to realize that your target audience is not the dishonest debaters but the people who read the posts.  They may agree with you, and that is all that really matters.

Like I said before, it's like trying to have a debate with a creationist; I think we've found the Ken Ham of plutocracy.  Many of his 'arguments' (such that they were) were just as faith-based.

But there's only so long one can bash one's head against a brick wall before it starts getting pointless, and his diversion, distraction, doubletalk and dishonesty have reached the stage where it's just not worth the energy input anymore.  For any readers that I may have, anything further would be needless repetition of the same thing, in the desperate and forlorn hope that one byte of data just might slip past his fingers and into his ears.

Besides, if he can't grasp that his system can't differentiate between 10,000 people giving $1 each and one person giving $10,000 (nor can it differentiate between 10,000 people wanting to participate but being unable to because of resources, and 10,000 people just not giving a rat's ass) and that means he can never know what exactly he's measuring other than raw dollars... well, I don't have enough Bondo to fix that big a dent.  I'll just call it totaled and move on to more fruitful pursuits.

[Cavebear]

Like I said before, it's like trying to have a debate with a creationist; I think we've found the Ken Ham of plutocracy.  Many of his 'arguments' (such that they were) were just as faith-based.

But there's only so long one can bash one's head against a brick wall before it starts getting pointless, and his diversion, distraction, doubletalk and dishonesty have reached the stage where it's just not worth the energy input anymore.  For any readers that I may have, anything further would be needless repetition of the same thing, in the desperate and forlorn hope that one byte of data just might slip past his fingers and into his ears.

Besides, if he can't grasp that his system can't differentiate between 10,000 people giving $1 each and one person giving $10,000 (nor can it differentiate between 10,000 people wanting to participate but being unable to because of resources, and 10,000 people just not giving a rat's ass) and that means he can never know what exactly he's measuring other than raw dollars... well, I don't have enough Bondo to fix that big a dent.  I'll just call it totaled and move on to more fruitful pursuits.

Remember that your target audience is not Xerographica, but the unseen ones who read these posts.  I do have to remind myself of that sometimes too.

[Xerographica]

Spending is defined as wealth.  Voting is defined as "one person, one vote", not "one dollar one vote". 

Your obvious assumption is that wealthy peoples' votes SHOULD could more than "one person, one vote".  Congratulations on joining TrumpWorld...

My hypothesis is that voting elevates trash while spending elevates treasure.  Let's say that this forum used voting and donating to rank beers.  Which ranking would you prefer? 

[Cavebear]

My hypothesis is that voting elevates trash while spending elevates treasure.  Let's say that this forum used voting and donating to rank beers.  Which ranking would you prefer?

You are obsessed with that analogy.  Was it used on Fox TV?

But even if all your thoughts are your own, your thinking condemns you to an elitism of the worst kind.  Your "more dollars" mean you are somehow more important than I am. 

BTW, how rich are you?  How many $1 votes do you command?  Fess up...

[trdsf]

Remember that your target audience is not Xerographica, but the unseen ones who read these posts.  I do have to remind myself of that sometimes too.

But it should be him too, and it's frustrating when the wall of faith goes up and the fingers go in the ears and the eyes close and all the response you get may as well be a loop of tape.  I mean, he's saying to you exactly the same thing he said to me, as if changing prominent atheists or cars to beer without actually changing the argument makes the argument valid.  I know you have more patience than I doâ€"but I will say good luck anyway.

And I'll admit, I don't have a lot of time or respect for libertarianism, which is a fine philosophy to have if you're a college professor/student or think-tank member or some other person who doesn't have to interact much with the real world if they don't want to.