Journal spun's Journal: Risk and Reward 17
The primary function of society is the sharing or mediation of risk and reward. Thoughts?
The primary function of society is the sharing or mediation of risk and reward. Thoughts?
Neutrinos have bad breadth.
Primary Function? (Score:1)
I
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When examining human societies, one can categorize them ac
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(* Of course, if you need to express it in terms of risk, say because it makes a pet theory more elegant, you can express any cost in terms of risk. E.g., if I need to pay the cost of 1$, you can say that I have a 100% risk of loosing 1$. This of course works for bits of shiny metals, hours of work, tasty frui
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As for market theory, first, people aren't rational agents. Second, people do not work primarily towards their own self interest. Modern economic and games theory research shows that people will act against their own self interest to punish unfairness. Most people value fairness and reciprocity over personal profit. We are cooperative animals by nature, and it is in our gene's best inte
Re:Primary Function? - Re:Terminology (Score:1)
But on the other hand, we don't really have all these words (or word pairs) for nothing --- it wouldn't be economical, would it?
Re:Primary Function? - Re: Rational agents (Score:1)
Most people value fairness and reciprocity over personal profit.
These nine words are exactly why I don't buy the "people aren't rational agents" counter-theory---and the more general "economists are silly" argument. It's plainly self-contradictory: If people _value_ X more than Y, isn't it plain silly to say they're irrational because they choose X over Y, just because we labeled Y a priori as "profit"?
The basic tenet of market theory is that nothing has value by itself. The value of X is just what some agent is willing to give in exchange for it, *no*matter* what th
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I refuse to accept your interpretation of the split money experiments. No one thinks their choices are going to affect inflation, that is ludicrous. The fact is, people act against their own self interest to enforce fairness, and you can redefine words in order to 'win' the argume
Function of Society (Score:2)
Society is. We create society in the same way that water molecules generate waves. If society has a function, it has as little to do with humans as the function of waves has to do with water molecules.
We can attempt to steer society though laws and norms, although in doing so, we're quite likely to find our natural interests usurped by "memes". Still, it is reasonable to call a least-effort system of arbitrati
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Solaris (Score:2)
I paid dearly for my view of society, since a few years ago, I went to see a therapist who was a bit of a trendy lefty. After I told have that the golden rule doesn't work "because different people want different things", and generally not seeing that things were a particular way "for a (good) reason", he took me for being a sociopath (I now have a diagnosis for Asperger's syndrome), and proceeded to
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The other most cogent criticism is that the field is based on abnormal psychology, the psychology of damaged individuals, rather than the psychology of healthy and free individuals. Those two criticisms were what the humanist psychologists such as Maslow tried to fight against.
Perhaps not "primary" (Score:2)
At tension with that freedom (as I suggested in my reply to o1
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Primitive humans 'worked' about four hours a day, but they had no surplus and next to no capacity for mitigating risk. You either did well or you starved. Now, we work longer hours but we have a huge investment of shared rewards built up.
While I agree that larger decision making bodies are inherentl
Hmmmm. (Score:2)
Likewise the group allows for diversity and specialization. Thag, who can't throw a spear to save his life, but who is a top notch spear maker, can focus on spear making and be fed by his customers.
I can see that situation as a type of reward; certainly my life is be
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Human nature is not static. It is malleable and dependent on circumstance. Broadly speaking, when people are motivated primarily by fear, they act selfishly. Society currently creates individuals motivated primarily by fear. But it can also create individuals primarily motivated by love, and these types are cooperative.
There are two stable modes for society, and it is hard to switch between them. One is what I like to call
No, it's to maximize viable offspring (Score:2)
I was listening to a discussion about the implications on happiness research on public policy. Of course, in order to achieve "balance", KQED had this right-wing shill [amazon.com] on. If his ideas weren't a dead giveaway, Amazon relates him to Jonah G