“The older man has fewer good uses for it”—that’s an entirely arbitrary assumption. I don’t see any good reasons to believe that (and that’s even before we get into what “good uses” means).
Besides, you can flip the sign and ask who can tolerate lack of money easier. Would you prefer to spend a year being homeless when you’re 22 or when you’re 70?
I disagree that your characterization of this as flipping the coin is a good one. Flipping the coin would be to say, if I stole 500 moneys from a 70 year old account, or a 22 year old, which one would suffer most. I believe the 22 year old would suffer more.
There is a completely different question which is: Is it better to be financially miserable when old, or when young. I think Puneet Sahani has settled this issue by awesomely being homeless at 26-28 and indian while travelling many countries. It is better to be financially miserable when young.
So the marginal return per unit of money, I’d claim, is higher near misery values when you are old, and higher otherwise when you are young. Do you think we may be going towards an agreement here?
Edit: Apparently, as a non-native I did’t know the connotations of “flipping a coing” I though it meant something like “reverse your argument” or “do the opposite to see how inconsistent your position is”. Now I have no idea what it means.
It’s not flipping the coin, it’s flipping the sign of the transaction. Anyway, you’re just reasserting your beliefs but don’t provide arguments as why do you think that’s true. Not to mention that you’re contradicting yourself by saying both “It is better to be financially miserable when young” and “I believe the 22 year old would suffer more”.
With regard to the marginal value of a dollar, I think you’re claiming that the slope of the utility function is different for the young and for the old. That I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to me to be self-evident and I would like to see some data and/or good justifications before accepting that.
No I’m not, you didn’t understand. I’ll try to rephrase it, and you can try to help by steelmanning what you read.
My point is that comparing the last 500 dollars of an old man, with the last 500 dollars, the old man needs his more. So I agree with you, being old and homeless sucks more than being young and homeless.
Now if you take actual people, they are not near the misery line (if they are friends with whomever is reading this comment, they probably will sleep under a roof in a place with electricity). Then, if you go to a park, say, in Oslo, or Chicago, or ciudad del mejico, and steal 500 bucks of someone, one old, one young, the young one will miss it more.
and of course, this is a factual question that could be solved by going there and asking lots of people. but neither of us will, and I see no reason for the burden of proof to be on me. I gave my reasons for the slopes I believe correct. That is all I will ever be able to offer.
“The older man has fewer good uses for it”—that’s an entirely arbitrary assumption. I don’t see any good reasons to believe that (and that’s even before we get into what “good uses” means).
Besides, you can flip the sign and ask who can tolerate lack of money easier. Would you prefer to spend a year being homeless when you’re 22 or when you’re 70?
I disagree that your characterization of this as flipping the coin is a good one. Flipping the coin would be to say, if I stole 500 moneys from a 70 year old account, or a 22 year old, which one would suffer most. I believe the 22 year old would suffer more.
There is a completely different question which is: Is it better to be financially miserable when old, or when young. I think Puneet Sahani has settled this issue by awesomely being homeless at 26-28 and indian while travelling many countries. It is better to be financially miserable when young.
So the marginal return per unit of money, I’d claim, is higher near misery values when you are old, and higher otherwise when you are young. Do you think we may be going towards an agreement here?
Edit: Apparently, as a non-native I did’t know the connotations of “flipping a coing” I though it meant something like “reverse your argument” or “do the opposite to see how inconsistent your position is”. Now I have no idea what it means.
It’s not flipping the coin, it’s flipping the sign of the transaction. Anyway, you’re just reasserting your beliefs but don’t provide arguments as why do you think that’s true. Not to mention that you’re contradicting yourself by saying both “It is better to be financially miserable when young” and “I believe the 22 year old would suffer more”.
With regard to the marginal value of a dollar, I think you’re claiming that the slope of the utility function is different for the young and for the old. That I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to me to be self-evident and I would like to see some data and/or good justifications before accepting that.
No I’m not, you didn’t understand. I’ll try to rephrase it, and you can try to help by steelmanning what you read.
My point is that comparing the last 500 dollars of an old man, with the last 500 dollars, the old man needs his more. So I agree with you, being old and homeless sucks more than being young and homeless.
Now if you take actual people, they are not near the misery line (if they are friends with whomever is reading this comment, they probably will sleep under a roof in a place with electricity). Then, if you go to a park, say, in Oslo, or Chicago, or ciudad del mejico, and steal 500 bucks of someone, one old, one young, the young one will miss it more. and of course, this is a factual question that could be solved by going there and asking lots of people. but neither of us will, and I see no reason for the burden of proof to be on me. I gave my reasons for the slopes I believe correct. That is all I will ever be able to offer.
To ‘Flip a coin’ is to choose randomly between two options.