You know, doing it with intrinsically valuable money is a thing, but if you do that with fiat money you just cause enough deflation to make everyone richer, and the game is not negative-sum. (Or is it? I’m not terribly knowledgeable about macroeconomics, so I might be missing something.)
If you throw your money into the hole its not negative sum, true- it is zero sum assuming that your ratio of the monetary pool reflects your buying power. Either way, you make everyone richer but yourself.
If you throw enough money into the hole that you end up spending less money later, and the economy happens to be operating below its non-inflationary capacity, then it actually is negative-sum. Because the economy is not just a marketplace full of stuff, it includes the people making that stuff, and if those people lose their jobs, we’re (usually) all worse off.
This is pathetic. −2 points for this? Did the downvoters object to the Keynesian slant, even though Keynesian predictions have done empirically very well in the current crisis? Or to my one-sentence explanation, which is of course not necessarily true, but at least almost tautologically plausible? Who knows; downvoted without comment.
Look, the “buying power” argument to which I was responded is obviously ignoring employment as a dynamic variable, so while my conclusions might be wrong, I’ve clearly raised an objection worth addressing.
I know it’s low-status to whine about being downvoted. I’ve taken it stoically before. But these downvotes in particular really seem to me to be a symptom of orthodox-libertarian groupthink. The “libertarian” I expect here on lesswrong, but the groupthink is disappointing. (Unless I’m totally misreading this; but again, with comment-free downvotes, what am I supposed to think?)
I know it’s low-status to whine about being downvoted.
Asking why you got downvoted tends to be received well and not taken as a whine—if you don’t make it sound like one, or start attacking the community before you even get any answers.
The first half of the first sentence of your comment is incomprehensible. “If you throw enough money into the hole that you spend less” is somewhere between gibberish and severely sleep-deprived mumblings.
A −2 score means almost nothing. Two people downvoted your comment, so what?
Calling the community “pathetic” in response to downvotes is hypocrisy.
In all likelihood, the downvoters did not even recognize your “Keynesian slant” and were downvoting because signaling. Oftentimes people will downvote a −1 comment just by the principle of social proof. These are humans, you know.
Don’t make up theories about the whole population of this website by two downvotes to a difficult-to-understand comment. Also, you are abusing the term “groupthink”, which has a technical meaning that you are not using.
what am I supposed to think?
Anything other than an orthodox-libertarian conspiracy to silence the Keynesians by downvoting small amounts.
-2 is certainly at least two standard deviations down for my comments (excluding the “whine” followup, which I was fully aware was going to be downvoted and posted anyway), so I considered it a clear enough signal to be worthy of comment. [Edit: on reconsidering, I realize that I meant below 2.5th percentile, not really 2 standard deviations down. Variance is large, so 2 SD down would have to be almost as far down as one of my best comments is up.]
Hypocrisy? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Fair enough.
Good points about generalizing and about the meaning of “groupthink”. I meant “epistemic closure”, not “groupthink”, and that was sloppy.
“anything other”: I still think it was a reasonable hypothesis (though your use of the word “conspiracy” is an unfair caricature; I was fully aware that it was just two people, and never said otherwise); but if I read you as saying that I should have thought “anything other” as well as this hypothesis, then your point is telling. I did fail to consider any specific alternative hypotheses (mentioning them only generally at the end), and thus deserved the −4 I got for my whine.
No, because “throwing money into it” is better writing.
You know, doing it with intrinsically valuable money is a thing, but if you do that with fiat money you just cause enough deflation to make everyone richer, and the game is not negative-sum. (Or is it? I’m not terribly knowledgeable about macroeconomics, so I might be missing something.)
It is still wasteful, because it involves digging an unnecessary hole.
If you throw your money into the hole its not negative sum, true- it is zero sum assuming that your ratio of the monetary pool reflects your buying power. Either way, you make everyone richer but yourself.
If you throw enough money into the hole that you end up spending less money later, and the economy happens to be operating below its non-inflationary capacity, then it actually is negative-sum. Because the economy is not just a marketplace full of stuff, it includes the people making that stuff, and if those people lose their jobs, we’re (usually) all worse off.
This is pathetic. −2 points for this? Did the downvoters object to the Keynesian slant, even though Keynesian predictions have done empirically very well in the current crisis? Or to my one-sentence explanation, which is of course not necessarily true, but at least almost tautologically plausible? Who knows; downvoted without comment.
Look, the “buying power” argument to which I was responded is obviously ignoring employment as a dynamic variable, so while my conclusions might be wrong, I’ve clearly raised an objection worth addressing.
I know it’s low-status to whine about being downvoted. I’ve taken it stoically before. But these downvotes in particular really seem to me to be a symptom of orthodox-libertarian groupthink. The “libertarian” I expect here on lesswrong, but the groupthink is disappointing. (Unless I’m totally misreading this; but again, with comment-free downvotes, what am I supposed to think?)
Asking why you got downvoted tends to be received well and not taken as a whine—if you don’t make it sound like one, or start attacking the community before you even get any answers.
The first half of the first sentence of your comment is incomprehensible. “If you throw enough money into the hole that you spend less” is somewhere between gibberish and severely sleep-deprived mumblings.
A −2 score means almost nothing. Two people downvoted your comment, so what?
Calling the community “pathetic” in response to downvotes is hypocrisy.
In all likelihood, the downvoters did not even recognize your “Keynesian slant” and were downvoting because signaling. Oftentimes people will downvote a −1 comment just by the principle of social proof. These are humans, you know.
Don’t make up theories about the whole population of this website by two downvotes to a difficult-to-understand comment. Also, you are abusing the term “groupthink”, which has a technical meaning that you are not using.
Anything other than an orthodox-libertarian conspiracy to silence the Keynesians by downvoting small amounts.
Point-by-point response:
Thank you. Edited to clarify the meaning.
-2 is certainly at least two standard deviations down for my comments (excluding the “whine” followup, which I was fully aware was going to be downvoted and posted anyway), so I considered it a clear enough signal to be worthy of comment. [Edit: on reconsidering, I realize that I meant below 2.5th percentile, not really 2 standard deviations down. Variance is large, so 2 SD down would have to be almost as far down as one of my best comments is up.]
Hypocrisy? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Fair enough.
Good points about generalizing and about the meaning of “groupthink”. I meant “epistemic closure”, not “groupthink”, and that was sloppy.
“anything other”: I still think it was a reasonable hypothesis (though your use of the word “conspiracy” is an unfair caricature; I was fully aware that it was just two people, and never said otherwise); but if I read you as saying that I should have thought “anything other” as well as this hypothesis, then your point is telling. I did fail to consider any specific alternative hypotheses (mentioning them only generally at the end), and thus deserved the −4 I got for my whine.
Personally, I’m not a fan because I think this conversation is highly off topic for both the original story and the comment thread.
Hm… That doesn’t quite explain why homunq got downvoted but army1987 or klfwip did not. I’m kinda curious.