Posted: May 21, 2018 3:06 pm
zoon wrote:Xerographica wrote:...You want me to consider the possibility that my theory is idiotic. I've considered and accepted the possibility, which is why I wouldn't initially conduct my economic experiment on an entire country. But have you considered the possibility that it's actually your own theory that's idiotic? Have you considered the possibility that democracy does far more harm than good?
What you certainly haven't done is explain the harm of using voting and donating to rank prominent skeptics. The worse case scenario is that we don't learn anything about voting versus spending and only a few bucks are raised for this forum. The best case scenario is that lots of money is raised for this forum and we achieve economic enlightenment. In no case in human history has the potential harm been so much smaller than the potential benefit.
There is at least evidence that democracies can compete and flourish, there are a number of them around. So far, as far as I can tell, there seems to be no actual experimental evidence that your system would work at all, let alone better? Or are there some countries out there which you would regard as being at least closer to your system than to democracy? Which countries would those be?
It's true that there are numerous democratic countries, but all of them have markets. You say that they flourish because of democracy, I say that they flourish because of markets, and despite democracy.
It's also true that there isn't a single country with a system of government even remotely close to my preferred one. But what's the difference between using spending to rank politicians and using spending to rank producers? Whenever you spend your money in the private sector you're helping to rank producers. Do you think it would be better if spending was replaced with voting? Do you think voting is better than spending at ranking producers? Well, this is the premise of Youtube and countless other websites.
We are talking about different economic systems. My preferred economic system is currently being used to rank clothes, computers and cars. Admittedly, no government currently embodies my preferred economic system, but in no case is any government above or beyond the rules of economics. So if spending truly works better than voting at ranking flowers, furniture and food... then this must also be the case for every government activity. Conversely, if voting truly works better than spending at ranking Youtube producers, then this must also be the case for all producers.
What economics essentially examines is how attention is allocated. Voting and spending are very different things, which is why they really can't be equally effective at allocating attention. One of them must be a lot better than the other. My best guess is that spending is a lot better than voting at allocating attention. It's just a matter or proving that my guess is right, or wrong.
zoon wrote:If your other thread (here) is an experiment, has anyone actually donated yet? If not, would this be a result which suggests a problem? Or not? (As far as I know, RatSkep's income these days comes from advertisements; we used to be asked occasionally for donations, but this hasn't happened for some years now, and the Donate button at the top of the page seems to have been disabled.)
Whoever owns this forum hasn't responded to my suggestion yet. So because my proposed experiment hasn't been started, I don't see it as a problem that nobody has participated in it. If the experiment was started, but barely anybody participated, then I'd definitely see it as a problem. The problem wouldn't be with the general idea of the experiment, it would be with people's perception of it.
Suppose you go back in time and try to persuade early humans to cook their food. How successful do you think you'd be? In your case at least you could cook the food yourself and then everybody could simply try it. But in my case I can't make the pudding myself for everybody else to try. Voting pudding needs to be made by a crowd of voters. Spending pudding needs to be made by a crowd of spenders. Everybody is happy to participate in surveys when they involve voting. And I'm guessing that plenty of people were happy to participate in Skepticon's survey which involved donating. So it's just a matter of persuading people to use voting and/or donating to rank skeptics so that we can all compare the results. The more people who participate, the stronger the results.
This experiment is going to be conducted. This forum might not conduct it, and it might not even be conducted in my lifetime, but eventually it's going to be conducted. Eventually everybody's going to understand the difference between voting and spending. Just like we all now understand the difference between not cooking and cooking food. Do we benefit from this knowledge? Well yeah, we immensely benefit from this knowledge. It will be infinitely more beneficial when everybody also knows the difference between voting and spending, which is why I want the experiment to be conducted sooner rather than later.
Also, regarding ads, I'm not usually a fan of them. Usually I'm pretty good at ignoring them, and so are most people, which means that the companies that paid for those ads are getting ripped off. In cases where it's impossible to ignore an ad, then I resent them for hijacking my attention. Plus, it seems to be the case that many, if not most, people use ad-blocker.
It would be far better if this forum replaced its ads with donations. In theory people should be more inclined to donate if doing so provides them with the opportunity to help promote their favorite things.