When Obama was running for president and giving campaign speeches, he often blamed the republicans for driving the "car" (economy) into the ditch. He asked the crowd whether we should give the keys back to them and of course they would shout "NO". Yet, after Obama, the people did pass the keys to a republican. The keys have been passed back and forth for who knows how long now.

The problem is that it is never just one person behind the wheel. It isn't just the president behind the wheel, there is also congress, which has both republicans and democrats. Then there are the voters and donors who helped choose all the different people behind the wheel.

So it is obviously very difficult with the current government to figure out who is ultimately responsible for all the times the car ends up in the ditch.

It would be a very different story if the US was a dictatorship. Since there would only be one person behind the wheel, there would be no doubt who to blame when the car ends up in a ditch. Just like it was obvious who to blame when the Titanic ran into an iceberg. It shouldn't be a surprise that, out of nearly 200 countries in the world, only two of them are dictatorships... Belarus and North Korea.

On Facebook I’m a member of nearly 100 groups (mostly about plants) and all of them are dictatorships, except for the plant group that I started, which is a market. We use donations to make decisions. So far we've only used donations to decide whether the group should be public or private.

We've all heard the expression that correlation doesn't mean causation. This is simply because more often than not there are numerous possible causes. In order to figure out who to blame when the car ends up in a ditch, we need to narrow down the possible causes.

Therefore... Facebook groups. If there are 100 groups solely steered by donors... and another 100 groups solely steered by voters... and another 100 groups solely steered by dictators... then when any of the groups end up in a ditch we will know exactly who to blame. Eventually it will become quite clear which system is the best at steering groups.

Creating groups on FB is super easy. I highly encourage you to create a group to test your preferred steering mechanism. If you do so then I'll add it to this list...

Decisions By Donations

We can all join and participate in each other's groups.

Questions, concerns?

Nobody took you seriously that last time you tried this on here (Voting vs. Spending). Crawl on back to wherever you were hiding since then.

Cito di Pense wrote:Nobody took you seriously that last time you tried this on here (Voting vs. Spending). Crawl on back to wherever you were hiding since then.

I take it that you can't think of a rational objection to my proposal.

Xerographica wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:Nobody took you seriously that last time you tried this on here (Voting vs. Spending). Crawl on back to wherever you were hiding since then.

I take it that you can't think of a rational objection to my proposal.

Your proposal isn't a response to an RFP. It's just you emitting the same brain fart you had before. Your hyper-inflated sense of self-worth has allowed you to believe that your brain fart deserves a formal hearing.

You slathered your brain fart into a subforum entitled "Economics" under the delusion that you're some kind of economic theorist.

Cito di Pense wrote:Your proposal isn't a response to an RFP. It's just you emitting the same brain fart you had before. Your hyper-inflated sense of self-worth has allowed you to believe that your brain fart deserves a formal hearing.

Can you link me to any of your brain children?

Haven’t looked very hard at Saudi Arabia, Syria, China or Cuba for a dictatorship have you?

RS

theropod_V_2.0 wrote:Haven’t looked very hard at Saudi Arabia, Syria, China or Cuba for a dictatorship have you?

RS

I was just going by the CIA's World Factbook that I linked to.

Oh, right, kings, like Saudi Arabia has aren’t dictators because the CIA says so? Laughable.

Cuba doesn’t have a dictatorship even though only one set of brothers has held absolute power for 60 years? Hilarious!

So you believe China has a president and that makes him less of a dictator? You’re killin’ me.

Try a better source. The CIA has a vested interest in lying. It’s what they do.

RS

theropod_V_2.0 wrote:Oh, right, kings, like Saudi Arabia has aren’t dictators because the CIA says so? Laughable.

Cuba doesn’t have a dictatorship even though only one set of brothers has held absolute power for 60 years? Hilarious!

So you believe China has a president and that makes him less of a dictator? You’re killin’ me.

Try a better source. The CIA has a vested interest in lying. It’s what they do.

RS

I'm less interested in debating whether a country is a dictatorship and more interested in testing how well dictatorships do compared to democracies and markets.

Oh, so you admit that facts are not important to you. OK, have it your way.

What standard are you using to make this adjudication? Personal wealth per capita? Personal liberties? Freedom of thought? Are you seriously suggesting that Facebook is representative of anything worthwhile, or has any relationship whatsoever with real world political systems? Seriously? I think I’ve found the problem, if that’s the case. All I ever saw on Fakebook was an endless series of meaningless ego driven rants devoid of any semblance to rationality. You seem to think those public displays of ignorance, hate, prejudice and sheer stupidity have some sort of value. That might be the reason you believe the CIA at the exclusion of observational reality.

Again, funny shit bro.

RS

Eventually it will become quite clear which system is the best at steering groups.

Best? The groups, where the dictators one could be just 1 person group for simplification with same result?, are being steered to where? So one would need to set up goal(s). Even then "best at steering groups" would only apply to set goal(s).

I don't quite understand the donor's group, who do they represent, but there could be other groups, I imagine, for comparison. For example academics.

Still, steered toward what?

theropod_V_2.0 wrote:Oh, so you admit that facts are not important to you. OK, have it your way.

What standard are you using to make this adjudication? Personal wealth per capita? Personal liberties? Freedom of thought? Are you seriously suggesting that Facebook is representative of anything worthwhile, or has any relationship whatsoever with real world political systems? Seriously? I think I’ve found the problem, if that’s the case. All I ever saw on Fakebook was an endless series of meaningless ego driven rants devoid of any semblance to rationality. You seem to think those public displays of ignorance, hate, prejudice and sheer stupidity have some sort of value. That might be the reason you believe the CIA at the exclusion of observational reality.

Again, funny shit bro.

RS

Virtually all the groups on Facebook are dictatorships. What would happen if a FB group was steered by democracy or donations instead? Let's find out.

tuco wrote:

Eventually it will become quite clear which system is the best at steering groups.

Best? The groups, where the dictators one could be just 1 person group for simplification with same result?, are being steered to where? So one would need to set up goal(s). Even then "best at steering groups" would only apply to set goal(s).

I don't quite understand the donor's group, who do they represent, but there could be other groups, I imagine, for comparison. For example academics.

Still, steered toward what?

My friend and I created our plant group to talk about plants. A few times members have posted pics of their plants with their pets also in the pics. What if more and more members posted pics of their plants and pets together? And what if some members started posting pics of only their pets? And then more and more members started doing so.

The group started off being about plants but then ended up being about pets. The group changed direction.

Every group has a direction. In a dictatorship, a group's direction is entirely determined by the dictator. In a democracy the group's direction is determined by voters. And in a market the group's direction is determined by spenders.

Dictatorships, democracies and markets are very different systems, so they can't be equally effective at steering groups. We can and should use Facebook group to test and compare the relative effectiveness of different steering mechanisms.

Do you understand and agree that to determine, and now I quote again:

Eventually it will become quite clear which system is the best at steering groups.

the groups need to have, among other, identical goals? Because if not, good luck with your plants.

This again?

No. I'm not giving anyone any fucking money.

tuco wrote:Do you understand and agree that to determine, and now I quote again:

Eventually it will become quite clear which system is the best at steering groups.

the groups need to have, among other, identical goals? Because if not, good luck with your plants.

The identical goal of every group is, or should be, to maximize the benefit of its members. This is true whether we are talking about RationalSkepticism.org or the United States.

Dictatorships, democracies and markets are very different systems, so they can't be equally effective at maximizing group benefit.

The benefit is a good goal, rational, who does not like benefits. What kind of benefit we talk about?

I like friends with benefits.

tuco wrote:The benefit is a good goal, rational, who does not like benefits. What kind of benefit we talk about?

One benefit is when group members are not unjustly banned. In a group steered by democracy, the decision whether to ban somebody would be made by voting. In a group steered by a market, the decision to ban somebody would be made by donating. In a group steered by a dictator, the decision to ban somebody would be made by the dictator.

Dictatorships, markets and democracies can't be equally effective at calculating a member's benefit to the group.

Yes, that could, in principle, produce data with some interest to interpret them. It would be interesting to see whether various conditions leading to a proposal for a ban influence justice within and across the groups or not. For example, (unjust) ban of a member holding unpopular opinions. Say the dictator or the one with the biggest stake in the market.