simplyeric comments on The Importance of Goodhart's Law - Less Wrong

75 Post author: blogospheroid 13 March 2010 08:19AM

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Comment author: simplyeric 14 March 2010 03:50:33PM 10 points [-]

When discussing the Soviet Union, and more specifically Russia, you have to also consider the beginning point as well. It should be noted how far behind Russia was compared to the rest of Europe in 1918. Coming out of abject serfdom bordering on generalized slavery, they actually made tremendous progress in both abstract metrics and tangible result in quality of life up until the late 50's or early 60's. Over time that then declined.
In any case, to an extent their G* was "production", measurable production, in the sample case: nails. Their G was not the market value of nails, their G was "progress through central planning", but they didn't know how to measure "progress" except through the early-capitalist metrics of "production". Thus: produce more = progress, in their practice. Our G* is GDP. People seem so happy with our GDP, without reflecting on things like income disparity, striation of wealth, etc. If we allow it, we can G* ourselves into a mutant 3rd world nation, with great GDP performance but declining quality of life generally. G is quality of life. Economists, and lay people, generally equate the two, and the correlate generally, but they are not irrevocably entangled.