This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
My take: Comparative advantage as I understand it is about specializing and being better off for it (in simplistic terms).
So Eliezer is hinting that you should become good at thing X where X isn't cooking and pay for someone who has specialized in cooking to cook for you, and you'll both be better off.
Edit: I think he phrased it in the way (Economics laureate etc) as parody and to highlight the appeal to authority in the original (why should a poet laureate, no more than a normal poet or any other person what the secret to happiness was).
</ humour destruction through explanation>
That seems possible... but I don't like the disconnect between the poetry guy talking about increasing happiness and the economics guy talking about increasing efficiency, with no connection given. They aren't the same thing at all, and I'm sure Eliezer understands that better than either of us.