Lumifer comments on How much does consumption affect production? - Less Wrong

4 Post author: erratim 05 January 2015 03:51PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 09 January 2015 05:29:31PM *  -2 points [-]

cannot be zero at every point throughout such a change

But no one is talking about every point. If you can only detect delta Y for large changes in X, it does NOT imply that small changes in X will also cause some changes in Y. Step functions are common in reality.

In this context, chicken production utilizes economies of scale. This means that a "unit" of chicken production is quite a large chicken factory. To change the number of chicken factories, you need a sufficiently large change in the relevant factors -- if the demand drops by 1 chicken, the number of factories won't change.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 09 January 2015 07:08:57PM 3 points [-]

Step functions are common in reality.

And if you don't know where the step is, this applies.

I think we've come full circle here.

Comment author: Lumifer 09 January 2015 08:31:00PM 0 points [-]

This applies only if you are confident that your action is just one out of a large number of similar actions.

In any case, yes, I think we understand each other's positions and just disagree.

Comment author: erratim 09 January 2015 10:03:48PM 1 point [-]

My "not buying a chicken" seems like it would look very similar to anyone else's "not buying a chicken".