When someone says "I don't like this proposal because I worry that important things will be underfunded", they do not mean "... because I worry that things will be funded less than people's willingness to pay indicates".
They mean, e.g.,
Let's think a little more about the last of those. An obvious solution would be for there to be organizations that put in that effort so that individual taxpayers don't have to, and propose coherent allocations of tax revenues. Obviously any such organization's recommendations will be based (implicitly or explicitly) on potentially controversial opinions on facts or values, so we'd want there to be multiple organizations of this kind, each of which gives taxpayers some indication of what they care about and what they believe, and says what they think should be done with tax revenues.
You might notice that at this point we have approximately reinvented political parties. They would probably have some advantages and some disadvantages when compared with existing parties. It is certainly not obvious to me that they would be much better. The implied mechanism for combining "votes" is rather different (a sort of weighted averaging rather than picking a single favourite); again, it has advantages and disadvantages and might end up either better or worse.
What seems perfectly obvious to me is that you can't just say "importance is a function of opportunity cost, therefore whatever this system does is optimal by definition". Or, rather, you can and you did but you shouldn't. The kind of optimality guaranteed by Economics 101 is not the same thing as "getting what we actually prefer", and couldn't possibly be.
I sure think it is! But I could be wrong...
This is my first article/post? here and to be honest, I have this website open in another tab and I keep refreshing it to see if I still have enough points to post. I wish I would have taken a screenshot every time my karma changed. First it was 0, then it was -1, then it was back to 0, then I think it jumped up to 5. I thought I was safe but then this morning it was down to 0. So if this post seems "linky" then it might be because I'm trying to share as much information as I can while my window of opportunity is still open.
Pragmatarianism (tax choice) is the belief that taxpayers should be able to choose where their taxes go. Tax choice is the broad concept while pragmatarianism is my own personal spin on it... but sometimes I use "tax choice" when I mean pragmatarianism. Eh, at this point I don't think it's a big deal. Really the only thing nice about the word "pragmatarianism" is that it functions as a unique ID... which is extremely helpful when it comes to searches. Don't have to worry about wading through irrelevant results.
Here are some links from my blog which should help you decide whether pragmatarianism is more or less wrong...
Pragmatarianism FAQ - a good place to start. It's pretty short.
Key concepts - a work in progress. Some of the concepts are linked to entries which have PDF files with a bunch of relevant quotes and passages. If you like any of them then please share them in this thread... Quotes Repository. I shared a few but they didn't fare so well... so I'm guessing that most people here aren't fans of economics... or they aren't fans of my economics.
Progress as a Function of Freedom - hedging bets, the impossibility of hostile aliens, the problem with "rights".
What Do Coywolves, Mr. Nobody, Plants And Fungi All Have In Common? - the universal drive to choose the most valuable option, the carrying model as an explanation for our intelligence, a bit on rationality.
Builderism - where better options come from, globalization, debunking Piketty, eliminating poverty.
My Robin Hanson trilogy...
Is Robin Hanson's Path To Efficient Voting Pragmatic Or Brilliant Or Both? - maybe we should have a civic currency?
Rescuing Robin Hanson From Unmet Demand - how many other people are in the same boat?
Futarchy vs Pragmatarianism - is it logically inconsistent to support one but not the other?
/trilogy.
AI Box Experiment vs Xero's Rule - my first brainstorm attempt to wrap my mind around the idea of an AI box.
Is A Procreation License Consistent With Libertarianism? - would a procreation license be less wrong?
Why I Love Your Freedom - my critique of the best critique of libertarianism. A bit on rationality.
So what do you think? Am I in the right place?
What else? Of course I'm an atheist! And I love sci-fi... and for sure I want to live forever. The major obstacle is that too many people fail to grasp that progress depends on difference. I do my best to try and eliminate this obstacle. Unfortunately I suck at writing and my drawings are even worse. Oh well.
Let me know if you have any questions.