CalmCanary comments on What Scarcity Is and Isn't - Less Wrong

8 [deleted] 03 March 2015 01:41AM

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Comment author: CalmCanary 03 March 2015 05:10:22AM 5 points [-]

You should add a link to the previous post at the top, so people who come across this don't get confused by the sand metaphor.

This will hopefully be addressed in later posts, but on its own, this reads like an attempt to legislate a definition of the word 'scarcity' without a sufficient justification for why we should use the word in that way. (It could also be an explanation of how 'scarcity' is used as a technical term in economics, but it is not obvious to me that the alternate uses/unsatiated desires distinction is relevant to what most economists spend their time on. If this is your intention, could you elaborate and give evidence that economists do in fact use the term in this way?) Naively, it seems that if we have enough Star Trek replicators or whatever to satiate all human desires, then for all practical purposes scarcity has been eliminated, and insisting that it hasn't really because things have alternative uses because some things still have alternative uses seems like playing unproductive word games. Can you explain why thinking of scarcity in your terms is advantageous?

Overall, this series has so far been quite fun to read. I look forward to more.

Comment author: Xerographica 03 March 2015 09:07:26AM *  2 points [-]

Is everybody going to have their own replicators on a spaceship? If so, just how big are they going to be? And, if they are big enough to replicate an elephant... then... it seems like it's useful to think of the alternative uses of the space that all the large replicators and their produced items take up on a ship with limited space.

So at no point do you ever truly get away from the benefit maximization problem. Right now I have a bunch of bookcases filled with books. In theory I could free-up a bunch of space by digitizing all my books. But then I'd still have to figure out what to do with the free space.

Basically, it's a continual process of freeing up resources for more valuable uses. Being free to valuate the alternatives is integral to this process. You can't free-up resources for more valuable uses when individuals aren't free to weigh and forego/sacrifice/give-up the less valuable alternatives.

Some good reading material...

Comment author: CalmCanary 03 March 2015 06:41:08PM 2 points [-]

Those are entirely valid points, but they only show that human desires are harder to satiate than you might think, not that satiating them would be insufficient to eliminate scarcity. And in fact, that could not possibly be the case even granting economy's definition of scarcity, because if you have no unmet desires, you do not need to make choices about what uses to put things to. If once you digitize your books, you want nothing in life except to read all the books you can now store, you don't need to put the shelf space to another use; you can just leave it empty.

Comment author: Xerographica 04 March 2015 12:36:11AM 0 points [-]

Human desires are harder to satiate than I might think? Well...I think that human desire is insatiable. Let's juxtapose a couple wonderful passages...

We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things. He would have neither wishes nor desires; he would be perfectly happy. He would not act; he would simply live free from care. - Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

...and...

If we now turn to consider the immediate self-interest of the consumer, we shall find that it is in perfect harmony with the general interest, i.e., with what the well-being of mankind requires. When the buyer goes to the market, he wants to find it abundantly supplied. He wants the seasons to be propitious for all the crops; more and more wonderful inventions to bring a greater number of products and satisfactions within his reach; time and labor to be saved; distances to be wiped out; the spirit of peace and justice to permit lessening the burden of taxes; and tariff walls of every sort to fall. In all these respects, the immediate self-interest of the consumer follows a line parallel to that of the public interest. He may extend his secret wishes to fantastic or absurd lengths; yet they will not cease to be in conformity with the interests of his fellow man. He may wish that food and shelter, roof and hearth, education and morality, security and peace, strength and health, all be his without effort, without toil, and without limit, like the dust of the roads, the water of the stream, the air that surrounds us, and the sunlight that bathes us; and yet the realization of these wishes would in no way conflict with the good of society. - Frédéric Bastiat, Abundance and Scarcity

Human desire is limitless. The challenge is to figure out how to help people understand that we sabotage progress when we prevent each and every individual from having the freedom to prioritize their desires. And prioritizing desires doesn't mean making a list... it means sacrificing accordingly. This effectively communicates to others what's really important to us. Without this essential information... how can other people make informed decisions about how to put society's limited resources to more valuable uses?

Right now we can't choose where our taxes go. Instead, we elect a small group of people to represent humanity's powerful desires for a better world. The point of understanding concepts such as "scarcity" and "opportunity cost" is to effectively evaluate the efficacy of our current system. If it's beneficial to block your valuations from the public sector... then why isn't it beneficial to block your valuations from the private sector? Why do your unique private priorities matter but your unique public priorities do not? How can your freedom to sacrifice a fancy dinner for 10 books be more important than your freedom to sacrifice the drug war for cancer research?

I've given this article a thumbs up. Does this effectively communicate how much I value it? Does the number of thumbs up that this article has received effectively communicate how much we value it? Does it really matter how much everybody on this forum values this article? Does it really matter how much we'd be willing to sacrifice/forego/give-up for this article?

The point that I'm trying to make is that these economic tools aren't fancy paperweights. Whether our institutions are the forums that we participate in... or the governments that we pay taxes to... these economic tools serve a fundamentally important purpose of helping us to better understand our institutions. In the absence of this better understanding it's less likely that we'll greatly improve our institutions. No institution is perfect... and neither are the tools that we need to understand them.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 March 2015 01:46:16AM 1 point [-]

Evidence would be any textbook, I hope. Problems are when economists speak lazily to laypeople and students or when use "want" in particular way so that definition comes out to one presented here. Indeed have used "use" in such a way, to some confusion, I see. Definition presented here is, as far as I know, the universally agreed upon definition in economics. No game, but need to understand how it differs from normal usage and common misconception.

Most economists, it is true, do not spend most their time on the most basic material....

Comment author: satt 04 March 2015 02:44:21AM 4 points [-]

Evidence would be any textbook, I hope. [...] Definition presented here is, as far as I know, the universally agreed upon definition in economics. No game, but need to understand how it differs from normal usage and common misconception.

This got me curious enough to haul out my old economics textbook, blow the dust off its top, and open it to page 2. An inset box headed "Key term" defines "scarcity" as "a situation that arises when people have unlimited wants in the face of limited resources". The main text says

For any society in the world, the fundamental economic problem faced is that of scarcity. You might think that this is obvious for some societies in the less-developed world, where poverty and hunger are rife. But it is also true for relatively prosperous economies such as those of Switzerland, the USA or the UK.

It is true in the sense that all societies have finite resources, but people have unlimited wants. A big claim? Not really. There is no country in the world in which all wants can be met, and this is clearly true at the global level.

Talking about scarcity in this sense is not the same as talking about poverty.

On the next page is a subsection headed "Scarcity and choice". It begins

The key issue that arises from the existence of scarcity is that it forces people to make choices. Each individual must choose which goods and services to consume. In other words, everyone needs to prioritise the consumption of whatever commodities they need or would like to have, as they cannot satisfy all their wants.

So I think your hope is in vain. My textbook defines scarcity as our unbounded desires outpacing our limited resources. Which, if I read you correctly, is what you emphasize scarcity isn't. You define scarcity instead as the existence of alternatives from which one must choose — which the textbook mentions as a consequence of scarcity, rather than scarcity itself.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 March 2015 02:53:41AM 2 points [-]

Hm, well, could argue that "want" is key word, undefined yet critical; could render section "scarcity and choice" redundant. But is probably not what author intended, and apophasis cheap tactic.. Concede point. New point: textbook definition insufficient to generate economics; my definition is sufficient to generate economics.

Comment author: g_pepper 05 March 2015 04:56:14AM 1 point [-]

In the OP you say:

A familiar example of something scarce is ordering in a restaurant. There are so many enticing options, but you can only order one. You want more than what you can choose to have. Whatever option you choose, you could have chosen another one, and that which you did not choose is now beyond your reach. Even if you come back and order that other choice the next day, it's not the same day, you're not quite the same you. All this means that your options are scarce.

To say that having "so many enticing options" means that "your options are scarce" is exactly opposite of what people normally mean by "scarce". And, per satt's observation above, your definition of scarcity doesn't match the textbook definition.

IMO starting a sequence with a definition of a word that is radically different from its every-day use and from its accepted academic use is not a good thing; I suggest sticking with more commonly recognized word usage.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 March 2015 06:47:58AM 1 point [-]

The more commonly accepted usage doesn't work - it's literally wrong for the purpose of the technical term; one might as well complain that in "everyday" usage speed and velocity are synonyms - and the textbook definition is too dense, defining technical words with other technical words, leading to the illusion of understanding when none exists, as some of the comments show.

But frankly, I just never expected that people would get so hung up over the definition of scarcity. I just took it for granted that the community of a site with such a fantastic series of articles as this wouldn't argue about definitions rather than rolling with the concept being conveyed. If "scarcity" is a problem, then just substitute "tabtab" or whatever random string on your own; no need to wait for me to do it.

It's even more surprising because this is a community based around articles like this one. Surely it's obvious that determining the proper label for the concept being conveyed does not make you stronger, and the goal instead should be to learn the economics presented in the articles. That there are things to learn is evidenced by the mistakes made in quite a few comments. For example, the most upvoted comment in this article describes the concept labeled scarcity erroneously, aside from the part of the description that came from my articles.

I realize my articles are very basic (but not easy) and not particularly relevant or fun. This article is riddled with errors, many of them quite egregious, and yet it seems to have been well-received, being topical and pretending to a shared understanding that is really a shared ignorance among the writer and all the commenters. It invites discussion, opinions, debate, and though it all may be based on illusion, those who see the phantasms will never know the difference. So I am unimpressed by the self-awareness, curiosity, and ability-to-learn represented by many of the responses to my articles. That doesn't mean my own presentation isn't at fault, but as I said elsewhere, I have already gained most of the benefit from these articles. That which remains to be reaped is mostly you all's. That the modal response does not seem to be "How can I use these articles to become stronger?" is disappointing, albeit perfectly normal.

Comment author: satt 10 March 2015 05:40:54AM *  1 point [-]

Responding days after the fact to someone who's deleted their account, but what the hell.

The more commonly accepted usage doesn't work - it's literally wrong for the purpose of the technical term; one might as well complain that in "everyday" usage speed and velocity are synonyms

I sympathize with this.

But frankly, I just never expected that people would get so hung up over the definition of scarcity. I just took it for granted that the community of a site with such a fantastic series of articles as this wouldn't argue about definitions rather than rolling with the concept being conveyed.

I don't sympathize with this. It's a hypocritical bullshit move to spend 2,500 words baroquely belabouring your preferred meaning of "scarcity", and to then affect surprise & disappointment about other people getting "hung up" about the word's meaning.

If "scarcity" is a problem, then just substitute "tabtab" or whatever random string on your own; no need to wait for me to do it.

But part of the point of the "37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong" post you linked one sentence earlier is that words aren't fungible like that, because they carry connotations (way 26), can be used in a needlessly odd and hard-to-understand fashion (way 20), start needless arguments (way 22), and so on!

It's even more surprising because this is a community based around articles like this one. Surely it's obvious that determining the proper label for the concept being conveyed does not make you stronger, and the goal instead should be to learn the economics presented in the articles.

Sure it can make you stronger; it can help you avoid the failure modes listed in "37 Ways". And in the end there wasn't much "economics presented in the articles" aside from the languid discussion of scarcity.

That the modal response does not seem to be "How can I use these articles to become stronger?" is disappointing, albeit perfectly normal.

This smells like a fully general counterargument one could use to brush off any criticism of one's writing in a cool-sounding, world-weary way.

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