Comment author: bogus 05 August 2016 09:20:17PM 4 points [-]

It's not clear to me how this "fairness" criteria is supposed to work. If you simply don't include S among the predictors, then for any given x in X, the classification of x will be 'independent' of S in that a counterfactual x' with the exact same features but different S would be classified the exact same way. OTOH if you're aiming to have Y be uncorrelated with S even without controlling for X, this essentially requires adding S as a 'predictor' too; e.g. consider the Simpson paradox. But this is a weird operationalization of 'fairness'.

Comment author: Lumifer 15 June 2016 02:29:50PM 0 points [-]

Who says that they didn't?

I do. If you squint hard enough you can detect monotheism in any religious system at which point the term "monotheism" loses any meaning.

I'm using the conventional approach where religions like Judaism and Christianity (in spite of the Trinity!) are monotheistic and religions like Hinduism and Shinto are not.

Comment author: bogus 16 June 2016 08:22:48AM *  1 point [-]

I'm using the conventional approach where religions like Judaism and Christianity (in spite of the Trinity!) are monotheistic and religions like Hinduism and Shinto are not.

But the point is, the ancestral version of what would later evolve into Judaism was far from monotheistic; much like Chinese folk religion. As with almost anything else in history, monotheism was a gradual development.

Comment author: Dagon 15 June 2016 09:26:01PM 1 point [-]

I mostly meant that "free rider" isn't a problem in altruism (where you pay for things if you think it improves the world), only in capitalist financing (where you pay only for things where you expect to capture more value than your costs).

ALL recipients of charity and social support are free riders: they're taking more value than they're contributing. And I don't care, and neither should you. Calling them "deadbeats" implies you know and can judge WHY they're in need of help, and you are comparing deservedness rather than effectiveness. I recommend not doing that; deciding what people deserve pretty much cannot be done rationally.

Comment author: bogus 15 June 2016 11:04:54PM *  2 points [-]

I mostly meant that "free rider" isn't a problem in altruism

Actually, it is. The problem with 'free riding' is not that it's somehow unfair to the people who are picking up the slack, it's that it distorts behavior. You don't want to give money to beggars if this just incents more people to beg and begging is a horrible job - and this is true even if you're altruistic towards people who might beg. You'll need to find a way to give money that doesn't have these bad consequences, even if that means expending some resources.

Comment author: gjm 15 June 2016 03:02:39PM -2 points [-]

I find your list of historical examples less than perfectly convincing. The single biggest success story there is probably science, but (as ChristianKl has also pointed out) science is not at all "based on aligning individual self-interest with the interests of the society as a whole"; if you asked a hundred practising scientists and a hundred eminent philosophers of science to list twenty things each that science is "based on" I doubt anything like that would appear in any of the lists.

(Nor, for that matter, is science based on pursuing the interests of others at the cost of one's own self-interest. What you wrote is orthogonal to the truth rather than opposite.)

I do agree that when self-interest can be made to lead to good things for everyone it's very nice, and I don't dispute your characterization of capitalism, criminal justice, and democracy as falling nicely in line with that. But it's a big leap from "there are some big examples where aligning people's self-interest with the common good worked out well" to "a good moral system should never appeal to anything other than self-interest".

Yes, moral exhortation has sometimes been used to get people to commit atrocities, but atrocities have been motivated by self-interest from time to time too. (And ... isn't your main argument against moral exhortation that it's ineffective? If it turns out to be a more effective way to get people to commit atrocities than appealing to self-interest is, doesn't that undermine that main argument?)

Comment author: bogus 15 June 2016 08:29:41PM *  2 points [-]

The distrust of individual scholars found in science is in fact an example of aligning individual incentives, by making success and prestige dependent on genuine truth-seeking.

But it's a big leap from "there are some big examples where aligning people's self-interest with the common good worked out well" to "a good moral system should never appeal to anything other than self-interest".

The claim is not so much that moral appeals should never be used, but that they should only happen when strictly necessary, once incentives have been aligned to the greatest possible extent. Promoting efficient giving is an excellent example, but moral appeals are of course also relevant on the very small scale. Effective altruists are in fact very good at using self-interest as a lever for positive social change, whenever possible - this is the underlying rationale for the 'earning to give' idea, as well as for the attention paid to extreme poverty in undeveloped countries.

Comment author: Lumifer 05 May 2016 02:29:45AM *  2 points [-]

The existence of that low prior is the proof that it's very likely false

I think you're trying to double-dip :-) The prior itself is a probability (or a set of probabilities). A "low prior" means that something is unlikely -- directly. It does not offer proof that it's unlikely, it just straight out states it is unlikely.

And there doesn't seem to be any reason to talk about priors, anyway. It's not like at any moment we expect a new chunk of information and will have to update our beliefs. I think it's simpler to just talk about available evidence.

As a preface let me say that I basically agree with the thrust of your arguments. I am not a Christian, afer all. However I don't consider them as anything close to a "proof" -- they look weaker to me than to you.

makes supernatural claims; that is, claims which are by definition counter to all previous observations

That is not so. Supernatural claims do not run "counter" to previous observations, they just say that certain beings/things/actions are not constrainted by laws of nature. Wright brothers' airplane was not "counter" to all previous observations of transportation devices with an engine. Recall Clarke's Third Law.

Not to mention that "all previous observations" include a lot of claims of miracles :-)

its core claims (and future predictions) are similar to many sets of (mutually contradictory) claims made by many other religions

Yep. But there is a conventional explanation for that (I do not imply that I believe it): different traditions take different views of the same underlying divinity, but find themselves in the position of the nine blind men and the elephant.

This point will also need to explain why large civilizations (e.g. China) did NOT develop anything which looks like monotheism.

the average probability of any specific branch of Christianity would still be low

That's a wrong way to look at it. Imagine that you have an underlying phenomenon which you cannot observe directly. You can only take indirect, noisy measurements. Different people take different sets of measurements, they are not the same and none of them are "true". However this does not mean that the underlying phenomenon does not exist. It only means that information available to you is indirect and noisy.

it's likely that all sects' beliefs had human causes

See above -- different people might well have human reasons to prefer this particular set of measurements or that particular set of measurements. Still does NOT mean there's nothing underlying them.

it's because many people are Christians

Well, and why is that? Why is Christianity a huge world religion? It started with a small band of persecuted Jews, why did it spread so?

Comment author: bogus 15 June 2016 08:28:53AM *  1 point [-]

This point will also need to explain why large civilizations (e.g. China) did NOT develop anything which looks like monotheism.

Who says that they didn't? Chinese folk religion acknowledged Shang-di (also called Tian, 'Heaven') as the primordial, universal deity, which is essentially a kind of henotheism and quite close historically to monotheism. This is especially true since other deities, while worthy of veneration and sacrifice, were largely conflated with "spirits". Of course, the later ideology of Confucianism tended to supplant these ancestral beliefs as a genuine foundation for ethics and philosophy/general worldview, although it did encourage the practice of rituals as a way of maintaining social harmony and a tightly-knit community.

Comment author: ChristianKl 14 June 2016 03:28:40PM *  0 points [-]

The generally-agreed rationale of UBI is that growing use of automation might eventually make it hard for people without skills to support themselves even by working, at least for broadly reasonable working hours and conditions.

Various people support UBI for different reasons. It's not true that nobody in Germany calls for UBI. You might personal oppose UBI in a country like Germany but that doesn't mean that other don't want it.

Milton Friedman also wasn't concered about growing use of automation when he proposed UBI as negative taxation.

Comment author: bogus 14 June 2016 03:52:55PM *  0 points [-]

Various people support UBI for different reasons. It's not true that nobody in Germany calls for UBI. You might personal oppose UBI in a country like Germany but that doesn't mean that other don't want it.

We shouldn't be equivocating between broadly bi-partisan support (of the sort we see in the US, not just from leftists but even from Silicon Valley libertarians), vs. 'support' as in "I support this because it means that I can give my constituencys free $#!+ for votes, at the taxpayers' expense." What we see in Germany is mostly the latter, and is thus of little practical consequence.

Milton Friedman also wasn't concered about growing use of automation when he proposed UBI as negative taxation.

Milton Friedman's negative-tax proposal was intended to replace the "War on Poverty" policies, which in turn were enacted out of a genuine fear that the poorest would be unable to support themselves. Whether 'automation' is involved is really a distinction without a difference.

Comment author: ChristianKl 14 June 2016 12:27:06PM 0 points [-]

No, UBI means that you get money even if you decide against working. That's inherently different than conditional welfare payments.

There nothing unconditional about receiving money from an entry-level low-income job.

Comment author: bogus 14 June 2016 03:17:18PM *  0 points [-]

The generally-agreed rationale of UBI is that growing use of automation might eventually make it hard for people who lack relevant skills to support themselves even by working, at least for broadly reasonable working hours and conditions. If EU citizens can easily support themselves just by moving to Germany and taking up an entry-level 'mini job' or 'midi job', UBI is quite unnecessary. There's just no case for it. People in the US or UK are not nearly as lucky (though this is mostly due to overregulation) so UBI would probably make sense there. (Though some combination of deregulation and labor mobility in-between these areas would of course be more efficient.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 13 June 2016 08:52:33PM 0 points [-]

Welfare payment in Germany aren't basic income because people need to active look for a job to receive them.

Those payments are also non-garnishable. The don't exist to finance loans. The point of basic income isnt to give people collateral for loans but to provide them with money to cover their basic needs.

If you want a higher income of say 1500$ you can make 1000$ non-garishable so that the person can always cover their basic need and make the rest garnishable.

Comment author: bogus 13 June 2016 10:03:57PM *  0 points [-]

Welfare payment in Germany aren't basic income because people need to active look for a job to receive them.

True, but Germany has big tax breaks for entry-level, low-income jobs - what they call MiniJobs, MidiJobs etc. So the combination of unemployment insurance (the 'welfare' you describe) and easily available work acts much like a UBI as far as low-income folks are concerned.
The United Kingdom is now trying the same strategy, but with less success: though entry-level work is untaxed and quite widely available, many people there are still living on the 'dole' and not working, perhaps because the economy is still in bad shape and this lowers wages/worsens working conditions. A low-level UBI would be a nice solution to this issue.

Comment author: Lumifer 13 June 2016 07:51:37PM *  0 points [-]

It makes sure that the very poor aren't altogether dependent on the labor market for their survival.

But they are not, right now. The problem of starving people dying in the ditches by the side of the road has been solved without the UBI.

Of course, and I said as much

I agreed with you :-)

the interesting question is what you need to add to that in order to really satisfy people's 'basic needs' in a reasonably objective sense

I am not sure what "reasonably objective sense" could mean. As you point out there are very poor communities (and historically, almost all communities were very poor by contemporary standards) but their members do not spend all their time in deep depression caused by the horribleness of their lives. From the point of "enough calories to not starve and enough warmth to not freeze" you have a continuous scale going up and I don't know on which basis will you decide that some point on this scale is "reasonably objective".

I think he overestimates the political unfeasibility of the whole thing

I am not so sure about this either. The US is rapidly progressing towards sclerosis and ossification -- it is losing the capability to just get things done (since we've mentioned Cochrane, see this). A UBI represents a massive new social contract which will upset a lot of people who gain something from the status quo.

A relevant quote from Larry Summers:

an aspect of American sclerosis — a gaggle of regulators and veto players, each with the power to block or to delay, and each with their own parochial concerns. All the actors ... are reasonable in their own terms, but the final result is wildly unreasonable.

Comment author: bogus 13 June 2016 08:06:25PM *  0 points [-]

But they are not, right now. The problem of starving people dying in the ditches by the side of the road has been solved without the UBI.

These problems have been 'solved' via a combination of welfare benefits (broadly understood; including food stamps, subsidized housing etc.) and heavy-handed labor market regulation which in practice leaves the most vulnerable unable to get a job at all, and in danger of losing their very freedom as they turn to crime in response. In other words, this is so costly a 'solution' to the issue that it's barely a solution at all. UBI would be radically simpler and more effective.

From the point of "enough calories to not starve and enough warmth to not freeze" you have a continuous scale going up and I don't know on which basis will you decide that some point on this scale is "reasonably objective".

True. I think the closest thing an 'objective' answer is that it's not just about calories/food and shelter, but the ability to form something like a community, and pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps from that point. (The Amish, Memnonites etc are another interesting example here.) Living in a concentration camp won't cut it, true, but you don't need that much more.

Comment author: Lumifer 13 June 2016 06:28:57PM *  0 points [-]

Maybe $8k/yr

OK, cool, we have a ballpark number. Would that UBI (as is often said) replace all forms of welfare, unemployment benefits, special subsidies, etc?

And, what does this kind of UBI aim to achieve? It's not to prevent starving people from dying in the ditches because that already doesn't happen. It doesn't look like it will end poverty. So... make things a little better for the very poor? Is that all?

David Friedman argues that people could in fact live on what you get for the Alaska dividend

Well, not really live. He estimates how much money you need to spend in order not to die in the near future. Essentially it's the per-capita expenses of running a concentration camp in the tropics when you don't care much about life expectancy, never mind quality.

ETA: Here is Charles Murray arguing for a UBI that replaces everything including Social Security and clocks in at $13K/year (or $10K/year in cash after the mandatory health insurance takes $3K). And here is John Cochrane discussing Murray's proposal.

BTW, that's what a high-level discussion looks like.

Comment author: bogus 13 June 2016 07:38:48PM *  0 points [-]

Would that UBI (as is often said) replace all forms of welfare, unemployment benefits, special subsidies, etc?

Short-term unemployment insurance would still exist, as would special, largely in-kind support for children in poor families (free lunches in school, protective services etc.) Much of the rest could be replaced.

It doesn't look like it will end poverty

It makes sure that the very poor aren't altogether dependent on the labor market for their survival. This is a meaningful improvement in their condition - perhaps the only possible one, given that poverty in the U.S. is in fact quite materially luxurious compared to, say, middle-class life in Namibia.

Essentially it's the per-capita expenses of running a concentration-camp in the tropics when you don't care much about life-expectancy, never mind quality

Of course, and I said as much, but the interesting question is what you need to add to that in order to really satisfy people's 'basic needs' in a reasonably objective sense - and in a way that's sustainable in the long term. Many people in poor and undeveloped countries manage to adjust to remarkably low living standards, and are nonetheless quite satisfied with their lives. So material deprivation is clearly not an issue for them at least.

And here is John Cochrane discussing Murray's proposal

He raises some good points, but I think he overestimates the political unfeasibility of the whole thing. Market-based policy reforms have worked quite well in the past, and they might work here too, especially with 'bi-partisan' support. He also wants to make people go through a purposefully uncomfortable process in order to keep qualifying for the "benefit", which is a terrible idea. High-income people will be offsetting the UBI with their taxes anyway; they're not the problem as Cochrane implies.

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