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Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:42 am
by BigBallinStalin
Baron Von PWN wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:So no that we have boiled that down, what was the point of you thread? did you want to tease out meanie pants dog haters? Or are you a meany pants dog hater
Feeding the dogs from one bowl and letting them decide represents the free market, dividing their food equally was socialism. The metaphor needs a little work, I think I need to change it to "you had a female dog who died giving birth to 2 puppies" since people seem to get hung up on the whole "why did you buy puppies you can't feed" thing. But yeah, according to this crude analogy most of you seem to think that the free market is a bad idea.
Your analogy with the free market doesn't hold.
1) Humans don't equal 2 dogs, or any dog for that matter. Humans are capable of economizing on scarce resources--dogs just gobble it all up (i.e. 100% consumption).
2) Humans generally are capable of learning from trial-and-error, thus capable of determining a somewhat best distribution of food per utility for each dog.
3) Dogs can't spontaneously develop political, economic, and cultural institutions nearly as advanced as humans (if at all).
4) The market process isn't "food in a bowl, come get it at almost zero transaction costs for some unknown, varying amount of labor." Your depiction is somewhat more appropriate for a barter economy.
5) Where's the voluntary exchange? How does that play out in this supposedly free market v. socialism analogy?
6) The assumption that the hunter (one individual) is capable of designing the "socialism" or "free market" scenario completely misses the point of the free market. There's no central, single designer in the free market. It's about millions of individuals interacting; it's about disperse knowledge across these millions; it's about how prices transmit information, reveal knowledge which isn't as efficiently or isn't able to be articulated; it's about how profit and loss induce innovation; how privete property rights create incentives for greater growth in prosperity and innovation; ...
Etc., etc., etc.
When talking of American society people often say " it's a dog eat dog world out there"
Therefore this is a perfect analogy.
The "dog-eat-dog" analogy doesn't describe a free market, so it still wouldn't help TBK's analogy and its inaccurate depiction of the free market.
Depending on the scope of one's definition for the "dog-eat-dog" analogy, I'd take issue with it due to reasons (1), (2), (3), (4) slightly modified, (5), and even (6) because those aspects are apparent in a quasi-free market.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 10:48 am
by Baron Von PWN
BigBallinStalin wrote:Baron Von PWN wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:So no that we have boiled that down, what was the point of you thread? did you want to tease out meanie pants dog haters? Or are you a meany pants dog hater
Feeding the dogs from one bowl and letting them decide represents the free market, dividing their food equally was socialism. The metaphor needs a little work, I think I need to change it to "you had a female dog who died giving birth to 2 puppies" since people seem to get hung up on the whole "why did you buy puppies you can't feed" thing. But yeah, according to this crude analogy most of you seem to think that the free market is a bad idea.
Your analogy with the free market doesn't hold.
1) Humans don't equal 2 dogs, or any dog for that matter. Humans are capable of economizing on scarce resources--dogs just gobble it all up (i.e. 100% consumption).
2) Humans generally are capable of learning from trial-and-error, thus capable of determining a somewhat best distribution of food per utility for each dog.
3) Dogs can't spontaneously develop political, economic, and cultural institutions nearly as advanced as humans (if at all).
4) The market process isn't "food in a bowl, come get it at almost zero transaction costs for some unknown, varying amount of labor." Your depiction is somewhat more appropriate for a barter economy.
5) Where's the voluntary exchange? How does that play out in this supposedly free market v. socialism analogy?
6) The assumption that the hunter (one individual) is capable of designing the "socialism" or "free market" scenario completely misses the point of the free market. There's no central, single designer in the free market. It's about millions of individuals interacting; it's about disperse knowledge across these millions; it's about how prices transmit information, reveal knowledge which isn't as efficiently or isn't able to be articulated; it's about how profit and loss induce innovation; how privete property rights create incentives for greater growth in prosperity and innovation; ...
Etc., etc., etc.
When talking of American society people often say " it's a dog eat dog world out there"
Therefore this is a perfect analogy.
The "dog-eat-dog" analogy doesn't describe a free market, so it still wouldn't help TBK's analogy and its inaccurate depiction of the free market.
Depending on the scope of one's definition for the "dog-eat-dog" analogy, I'd take issue with it due to reasons (1), (2), (3), (4) slightly modified, (5), and even (6) because those aspects are apparent in a quasi-free market.
Of course it doese!
There is a supply "dog" and a delicious delicious demand also "dog" and so they fight it out until they meet market equilibrium.
1. Dogs do economize resources, but in a different way from humans, they don't stockpile goods rather they stockpile energy. "is it worth it to chase after the rabit?" "can my pack take that deer?" this represents a weighing of cost, versus their limited resources(ability/ energy to gain food)
2. so are dogs. If they weren't we would never be able to train them and I suspect the species would have died out long ago.
3. They develop pack systems with clear hierarchies, certainly not as complex as humans, but they do develop spontaneous units go to a dog park you will see it in action,.
4. It can be though. Replace food with oill or any other resource, and the market process becomes whoever has the most capability to exploit that resource. Or back to our dog situation whichever dog has the most ability to push out the other dog.
5.Free market isn't always voluntary exchange sometimes individuals must go to arbitration. Of course in this case arbitration would be the human.
6. You're looking too macro, this is a micro example.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 12:42 pm
by DogAlmighty
I think this metaphor would have been much more successful if you substituted dogs for monkeys. As a matter of fact I'm stealing this idea and writing a novel, or maybe just a sit-com script. The added plot twist is that the dog bowls may or may not be land-mines.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:33 pm
by The Bison King
DogAlmighty wrote:I think this metaphor would have been much more successful if you substituted dogs for monkeys. As a matter of fact I'm stealing this idea and writing a novel, or maybe just a sit-com script. The added plot twist is that the dog bowls may or may not be land-mines.
sounds good. I'd watch it.
BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:So no that we have boiled that down, what was the point of you thread? did you want to tease out meanie pants dog haters? Or are you a meany pants dog hater
Feeding the dogs from one bowl and letting them decide represents the free market, dividing their food equally was socialism. The metaphor needs a little work, I think I need to change it to "you had a female dog who died giving birth to 2 puppies" since people seem to get hung up on the whole "why did you buy puppies you can't feed" thing. But yeah, according to this crude analogy most of you seem to think that the free market is a bad idea.
Your analogy with the free market doesn't hold.
1) Humans don't equal 2 dogs, or any dog for that matter. Humans are capable of economizing on scarce resources--dogs just gobble it all up (i.e. 100% consumption).
2) Humans generally are capable of learning from trial-and-error, thus capable of determining a somewhat best distribution of food per utility for each dog.
3) Dogs can't spontaneously develop political, economic, and cultural institutions nearly as advanced as humans (if at all).
4) The market process isn't "food in a bowl, come get it at almost zero transaction costs for some unknown, varying amount of labor." Your depiction is somewhat more appropriate for a barter economy.
5) Where's the voluntary exchange? How does that play out in this supposedly free market v. socialism analogy?
6) The assumption that the hunter (one individual) is capable of designing the "socialism" or "free market" scenario completely misses the point of the free market. There's no central, single designer in the free market. It's about millions of individuals interacting; it's about disperse knowledge across these millions; it's about how prices transmit information, reveal knowledge which isn't as efficiently or isn't able to be articulated; it's about how profit and loss induce innovation; how privete property rights create incentives for greater growth in prosperity and innovation; ...
Etc., etc., etc.
EDIT: lol, I can't count.
Ok, hold on I'll re-write it to incorporate all of these elements... oh wait... then it wouldn't be a metaphor.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:34 pm
by natty dread
The Bison King wrote:oh wait... then it wouldn't be a metaphor.
What? No, a metaphor doesn't have to be inaccurate to be a metaphor.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:53 pm
by BigBallinStalin
The Bison King wrote:DogAlmighty wrote:I think this metaphor would have been much more successful if you substituted dogs for monkeys. As a matter of fact I'm stealing this idea and writing a novel, or maybe just a sit-com script. The added plot twist is that the dog bowls may or may not be land-mines.
sounds good. I'd watch it.
BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:So no that we have boiled that down, what was the point of you thread? did you want to tease out meanie pants dog haters? Or are you a meany pants dog hater
Feeding the dogs from one bowl and letting them decide represents the free market, dividing their food equally was socialism. The metaphor needs a little work, I think I need to change it to "you had a female dog who died giving birth to 2 puppies" since people seem to get hung up on the whole "why did you buy puppies you can't feed" thing. But yeah, according to this crude analogy most of you seem to think that the free market is a bad idea.
Your analogy with the free market doesn't hold.
1) Humans don't equal 2 dogs, or any dog for that matter. Humans are capable of economizing on scarce resources--dogs just gobble it all up (i.e. 100% consumption).
2) Humans generally are capable of learning from trial-and-error, thus capable of determining a somewhat best distribution of food per utility for each dog.
3) Dogs can't spontaneously develop political, economic, and cultural institutions nearly as advanced as humans (if at all).
4) The market process isn't "food in a bowl, come get it at almost zero transaction costs for some unknown, varying amount of labor." Your depiction is somewhat more appropriate for a barter economy.
5) Where's the voluntary exchange? How does that play out in this supposedly free market v. socialism analogy?
6) The assumption that the hunter (one individual) is capable of designing the "socialism" or "free market" scenario completely misses the point of the free market. There's no central, single designer in the free market. It's about millions of individuals interacting; it's about disperse knowledge across these millions; it's about how prices transmit information, reveal knowledge which isn't as efficiently or isn't able to be articulated; it's about how profit and loss induce innovation; how privete property rights create incentives for greater growth in prosperity and innovation; ...
Etc., etc., etc.
EDIT: lol, I can't count.
Ok, hold on I'll re-write it to incorporate all of these elements... oh wait... then it wouldn't be a metaphor.
You're the man now, dawg.
Have fun being intellectually dishonest!
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:24 pm
by Lootifer
Wouldve been more fun if this had been some weird irrational and tenuous PETA campaign.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:51 pm
by DogAlmighty
The Bison King wrote:DogAlmighty wrote:I think this metaphor would have been much more successful if you substituted dogs for monkeys. As a matter of fact I'm stealing this idea and writing a novel, or maybe just a sit-com script. The added plot twist is that the dog bowls may or may not be land-mines.
sounds good. I'd watch it.
Thanks for your support. This project now has a working title of Two And A Half Dogs. If he agrees Charlie Sheen will be cast as the lovable rascal dog who contsantly humps his master's leg. His character will later be killed off and replaced with Ashton Kutchner when he starts to misbehave. The Hunter will be cast as James Woods. He'll accept because the guy must be just dying for work and a good leg-humping right now.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:08 pm
by TA1LGUNN3R
ITT Bison supports the idea of a supreme dictator who literally measures out your food because he wants everybody to grow up big and strong.
-TG
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:23 pm
by PLAYER57832
The Bison King wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:So no that we have boiled that down, what was the point of you thread? did you want to tease out meanie pants dog haters? Or are you a meany pants dog hater
Feeding the dogs from one bowl and letting them decide represents the free market, dividing their food equally was socialism. The metaphor needs a little work, I think I need to change it to "you had a female dog who died giving birth to 2 puppies" since people seem to get hung up on the whole "why did you buy puppies you can't feed" thing. But yeah, according to this crude analogy most of you seem to think that the free market is a bad idea.
Your analogy with the free market doesn't hold.
1) Humans don't equal 2 dogs, or any dog for that matter. Humans are capable of economizing on scarce resources--dogs just gobble it all up (i.e. 100% consumption).
2) Humans generally are capable of learning from trial-and-error, thus capable of determining a somewhat best distribution of food per utility for each dog.
3) Dogs can't spontaneously develop political, economic, and cultural institutions nearly as advanced as humans (if at all).
4) The market process isn't "food in a bowl, come get it at almost zero transaction costs for some unknown, varying amount of labor." Your depiction is somewhat more appropriate for a barter economy.
5) Where's the voluntary exchange? How does that play out in this supposedly free market v. socialism analogy?
6) The assumption that the hunter (one individual) is capable of designing the "socialism" or "free market" scenario completely misses the point of the free market. There's no central, single designer in the free market. It's about millions of individuals interacting; it's about disperse knowledge across these millions; it's about how prices transmit information, reveal knowledge which isn't as efficiently or isn't able to be articulated; it's about how profit and loss induce innovation; how privete property rights create incentives for greater growth in prosperity and innovation; ...
Etc., etc., etc.
EDIT: lol, I can't count.
Ok, hold on I'll re-write it to incorporate all of these elements... oh wait... then it wouldn't be a metaphor.
Here's the deal. You can narrow almost any example down to show whatever point you wish. BUT, the more you ignore reality, the less value it really is.
A big problem with many economic and political so called "debates" is that they begin by eliminating the most viable options. Puppies cannot really produce more food. You put out the theory of producing more eventually, but that is really irrelevant to your tale. It might make an excuse for someone in a bizare world to keep both dogs, but in a market system other solutions would be found earlier.
Its sort of like the old "plastic versus paper" bag debate in another thread. The thing is, we should not even be debating EITHER of those solutions.. the real solution is to use cloth or other reuseable bags or no bags at all (like they do in Europe, much of the world).
As BBS pointed out, people can invent and create. In the above, any human would do that.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:38 pm
by BigBallinStalin
TA1LGUNN3R wrote:ITT Bison supports the idea of a supreme dictator who literally measures out your food because he wants everybody to grow up big and strong.
-TG
Hahaha, I picture a glorious dictator using a measuring cup, filling dog bowls to certain volumes, then handing them one by one to people.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:46 pm
by PLAYER57832
BigBallinStalin wrote:TA1LGUNN3R wrote:ITT Bison supports the idea of a supreme dictator who literally measures out your food because he wants everybody to grow up big and strong.
-TG
Hahaha, I picture a glorious dictator using a measuring cup, filling dog bowls to certain volumes, then handing them one by one to people.
1984
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:06 pm
by The Bison King
Have fun being intellectually dishonest!
I've been called worse things.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:15 pm
by Victor Sullivan
Kill the small dog, then feed him to the big dog.
Amidoinitright?
-Sully
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 11:43 pm
by BigBallinStalin
The Bison King wrote:Have fun being intellectually dishonest!
I've been called worse things.
Hey, spreading lies can be fun. Enjoy it!
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 4:43 am
by natty dread
PLAYER57832 wrote:the real solution is to use cloth or other reuseable bags or no bags at all (like they do in Europe, much of the world).
No, they do not do it "in europe". I live "in europe" so I know.
I know you Americans think that europe as some kind of a homogenic mass of land, but in reality it's not... even with EU directives. There may be a few places in europe where they don't use shopping bags at all, but most of europe still does use them.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 12:21 pm
by The Bison King
BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:Have fun being intellectually dishonest!
I've been called worse things.
Hey, spreading lies can be fun. Enjoy it!
Ok what? how have I spread any lies.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 12:24 pm
by Woodruff
natty dread wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:the real solution is to use cloth or other reuseable bags or no bags at all (like they do in Europe, much of the world).
No, they do not do it "in europe". I live "in europe" so I know.
I know you Americans think that europe as some kind of a homogenic mass of land, but in reality it's not... even with EU directives. There may be a few places in europe where they don't use shopping bags at all, but most of europe still does use them.
When you say "use shopping bags", does that mean the plastic kind or the cloth kind? In Germany in the late 90s early 00s, almost everyone used cloth bags, but plastic ones were available if you wanted to pay for them.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:24 pm
by PLAYER57832
Woodruff wrote:natty dread wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:the real solution is to use cloth or other reuseable bags or no bags at all (like they do in Europe, much of the world).
No, they do not do it "in europe". I live "in europe" so I know.
I know you Americans think that europe as some kind of a homogenic mass of land, but in reality it's not... even with EU directives. There may be a few places in europe where they don't use shopping bags at all, but most of europe still does use them.
When you say "use shopping bags", does that mean the plastic kind or the cloth kind? In Germany in the late 90s early 00s, almost everyone used cloth bags, but plastic ones were available if you wanted to pay for them.
Yes, this was true in Scandinavia, Holland, Polland (then still communistic) and England in the early 80's as well.
But.. Natty, you are correct that Europe is sometimes seen from the US as being more homogeneous than it actually is. Still the same can be said of the reverse.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 2:37 pm
by BigBallinStalin
The Bison King wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:Have fun being intellectually dishonest!
I've been called worse things.
Hey, spreading lies can be fun. Enjoy it!
Ok what? how have I spread any lies.
Your metaphor with the two choices isn't at all an accurate portrayal of "free" markets. I've already explained why it's full of derp.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:48 pm
by The Bison King
BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:Have fun being intellectually dishonest!
I've been called worse things.
Hey, spreading lies can be fun. Enjoy it!
Ok what? how have I spread any lies.
Your metaphor with the two choices isn't at all an accurate portrayal of "free" markets. I've already explained why it's full of derp.
And I never said it was:
according to this crude analogy most of you seem to think that the free market is a bad idea.
according to this crude analogy most of you seem to think that the free market is a bad idea.
according to this crude analogy most of you seem to think that the free market is a bad idea.
Notice how in this one sentence I acknowledge that this is in no way accurate. I address that you ONLY appear to think that the free market is a bad idea ACCORDING to this analogy which I acknowledge as crude.
Thread dun.
Also what's all this shit about bags?
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 2:42 am
by natty dread
The Bison King wrote:Also what's all this shit about bags?
I stopped buying plastic bags for groceries and instead use a backpack these days. It's really more convenient that way - it's much easier to carry a backpack than a plastic bag.
However, I don't know if it's doing much good, since I would have used the plastic bags as garbage bags anyway, and now I have to buy bags for the garbage separately.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:13 am
by The Bison King
natty dread wrote:The Bison King wrote:Also what's all this shit about bags?
I stopped buying plastic bags for groceries and instead use a backpack these days. It's really more convenient that way - it's much easier to carry a backpack than a plastic bag.
However, I don't know if it's doing much good, since I would have used the plastic bags as garbage bags anyway, and now I have to buy bags for the garbage separately.
I still use plastic bags but only cause I use them for cleaning the litter box.
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 2:38 pm
by Woodruff
The Bison King wrote:natty dread wrote:The Bison King wrote:Also what's all this shit about bags?
I stopped buying plastic bags for groceries and instead use a backpack these days. It's really more convenient that way - it's much easier to carry a backpack than a plastic bag.
However, I don't know if it's doing much good, since I would have used the plastic bags as garbage bags anyway, and now I have to buy bags for the garbage separately.
I still use plastic bags but only cause I use them for cleaning the litter box.
We primarily use our cloth bags, but we do get plastic bags for this also (as they run low).
Re: You are a hunter
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 5:59 pm
by Lootifer
BigBallinStalin wrote:The Bison King wrote:Have fun being intellectually dishonest!
I've been called worse things.
Hey, spreading lies can be fun. Enjoy it!
FU