I think there’s a crux here we haven’t made explicit. I don’t think the universe is particularly fair, and I don’t intend to give up much efficiency in order to correct that unfairness. I don’t want to reward skill, I want to eat fresher strawberries in the winter. I often signal to people that the best way to get my resources is to have and develop skill, but this doesn’t contradict the fact that there’s a lot of luck which neither I nor they can control.
I don’t think most economic choices are very similar to school tests. They are simply not of the form “try to find the hidden intrinsic values of someone”. No single human decides the grading mechanism, and it’s not arbitrary proof of work to some authority. Economic choices are more of an uncertain time/energy/resource allocation problem—we MUST make choices of how to (try to) provide value to someone with resources, and how to expend those resources to best get the things we want. For this, even noisy measures are better than random. It’s the best (and most resistant to Goodheart’s Law) predictor of future delivery of value we have—even if it’s mostly noise, there’s some signal there.
My fear with UBI (note that on balance I’m still in favor) is that it doesn’t change any fundamentals here—all these choices are still noisy and luck-entangled—it just removes a little bit of signal, making it a little bit less likely to optimize the outcomes.
For this, even noisy measures are better than random. It’s the best (and most resistant to Goodheart’s Law) predictor of future delivery of value we have—even if it’s mostly noise, there’s some signal there.
I agree, and don’t think that I’ve said anything that would imply otherwise.
it just removes a little bit of signal, making it a little bit less likely to optimize the outcomes.
Hmm, how does it remove a little bit of signal? To me, the signal of an academic’s worth is their publication/research history; the existence of a UBI is not going to remove that.
I still resist the idea that this is a signal of worth, and certainly that it’s a signal of worth in a field. It’s a signal of demand for a given output and of what an individual should do in order to give value to other humans.
The signal is _not_ how good of an academic one is. The signal is whether more academics are needed, vs other professions entirely. This signal is somewhat muted if the recipient is less dependent on market income.
Ah, we have been talking about different signals then.
I think we should be careful about lost purposes here: the function of an economic system should, IMO, be to ensure that everyone has the possibility to live a life that they experience as flourishing, while distracting them from that goal as little possible. If the productivity of an economic system is such that there’s a sizable group of people who are happy and capable of having a flourishing life with a minimum wage-equivalent UBI, then that’s a sign that the economic system is starting to be done. Not that it would be done—obviously it wouldn’t work yet if everyone just lived off the UBI and only did things that they personally found meaningful. But those people are starting to pave the way towards a broader societal change that allows a life only doing personally meaningful things, as their presence and example will encourage others to make the same transition and also create cultural institutions that support such a lifestyle, paving the way for a broader transition to such a society. Including structures that support people doing socially-needed things due to intrinsic motivation and because voluntarily doing useful things becomes valued, rather than socially-needed things only being done because you get money for them.
My model here would take too long to explain in detail, but briefly, I suspect that a lot of the thing about jobs being something that you only do grudgingly is because people have been forced from an early age to do things they don’t want to and come to hate it, whereas much more work would be done out of a volunteer basis and because people want to be useful if people had grown up in a society where the opportunity to do the-kinds-of-things-we-now-think-of-as-work was considered a joy and a privilege. See e.g. the research on SDT and how relatedness and competence are basic needs behind intrinsic motivation, but how extrinsic motivation tends to suppress intrinsic motivation.
an economic system should, IMO, be to ensure that everyone has the possibility to live a life that they experience as flourishing, while distracting them from that goal as little possible
Oh, yeah, that’s definitely a point of confusion between us. IMO, an economic system is an evolved mechanism for communicating individual desires and negotiating behavior and resource constraints without having to pay the cost of the underlying violence behind the idea of ownership and the enforcement of necessary cooperation.
I broadly agree that we’re in an unpleasant equilibrium of what’s “necessary” and “unpleasant”. I don’t have a picture of a better equilibrium that supports this density of humans with the same distribution of capability and the same or better amount of individual autonomy. I prefer that there are enough porta-potty cleaners who choose that as their self-actualized goal, but I don’t have a lot of faith that it’s possible with current levels of human development.
I think there’s a crux here we haven’t made explicit. I don’t think the universe is particularly fair, and I don’t intend to give up much efficiency in order to correct that unfairness. I don’t want to reward skill, I want to eat fresher strawberries in the winter. I often signal to people that the best way to get my resources is to have and develop skill, but this doesn’t contradict the fact that there’s a lot of luck which neither I nor they can control.
I don’t think most economic choices are very similar to school tests. They are simply not of the form “try to find the hidden intrinsic values of someone”. No single human decides the grading mechanism, and it’s not arbitrary proof of work to some authority. Economic choices are more of an uncertain time/energy/resource allocation problem—we MUST make choices of how to (try to) provide value to someone with resources, and how to expend those resources to best get the things we want. For this, even noisy measures are better than random. It’s the best (and most resistant to Goodheart’s Law) predictor of future delivery of value we have—even if it’s mostly noise, there’s some signal there.
My fear with UBI (note that on balance I’m still in favor) is that it doesn’t change any fundamentals here—all these choices are still noisy and luck-entangled—it just removes a little bit of signal, making it a little bit less likely to optimize the outcomes.
I agree, and don’t think that I’ve said anything that would imply otherwise.
Hmm, how does it remove a little bit of signal? To me, the signal of an academic’s worth is their publication/research history; the existence of a UBI is not going to remove that.
I still resist the idea that this is a signal of worth, and certainly that it’s a signal of worth in a field. It’s a signal of demand for a given output and of what an individual should do in order to give value to other humans.
The signal is _not_ how good of an academic one is. The signal is whether more academics are needed, vs other professions entirely. This signal is somewhat muted if the recipient is less dependent on market income.
Ah, we have been talking about different signals then.
I think we should be careful about lost purposes here: the function of an economic system should, IMO, be to ensure that everyone has the possibility to live a life that they experience as flourishing, while distracting them from that goal as little possible. If the productivity of an economic system is such that there’s a sizable group of people who are happy and capable of having a flourishing life with a minimum wage-equivalent UBI, then that’s a sign that the economic system is starting to be done. Not that it would be done—obviously it wouldn’t work yet if everyone just lived off the UBI and only did things that they personally found meaningful. But those people are starting to pave the way towards a broader societal change that allows a life only doing personally meaningful things, as their presence and example will encourage others to make the same transition and also create cultural institutions that support such a lifestyle, paving the way for a broader transition to such a society. Including structures that support people doing socially-needed things due to intrinsic motivation and because voluntarily doing useful things becomes valued, rather than socially-needed things only being done because you get money for them.
My model here would take too long to explain in detail, but briefly, I suspect that a lot of the thing about jobs being something that you only do grudgingly is because people have been forced from an early age to do things they don’t want to and come to hate it, whereas much more work would be done out of a volunteer basis and because people want to be useful if people had grown up in a society where the opportunity to do the-kinds-of-things-we-now-think-of-as-work was considered a joy and a privilege. See e.g. the research on SDT and how relatedness and competence are basic needs behind intrinsic motivation, but how extrinsic motivation tends to suppress intrinsic motivation.
Oh, yeah, that’s definitely a point of confusion between us. IMO, an economic system is an evolved mechanism for communicating individual desires and negotiating behavior and resource constraints without having to pay the cost of the underlying violence behind the idea of ownership and the enforcement of necessary cooperation.
I broadly agree that we’re in an unpleasant equilibrium of what’s “necessary” and “unpleasant”. I don’t have a picture of a better equilibrium that supports this density of humans with the same distribution of capability and the same or better amount of individual autonomy. I prefer that there are enough porta-potty cleaners who choose that as their self-actualized goal, but I don’t have a lot of faith that it’s possible with current levels of human development.