Beautiful = Very Efficient Allocation Of Resources

Reply to comment:  Economic arguments as stalking horses

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Jumble of words? I inefficiently allocate words? Are you accusing me of violating Quiggin's Implied Rule of Economics?

QIRE = Society's resources (ie "words") should be put to more, rather than less, valuable uses

QIRE = Society's resources (ie "sounds") should be put to more, rather than less, valuable uses.

My gf was loudly chewing and I was unable to concentrate. I was like, "Hey! Would you mind not violating QIRE?!"

She ignored me... as usual. So I started playing this song... Peacock Tail by Boards of Canada.

Oh shit. It's so beautiful.

Beautiful = very efficient allocation of resources

Would you agree that Peacock Tail is so beautiful? Or do you think it's a jumble of sounds? Do you want to argue that Boards of Canada violate QIRE?

For me, Peacock Tail is heaven. But the rest of life... not so much. There's a big disparity.

You know where BoC are from? Scotland. You know who else was from Scotland? Adam Smith. Adam Smith allocated words like BoC allocates sounds.

The Wealth of Nations = Peacock Tail

Unfortunately, I'm not from Scotland. I'm from California. This is my excuse for jumbling words.

Does Noah Smith jumble words? Well... he's written quite a few blog entries. But I sure don't see heaven in them. He wants the government to do a lot... but there's no assurance that the government will put society's resources to their most valuable uses.

Either Noah's hiding a huge assumption... or he's hiding a huge answer. But why would he hide a huge answer?

Here's Adam Smith's answer...

"It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their stocks towards the employments which in ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society. But if from this natural preference they should turn too much of it towards those employments, the fall of profit in them and the rise of it in all others immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without any intervention of law, therefore, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock of every society among all the different employments carried on in it as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society."

Oh shit! So beautiful!

Hey Noah Smith! What about the government? Is there ever a faulty distribution? If so, then how is it altered? By voting? We should trust people's words? Even Paul Samuelson realized that we can't trust people's words.

After 911... what was the demand for war? Do you know? If so, how? If not, then why don't you care that you don't know?

The world will be a lot closer to heaven when enough people understand the problem with not knowing the demand for war.