The Democratic Definition Of "Love"

Comment on: Sovereignty Is Not Property by Adam Gurri

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I'm happy that your website is back. Free-riders are a always a problem because producers are never mind-readers. True or false?

I don't spend very much time worrying about the immigration debate. Maybe I'm undervaluing it though.

One time you told me this... "The point is that thinking about alternatives is not all, or even most, of what love is about."

I didn't reply... but I can't remember why. I'm an atheist but I grew up reading the bible... a lot. When I was a little kid I didn't understand why God rejected Cain's sacrifice. Now I understand that Cain's willingness to pay (WTP) was inadequate. Abel was willing to make a much larger sacrifice.

Later on in the Old Testament we saw the same theme when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son Isaac. And also in the New Testament... "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." As opposed to... "For God so loved the world, that he voted for it." I don't think that Christianity would have spread so far so fast with the democratic definition of "love".

We're definitely not mind-readers so it sure makes sense that God used his WTP to clearly communicate his love for us. But...... God also required us to use our WTP to clearly communicate our love for him. As if God isn't a mind-reader? Solomon seemed to believe otherwise, "for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men."

You seemed to argue that this... "Should anyone who wants be allowed into your home?"... is not a valid argument because of democracy. Does this mean that it would suddenly become a valid argument if we did happen to replace voting with spending?

Recently I made a fun argument on a forum full of liberals. I argued that, because of the free-rider problem, everybody should be forced to spend X% of their income on digital goods. But... we would be able to choose which digital goods we spent our "daxes" on. How cool would it be to have a "digital sector"? For sure I would spend some of my daxes on your website! Yet, as the poll demonstrates, the idea was really unpopular. It was a fun argument though because every argument that the liberals made against a digital sector was equally applicable to the public sector. It was magical. Voila! All of a sudden a bunch of liberals were deeply concerned with the forced-rider problem. But I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't spend my daxes on digital goods that I didn't value... would you?


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Comment on Keynesianism in Democracy by Jason Briggeman

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Neither this entry nor your entry on bullshit in economics textbooks...

https://sweettalkconversation.com/2016/03/09/on-bullshit-in-economics-textbooks/

... includes any acknowledgement of "Tabarrok's Rule": actions speak louder than words.  Your solution to bullshit in economic textbooks was.... ironically... a cheap-talk survey.

In this entry you're considering Buchanan and Wagner... which is wonderful.  But you're not quite acknowledging or appreciating "Buchanan's Rule": using a resource one way means sacrificing the other ways that it could also be used.

Because of Buchanan's Rule... we need Tabarrok's rule in order to ensure that we don't massively violate "Quiggin's Rule": society's limited resources should be put to more, rather than less, valuable uses.

The logical, but extremely detrimental, consequence of massively violating Quiggin's Rule is the major misallocation of society's limited resources.  Keynesianism tries to solve recessions/depressions by violating Quiggin's Rule even more.

If you're interested in learning more...

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=369166