Mastodawn

Renna Tanaka Jul 2, 2023

Scarlet the Fox

I studied capitalism in college because it was a particular interest of mine. I hated it. I also wanted to understand it, so that I could know why it rubbed me the wrong way and live intentionally to push against it.

There was this moment when I was in a grad course and the professor was talking about self-optimizing markets. That's when it hit me. I literally stood up in the class, interrupted everything and went like "wait, the math isn't optimizing for income inequality". It was kind of funny watching more than 100 little economists in training suddenly start tearing apart the equation at once. You could literally hear the sound of frantic spreadsheeting and charting.

In the end, the professor himself said that it was true, you could achieve a fully "optimized" economy with literally everything being owned by a handful of people. Made me think.

How is a system supposed to be beneficial for us all when the mathematics at its core don't actually consider societal benefit?

If an economy is fully "optimized" but everyone is sick, sad, and angry - is it actually optimal?

A mathematical model can make sense without being sensible. This is why I have an implicit distrust of algorithms and other systems of optimization. It's also why I'm a socialist.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Nicola Leifker 🏳️‍⚧️Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet A good way of thinking about optimization algorithms is that they fall on a spectrum. There are the straight-up "optimization" algorithms you refer to that simply seek to maximize overall expected value. At the other end of the spectrum are the maximin models, which seek to maximize the worst-case scenario. That said, it is a spectrum; in between are various methods in between that seek to maximize, say, the worst 5%, or the average of the worst 5% of results. The problem is a social one, not a mathematical one; it is not the algorithms themselves, but who chooses the algorithms to use.

Kevin Russell Jan 28, 2023

@NicolaElle @scarlet

TV they said, will revolutionize educatuiion, we will participate in glorious discussions, be fed brilliant music, it was paradice.

Now TV is lies and sugar shock, useless pills and fake police shows.

Its always going to be the owner selfserving.

butterfly_trans

@scarlet it is always optimal regarding the target function.
The job of politics is to ensure that these target functions align with the need of the people.
That's the whole point behind subsidies, extra taxes etc. To manipulate and change that target function so the new equilibrium lies in a better state than "now".

I work in ML where the whole point of "learning" neural networks ist this on steroids.

Simple example: you CAN force it to not discriminate. It is a choice.

butterfly_trans

@scarlet Simple Example: You don't want your net do discriminate against Gender, Race, $whatever.

You need: these things annotated in the dataset.

Before you have a Function N(x) = y (X = input, Y = "prediction") with a Loss-Function L(N,x,z) with z = truth.

Normally you optimize for min(L). If you DON'T want do discriminate against d you change it to: L' = L(N,x,z) + L(d,y,z), where d is a net that tries to predict the discrimination annotated in z from the output y AND SHOULD FAIL doing so.

Bill Seitz Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet so what *was* it optimizing for?

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

@billseitz @scarlet Most profitable price point for any good or service, externalities be damned.

Femme Malheureuse Jan 28, 2023

@SocialistStan @billseitz @scarlet Exactly that. Profits based on minimum wage but that wage isn't a living wage. It's a monopsonic wage because largest employers have captured the regulatory system which sets wages, buying legislators through lobbying and campaign contributions.

Profits are also based on sustained precarity — excessively expensive privatized health care locks employees into jobs for fear of losing coverage.

AutisticTeacherGriff Jan 29, 2023

@SocialistStan @billseitz @scarlet “Externalities” means “stuff we don’t want to deal with so we just ignore it,” right?

Jerimiah Ham Jan 29, 2023

@billseitz @SocialistStan @scarlet @TeacherGriff Especially things that cost money. Pushing those things to other corps, people, govts, the future — anywhere but on the company balance sheet.

Recyclability is a great example of this. Companies don’t design for this because there is no law /penalty that makes them do so. We used to revoke corporate charters when they did things that harmed the public. Now…. ??

Colin MacAllister Jan 30, 2023

@billseitz @SocialistStan @scarlet but that’s why we don’t live in an anarchy — so we can tax the wealth and put excess profits back into the welfare of all — so we maximize growth but consciously minimize inequality — or we would if we neoliberals we’re in charge ;-)

Pre-WTO China was very “fair” but had no superabundance of wealth to redistribute, so everyone was on the edge of starvation all the time.

SocialistStan Jan 30, 2023

@dcoli @billseitz @scarlet

If we lived in an anarchy we wouldn't need to tax the wealthy, because we would have equality ingrained into the system.

Basically you want a system where the government and the elite choose not to oppress people, I want a system where they can't.

Colin MacAllister Jan 30, 2023

@SocialistStan @billseitz @scarlet you can’t enforce anarchy. Gangs will form, and then we’re back to the worst forms of government.

SocialistStan Jan 30, 2023

@dcoli @billseitz @scarlet Of course you can enforce anarchy, dealing with a gang is just dealing with a government in miniature, dismantle hierarchies as they form.

Colin MacAllister Jan 30, 2023

@scarlet @SocialistStan @billseitz who organizes to dismantle the already more organized gang? That’s not how power works, I fear

SocialistStan Jan 30, 2023

@dcoli @scarlet @billseitz If you have questions about what anarchy on a large scale looks like look at the region of Zomia in Southeast Asia, they've had anarchy for millennia. It's entirely possible there, and it will become increasingly possible here too as the neoliberal order crumbles, US decline is just getting started.

https://archive.org/details/artofnotbeinggov0000scot

The art of not being governed : an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia : Scott, James C., author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

1 online resource (xviii, 442 pages) :

Internet Archive

Colin MacAllister Jan 30, 2023

@scarlet @SocialistStan @billseitz I’m sorry, but that isn’t the trend.

SocialistStan Jan 30, 2023

@dcoli @scarlet @billseitz And your proof is?

🧙‍♂️ Julian Invictus ☕Feb 7, 2023

"Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination."

This is why Anarchists get accused of being Reactionary, you lot tend to idealize regressive societies. You might as well cop to being Malthusians, or something, because all the models Anarchists keep presenting are widely-dispersed agrarian peasantries with no technology. Like, sure, that model of society might be great if you don't have dense urban populations in the millions or higher.

"Look how Zomia does it," you say. Okay - by not living in urban environments, following prophets, abandoning technology. Thanks, I hate it.

SocialistStan Feb 7, 2023

@Julian_Invictus

Lets shoot down this strawman real quick and look at the principles involved.

Each society is different, but the general principles are transferable.

Dispersion in rugged terrain allows them to build self-sustaining communities and make it hard for a state to concentrate on a given area. In North America this would look more like a network of independent cities than tiny villages. The important part is that urban areas become self-sustaining.

SocialistStan Feb 7, 2023

@Julian_Invictus

Agricultural practices that enhance mobility prevent there from being a single source of food for a state to take over. There are lot of technologies that could do this for a city, urban farming, hydroponics, etc.

Pliable ethnic identities already exist in urban populations.

SocialistStan Feb 7, 2023

@Julian_Invictus

States are a form of civic religion, so devotion to anyone or anything other than the state definitely competes with it. Here traditional religion is declining and personal spirituality and devotion to personal principles provides the same competition to state worship.

We reinvent our histories and genealogies through the internet, not orally, but same thing.

Notice it's embracing technology that makes this possible in an urban society, not abandoning it.

SocialistStan Jan 30, 2023

@dcoli @billseitz @scarlet Neo-liberalism is a completely failed and discredited ideology for a reason, it relies on the imagination that a system built by and for the elite will act against the interests of those same elite.

Colin MacAllister Jan 30, 2023

@billseitz @SocialistStan @scarlet neoliberalism has been the policy of both Democrats and Republicans the past 50 years. It’s not leaving anytime soon.

SocialistStan Jan 30, 2023

@dcoli @billseitz @scarlet That's part of why I don't vote or participate in this system. Not giving any of those turds legitimacy over me.

Colin MacAllister Jan 30, 2023

@SocialistStan @billseitz @scarlet I was right there with you in my 20s, voted only for the green party, ran candidates against local Democrats. But then in 2000 Bush beat Gore, we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, ignored climate, change for a decade, and I realized that elections have consequences, even if I felt Gore was only the lesser of two evils.

SocialistStan Jan 30, 2023

@dcoli @billseitz @scarlet I was like you in my 20s, I believed in the farce of representative democracy and was a christian conservative, the perfect American. Then I grew up and realized this system has nothing for me.

Colin MacAllister Jan 30, 2023

@SocialistStan @billseitz @scarlet I'm nothing like a Christian conservative. Socially, fiscally -- in no way am I conservative. I believe in the redistribution of wealth. I just think free markets are the best ways to get the things people need to them. And letting them choose what is best for themselves.

SocialistStan Jan 30, 2023

@dcoli @billseitz @scarlet Then why would you be a neo-liberal capitalist? Like you said, it's the same ideology. Two wings one shitty bird.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Jan 28, 2023

@billseitz @scarlet Producing some simple equations that they could see if you remembered come exam time, is my guess, from reading through a pile of economics textbooks.

curtosis Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet As I’ve heard it put quite succinctly: “slavery is Pareto-optimal”.

Scarlet the Fox Jan 28, 2023

@curtosis I've never heard that but holy shit - that's exactly on point.

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet @curtosis Pay people 'just enough to take money off the table', and if they'll work for free so much the better 🙄

Robin Stephenson Jan 28, 2023

無—inapplicable question, here’s a paper:

https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X08092106

> [Pareto & Kaldor-Hicks efficiency] criteria are unable to rank a slave-labor system against a free-labor system […] the market [may] reach allocative efficiency, but welfare economics provides no meta-framework for ranking initial assignments. [Efficiency criteria cannot] settle all questions, and unfortunately are least decisive just where the stakes are greatest. Explicitly ethical criteria are needed to make the ranking.

Shannon Jan 29, 2023

@curtosis @scarlet Yes. That's why it was so popular. As were work houses and the current for profit prisons with their prison labour. It's why manufacturing moved overseas to lower cost centers. It's why there is such an embrace of automation. All this is known to true capitalists. Capitalism does nothing for wages and works best with literally no human workers. It works towards this outcome everyday.

Gebhard Hopfmüller Jan 29, 2023

@wasootch @curtosis @scarlet
I would ask to differentiate:
A MARKET ECONOMY tends towards optimization, because everyone will buy the cheapest offer - which is good for us, because THIS is the mechanism that COULD help mankind have a good life with not so much labour. We have taken wind and water mills for normal, while they relieved of a lot of manual labour, same for washing machines. And eg the cost of telephone calls has come down a lot!

Gebhard Hopfmüller Jan 29, 2023

@wasootch @curtosis @scarlet
Like @Drezil pointed out, it is a CHOICE what the market economy is optimizing for!

LibertyForward1 Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet Mastodon needs an additional boost button, we can call it "Boost the living fuck out of this" button.

Syd Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet I wish I understood at the level that you seem to why capitalism is wrong. I just feel it where as you know it. I admire your lack of ignorance.

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet Very similar experience! Maybe a bit less abstract. I did my undergraduate in history because that's a real passion of mine but abandoned it to get an MBA cause that's what 'makes money'.

It actually turned out to be a beneficial thing in the end because having in depth knowledge of capitalism really equipped me to understand what's wrong with the world.

I didn't have that "ah hah" moment until I went into the startup world after school and realized the VCs really do run everything.

Collette Jan 29, 2023

@SocialistStan @scarlet in my world we are ruled by insurance co.s

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet I wasted four years trying to get a startup off the ground and it's simply not possible without elite connections, selling out to a VC (it wouldn't have made them enough money for that), or getting really lucky. Moreover rich snobs are really just the worst people.

I often say that business school made me anti-capitalist the same way the military made me anti-fascist. So in that sense, both turned out to be beneficial in the end.

HandgunYoga (he/him/his)Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet I studied Econ at UChicago and fully agree. US capitalism ignores “externalities” like pollution and social instability, and places no value on shared resources. The root assumption, that individuals compete for scarce resources, is a pretty good description of the cage that Capitalism made. But most human interaction is marked by cooperation – at home and at work, while commuting, eating, talking or sleeping, literally every “individual” activity is synchronized with others.

Holz2735 Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet
I hated capitalists but was largely ignorant about capitalism til college economics. One phrase stayed forever in my mind: the distribution of resources in a society.
I immediately saw why capitalism had impoverished millions post Reagan: resources, goods, and services were not being distributed; but rather hoarded by a few.

Jasonambulism Jan 28, 2023

@Holz2735 @scarlet and they called it ‘the free market’ so that we’d feel good about it, and boy did we fall for that bullshit.

@scarlet
This part is so true:

"If an economy is fully "optimized" but everyone is sick, sad, and angry - is it actually optimal?"

Thank you for sharing.

Mike Fraser Jan 28, 2023

@scarlet IMHO Capitalism is rife with problems but if you put aside politics a lot of those problems are easily regulated. Taxing out capital so it doesn't pool is the big one. Busting Manopolies is the next biggest. A vibrant organic well regulated economy is preferable to the fully planned Soviet model in my mind.

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

@mike @scarlet
All taxation and nationalization would do is put more money and power in the hands of the government which will go to pigs and prisons, we need to put more money and power in the hands of the people

Speaking of the soviet model, it was ahead of it's time in that they didn't have the data collection and processing technologies pulling off something like that would have actually required

Chile did some interesting experiments before the fascists came in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

Project Cybersyn - Wikipedia

Mike Fraser Jan 28, 2023

@SocialistStan @scarlet Pigs and prisons were exactly what the Soviets were well known for. Labour still needs incentive and working at the glorious peoples tractor factory for the betterment of the state ain't it. I would however support a UBI to take care of basic needs. This would create a true competitive labour market.

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

Exactly. As long as we keep confusing the people with the government there will always be those who want to give the government the means of production thinking the government is the people. That's what happened in the Soviet Union.

The people need to own the means of production, and it has be done so communally. Central planning can have a role in that, but the planner can't be just another bureaucrat, it has to be an opensource system.

Mike Fraser Jan 28, 2023

@SocialistStan @scarlet I don't agree. Fundemdaly I don't think collectives have the capacity to correctly forsee and identify need. This is where enterprise steps in. The problem now is that enterprise is too heavily rewarded. There should be incentive and organic markets but regulated by governments of and by the people. The collective sets the boundaries, individuals identify the need. You say the people must own the means of production, who are the people?

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

@mike @scarlet A capitalist enterprise is just a collective with internal authoritarianism.

We are the people, every stakeholder in a given enterprise should have a say and a share of the profits.

There is no such thing as a government by and for the people, unless the people govern themselves.

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

@mike @scarlet UBI will just raise prices by the amount of UBI. Executives would love to have a known wallet share to compete over instead of guessing how much a market is worth.

Take the car market for example, we know how much the average person spends on car payments as a percentage of income and now much the UBI is, so Ford, Honda, Buick, etc would get together and set their prices to divide up the newly available dollars.

It just makes us better money conduits for the rich.

Mike Fraser Jan 28, 2023

@SocialistStan @scarlet Inflation is the issue with UBI, I'm confident though that if someone put a brain cell on it you could effectively index UBI and punish price gouging.

SocialistStan Jan 28, 2023

@mike @scarlet Not that it wouldn't help labor markets, or relieve suffering in the moment, but it is a way of keeping the economic power structure intact.

That's why a millionaire like Andrew Yang can back it unironically.

Mike Fraser Jan 28, 2023

@SocialistStan @scarlet I'll let you have the last word. I need to disengage now and take care of life. PS I'd love a UBI, as soon as my kid is out the door I'd simplify my life and drop out for a while, lol..