The Economy
The Economy
sjolsen & @sjolsen@tech.lgbt
Kspacewalk2 13 minutes ago | prev | next [-] fwo economists are walking in a forest when they come across a pile of shit. The first economist says to the other "I'll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit." The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit. They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist turns to the first and says "Ill pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit." The first economist takes the $100 and eats a pile of shit. Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, "You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can't help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing." "That's not true", responded the second economist. "We increased the GDP by $200!" 16 Sept 2023, 20:45 530 17
Not going to disagree that GDP is a bad measure of economic productivity, but, theoretically, in this case both the economists also got utility by enjoying themselves by paying the other to see them eat excrement. Assuming humans to be rational, it could be argued that there was a net gain of utility (if 100 $ is worth more than what you lose from eating excrement) or at least remained the same, since the buyers considered the entertainment they get to be worth at least 100 $ and that the service providers considered their service to be worth less than 100 $).
But now I feel stupid for writing this.
183The whole assuming humans to be rational part is what messes up the calculation.
68But now I feel stupid for writing this.
Don't stop now, keep going and you'll be writing financial regulations in no time!
39If this data gets sucked into a model it may be ingrained into future law students papers everywhere eventually.
9
The mistake is in thinking people would only pay money for things they will enjoy. This is self reinforcing; people will believe they enjoyed something more if they have been told it is more expensive. What if that's a false belief? What if the economists were paying each other purely out of spite and enjoyed nothing? Desire and pleasure are separate and it's possible to have the former fulfilled with none of the latter.
15Assuming humans to be rational, it could be argued that there was a net gain of utility (if 100 $ is worth more than what you lose from eating excrement) or at least remained the same, since the buyers considered the entertainment they get to be worth at least 100 $ and that the service providers considered their service to be worth less than 100 $).
Counterpoint: If humans were rational, they would not find it entertaining to watch people eat excrement.
12I kind of thought that was the point of this. There are many ways to increase GDP or gain 'utility' through how we use our money, but most of it is just shit. Capitalism values anything that can do this regardless of any other sense of value.
12Permanently Deleted
1
I immediately remembered this comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-01-14
109That was excellent, thanks for sharing lol
23
I hope they each paid income tax on those earnings!
37Yes if done legally, they both just paid the government so they could watch someone else eat shit.
16There's the "shit-eater loophole" so they don't have to.
10
Only if they report the 100$ as income and pay tax on it.
23FTS will hunt their asses and freeze their actives
1
Also they got to see someone eat a pile of shit. Worth it.
21Were they morally right to eat shit? No, but then there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
7GDP is worse metric than defference of average color in image compression
3Cool now I imagine an economist wearing a shit-eating grin saying, "Do I look like I know what a JPEG is?"
1Difference of average color is so cringe even for JPEG-1, that encoders use at least PSNR(which is still shitty) or sometimes SSIM. There are other metrics like butteraguli too.
2
This is a bit misleading.
2I love how you people really believe this dumb story 🤣
As if the broken premise isn't needed to have it even approach the reality.
-8I love how you people really behind this dumb story
Nice grammar. Keep studying.
2Hurr hurr typo, gotem 🙄.
-5
what? this didn't actually happen it's clearly a metaphor for something
1
Two communists walk through the woods. One has $100. The other shoots him for the $100 and buys a a bag of shit from the community store to feed his family. Such is life.
-72Come on you can do better.
23I get you're a troll account trying to get a rise out of people but you can at least try to be funny while you're baiting people.
21you are getting very close to self awareness buddy. You can do it!
-12
Meh pretty lame
21Comedy is hard.
10