Ping ([info]zestyping) wrote,
@ 2008-02-29 14:10:00
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More on making our world better.

I've been doing a little brainstorming. Here's what i have so far.

If there were no externalities, the free market would solve everything. But that's not real life. So this is a picture of influences that occur outside the free market.


(Updated Feb. 29, 7pm: added "war -> poverty" link and "religion" bubble.)

The completely connected triangle — education, health, and poverty — is interesting.

There are people, organizations, and movements sitting on each of these arrows trying to influence them. These are some of the "good guys":

Where do you fit on this picture?


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[info]flipzagging
2008-02-29 11:32 pm UTC (link)
I think you need to put feminism or gender equity in there somewhere. Especially in developing countries, raising the status of women has an immediate effect on health, education, and poverty. Gender equity sits right in the center of that triangle.

There's also labor unions and other non-market associations, although they have less influence in the USA. Religious groups are also non-market, or at least, some of them are.

Are you still trying to figure out where you should apply your skills in a sort of objective manner? Is this part of it?

BTW, for reasons stated above, I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do with my donation dollars was to teach young girls in developing countries to read. When I give I give heavily to Room to Read, which specializes in this.

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[info]zestyping
2008-03-01 01:53 am UTC (link)
Gender equity sits right in the center of that triangle. ... the best thing to do with my donation dollars was to teach young girls in developing countries to read.

That makes a lot of sense.

Are you still trying to figure out where you should apply your skills in a sort of objective manner?

It's an ongoing process. I've made a career decision, but i'm probably going to be examining questions like this for the rest of my life.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
(no subject) - [info]ketzie, 2008-03-01 03:35 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]not4writingon, 2008-03-01 03:45 pm UTC (Expand)

[info]cuthalion
2008-02-29 11:58 pm UTC (link)
I think you're missing a load of edges.

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[info]zestyping
2008-03-01 02:28 am UTC (link)
What would you suggest?

(I'd like to avoid drawing edges from everything to everything, so i'm trying to indicate only the "primary" determiner(s) of each thing by the arrows pointing to it.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
(no subject) - [info]cuthalion, 2008-03-01 03:21 am UTC (Expand)

[info]amoken
2008-03-01 02:35 am UTC (link)
Yes...but if you include all those edges, maybe they should be weighted. But even then it's hard to see what's going on. Like...politics and money affect science, but politics mostly affects it in terms of preventing research in some areas (e.g. stem cells, human cloning, lots of things that are ethical issues but views change with the politics of the day). Otherwise politics can affect money for science, but I'd assume that's covered in the money node. The money node, in contrast to the politics node, has a pretty smooth effect on science. So there are definitely different functions represented by some of the potential arrows.

(Reply to this)(Parent)
war -> poverty
(Anonymous)
2008-02-29 11:59 pm UTC (link)
Seems to me you have an arrow the wrong way around. War creates proverty.

(Reply to this)(Thread)
Re: war -> poverty
[info]threadwalker
2008-03-01 12:29 am UTC (link)
goes both ways

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
Re: war -> poverty - [info]zestyping, 2008-03-01 01:46 am UTC (Expand)

[info]cyt
2008-03-01 12:13 am UTC (link)
cool diagram.

how does religion fit in?

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[info]threadwalker
2008-03-01 12:30 am UTC (link)
As far as I can tell it's in the anti-religion "war" of Dawkins and Harris.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]zestyping
2008-03-01 02:15 am UTC (link)
I don't know. I don't have a good sense of where to draw arrows to or from religion. I can think of some influence that religion has on every bubble in the diagram, but drawing arrows everywhere doesn't help.

The problem with this sort of diagram is the temptation to connect everything to everything else. I was trying to convey "the primary positive/negative influences on X" with the arrows leading to X. So... for example, religion affects poverty, but is it a primary influence on poverty? Probably not. Health? Probably not, though i could be wrong.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]zestyping
2008-03-01 02:57 am UTC (link)
I thought about it some more and have an answer now. Religion is a strong influence on how people vote; it is also a strong influence on the decisions of politicians (even though it shouldn't be). And it is a major determinant of when and whether people go to war (depending on the particular beliefs, religion can promote war or peace). So i drew arrows to those three things.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]threadwalker
2008-03-01 12:29 am UTC (link)
I obviously don't agree with Sam Harris or Dawkins as "good guys". Not because they are prominent atheists, but because they are promoting an intolerant and hateful agenda. If you picked two other atheists it might not matter. I don't think contributing to a cycle of hate and antagonism (even if the argument is that it's in retaliation) will help anyone.

As to me, I would say education.

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[info]zestyping
2008-03-01 01:48 am UTC (link)
I obviously don't agree with Sam Harris or Dawkins as "good guys".

I know. We can disagree about that.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-01 02:28 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-01 02:31 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]leech, 2008-03-01 07:23 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-01 07:33 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]leech, 2008-03-02 02:20 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-02 02:35 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]leech, 2008-03-02 07:14 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-02 08:40 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]leech, 2008-03-03 07:55 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-03 05:25 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-03 05:31 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]leech, 2008-03-04 01:09 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-04 01:22 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-03 05:35 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-03 11:20 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]threadwalker, 2008-03-01 04:16 am UTC (Expand)

[info]jtauber.com
2008-03-01 02:08 am UTC (link)
An interesting corollary to your "if there were no externalities, the free market would solve everything" is that interference in markets should address externalities and nothing else. For example, all taxes should be Pigovian.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]zestyping
2008-03-01 02:26 am UTC (link)
I say "if there were no externalities, the free market would solve everything" as a tautology, not as a claim. As in, i take the definition of "externality" to be "a problem not addressable by markets".

I looked up Pigovian tax on Wikipedia. It is hard for me to understand how "all taxes should be Pigovian" could have any actual meaning. The people in government who levy and spend taxes presumably believe they are collecting money to spend on something worthwhile, i.e. to correct something they believe is an externality. Whether they are right or wrong about that, aren't all taxes "Pigovian" in the eye of some beholder?

Am i missing something? Saying "all taxes should be Pigovian" seems equivalent to saying "all taxes should be fair" while leaving "fair" undefined. Is there a difference?

(Reply to this)(Parent)
Bad diagram
(Anonymous)
2008-03-01 03:31 am UTC (link)
In a society where the individual is of its primacy your diagram relegates them to 'voters'. That's a mindset that treats the members of that society as consumers of the political process. How wrong that is, the individual is the decider of who ultimately leads in that society.

Or do you treat your vote as something off 'the rack'?

(Reply to this)(Thread)
Re: Bad diagram
[info]zestyping
2008-03-02 01:59 am UTC (link)
I didn't intend to suggest that people only correspond to the "votes" bubble. There are people represented by or involved in all the bubbles.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]svenof9
2008-03-01 05:44 am UTC (link)
So money and science drive media? What about politics, entertainment, fear? This is not to say you need more edges. I'm just wondering how you think those fit into that picture. I'm no good at this.

(Reply to this)

[info]beethatbumbles
2008-03-01 06:30 am UTC (link)
Guess I fit into the "environment" bubble.

It was really great seeing you the other day; can we sing/play together again? Or maybe just hang out?

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]zestyping
2008-03-02 02:21 am UTC (link)
Sure. I'm around at Kingman still. Would you like to drop by for dinner sometime? We have house dinners at 6:30 every day except Saturday.

(Reply to this)(Parent)
I fit in like this!
(Anonymous)
2008-03-01 10:42 am UTC (link)
http://theopensociety.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/where-do-you-fit-in-this-graphics/

(Reply to this)

[info]tedesson
2008-03-01 04:16 pm UTC (link)
I came across a google tech talk last week about Causal Determination:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL7gO-rUlDY#

It's possible to figure out the causal relationships in your diagram from this, if you have some data. Judea Pearl is working in this area as well.

All the best!

(Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

[info]zardozap
2008-03-02 01:55 am UTC (link)
what happened to
the connection between
science and religion?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
(no subject) - [info]zardozap, 2008-03-02 01:56 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]zestyping, 2008-03-03 07:09 am UTC (Expand)
science -> religion - [info]zardozap, 2008-03-03 05:12 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]zestyping, 2008-03-02 01:57 am UTC (Expand)
money -> science
[info]me.aaronsw.com
2008-03-02 03:58 am UTC (link)
What about the influence of money on science? This is an area I'm very interested in.

(Reply to this)
The opposite of the State is not the Market
(Anonymous)
2008-03-03 05:57 am UTC (link)
If there were no externalities, the free market would solve everything.

As a classic liberal (aka US conservative) I don't believe this unless by "the Market" you mean "anything outside the State." Culture and tradition play a huge and largely invisible role in our lives. If you weakened the statement to be "If ${ISSUE_X} wasn't regulated people would solve it themselves" I'm on board.

The whole thought experiment is mush because there should be two way arrows from most of these entries to everything else - certainly politics, votes, money, and education ("the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world"). Government certainly has externalities into everything. That well intentioned but boneheaded vote to change Daylight Savings Time in the US was "free" for the legislatures but cost me thousands of dollars in lost time updating servers.


(Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)
Re: The opposite of the State is not the Market - [info]zestyping, 2008-03-03 07:07 am UTC (Expand)

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