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Author Topic: The Necro Wars  (Read 337619 times)

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silverspawn

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1325 on: September 24, 2021, 06:13:19 pm »

In the end, I think the best character in Game of Thrones was actually Melisandre

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1326 on: September 25, 2021, 06:37:08 am »

Last (?) night I dreamt that the results of the German election were coming in, and it was ultra close between the Christian Democrats, the Democratic Socialists, and the Green Party. It looked like the green party was just barely pulling ahead, but everyone said that Baerbock wouldn't be the leader if if they came in first.

In unrelated news, tomorrow are elections in Germany.

I think the left party wants lots of good things but has mostly proposals that would be/are bad in practice. Raising the minimum wage to uphold the dignity of people is about as stupid as you can get.

I think the libertarians are terrible even though 'smaller state' is arguably the best of the available short slogans

The AfD sucks

You could do much worse than the Christian Democrats in general, but as far as chancellors who have a chance to win, you can't do worse than Laschet. He basically failed an IQ/savyness test by letting his scandal happen. It's not a coincidence that similar things haven't happened to Merkel .

I think voting for a smaller party wouldn't do very much

This amounts to a vote for Red/Green. It's possible that I should vote for Social Democrats directly but probably not.

I shall vote for the Green Party. Who also want to raise the minimum wage but what can you do.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1327 on: September 25, 2021, 07:26:48 am »

I think the left party wants lots of good things but has mostly proposals that would be/are bad in practice. Raising the minimum wage to uphold the dignity of people is about as stupid as you can get.
As a member of the left party, I would like to read some more detailed critique.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2021, 07:28:00 am by faust »
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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1328 on: September 25, 2021, 11:05:47 am »

I think voting for a smaller party wouldn't do very much

It would give them one more vote, which is the exact same thing that voting for a larger party does, except your vote then becomes a larger proportion of the total votes received by that party, which at least in some systems means that it makes more of a difference. Small parties also tend to be more uniform in terms of what values they stand for, so the risk of your vote deciding the course of the election in a way that gets some random idiot you completely disagree with elected is also much lower.
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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1329 on: September 25, 2021, 11:52:51 am »

I think voting for a smaller party wouldn't do very much

It would give them one more vote, which is the exact same thing that voting for a larger party does, except your vote then becomes a larger proportion of the total votes received by that party, which at least in some systems means that it makes more of a difference. Small parties also tend to be more uniform in terms of what values they stand for, so the risk of your vote deciding the course of the election in a way that gets some random idiot you completely disagree with elected is also much lower.
"Small party" as silverspawn refers to means a party that has no realistic chance to reach 5%, and with German election laws that means they will not receive any seats in parliament. (I should note that there is an exception: If a party were to win direct mandates in at least 3 constituencies, then they will get seats proportional to their overall vote share even if that's below 5%. I think only one "small party" has a bit of a shot at this, the Free Voters.)

It should also be noted that a vote for a small party can still make a difference in the long run: Any party who receives at least 0.5% of the vote will receive state funding per vote received, meaning that they would be able to more effectively campaign in the future.
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silverspawn

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1330 on: September 25, 2021, 12:41:39 pm »

I certainly grant that voting for a small party has a nonzero effect, I just think it's not very large.

As a member of the left party, I would like to read some more detailed critique.

On minimum wage specifically, i see the big underlying problem that people's sense of dignity is tied to their income or how much society values their work. This is probably quite bad already, for example my dad has really poor rent and he commonly expresses great regret about having been so generous throughout his career (he was a lawyer and often defended poor people for free and such), instead of taking pride in his generosity. This is on track to get more and more of a problem as more work is automated.

Raising the minimum wage reinforces the stigma that your worth is tied to your income. In this case, I've even seen this made explicit, i.e., raising the minimum wage to strengthen people's dignity. It makes people more reliant on their job rather than less. This makes it easier for employers to exploit them. It also raises the bar for what kind of jobs can be offered, which shrinks the set of things that we consider valuable.

I'm for the opposite of all of those things. Just give people money and do whatever you can to release the stigma. Decouple worth from income, expand the notion of what counts as work, etc.

Also how about we don't tell consenting adults that they can't do [a thing without negative externalities]? This is the principle that's often used to justify why gay people should be allowed to marry; why doesn't it count for work?

In general, The Left (the party) seems to disregard what incentives are set by their proposals, but I think incentives are extremely important. Minimum wage is the most egregious example, another is just imposing a cap on rents. I support giving people money to pay for their rents and building more housing. I would probably support a bunch of other interventions. But a cap just distorts real prices. There is a reason why rents change in precisely the way they do; enforcing crude rules on top of that will hit/punish people differently with no guarantee for fairness.

Last example is the wealth tax. Afaik this has implementation issues, but let's assume it works perfectly. Now say you have two people A and B, who both own 2 million dollars in their 40s. In the next 20 years, person A burns through that by endulging in various unproductive luxuries, ending up with say 200k at 60. Person B invests it and ends up with 3 million at 60. A wealth tax will hit B disproportionately, which doesn't make any sense. We ought to tax consumption (especially consumption of luxury goods), not wealth.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1331 on: September 25, 2021, 12:44:51 pm »

To also say something nice, I think the party does have the best track record on stuff like weapon exports and other military-related things.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1332 on: September 25, 2021, 12:48:54 pm »

"Small party" as silverspawn refers to means a party that has no realistic chance to reach 5%, and with German election laws that means they will not receive any seats in parliament. (I should note that there is an exception: If a party were to win direct mandates in at least 3 constituencies, then they will get seats proportional to their overall vote share even if that's below 5%. I think only one "small party" has a bit of a shot at this, the Free Voters.)

That's an even ShiTtier system than what we have in Finland, but the point still stands: a vote for a party that gets the same number of seats regardless of your vote is not magically more useful just because that number is higher than 0.
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faust

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1333 on: September 25, 2021, 01:23:06 pm »

As a member of the left party, I would like to read some more detailed critique.

On minimum wage specifically, i see the big underlying problem that people's sense of dignity is tied to their income or how much society values their work. This is probably quite bad already, for example my dad has really poor rent and he commonly expresses great regret about having been so generous throughout his career (he was a lawyer and often defended poor people for free and such), instead of taking pride in his generosity. This is on track to get more and more of a problem as more work is automated.

Raising the minimum wage reinforces the stigma that your worth is tied to your income. In this case, I've even seen this made explicit, i.e., raising the minimum wage to strengthen people's dignity. It makes people more reliant on their job rather than less. This makes it easier for employers to exploit them. It also raises the bar for what kind of jobs can be offered, which shrinks the set of things that we consider valuable.

I'm for the opposite of all of those things. Just give people money and do whatever you can to release the stigma. Decouple worth from income, expand the notion of what counts as work, etc.
Thanks! I agree that ultimately it would be good to have UBI, but currently I think that's unrealistic. In the meantime raising the minimum wage is a way to quickly help out people who can't make enough money to live comfortably otherwise. I think that's what the "dignity" refers to: a person who works full time should not have to struggle to pay rent/put food on the table.

Also how about we don't tell consenting adults that they can't do [a thing without negative externalities]? This is the principle that's often used to justify why gay people should be allowed to marry; why doesn't it count for work?
Eh. It's not like working a minimum-wage job is a free choice; this is more like an abusive relationship. People do these jobs for low wages not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they need the money; it's wage slavery. I get that you want UBI and that would help in lowering the power differential between employer and employee, but it wouldn't eliminate it. The only way to achieve that is workplace democracy.

In general, The Left (the party) seems to disregard what incentives are set by their proposals, but I think incentives are extremely important. Minimum wage is the most egregious example, another is just imposing a cap on rents. I support giving people money to pay for their rents and building more housing. I would probably support a bunch of other interventions. But a cap just distorts real prices. There is a reason why rents change in precisely the way they do; enforcing crude rules on top of that will hit/punish people differently with no guarantee for fairness.
I don't know what a "real price" would be here; whether the state determines it or some landlord, it's still mostly arbitrary. It's not like current rent has anything to do with the cost of managing the houses. There is a reason why rents change, yes - but it's not a good reason. It's speculation on real estate.

Building more housing is not really a solution; there is enough housing and the population is not growing. Plus building has a massive CO2 footprint, so we should avoid that if possible. When private companies build new houses, they make them unnecessarily luxurious because then they can charge more for it, and people will pay because there's not enough affordable housing and they have to live somewhere.

Giving people money to pay rent is just a redistribution scheme towards rich land-owners. Now the state pays them indirectly for owning property.

Last example is the wealth tax. Afaik this has implementation issues, but let's assume it works perfectly. Now say you have two people A and B, who both own 2 million dollars in their 40s. In the next 20 years, person A burns through that by endulging in various unproductive luxuries, ending up with say 200k at 60. Person B invests it and ends up with 3 million at 60. A wealth tax will hit B disproportionately, which doesn't make any sense. We ought to tax consumption (especially consumption of luxury goods), not wealth.
In my view it makes a lot of sense. Person B has createdmore wealth for themselves using state-provided infrastructure and labor exploitation; it is right that they should give back to the community that they stole from.
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silverspawn

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1334 on: September 25, 2021, 02:00:48 pm »

"Small party" as silverspawn refers to means a party that has no realistic chance to reach 5%, and with German election laws that means they will not receive any seats in parliament. (I should note that there is an exception: If a party were to win direct mandates in at least 3 constituencies, then they will get seats proportional to their overall vote share even if that's below 5%. I think only one "small party" has a bit of a shot at this, the Free Voters.)

That's an even ShiTtier system than what we have in Finland, but the point still stands: a vote for a party that gets the same number of seats regardless of your vote is not magically more useful just because that number is higher than 0.

but (>5%) parties don't get the same number of seats regardless of my vote; they get seats proportional to their vote share.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1335 on: September 25, 2021, 02:15:37 pm »

I am an enthusiastic supporter of UBI, but UBI is not the only way to give poor people money. You can also have low wage subsidies or various social safety nets.

Quote
Eh. It's not like working a minimum-wage job is a free choice; this is more like an abusive relationship. People do these jobs for low wages not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they need the money; it's wage slavery.

I agree, but this is not an argument for a MW and it doesn't change the fact that there are situations where A wants to work for B and B wants to pay A but they can't because a MW law doesn't allow it. Not every employer is rich enough to pay more, and not every job is worth 12/hour.

Quote
Giving people money to pay rent is just a redistribution scheme towards rich land-owners. Now the state pays them indirectly for owning property.

I think this hints at the fundamental disagreement, which is that I don't mind land owners (or people in general) making money. I think people should get to make money in the free market, and I think land owners should get to charge whatever amount of rent results from a natural equilibrium in the housing market. We should then redistribute some of that (more than we do now), but not by punishing land owners disproportionately. Other people make money in other ways.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1336 on: September 25, 2021, 03:12:41 pm »

but (>5%) parties don't get the same number of seats regardless of my vote; they get seats proportional to their vote share.

In which your individual vote is unlikely to be significant.
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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1337 on: September 25, 2021, 03:33:36 pm »

but (>5%) parties don't get the same number of seats regardless of my vote; they get seats proportional to their vote share.

In which your individual vote is unlikely to be significant.

Ah, but if you need N votes on average for every seat, then voting for a party has chance 1/N to increase the number of seats by one. If you treat this as a random variable (which it is), then the expected value is just 1/N * (value of one seat), which is exactly the same as if every vote counts equally.

After all, say you take N people who change their vote from party X to party Y. If this happens successively, then the seat must flip after one of those N people. As long as you have no idea where in that process you are, again you have 1/N to flip the seat and (N-1)/N to do nothing, which yields expected impact of (1/N)*(value of one seat).

The same principle is true for every system that is comprised of many small inputs and reacts at a low resolution, like if you stop eating meat or reduce your footprint.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1338 on: September 25, 2021, 03:35:15 pm »

In elections, this is often not exactly true since ultra close elections would result in a recount, but only shifts the same principle because now you have a small chance to be the one vote that triggers the recount, and the calculation comes out the same.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1339 on: September 25, 2021, 03:53:21 pm »

and not every job is worth 12/hour.
I disagree.

I think this hints at the fundamental disagreement, which is that I don't mind land owners (or people in general) making money. I think people should get to make money in the free market, and I think land owners should get to charge whatever amount of rent results from a natural equilibrium in the housing market. We should then redistribute some of that (more than we do now), but not by punishing land owners disproportionately. Other people make money in other ways.
I don't mind people making money either. I mind people owning the means of production when others don't. No society can be truly democratic unless the means of production are also democratically controlled.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2021, 03:56:22 pm by faust »
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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1340 on: September 25, 2021, 04:06:38 pm »

but (>5%) parties don't get the same number of seats regardless of my vote; they get seats proportional to their vote share.

In which your individual vote is unlikely to be significant.

Ah, but if you need N votes on average for every seat, then voting for a party has chance 1/N to increase the number of seats by one. If you treat this as a random variable (which it is), then the expected value is just 1/N * (value of one seat), which is exactly the same as if every vote counts equally.

After all, say you take N people who change their vote from party X to party Y. If this happens successively, then the seat must flip after one of those N people. As long as you have no idea where in that process you are, again you have 1/N to flip the seat and (N-1)/N to do nothing, which yields expected impact of (1/N)*(value of one seat).

The same principle is true for every system that is comprised of many small inputs and reacts at a low resolution, like if you stop eating meat or reduce your footprint.

And like if you vote for a small party. The resolution is just lower in that case, but if you're that one vote that pushes the party over the 5% threshold, you also make a much bigger impact accordingly.
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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1341 on: September 25, 2021, 04:41:21 pm »

And like if you vote for a small party. The resolution is just lower in that case, but if you're that one vote that pushes the party over the 5% threshold, you also make a much bigger impact accordingly.

No, the calculation is different now.

If a party isn't guaranteed to hit 5%, the expected value of a vote (ignoring funding effect that faust mentioned) is p * {value of 30 seats} (because a party with 5% gets 30 seats in the bundestag), where p is the probability that your vote lifts them to 5%. (ignoring that maybe they get more than the minimum number of seats.) This would be equal to the usual case if p were 1/(30 * {number of votes for 5%}), but p doesn't have to be that.

To compute p, you need the probability that the party is one vote away from 5%. This depends on your probability distribution on how many votes it will get without you. For example, in 2017, the AfD and the libertarians were hovering just around 5%. A reasonable model may assume a uniform distribution over every outcome in the interval [4.7%, 5.3%]. That interval consists of about 300k points (that's how many votes there are between 4.7% and 5.3%). There's exactly one point in this distribution where your vote is decisive (the one that's one vote away from 5%), so you have about a 1/30k chance of getting your party 30 seats, which means your impact is 1/1000 * {value of one seat}. This is way more than you usually get, since {number of votes for one seat} is usually about 100k.50

However, if you take a party like the Tierschutzpartei (Animal protection party), the probability distribution is totally different. It's almost certainly going to get below 1%. Technically speaking, there is some probability that without you it gets just below 5%, but it's not 1/30k. It's probably less than 1/30kkk. Your impact is correspondingly only about 1/1kk as large.

I think most people do have the correct intuition here, i.e., that if your party is close to making it, your vote is more important, and if it has no chance, your vote is meaningless. This (unfortunately?) checks out; again ignoring funding and direct mandates.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1342 on: September 25, 2021, 04:44:36 pm »

Accidentally made that 300k into 30k in the third paragraph; that should have been be 1/10000 * {value of one seat} in 2017 for AfD or libertarians, which is about 10 times as much as you get voting for a party that's comfortably above 5%.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1343 on: September 25, 2021, 04:57:43 pm »

However, if you take a party like the Tierschutzpartei (Animal protection party), the probability distribution is totally different. It's almost certainly going to get below 1%.

Well, it's certainly going to get below 1% if everyone who supports it as their favorite party votes for a different party instead.
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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1344 on: September 25, 2021, 05:49:30 pm »

Yeah -- but if that's how things are right now, then that's what you're left with in terms of the EV. You can do things to change that, but by itself the argument "if everyone changed their behavior at once the way I'm doing right now" only carries weight in non-consequentialist land. Coordination problems are allowed to be hard or even impossible to solve.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1345 on: September 25, 2021, 05:51:10 pm »

Also, in this case, most parties wouldn't get to 5% even if everyone collectively decided to ignore the 5% threshold and just vote for their favorite.  I actually don't think the numbers would change all that much. It's not like in the USA.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1346 on: September 26, 2021, 01:34:49 pm »

Yeah -- but if that's how things are right now, then that's what you're left with in terms of the EV. You can do things to change that, but by itself the argument "if everyone changed their behavior at once the way I'm doing right now" only carries weight in non-consequentialist land. Coordination problems are allowed to be hard or even impossible to solve.

I guess, but voting for a small party in and of itself is doing things to change that. If, say, Tierschutzpartei suddenly got a lot more votes than expected, next election they would be closer to that 5% threshold.
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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1347 on: September 26, 2021, 01:38:12 pm »

Not to mention, parties don't necessarily have to get elected to make a difference. Votes for small parties put (small amounts of) pressure on their bigger competitors to change their agenda to incorporate some of the same themes to keep the small party from becoming relevant.
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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1348 on: September 26, 2021, 02:09:27 pm »

Not to mention, parties don't necessarily have to get elected to make a difference. Votes for small parties put (small amounts of) pressure on their bigger competitors to change their agenda to incorporate some of the same themes to keep the small party from becoming relevant.

That's reasonable, the question would then become how you think that compares to more seats in the bundestag.

There also isn't any small party I'm enthusiastic about tbh.

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Re: The Necro Wars
« Reply #1349 on: September 26, 2021, 02:11:05 pm »

I hereby award an A+ in civility for everyone who's been talking politics in this thread.
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