On the one hand you refer heavily to logic, but then suggest being able to know the future with absolute certainty. Even classical physics only suggested that in theory. Quantum physics says it's impossible.
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On the one hand you refer heavily to logic, but then suggest being able to know the future with absolute certainty. Even classical physics only suggested that in theory. Quantum physics says it's impossible.
Celestialphoenix
Too Much Free Time
I could ask you What if the disabled child grows up to be a serial killer? Or indeed any series of unlikely 'what if' counter scenarios which stem from that initial seed. The slippery slope is rarely a solid reason within itself.
Knowing everything only reveals the past tense.
While you could extrapolate that into a 'behavioral forecast'- given the inherent randomness with human thinking, any long term behaviour forecast [years/decades] would lose accuracy. As that person's future experiences and interaction [with other humans] can and will change their believes and resultant behaviour. (and therefore their contribution to society).
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Absolutely - I agree. It was merely a counter-example to show what I think is a flaw in striking's logic. It's not an argument in itself.
Nothing it predictable with absolute certainty, but it is predictable to a degree.
Correction then, I would need to know everything about everything
Not bad.
The traditional answer is that money is a tool for bartering of good between people.
But a better answer, for the real world, address two problems.
First, there is government taxation. Either you pay taxes, or something bad happens to you. Can you pay taxes in anything that lets you barter, or only in the one privileged form of barter-assist?
Chances are, there is one privileged form. Most countries are this way. If I barter for good X, then the government charges me tax (sales tax, income tax, etc) based on the value of that good, in (in my country) US dollars. I have to pay in US dollars.
It doesn't matter if I barter in bitcoin, etc -- I have to have US dollars to pay tax, or I cannot buy/sell/earn something else
So what happens if there is a shortage of US dollars in one area of the economy/country?
Money is the privileged tool for barter that you purchase your right to exist/be independent from the government. Failure to pay this "independence fee" results in your being controlled by the government -- put in jail, forced to work, forced to carry a "debt" so that if you do manage to get money, you have to give it to the government, etc.
I'm going to skip from "what is money" directly to "money flow", as you did not understand that. The traditional view of money flow is:
1. Created out of nothing by a central bank.
2. Lent to commercial banks at a steep discount
3. Lent from those banks to people and government, at a high price.
4. Circulates around as people buy, spend, earn, etc.
5. Ultimately, in theory, loans to the bank are repaid, and
6. The banks return the money to the central bank.
That's the theory. The practice is very different.
Missing from this is the effect of government taxation. Government taxation takes money out of every area of the country. Government spending will put money back into areas where money is spent. So what happens when money is taken from everywhere, but only spent in certain areas?
Answer: Areas that don't get government spending are harmed.
Pork is needed because the money has to be spent everywhere, or else some places are harmed/ruined.
The result of this? Take those two points. In order to do business in area X, there has to be US dollars in area X. As the governments (local, state, federal) tax money out of that area, there has to be some way to bring money into that area, or else that area cannot support the same quality of life for the same number of people.
If there is no tourism to bring people in?
If there is no local industry that sells to outside areas?
If there is no government project in that area?
Then that area is drained over time, and ruined.
Given the presence of taxes, and a lack of government investment, no area can be self centered / self sufficient / isolated. It must work to steal money from another area or die. And the flow of money is such that the theft ultimately has to come from where the money does come -- it has to be "stolen" from the areas where the government is spending money.
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Notice that in the whole thing above (money flow), bankruptcy, and increase in money supply, was basically ignored. Now lets get back to inflation.
The traditional idea of inflation has to do with an increase in money supply, or a change in the relative demand/supply of goods. I've seen three different definitions of inflation, and they all give different "causes/effects", and different solutions to the problem.
But the worst of all is the "Inflation is a good thing, and we must have it" idea.
Elsewhere, someone said you cannot give people $1000 per day, and have a working economy. I responded, what if it was in the $20-$50 range, per day, depending on economic conditions.
Well, the truth is, you can give people $1000 per day, and have a working economy. The prices will not be the same as the current economy.
Right now, I think, minimum wage (federal; it's higher in California) is $7.25 per hour. People are trying to get it raised up to around $10 per hour. What if it were, instead, $725 per hour?
Well, the first thing that would happen if minimum wage were raised to $725 per hour: Almost everyone would be earning the same amount of money. The unskilled, and the 10 years of study skilled worker, would both earn the same amount. This would not be "happy". The skilled workers would say that they were worth more, and start raising what they charge.
The end result, ** assuming no restriction in the available supply of money **, would be to multiple all costs by 100.
But there is an artificial restriction in the supply of money. So things change.
A good way to look at the economy -- and as far as I know, this is not the normal way, certainly this is not taught in undergraduate economics -- is to look at "how many hours of work are in the money supply".
If all labor costs go up by a factor of 100, then the number of working-hours that can be supported by the economy is reduced by a factor of 100.
As the wages go up, the amount of hours that can be supported go down, unless the money supply goes up. And since money supply is controlled by a "miracle lender" that charges to give you money, that can't work.
So what happens if the number of hours needed by the economy goes up?
Lets go back to the traditional views of inflation for a moment. NONE of them take population increase into account.
If you have a 20% increase in population, a 20% increase in employment, a 20% increase in production, and a 20% increase in demand, then you also have a 20% increase in the money needed to make it work. But that increase in money comes with an increased tax/draw/cost/expense, so there is a destructive effect from the two layers of lenders at the start of the money flow.
Result? The traditional way to set up the economy cannot handle a large increase in population.
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Bankruptcy:
If I borrow $x from the bank, and pay it back, then there is no long-term change in the total money supply. I have added, done stuff, and then returned it; the net effect is no change. It's like pair production in the vacuum.
But if I cannot repay? I have added to the money supply.
If I borrow money, and go bankrupt, I have increased the money supply. What I borrowed will not be paid back. If the rate of bankruptcies is controlled, and follows the population change, then bankruptcies are a good thing -- they are how an economy grows.
That's *NOT* even close to the normal way of thinking -- "Bankruptcies are horrible. You are horrible if you don't repay what you borrow". Etc.
So I borrow from big bank X; I would normally pay 8 to 18% interest. I go bankrupt; the money won't be repaid. Economy grows. All is good, right?
No. That bank still owes the government-banked central bank. Now, the central bank charges a tiny sum -- much much less than what I was charged. But it's still the case that the lending bank has to return the money to the central bank -- so it has to take money from other customers.
The only true way for the economy to grow? Let the lending bank fail, and not repay what it owes. Along with it, anyone that borrowed from it no longer has to repay either (the lender that they borrowed from is no longer there to collect).
Think about that for a minute.
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So what is the normal way of thinking to "grow the economy"? Generally, some form of economic spending by the government. Some form of stimulus, some form of seed money, some form of payment to business, some form of "tax break", etc. In theory, the idea is: Pay the businesses, the businesses hire people, employ them, pay them, the money then goes to the ordinary people, who then spend it. The increase in spending sustains the need for people that were hired at the beginning.
I could continue. Let me instead, give you some more questions. What's wrong with this assumption?
People have said you can't just give money to end people. Why not? We give money to businesses, hoping that they will hire people to improve the economy. Why not just give that money directly to people -- the worse the economy, the bigger the stimulus to end people?
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Ignored in the above: How spending by the government to offset tax revenue is normal, good, and proper. How spending by banks in response to their income from lending is normal, good, and proper. The nature of "the price of money".
Also ignored in the above: The nature of money as a tool for auction/barter/allocation of scarce resources, and the need for the tool that determines the allocation of scarce resources to not itself be a scarce resource; the feedback effect. See chaos theory.
NB: I am not a chaos-theory economist. I have debated with them in the past. I am a simulation economist. I have not even begun to address things like vertical integration, restricted access to the economy by startup companies that would want to insert themselves into someone else's production chain, etc.
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What does a "recovery" look like? What is the sign of growth in an economy? What do central banks tend to do when they see those signs?
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You left out another possibility. Instead of lowering wages / paying less / letting the reduced values trickle down, they just make less.
What happened when people stopped buying as many gas lamps as they used to? Less people were employed in the gas lamp industry. More people were employed in other industries.
Relocating workers out of dying industries is normal, good, and proper.
Now, what about increased levels of automation, so that fewer work hours are needed?
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OHH, I call "TRAP".
Rich people spend less, as a percentage.
Rich people do not spend a significantly higher amount. If I make 1000 times as much as someone else, and I spend 1000 times as much in turn, I am not rich. I go broke. See all those one-shot wonders, all those bands that made money, and went broke. See all those "gee, that person died broke" stories.
If you are rich, it is because you are *NOT SPENDING*.
Does "not spending" mean bad things? Does money have to be spent to keep the economy going? Are people expected to save up for their retirements? If so, are we really saying that we expect everyone to be rich?
First, I need to know what you mean by pension scheme. I'm used to the term meaning that your employer promises to pay you a certain amount in the future for work done now, proceeds to under fund that for short-term profit, then gets the government to change the law so that they do not have to properly fund it in the future, and you find that at retirement, the money you planned for and assumed would be there is not, and you are now in poverty because the people you trusted -- your past employers, and the lawmakers who had the job of making them do what they promised -- failed you.
What do you mean by pension scheme?
So I notice people are looking at "average" life expectancy. It is nearly meaningless. Don't pay attention to it.
Far more useful than "average" is "50%", or "median". At what point have half the people died?
Infant mortality changes will have a strong effect on the average, and a weak effect on the median.
Even better is "50% die from disease/old age", excluding accidents/wars/etc. That doesn't change nearly as much.
Now, I agree that there is a limit to the lifespan of most of the parts of a human body. But the real limit is only the central nervous system and brain, and the central circulatory. Limbs can be replaced with better medical technology.
The circulatory system: Blood vessels do not automatically harden as you get older. "Biological age", one major component, is just how flexible your arteries are. That's nutrition and exercise, not physical age.
The nervous system and brain: Other than injury, or damage from disease, I know of no study/testing that shows any definite upper limit, and some indication that 125-150 years is the lower likely end.
Organs: Generally, organs are going to fail in the 100 to 125 year range, even with good nutrition and care. Replacement organs are within technical "doable" nature.
General production of hormones/etc: There's a couple of things that your body produces that is in adequate supply at age 35, and low supply at age 65. I'm not sure to what extent this is nutrition/health related, and to what extent this is organ age related. All of these are available as supplements, so even a reduced amount of body production is not a problem.
Nutrition is the big key element. The last 30-some years have made major surprises to nutrition. A lot of "old truths" turned out to not be based on any actual study, and failed when studied. One of these is the so-called "whole grain goodness" idea.
It turns out that there's three key items in nutrition, and we get them wrong from baby formula through children's breakfast, and they are basically all wrong until you get out of any government sponsored program.
Number one: Carbohydrate to protein ratio. Ideal is 4g carbs to 3g protein (133%), with the range for more than 95% of people being in the (if I recall correctly) 125% to 150% range. Compare this to the old food pyramid (remember 12 servings of bread a day?) that was in the 300+% range. The C-to-P ration affects the amount of insulin (one hormone) versus it's counter-hormone, and an imbalance here affects 75% of the population (the actual behavior seems to be straight one-gene Mendel genetics -- low, medium, medium, high).
Mother's milk tends to be very close to this value; infant formula is almost always very high, because only total calories is considered, not the difference in calorie source.
Number two: Carbohydrate speed/density (Glycemic Index, and Glycemic Load). Or, Complex carbohydrates are not automatically better for you than simple carbohydrates. Fruit is not necessarily bad for diabetics. Grain is not the answer for diabetics, nor better for you than fruit.
A lot depends on how the grains are cooked (raw, they turn out to be low, but very few people can take them raw; different cooking methods give different values; heck, even how the wheat is turned into pasta changes the index of the pasta). And the size of the serving affects the total load.
A good rule of thumb for health: You can eat dense carbs, or fast carbs, but you cannot eat fast and dense, unless you have the lucky low-low gene pair.
Number three: Type of fat. Not all fat is bad; not all fats are equal.
Number 3.5: Type of calorie. Not all calories are the same.
There's an old adage about "Total calories consumed versus spent". These same people generally say "Fat is bad". The whole "Replace the bad fat in your diet with healthy grains". You know, push that C to P ratio way up high.
It turns out that human bodies are designed to burn fat for energy. That's the optimal behavior.
You cannot burn stored far for energy while insulin levels are high compared to it's counter (sorry, I don't recall the name of it). High levels of insulin put your body into storage mode, and it can only store fat, not release fat for fuel.
Equally, you cannot use the calories of protein in your calculations. Turning protein into storage/fat requires the body (liver? Kidneys? I don't remember which organ does this) to work really really hard (if I recall correctly, it's been many years, it's the removal of the amino group that is difficult), and doing this excessively causes wear and tear. You need protein, not because of calories, but because of muscle growth/repair/maintenance.
Essentially, nutrition comes down to:
1. Protein needed for your body (50-100g per day, depending on your body size and activity level. Athletes can go well over 100g per day). Typical person is 70g.
2. Carbohydrates sufficient to keep the ratio "just right". At 133%, that's 93g/day.
Think about that for a moment. 93g of carbohydrates a day. 3 meals + 2 snacks is about 23g per meal. How many carbs are in your morning breakfast (cereal, toast, fruit juice, milk)? How many years do we spend giving growing bodies horrible nutrition?
3. 93g carbs, at 4cal/g, plus 70g protein, at 4cal/g, is about 650 calories. Your body is designed to burn fat -- about 1500 calories a day to get up to 2150 calories.
When was the last time you saw a high fat diet being recommended as normal and healthy?
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Lets say I were to tell you that, as a politician, as a would-be leader, that I had a way to improve the health and well-being of people in this country. But the catch was, it would be expensive, it would not benefit anyone over 7 years of age, it would mostly benefit those of under 6 months (including the not yet born), it would be 15+ years before people who benefited from it could vote, it would be 30-50 years before you really saw the results of this, and it would be 65-80 years before major improvements in the quality of life for older people became apparent. Would you be willing to spend large amounts of money, starting now, for something that would not benefit you, and would only really benefit those not yet born?
That is the issue of nutrition.
That is the difference between people having a "50% death from disease and old-age at 70" versus "at 95".
And no, I can't tell you where the 50% line would be. No one can. We just know that it is a lot higher than it currently is.
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I would argue otherwise. We have grandparents. We have a concept of the older generation being around to help raise the new generation when the parents are overwhelmed, as well as passing on the knowledge for two generations instead of only one.
The presence of good grand parents increases the ability of children in the new generation to survive compared to a lack of grand parents.
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Hey, Squiddlie, this section is all you.
The bottom line is this: There are not enough resources on the planet to give all people the same health care that is given to the president of the united states of america. Therefore, some decisions have to be made, and some care denied to some people.
Everything else is just making some decisions about who is more valuable and gets the care, and who does not.
Actually, if you knew anything about big businesses, this is a LAST resort.
Why would they produce less, when they don't know if there competitors are still producing more.
Lets say there are 2 companies
Cheese1 and Cheese2. These are the only 2 cheese companies left in the country, because everyone else went under.
Right now, they are both losing money fast, but they both share an equal 50% of the market.
Cheese1 reduces the money it pays for milk, saving a small amount of money.
Cheese2 reduces the amount they make, meaning that instead of selling to 50% of consumers they now sell to 40%.
Which means Cheese1 now has 60%, and is getting a little more money, a little more wiggle room. They are still making losses, but not as much.
Whereas Cheese2 now only has 40% of consumers, is making less money, and therefore has to make more cuts to stop themselves from going under.
No one company will reduce how much they produce/sell unless everyone is forced to do so.
I am not going to lie. I do not fully understand the pension system, and seeing as the pension system in Britain seems to be on the verge of change, I do not want to explain what is probably a concoction of the two. So I won't talk about it. I'm not even 20, I never really needed to know the ins and outs. But I assume our pension scheme is different to that of the states'.
Hence why I said, we exclude deaths under 20, the average shoots up. But median is still a bad way to go.
You could say modal is actually best for this, as it will say ok, most people die at this age. Or if we bracket them into age groups, so 1-4, 5-9, etc. and get an average age range. THAT is actually the best decider.
Let's take a new country.
We move a town of 19 people there. They are all aged sporadically.
1 person is pregnant on this island.
They give birth. There are now 20 people on the island.
The eldest member, age 91 dies. The average life expectancy for that island is now 91.
2 more people die, these 2 are both 84. The average life expectancy for the 17 remaining people is now 86.333.
Now the child dies, the child was 1 at this point. The average life expectancy for the remaining people is now 65.
2 more youngsters die in a car accident, age 15, and 17. The MEAN average life expectancy now is a lowly 48.666.
However, the median is better right? No. the median would be 50.5, which is better. But it's not excluding outliers caused from external influence
Although. MODAL! Now, out of all the people who died from a natural cause the ages are 1, 84, 84, and 91. SO from this, the average life expectancy is 84.
Yes, I don't deny grandparents teach children some valuable stuff (e.g. stuff about history, that isn't on the school syllabus), and help ease the pressure on parents.
But you could also argue that, at least for this generation, and maybe the next two, they are the worst thing for a child. Teaching them negative stereotypes, teaching them that <x group of people is not equal to them> etc.
Old people, generally, don't care who they offend, or what their words' weight actually bares. So it could be either influencing or worse, injuring children (physiologically) the next "grandparent generation" is still in the "learning difficulties, like ADHD, weren't a thing when I was a kid...".
I know this will, HOPEFULLY, change. But I hope you understand where I am coming from on this, as I don't know how better to explain it.
Apart from your analogy being terrible, you are correct.
Not everyone can get healthcare. It is just a fact, but it is actually a good thing. Because it means that people are actually having to build up natural defences.
I wouldn't doubt for a second that if you were to give some of the most impoverished people, and some of the most affluent people a common non-lethal pathogen (e.g. the common cold), that (without medical care) the impoverished people would regain their health quicker.
Cheese 2 reduces the amount that they make, and fires some people as a result. They are now selling to fewer people, but with lower costs, make money.
Milk suppliers now have a choice -- sell to Cheese 1 at lower prices, or to Cheese 2. They sell to Cheese 2.
Dropping employees, and selling less, as the demand drops? Sure. Good? Bad?
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There are two options to dealing with reduced demand. Produce less -- and get rid of your unneeded production, or lower prices -- which requires lowering your costs.
Producing less is appropriate for a true drop in demand. See fountain pens, gas lamps, and horse-pulled buggy supplies.
Lowering your costs is appropriate for a true drop in availability of money. ... Err, I'd love to give an example, but our government refuses to even acknowledge that as a possible option.
Do you mean the point at which 50% of the people die older, 50% die younger? That's what I mean also; I may have used a different name.
There are 3 types of averages:
Mean - total "score"/total "inputs". E.g. age of everyone who has died/how many people died
Median - the middle number
Mode - Most common number
I would say median is the WORST for some things though.
Let's take wage's, and we are trying to get an average.
80% of the population are on $30,000 a year, or less.
15% get $30,001 - $500,000
5% get $500,001+
With median you will be getting a wage somewhere between 0 and 30,000... which is fine, but within that bracket, you are still not getting an accurate represntation of what the average person earns.
Modal, means that the highest percentage of people earn that amount.
So if we say that 10% are earning $22,000 then that is the most common; if you are earning more or less than that, you are not earning the average wage.
And mean just screws everything up, as it will bring the number way above $22,000.
You have several issues here.
What you seem to be looking for is "Typical" wage.
Your first line is "Let's take wage's, and we are trying to get an average."
By the end, you are saying that you want "an accurate representation of what the average person earns."
So, the real question is, what do you mean by "what the average person earns"? I suspect you are really meaning "what the typical person makes".
Let me give you a first draft of what might be a good definition for typical: The smallest range that includes at least 66% of the population, as well as the 50th percentile.
Let me give you a different first draft: The range from the 17th percentile to the 83rd percentile.
Note that those are not identical. So what exactly are you looking for?
Honestly. I don't know. I was typing while at work, so I was rushing my thought, it is likely stuff merged.
Erm, average = mean; the words are interchangeable. Average != median or mode.
Average does not always = mean.
Mean = average
But so do the other 2. But mean is what is most commonly used.
However, median and mode are use when there are ridiculous outliers that highly skew the results, e.g. 10 people were assigned a number between 1-1,000,000 9 people go a number between 1 and 50, and the last person got 987,836. The average of the numbers the people received would be highly skewed and not accurately represent the numbers the people recieved at all. So you would use median, because it would remove that one person who got the stupidly high number from the equation.
I can't think of an example for the mode then
"In colloquial language, an average is the sum of a list of numbers divided by the number of numbers in the list. In mathematics and statistics, this would be called the arithmetic mean. However, the word average may also refer to the median, mode, or other central or typical value."
...such as, I assume, standard deviation, among other things.
Standard deviation isn't a measure of centeredness, its a measure of spread about the mean, hence why it uses the mean (in this case, x-bar) in its calculation. You are right, Jord, about the colloquial usage of "average" meaning either mean (1/n * sigma x), median (positional centre of the list), or mode (most common value in the list). However, most people, when they talk about averages, they're speaking of the mean.
Yes, I know.
But it annoys me when people forget that there are other averages too, not just the mean. MEAN AIN'T EVERYTHING YO!
But, SD was the only thing I could remember from my a-level maths classes... I didn't really pay attention in that. It was either I say that or differentiation, and that is obviously wrong