Mandating age verification and the inevitable implementation requirements are bad for freedom.

Behaviour changes and innovations will mitigate some of the negatives, but bad things are bad.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48611548

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These drugs seem to change something fundamental that reduces problematic behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchian%E2%80%93Allen_effect?w...

>Thus no matter what your productive output is per hour of labour, you will always work as much as you can, because you are - presumably - insatiably driven to always consume ever more with no end to it.

No, that's not how marginalism works. There's both diminishing marginal utility from consumption, and leisure.

No doubt there's problematic regulations like exclusionary zoning laws. But you can't say that these regulations are so binding that there is no choice and no expression of preferences as opposed to needs in their choices. Lots of homes still have unmandated second floors, basements, bathrooms, and square footage.

The human brain is great at (ir)rationalizing wants as needs. If you want to live in a nice place in a high-cost of living city, that's a want, not a need.

When a new gaming console comes out and someone works extra shifts to afford it sooner, that's not a distortion.

I think your mistake, based on how you're talking about the "real value of leisure" is thinking there is a single value of x. That's labor theory of value era thinking. There is only marginal utility and marginal rates of substitution.

Trading leisure for consumption via labor is the choice, not a distortion.

Probably what happened is America was in an increasing returns to scale part of its production function. Now it's in the diminishing returns to scale portion. If I had to guess why, it would be due to growth boundaries of cities and lack of new cities. There's no new Manhattans. Instead Manhattan has just gotten more and more expensive to live in.

Anyway, if F(Population) is the production function, then wages should be F'(Population) and total wages should be Population.F'(Population).

F(Population)-Population.F'(Population) is total production minus total wages and is known as economic rent.

The right thing to do would be to tax economic rent. Use a tax on land value and natural resources to fund UBI.

Fairest? I mean, land value tax is fair. So are Pigouvian taxes. In fact they're arguable more than fair. Not having these taxes is arguably unfair. Who deserves ownership of natural resources or to inflict negative externalities on others?

Taking things someone earned through labour and not letting them give it to who they want isn't very fair.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48017625

Points: 4

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I know it's unpopular to ever say statistics show this generation is fine, because of course there's always a bunch of other troubling statistics, not to mention always people that are actually struggling.

But honestly, many people that feel hopeless can afford to put a few thousand in an ETF every year. That would likely be millions even adjusting for inflation after many years.

He quoted Shakespeare's MacBeth, "It is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." when talking about he thinks sketch comedy is the greatest form of self expression, even moreso than poetry from people like Shakespeare.

It's not that deep.

An example of rewilding on its wikipedia page is "wildlife-friendly overpasses and underpasses". That's literally going the "making areas more friendly to wildlife" route.

When it comes to 15-minute cities there's all these conspiracies, but then you look behind it and it's just about allowing economic liberty to build taller and allow more commercial uses like doctors, daycares, and corner stores in residential neighborhoods, and restrict free government subsidized street parking.

It's good to be viligant, okay? And if any policies come up that are shoving people into cities, feel free to protest. But until then, a lot of the policies are actually exactly the "being more friendly to wildlife" that you're asking for and not shoving people into cities.