World’s richest woman would prefer to pay her miners $2 a day

[Fake Boris]

The point is that molly makes ridiculous attempts to appear to be a Well-Educated and Intelligent Man by name-dropping obscure and irrelevant details that nobody cares about, generally from the first 10 results on google. In this case it's made especially apparent by the fact that he got the irrelevant details he so loves wrong.

Let's disagree here.

Molly wanted to point out other aspects of human behavior, like culture, society and politics, that are necessary to understand "choice". He gave color to his argument by googling for specifics.

In the end, he is correct and you're not. And he doesn't think that we think that he doesn't google.

[Fake Boris]

"Meaningless" would be this post. You try to make yourself seem smart with cryptic twitter-length posts that reveal nothing whatsoever except your lack of understanding of the subject at hand. Much like Molly, only more concise.

OK. So there is scarcity resulting from the natural cap of *all* available resources, and there is scarcity from distribution.

Kuguar & co are taking preferences made in the context of scarcity from distribution, and broadening its implications to the "natural" sphere, where technically the mode of distribution is also up to preferences.

[Elok]

I don't think he Googles, I think he genuinely has a wide knowledge of multicultural trivia. Now, it's still silly for him to name-drop said trivia when it adds nothing to the conversation, but I've come to think he can't entirely help himself.

[Aeson]

There's not actually a choice of subsistence farming for some/many of the miners. There also isn't a choice of being a miner for some/many of the subsistence farmers. (I would guess most of them in both cases, but am not terribly familiar with the situation there.) Populations are increasing while arable land (total) is decreasing. There are limited amounts of jobs available in mines. How many people actually have that choice would be very difficult to tell, and the choice they make is going to vary ... and that choice is going to mainly be affected by the amount of land available in the subsistence farming vs the pay in the mines.

Subsistence farming when your family has 5 hectares of irrigated, arable land would not be a bad life. I'd probably choose it over working in a US coal mine even. At least I'd get to breath fresh air and look up at the sky while I work. I'm sure there are plenty who would choose the coal mine because they get more money. Even with that much land though, some of your siblings would probably be expected to go off and find their own livelihood. They wouldn't have the choice at all.

Subsistence farming when you and your siblings are born into a landless family living in a 8'x8' shack is decidedly less of an option. That doesn't mean they want to mine more than subsistence farm. Just as for many people working in the mines is not an option at all either. That doesn't mean that they feel subsistence farming is a better option than mining, does it?

Treating it as a simple choice of subsistence farming or mining and trying to promote one option as better based on the "revealed preferences" that don't reveal much of anything at all is ridiculous. We might as well proclaim that working in an African mine and/or subsistence farming is the best job in the world because there are more people that do it than there are movie stars, astronauts, CEOs of Apple/Google/Microsoft (combined ), or Presidents of the US.

[DaShi]

FYI, my Chinese coders are working out great.

[Jaguar]

Treating it as a simple choice of subsistence farming or mining and trying to promote one option as better based on the "revealed preferences" that don't reveal much of anything at all is ridiculous. We might as well proclaim that working in an African mine and/or subsistence farming is the best job in the world because there are more people that do it than there are movie stars, astronauts, CEOs of Apple/Google/Microsoft (combined ), or Presidents of the US.

If anyone actually believed this, it would be a fundamental misunderstanding of revealed preference. If you choose something, it only means you preferred it relative to other options you actually had available to you.

Of course, nobody believes this, and you're fighting a strawman based on a fake definition nobody is using.

[Aeson]

If anyone actually believed this, it would be a fundamental misunderstanding of revealed preference. If you choose something, it only means you preferred it relative to other options you actually had available to you.

Of course, nobody believes this, and you're fighting a strawman based on a fake definition nobody is using.

You, Felch, and Kuci are pretending that the options they have are something other than what they really have. By doing so you are misusing "revealed preference" in the exact same way I was in my hyperbolic analogy. Just to a less hyperbolic extent.

I pretended they had other options. Why don't they just be POTUS? Or an astronaut? Or a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company? It's every bit as likely to happen as to subsistence farm when you don't have any land ... obviously miners want to mine more than to be POTUS or subsistence farmers. Yay for evil people exploiting the results of centuries of colonization and then immigration laws!

The "revealed preference" we can actually glean from this scenario isn't that miners would rather work in mines for $2/day than subsistence farm, but that they (and subsistence farmers as well) would rather do that particular work which is available to them (generally by nature of their birth) rather than to not have any livelihood at all ... the result of which is deprivation of basic necessities, potentially even death.

I want it to be clear what the revealed preferences actually are. You want to obfuscate what the options are so you can invent "revealed preferences" that better suit your world view. (eg. to praise those who extract the wealth from land and labor, exploit immigration restrictions and past wrongs, all to allow them to get rich while they leave their workers as poor as they can manage.)

[Hauldren Collider]

Aeson does not understand what a "choice" is. He seems to believe there needs to be a "good" option for there to be a "best" option.

[Aeson]

Aeson does not understand what a "choice" is. He seems to believe there needs to be a "good" option for there to be a "best" option.

You're a moron who couldn't see past your partisanship if your life depended on it. I clearly stated that miners are choosing mining above their other option(s). This obviously implies they think it is the best option available to them.

I take issue with those who pretend the options are other than they actually are. This is obviously too complex an issue for your feeble mind to grasp. So wait for one of your betters to come along and post something you can (distortedly) echo.

[DaShi]

HC always reminds me of this:

[Hauldren Collider]

You're a moron who couldn't see past your partisanship if your life depended on it. I clearly stated that miners are choosing mining above their other option(s). This obviously implies they think it is the best option available to them.

I take issue with those who pretend the options are other than they actually are. This is obviously too complex an issue for your feeble mind to grasp. So wait for one of your betters to come along and post something you can (distortedly) echo.

Your comment is irrelevant. Everything you said is 100% irrelevant. The only salient observation is that if a mining company moves in AND successfully hires workers for say $2 a day, then we can assume from revealed preference that workers are willing to work for $2 a day and that they consider this to be better than what they could otherwise be doing.

[Hauldren Collider]

The "revealed preference" we can actually glean from this scenario isn't that miners would rather work in mines for $2/day than subsistence farm, but that they (and subsistence farmers as well) would rather do that particular work which is available to them (generally by nature of their birth) rather than to not have any livelihood at all ... the result of which is deprivation of basic necessities, potentially even death.

So let's be clear about something here. Aeson seems to be implying that there's something negative about employing those people in mines when their other option is no livelihood at all. Somehow, we'd be evil for employing them at $2/day when if we decided not to employ them they would be penniless and starve.

So it sounds like the best course of action would be to find jobs for these people, ASAP, because there are starving africans we could save by employing them at very low cost.

[Aeson]

Your comment is irrelevant. Everything you said is 100% irrelevant. The only salient observation is that if a mining company moves in AND successfully hires workers for say $2 a day, then we can assume from revealed preference that workers are willing to work for $2 a day and that they consider this to be better than what they could otherwise be doing.

It's not irrelevant. Public opinion of that mining company and the consumer response to it could affect the wages they pay, working conditions, and at a societal level can impact horrendous policies like immigration restrictions. Consumers in a free market have power of their own. But they need to be well-informed to be able to make the choice they would want to.

You and your ilk (mostly effective people who hold similar views to those you parrot) try to obfuscate the issues. You try to white-wash it so you can feel better about cheerleading for the exploitation of caged workers and the standard of living you derive from it. You are the anti-free market stance here, masquerading as the opposite. You don't want consumers to have the information that would allow them to actually reveal their preferences. You actively work to obfuscate it. You don't want workers to have a choice as to where to work. You even go so far as to say it's welfare destroying for a less-evil business to give them a choice to work for a dollar more.

You're probably too stupid to be doing it out of any consciously evil intent, which is the best thing I can say about you.

[Hauldren Collider]

Aeson, if we paid the workers more, we'd have to hire less workers. That would be far worse.

And there's nothing exploitative about it. The mining companies would be provided opportunities where there previously existed none. And you think that's bad, because the opportunities aren't as good as you'd like? Ridiculous.

I would love for the workers to have a choice as to where they'd work. Ideally they'd be as wealthy as I am. You are attributing things to me that are patently false, accusing me of things I've never said, and I can't honestly figure out why.

[Aeson]

So let's be clear about something here. Aeson seems to be implying that there's something negative about employing those people in mines when their other option is no livelihood at all. Somehow, we'd be evil for employing them at $2/day when if we decided not to employ them they would be penniless and starve.

So it sounds like the best course of action would be to find jobs for these people, ASAP, because there are starving africans we could save by employing them at very low cost.

They could be paid much more, they could be allowed an actual choice, and virtually all of humanity (probably even the dumb ***** that's the focus of the OP) would benefit greatly from it. The evil are the people who could make those decisions not doing so, and those who try to obfuscate this reality and cheerlead for the exploitation of caged workforces ...