14 KiB
[Educational] Deathonomics 1-3: Let's learn price theory with ponies
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Author: u/None *
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Score: 16
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Created: 2014-07-27T07:27:14
Post:
Comments:
u/None [+5] (5 minutes later)
Be sure not to miss Charley and the Coase Theorem.
u/PeridexisErrant [+2] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (a day later)
Lovely.
u/traverseda [+3] With dread but cautious optimism (an hour later)
“I have things to do, an economy to destroy, a sister to…hm, is there a word for the act of totally eradicating every component of somepony’s utility function? No matter. Leave.”
Should give you a general idea of this authors work.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Is there a word for that?
u/traverseda [+2] With dread but cautious optimism (a day later)
Probably. How do you feel about german loan words?
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Supremacist.
u/traverseda [+3] With dread but cautious optimism (2 hours later)
Seriously. You write so interestingly. It's like pratchett.
u/None [+3] (12 hours later)
Yes, I am riffing off his style pretty hard. And you want me to use footnotes, and pretty soon the pony in black will be TALKING LIKE THIS. I might as well surrender and declare Equestria perfectly flat and traveling through space on the back of a reptile.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
Honestly, it has a sun and moon that have to be moved manually, via telekinetic magic. A flat planet is the simplest explanation here.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
...They literally raise and lower the sun and moon? Do ponies not fall in love if Cadence isn't there? Or is she trotting around creating high-pressure super hot fissures to bake crystals in?
u/None [+6] (a day later)
Look, I live on a sensible, spherical planet that turns because of angular momentum and has a moon (and an orbit around the sun, causing seasons) because of gravity, on which I live with an emotion of love that comes down to neurochemistry. Don't ask me how those nonsense-lands could possibly work.
But yes, they literally raise and lower the sun and moon. As in, Nightmare Moon showing up actually caused unending night. As in, Discord was actually capable of making the sun and moon bob up and down like a see-saw (but admittedly, the Q could probably at least make an illusion that this was happening in any world, even a sensible one like ours). As in, when Twilight Sparkle was given all the alicorn magic one time (latest season), and she accidentally failed to set her alarm clock, she slept in and the sun did not rise until she woke up and rectified her mistake.
In their ancient history, before having alicorn princesses to play demi-god for them, the entire unicorn tribe actually had to band together to raise the sun every morning with collective telekinesis.
DON'T ASK ME HOW THOSE THINGS COULD EVEN POSSIBLY HAVE EVOLVED IN THE FIRST PLACE IF THERE WAS NO SUNLIGHT PRIOR TO THEIR SPECIES EXISTING. Honestly, the best explanation is a straightforwardly Hogfather-ish one, that prior to ponies evolving to be the most sapient/intelligent species on the (flat) planet, the sun and moon moved on their own, but their belief in their own primitive mythology mixed with the strong background magical field to make the normal orbits stop working without deliberate action.
This would explain why their sun and moon move across the sky just fine all day and night, but then need to be "raised" or "lowered" at dawn and dusk.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
I just wanted to say that I continue to read and enjoy what you're writing - I've got the college Econ 101 understanding of much of this stuff, but your writing is helping me to grok things that I before only understood on a rote level.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
Yay, learning! Now if I could just convince you to write a story about Lex Luthor assuming control of the Federal Reserve....
u/None [+2] (29 seconds later)
In this chapter an economics puzzle is presented. In the next chapter Twilight Sparkle will try to solve it. Do try to solve it along with her.
u/None [+2] (2 minutes later)
I would be interested in comments on how successful this story is from a pedagogical perspective, and also generally. I can tell a lot of economics-themed pony stories and indeed have planned quite a few, but there is little point if people can't take much of this. What interests and works for you about this story, what doesn't, how could it be better and more interesting, etc.?
u/traverseda [+3] With dread but cautious optimism (an hour later)
You're targeting a niche of a niche. So don't be surprised if your readership is low.
And I imagine that most of your target audience is generally busy. I'm only catching up with the tail end of Economic is Science now.
It's certainly expanded my vocabulary. Most of the economics lessons are already apparent. Not that I have any real specialized economics knowledge. Although I do dabble. Mostly it's because of generic lesswrong stuff.
I think you could do a lot with footnotes. "Have I ever told you about how pencils are made" demans a more thorough explanation.
u/None [+1] (9 hours later)
Hm, how is an update every two weeks? Fast? Slow?
u/traverseda [+2] With dread but cautious optimism (18 hours later)
Seems pretty reasonable.
u/rationalidurr [+2] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (3 hours later)
All of the economics you've explained so far have been okay, but it would have been better, for me anyway, if you used more practical examples in explaining the theory, I have trouble understanding why marginal cost rises, when i assume that a factory would get proficient at making a product. I enjoy the short comedic parts and subtle references. 501st unit. Haha!
u/None [+1] (9 hours later)
Ugh, that needs to be edited. I did not explain rising marginal cost but diminishing marginal utility. It doesn't change the lesson that MR = MC, but since increasing marginal cost is much harder to explain, I ended up explaining diminishing marginal utility.
501st unit. Haha!
I don't get this subtle reference. I assume to some military unit?
u/rationalidurr [+1] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (10 hours later)
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/501st_Legion Well that was a funny little coincidence. As for the MR = MC lesson, what is MR?
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+2] Godric Gryffindor (15 hours later)
I suspect that's actually a further reference to the 501st Provisional Battalion, also known as Falkenberg's Legion. An old-school SF reader would know about it.
u/autowikiabot [+1] (10 hours later)
#####
######
#### 501st Legion:
"Within months, the 501st gained a well deserved reputation as 'Vader's Fist.'"
―Entry from the Journal of the 501st^[src]
The 501st Legion, also known as the 501 or 501st Battalion during the Clone Wars and later known as "Vader's Fist" and the Five Hundred and First, was an elite unit of clone troopers commissioned by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine during the Clone Wars that later became a stormtrooper unit. Made up of units like Torrent Company, the 501st fought in many battles, such as the Battle of Teth and the Battle of Coruscant, becoming one of the most well-known legions. In 19 BBY, the 501st became Darth Vader's personal unit as he led them during Operation: Knightfall, in which the clones helped take down the Jedi, whom they believed to be traitors to the Republic.
Following the rise of the Galactic Empire, the 501st transitioned into a stormtrooper unit, like other clone units. Given new armor and weapons, the 501st faithfully served the Empire, operating under the direct command of the Sith Lord Darth Vader. After the Kamino uprising, the 501st became the last remnant of the Grand Army of the Republic fully composed of Jango Fett clones, as opposed to the ever-growing and more diverse Stormtrooper Corps, where the Fett clones became a minority, with the inclusion of a pool of clones from different templates and birth-born recruits, while others were not clones, but humans from an Imperial academy; by 0 BBY though Vader was known to comb through the ranks of all stormtrooper units and transferring the very best to the 501st, a fact that angered other Imperial agents - like Mara Jade - who had to work with lesser qualified units.
The legion fought in a number of battles during the Galactic Civil War in an effort to defeat the Rebel Alliance and bring peace to the galaxy, although the Alliance ultimately triumphed. Though the 501st was disbanded after the Battle of Endor, the Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn resurrected the designation by forming a new 501st Legion. He also added more diverse recruits to the 501st, including non-Humans. The reconstituted 501st was stationed in the Unknown Regions, where they protected Thrawn's Empire of the Hand. Over a century later, the legion was in the service of a new Empire, by then under the rule of Emperor Roan Fel.
When Fel was deposed by Darth Krayt shortly after the conclusion of the Sith–Imperial War, the 501st Legion fell under the control of the Dark Lord of the Sith in the year 130 ABY. Seven years later, however, Fel returned from exile and joined in the war against Krayt in order to reclaim his throne. Under the leadership of General Oron Jaeger, the 501st deserted the Dark Lord's Galactic Empire in order to join the Fel faction.
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u/None [+1] (12 hours later)
MR = marginal revenue, the additional revenue generated by selling another unit. The general behavior principle would be marginal benefit = marginal cost. Do things while they make you better off, but stop before they start making you worse off.
u/zian [+1] (14 days later)
I found it a great review of stuff I had learned from my basic economics class. However, for some of the more esoteric stuff like NGDP, the in media res approach worked great for the sake of the story but not so well when it came to explaining what it is and why it's such a big deal.
I also have a bit of trouble understanding what Rainbow Dash is supposed to represent.
u/Charlie___ [+2] (12 hours later)
Suppose I'm Rarity, and I have to pay 1000 bits for dressmaking equipment before making my first dress - the cost of my first dress is 1000 bits. But then the marginal cost of further dresses is very low, maybe 5 bits. If I sell dresses at 6 bits, sure I don't lose money per dress, but that doesn't make it profitable to be a dressmaker, since the cost of the first dress was so high - I'd rather just loan my 1000 bits to Rainbow Dash.
But if selling at below, say, 30 bits means it's not profitable to be a dressmaker, this means that if I, Rarity, charge 30 bits, ponies with 1000 bits lying around will not be willing to become dressmakers to try and undercut me at 29 bits. Therefore I can raise my prices to 30 bits without anypony undercutting me and causing me to lose business. And since I can, I should, so long as other ponies keep buying my dresses enough to make each increase in price profitable.
Or suppose I'm Pinkie Pie, and I know everypony in town. The marginal cost of a cupcake is 1.5 bits, so if a pony is poor or doesn't like cupcakes much I charge them 2 bits. But if they really like cupcakes or can afford it, I know they'll pay even if I ask them for 3 or 4 or sometimes even 5 bits! Everyone pays a price they're happy with and I make way more bits than if I just asked everyone for the same price.
u/None [+1] (13 hours later)
Yes, and if Pinkie Pie and Rarity are making money this way, then they should keep producing and searching out those marginal ponies until that stops becoming profitable.
It is the marginal cost which should equal the marginal revenue. The marginal unit being the unit you are making a choice about. The point is that if MR > MC, keep going, if MR < MC back up, and if MR = MC, then things are just right. This doesn't mean that you should charge a thousand bits for that first dress, but if you are going to make only one dress, then you had better be able to sell it for at least a thousand bits or it wasn't worth making....
This will all be gone over in more detail and consideration in future chapters. Indeed, maybe I will just steal these examples.
u/None [+1] (13 hours later)
If we are analyzing the profit-maximizing firm, then we assume it is profit-maximized, which means it is stopped (at this point in time) because it is already doing the best it can, which means MR = MC. If MR /=/ MC, then the firm would be wanting to do more or less of something right now. Understand this as an incredibly useful analytical tool rather than a literal description. The real world is not so smooth and divisible, but this helps us explain what firms have done and helps us predict what they might do next.