The point Sapientia is making (and I agree with his view) is that jobs that involve saving lives, or enhancing minds (teachers, for instance) are worth more than making money, and that those worthwhile jobs should be paid more. — Bitter Crank

See? Bitter Crank gets it. Agustino, Thorongil, and Michael need to up their game. — Sapientia

I can agree with BC, which I do, without subscribing to the boilerplate Marxism you've been peddling in this thread.

@Agustino

Yeah I want to flip the tables, since there is free will when it comes to human behaviour, hence why there is moral agency and responsibility for one's actions.

"I believe all these facts limit my agency therefore they are false" - exactly why I stepped away in the first place. You don't actually care about patterns in the territory. Or about the methodological principles which bring them out.

The statistics are part of the map. They're like signposts, signalling and quantifying relationships in the territory. — fdrake

That is only if the territory is random - ie if there is no directly identifiable efficient cause.

No. Physical models are fit to data which are generated deterministically. The parameter fitting process still assumes the data is indistinguishable from random data. Just look at least squares estimation used in the highschool physics experiment to determine F=MA. More generally experimental physicists use B-splines to quantify novel trends, when there isn't a parametric model to fit to the data. All of this applies on the backdrop of measurement imprecision, which is assumed to be random. Hence, while the Higgs Boson was still a fresh discovery at CERN, the media kept reporting the buzzword that it was a '5 sigma result'.

The use of statistics to quantify things and learn about them does not depend on your interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics. If it is incompatible in your eyes, so much the worse for your personal metaphysics.

I can agree with BC, which I do, without subscribing to the boilerplate Marxism you've been peddling in this thread. — Thorongil

Haven't you noticed the boilerplate Marxism I've been peddling?

I would have to be blind not to.

Physical models are fit to data which are generated deterministically. — fdrake

Yep, like gas molecules so what? In the case of gas, we're interested in what happens to the gas as a whole, not what happens to an individual molecule. That's why we use statistics. If we were interested in what happens to a molecule individually, then we would use F = ma combined with elastic collisions, conservation of kinetic energy and momentum, etc. And we can actually predict this, deterministically, using computer simulations. We could also - given enough computing power - derive the same collective properties of gases out of the individual behaviour of each gas molecule, but why waste so many resources, when we have a shortcut?

Haven't you noticed the boilerplate Marxism I've been peddling? — Bitter Crank

Yah, but you keep talking as if you were in the stone ages of business when you put the whip on workers and forced them to work while starving in your factory... Today it's not the same, at least not in the West. That may happen though, unfortunately, in places like China. Business has evolved and changed.

You're saying that statistics only works when the thing it's applied to is random. I gave you a counter-example. Parameter estimation is used to assess the accordance of theoretical prediction of deterministic systems with their experimental behaviour. You're just wrong on this one I'm afraid.

You're saying that statistics only works when the thing it's applied to is random. I gave you a counter-example. Parameter estimation is used to assess the accordance of theoretical prediction of deterministic systems with their experimental behaviour. You're just wrong on this one I'm afraid. — fdrake

I gave you exactly the same example. The movement of gas molecules is deterministic. But yet we use statistics to assess certain gas properties - why? Because we're interested in the behaviour of the gas as a whole - WHICH CAN BE MODELLED AS RANDOM, although quite evidently it is not random in reality, but merely approximates what we would identify as random behaviour.

Parameter estimation is used to assess the accordance of theoretical prediction of deterministic systems with their experimental behaviour. — fdrake

"Estimation theory is a branch of statistics that deals with estimating the values of parameters based on measured empirical data that has a random component"

Ok. What's wrong with doing this Aug:

I gave you exactly the same example. The movement of gas molecules is deterministic. But yet we use statistics to assess certain gas properties - why? Because we're interested in the behaviour of the society as a whole - WHICH CAN BE MODELLED AS RANDOM, although quite evidently it is not random in reality, but merely approximates what we would identify as random behaviour.

Also:

"Estimation theory is a branch of statistics that deals with estimating the values of parameters based on measured empirical data that has a random component"

You literally just skim read the wikipedia article to find the first thing you could say to me that looked like a counterpoint. In order to estimate parameters in a model, a noise term is added which makes the terms treated a random variable. This is why physicists spend so long dealing with measurement error - quantifying random uncertainty from their measurements in deterministic systems.

What's wrong with doing this Aug — fdrake

Well, multiple things. Firstly and most importantly, society is made of individuals. Individuals aren't like gas molecules - they have free will. That doesn't mean their behaviour may not be predictable, but it is still marked by the presence of free will and hence moral responsibility.

Second of all, when we're interested in what's possible for an individual, just like when we're interested in what an individual gas molecule does - we don't use a statistical analysis. We only use a statistical analysis when we're interested in the behaviour of all individuals taken together.

You literally just skim read the wikipedia article to find the first thing you could say to me that looked like a counterpoint. — fdrake

I didn't skim anything, it's the first phrase. And I do understand how statistics are used.

Well, multiple things. Firstly and most importantly, society is made of individuals. Individuals aren't like gas molecules - they have free will. That doesn't mean their behaviour may not be predictable, but it is still marked by the presence of free will and hence moral responsibility.

Individuals are far more complicated than gas molecules therefore we can't treat them as random and use their aggregate properties to study their properties as a whole?

Second of all, when we're interested in what's possible for an individual, just like when we're interested in what an individual gas molecule does - we don't use a statistical analysis. We only use a statistical analysis when we're interested in the behaviour of all individuals taken together.

No... We're interested in what individuals do, and what things constrain and promote their behaviour. This just goes to show you didn't understand why I brought in conditional probability. Say you're deciding whether to give money to a new start up. If you're savvy you'll know that 90% of business start ups fail. Then you'll see what their business model is, see what their ingoings and outgoings are, evaluated how likely the business is to expand - see what evidence there is that the start up is doing the things that make a business successful, and how long that is likely to continue. If the latter process appears to outweigh the initial high failure rate, if they impress you and provide good evidence that they're a good investment - you'll give them the money. This is placing a bet on what you believe to be good odds: a conditional probability.

Conditional probability gives you an indexing of general societal properties to individual endeavours and contexts. Everyone still has free will. It just so happens that, say, those in areas with higher crime rates tend to choose to commit criminal acts. The underlying reasons for that can be analysed, and individual motivation plays a part. What also plays a part is their context. Think people would stand on the street selling drugs and in the line of fire if they were the child of a rich businessperson ? No, of course you don't.

Probabilistic summaries, properties of aggregates are entirely consistent with the capacity of individuals to make decisions. We've been over this a few times now.

Individuals are far more complicated than gas molecules therefore we can't treat them as random and use their aggregate properties to study their properties as a whole? — fdrake

No, since they have free will. You cannot extend your analogy from purely determinisic - actually not even that, but rather fatalistic - molecules to people.

But on the other hand, if you are interested in what happens to society, rather than to individuals, sure.

If you're savvy you'll know that 90% of business start ups fail. Then you'll see what their business model is, see what their ingoings and outgoings are, evaluated how likely the business is to expand - see what evidence there is that the start up is doing the things that make a business successful, and how long that is likely to continue. If the latter process appears to outweigh the initial high failure rate, if they impress you and provide good evidence that they're a good investment - you'll give them the money. This is placing a bet on what you believe to be good odds: a conditional probability. — fdrake

I don't see it working that way. I will totally ignore that 90% of business start ups fail, and simply ask myself what makes a business successful, if it's the right time for their particular business, if I can do something to make them successful apart from capital and what's the upside vs the downside.

Regarding the last point, clearly, even if something has a 90% chance of success but the potential upside in case of success is 10% return, and if it fails, then -100% return, it would be stupid to invest cause negative expected value.

One of the reasons statistical approaches to gas behaviour works was because it took something incredibly complicated with loads of variables - the individual trajectories of gas molecules; made a few simplifying assumptions like no particle interaction, then derived statistical properties based on the simplification. I don't think it's particularly contentious to say that people and the systems they create through their interaction are far more complex than any gas. This is then an excellent motivation for using statistical summaries to get information about individuals in societies - what promotes and constrains their behaviour.

The simplifications inherent in creating summary statistics are largely either subpopulation based - you estimate a property of a population based on a sample - or inherent to the calculation; like aggregating 'crimes per capita' over a country despite there being local variations in crime rates per capita.

I don't see it working that way. I will totally ignore that 90% of business start ups fail, and simply ask myself what makes a business successful, if it's the right time for their particular business, if I can do something to make them successful apart from capital and what's the upside vs the downside.

Ignoring base rates about their own business or businesses they like is probably one of the distinguishing features of entrepreneurs and investors. They condition on their own exceptionalness and believe it with great vigour.

Regarding the last point, clearly, even if something has a 90% chance of success but the potential upside in case of success is 10% return, and if it fails, then -100% return, it would be stupid to invest cause negative expected value.

So you're quite happy to average over a poorly estimated distribution of an individual's success to calculate an expected return, but as far as betting on whether someone who just committed a crime is a member of a place with high crime rate and a high population or low crime rate with a low population... That's a no go. Riiiiiiight.

Then as I said before, you should speak to the paramedic's employer. Me and my brownie business have nothing to do with how much he gets paid. — Michael

False. The paramedic's employer must get additional funds from somewhere. I propose they be taken, in part, from your brownie business.

And I might not actually have a high salary. I just own 50% of a business that owns a number of assets and makes enough of a profit that some investor has valued it at £2,000,000 and chosen to buy the other half of the company with that in mind. — Michael

You might not actually have a high salary. That is possible, I suppose. Still, I do not care. Wherever there is the money, and wherever it is excessive, that's where it will be taken from. That might effect your salary or that might effect some other part of your business.

I think it's ridiculous to then decide that because saving lives is more importing than making brownies that ownership of my company should be forcibly redistributed. — Michael

I don't care whether you think it ridiculous. It's called justice.

False. The paramedic's employer must get additional funds from somewhere. I propose they be taken, in part, from your brownie business. — Sapientia

Yeah, because the paramedic's employer certainly deserves the benefits of Mike's brownie business, he did a lot of work for it >:)

One of the reasons statistical approaches to gas behaviour works was because it took something incredibly complicated with loads of variables - the individual trajectories of gas molecules; made a few simplifying assumptions like no particle interaction, then derived statistical properties based on the simplification. — fdrake

I don't think that's how it works. Rather we realised that what we're interested in isn't the motion of any one particular gas particle, but rather what the gas as a whole - all the particles - can do. So we didn't bother with all the extensive calculations, and found a simple way to approximate it. It goes back to the question of what are you interested in. That determines the tools and approach you'll take when solving the problem.

I don't think it's particularly contentious to say that people and the systems they create through their interaction are far more complex than any gas. This is then an excellent motivation for using statistical summaries to get information about individuals in societies - what promotes and constrains their behaviour. — fdrake

That is certainly true if you conceive of individuals in a fatalistic manner, and ignore the role free will plays. I may be born in a ghetto and still refuse to resort to stealing due to my moral values even if 99% of others in the ghetto steal. So the stats don't determine or influence what I choose to do, my moral character, as it is shaped by my free choices, determines that.

You'll now ask why do the ghetto folks commit more crime statistically than the non-ghetto folk. Well, probably because the ghetto folk encounter temptation more than the non-ghetto folk. If the non-ghetto folk encountered temptation too, most of them, lacking character, may resort to stealing too. That's probably true. So the solution to that is first of all improving people's moral condition, and secondly preventing that extreme level of deprivation, which has nothing to do with whether 1% own 99% or whatever. It has to do with whether the 99% have enough to meet basic needs.

Ignoring base rates about their own business or businesses they like is probably one of the distinguishing features of entrepreneurs and investors. — fdrake

It's because entrepreneurs work themselves in the business, so they know that they can do what it takes to make it successful. An investor doesn't work directly in the business, though they may provide advice, so they don't know whether the founder will actually do what it takes or knows what he has to do, or understands his industry well enough. So they need to factor their lack of knowledge in, that's why they resort to using stats. The entrepreneur doesn't have a lack of knowledge - he generally knows, quite well.

They condition on their own exceptionalness and believe it with great vigour. — fdrake

That's an essential feature of successful entrepreneurs.

So you're quite happy to average over a poorly estimated distribution of an individual's success to calculate an expected return, but as far as betting on whether someone who just committed a crime is a member of a place with high crime rate and a high population or low crime rate with a low population... That's a no go. Riiiiiiight. — fdrake

No, of course, I'm going to bet on him coming from the place with high crime rate and high population vs the low crime rate and low population one. But that's because I don't have knowledge - it's my own ignorance of what is actually the case that forces me to resort to using statistics. If I actually knew what was the case, I wouldn't bother with stats. But I need to take a decision in the absence of knowledge - so then I'm concerned with stats and forms of hedging my risks.

The issue here seems to just be the unequal distribution of wealth. There's nothing in principle wrong with it. — Michael

The issue here is disproportionate distribution of wealth. (I doubt anyone here is advocating that a hierarchical pay structure be scrapped). And there is something in principle wrong with that. It violates a most ethical principle of fairness.

Given that in Sapientia's hypothetical scenario the government has the power and willingness to forcibly redistribute wealth, we're clearly not dealing with a plutocratic dystopia. — Michael

Bear in mind that that government would be a reaction to what some might, with some element of truth, characterise as a plutocratic dystopia.

And there is something in principle wrong with that. It violates a most ethical principle of fairness. — Sapientia

You still have to say how it does that, apart from saying it's unbalanced without explaining why imbalance is bad. You also have to define what a proportionate or fair distribution is in the first place. Or do we just have to go with Sappy's gut feeling? >:)

If you don't stop this nonsense, I'm just going to ignore it. I'm growing tired of repeating variations of the same point that you just don't seem to be getting. I have explained it. I have given you examples to work with. Please apply some common sense. I don't need to set out a stringent and fully formulated system for you to get yourself clued up about what I'm talking about.

And for the umpteenth time, if you don't recognise it as unfair, then there's only so much that I can do. Stop looking outside of yourself for the answer. Gut feeling, conscience... call it what you will: it comes into play of necessity.

@Agustino

No, of course, I'm going to bet on him coming from the place with high crime rate and high population vs the low crime rate and low population one. But that's because I don't have knowledge - it's my own ignorance of what is actually the case that forces me to resort to using statistics. If I actually knew what was the case, I wouldn't bother with stats. But I need to take a decision in the absence of knowledge - so then I'm concerned with stats and forms of hedging my risks.

And do you propose to interview every member of a society in order to analyse its aggregate properties?

And do you propose to interview every member of a society in order to analyse its aggregate properties? — fdrake

No, because I don't have enough time, and good enough results can be achieved by other means. But understanding what those means are involves understanding the root of the problem. In this case, the root is moral - so the moral aspect has to be addressed first.

If you don't stop this nonsense, I'm just going to ignore it. I'm growing tired of repeating variations of the same point that you just don't seem to be getting. I have explained it. I have given you examples to work with. Please apply some common sense. I don't need to set out a stringent and fully formulated system for you to get yourself clued up about what I'm talking about.

And for the umpteenth time, if you don't recognise it as unfair, then there's only so much that I can do. Stop looking outside of yourself for the answer. Gut feeling, conscience... call it what you will: it comes into play of necessity. — Sapientia

Sorry, but I honestly do fail to see your reasons. To me it seems like a dogma.

@Agustino

No, because I don't have enough time, and good enough results can be achieved by other means. But understanding what those means are involves understanding the root of the problem. In this case, the root is moral - so the moral aspect has to be addressed first.

Do you see a role for statistics in finding problem areas in the organisation of a society that contribute to people making immoral decisions?

Do you see a role for statistics in finding problem areas in the organisation of a society that contribute to people making immoral decisions? — fdrake

Hmmm let me rephrase. I do see a role for statistics in illustrating what situations may act as temptations for immoral behaviour, however not contributing to that immorality.

Morality is a matter of the heart, even the nice non-ghetto folk who don't steal may not be moral in their hearts - they simply do not meet the required temptations for their immorality to show itself. But that in itself isn't being moral. A sort of hypocrisy.

So basically yes, diminishing temptations is important but only of secondary importance. Most important is moral reformation. Simply removing temptations, while important, does not solve the underlying causes of those events, which are moral.

Now we probably agree in practice if not in principle. However you're still going to be hostile to the ideas that inequality and poverty contribute to these temptations and their relationship can be understood statistically, I bet.

Also, say there's an intervention in a community with the aim of making it have less crime. Some kind of moral education initiative, would you say the success of the initiative could be measured by how the crime rate per capita behaves over the next few years? Also whether and how many of those people who were instructed in the initiative committed crimes?

Sorry, but I honestly do fail to see your reasons. To me it seems like a dogma. — Agustino

It's not dogma. It's just that at some point you hit upon a foundation. We each have our foundations. You're no different to me in that regard. The problem is that I recognise a foundation when I see it, and act accordingly, whereas you keep pressing.

However you're still going to be hostile to the ideas that inequality and poverty contribute to these temptations and their relationship can be understood statistically, I bet. — fdrake

Yes, obviously poverty and inequality can be temptations for immoral behaviour. That's what statistics show. But that kind of inequality has nothing to do with 1% owning 99% and the others owning just 1%. It has to do with whether the 99% have their basic needs met.

Some kind of moral education initiative, would you say the success of the initiative could be measured by how the crime rate per capita behaves over the next few years? — fdrake

Yes, obviously.

Also whether and how many of those people who were instructed in the initiative committed crimes? — fdrake

More or less, however, you have to be careful as people always have free will, so it's impossible to get everyone to be moral.