Re:Airbnb dominated by professional landlords
by Applejinx on Sunday August 06, 2017 @03:12PM
(#14942913)
Indeed, it's looking like we've got some experimental evidence that markets are a poor way to deal with some kinds of things.
Plus, they're hardly inevitable: they're created by humans along with whatever rules and mechanisms they operate by, and they're administered by humans. What self-organizing features markets have are confined to a subset of what they functionally mean: they scale because they semi-efficiently find optimal answers through working on populations rather than centralized control. What does 'optimal' mean? That's sometimes in open conflict with the very rules we want to see honored.
It's a neat hack, but horribly inappropriate to some aspects of life. And we get in real trouble when we start redefining everything in life circularly, as 'what is produced by markets is optimal'.
Human extinction is an optimal market solution to some things, including maximization of capital as an abstract measure.
Plus, they're hardly inevitable: they're created by humans along with whatever rules and mechanisms they operate by, and they're administered by humans. What self-organizing features markets have are confined to a subset of what they functionally mean: they scale because they semi-efficiently find optimal answers through working on populations rather than centralized control. What does 'optimal' mean? That's sometimes in open conflict with the very rules we want to see honored.
It's a neat hack, but horribly inappropriate to some aspects of life. And we get in real trouble when we start redefining everything in life circularly, as 'what is produced by markets is optimal'.
Human extinction is an optimal market solution to some things, including maximization of capital as an abstract measure.