Quickie: Subjective Theory of Value

Value isn't an inherent property of the good, or by the costs put into producing the good, but by the value it has to consumers.

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[DrexisEbon]

Love your work Shane. Keep up the good work.

[edsanville]

Another great result that comes out of the subjective theory of value is that there are never any “winners and losers” in a mutually voluntary exchange. This is because I each person valued what they got more than what they gave.

[OwtDaftUK]

For a thirsty person to want the water he doesn't just need to have the thirst that leads to wanting it but the water also needs to be able to get rid of the thirst.

[AndrewBrownK]

I wish more people understood/knew this

Is there such thing as, or rather already a name for, what I will call “the false entry point fallacy”? You see it all over the place. Someone proposes a question/challenge:

- Why are the constants of the universe so finely tuned? If they varied by even a slight amount, then blah blah blah. Isn’t this universe extremely unlikely?

- Or the boltzman brain: if the age of the universe is approximately infinite, then the number of boltzman brains out there is approximately infinite, and therefore the probability you are a boltzman brain is nearly certain.

- Or I heard this from a friend as a child: If you just think of all the billions of people on the planet, and all the possible ways your DNA could have turned out from your parents, the chances of you turning out exactly as you are is so low... and yet here we are, as we are

Each of these seem to reveal a fallacious intuition of a subject somehow persisting to a point before its birth, and hopping into a plinko lottery before getting it’s final destination at birth.

Just because our models of the universe currently have leftover free parameters doesn’t mean these are “knobs” outside the universe that get finely tuned, or even randomized or varied at all. The FACT is we only have one universe and so no proof these *allegedly* free parameters could be anything other than what they turn out to be. You can’t say the probability of our universe is small because of the free parameters in your model. We can only say the probability of the universe is certain, because it’s right damm here, and the probability of those model parameters being what they are is also certain, because that’s what they damn are. A possibly different value fir any natural constant us NOT the null hypothesis.

Then boltzman brains. Ignoring all the other ways you can argue against boltzman brain antics, lets grant them. Lets say boltzman brains exist in near infinitude in the fabric of spacetime, and nearly infinity of them have an experience that would fit a human on Earth. So what? If humans are still a thing that evolved on Earth, then every brain develops its own conscious state 100% independently of any quantity of boltzman brains out there. My (or anyone’s) consciousness doesn’t magically exist prior to materialization, and then get dropped into a plinko machine to see if it is a human brain or boltzman brain. Consciousness is (if anything) a flowering blossom that grows out of the rooted plant of a material manifestation. You can makes brains out of whatever material you want, I don’t care, but it will never magically retroactively prevent brains from being made out of other materials. It doesn’t matter if if there are 10^10^10^10 boltzman brains with my exact experience out there. If there is even a single normal human out there with my experience (me), and all evidence points to that being a yes, then it is completely reasonable to accept myself as being 1 out of (10^10^10^10)+1

Then our DNA and place in the population, it’s the same thing. No matter how “unlikely” your combination of DNA is, there had to be *some* combination of DNA. Just because your combination of DNA is 1 in X doesn’t mean the probability of you existing is 1 in X. A random selection of a card from a deck is no magic trick unless it includes a specific prediction. The probability of you existing isn’t 1/X, it is the probability that any sexual combination of your parent’s DNA could develop a conception of self, which is near 100%. The probability of you being how you are isn’t 1/X either. Not unless you’re trying to play with the “entry point” of the plinko machine in a valid way. It *was* (not ‘is’) a 1/X chance that your parents would have a child exactly like you. It was *never* a 1/X chance that your particular subjective conscious experience would be tied to anything other than exactly what you are, that was always 100%.

So is this a thing already? Or is the “false entry point fallacy” a good start of what to call it?

[harshithsubramaniam]

Genuine question: what happens when the subjective valuation of goods is below the cost of producing it? For example, if me and a car owner are in an insland, and i only have $10, and he doesn't have money. Now i want the car and the car owner wants $10. So we both agree to trade the car at $10. I gained a car which i really really wanted, and the car owner got the $10 which he really wanted, so we traded.

Does that mean the price of the car is only $10? What if it had cost (say) $100 to produce. Isn't the car owner losing $90, even though we both (in this situation) agree to trade?

[jcaites]

Admitting that your theory is 'subjective' is just giving up that it's not based in science, but in ideology.

[AlbornozVEVO]

then why can't i buy a water bottle for free when im not thirsty? i thought it was subjective.

[jesseweideman]

If this were true, why can't current supply and demand be predicted? We can only make inferences based on past activity. This isn't a hard science.

Also, couldnt workers subjectively value their labor output to that of the profit that is extracted from it?