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The Area Between Price and Demand

One of my big papers along the way explored integrating the price curve to more closely approximate the demand curve.

Society has become extremely good at that.

It destroys value for the consumer, reducing life to a dreary trudge from one hyperoptimized, minimally satisfying, transaction to the next.

Imagine you were in a transactional relationship. That's bad enough, but now imagine that your partner was really good at always negotiating the break so it was just barely enough for you to stay. Every single time. I imagine there are some people who would gradually become increasingly aggravated at the constant borderline exploitation until they destroyed it all. By which I mean divorce; I'm not trying to paint a metaphor here.

• https://old.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1fiolqk/im_starting_to_hate_games_that_do_this/

There was a time when this would be actual premiums; a Fallout helmet or PIP Boy cell phone stand. Increasingly, at least with games, it seems to be just a way of creating price tiers to try to trick a person into paying what the individual will bear, instead of what the market will bear.

Under "what the market will bear", sometimes, you get a deal you can hardly believe: Holy shit! It's the 4th of July, I'm having a barbecue, and I just found out that you can get a kiddie pool for under $30. It'll be silly and I'll give it to the neighbor kids tomorrow, but I'd pay twice that to facilitate the party game I have in mind.

Other times, you just squeak by or even come up a little short. But it's the grab bag of it that makes the day-to-day nice on average. Knowing you're going to get to the end of the week with half a dozen cases of capitalism giving you a good break.

Squeezing the area under the demand curve with price segmentation kills that joy and creates billionaire space recreation. Constant borderline exploitation.

Nothing to Lose

"They're looking at the future, and they're seeing that noone needs them anymore. ... We have to make some kind of future that has a place for them in it. Because unless we do, they have literally nothing to lose. It's all already gone." - Fred Johnson, Nemesis Games, ch 42, 12m30s.

• Zoomer No Upside: https://old.reddit.com/r/FluentInFinance/comments/1c32dy2/so_many_zoomers_are_anti_capitalist_for_this/
• Essential Worker v. Unskilled Labor: https://old.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/1c31i51/strange_isnt_it/

Popular Media

• Cultural hegemony: https://old.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/179v5ti/happens_often/
  • There is an upside - at least to the progenitor, and perhaps sinister in a larger sense.
  • Is the US-ian upside worth my unwilling knowledge that the Chris Rock / Will Smith / Jada Whatever story is ... actually, let's just end that sentence at "is?".

Leopards Ate My Face

• Patron Saint: Smedley Butler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
• Angela Chao, sister of Elaine Chao: https://old.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1bbfej5/environmental_storytelling/

Straw Man

• Subreddits
  • https://old.reddit.com/r/nothingeverhappens/
  • https://old.reddit.com/r/thatHappened/
  • https://old.reddit.com/r/KarmaConspiracy/
  • https://old.reddit.com/r/quityourbullshit/
• Public Admission of Domestic Abuse: https://old.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/18st7it/absolutely_zero_selfreflection_or_awareness_in/
• Mustard Filler: https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/18snuy6/his_face_at_the_end/
• Neighbor Number Facetime: https://old.reddit.com/r/rareinsults/comments/18svo00/this_might_have_been_used_before_but_wow/

Religion

• Strip Non-Theistic Churches of Tax Status: https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/18xv6zs/oh_please_do_go_there_who_wants_popcorn/
• Classical Theism Takedown: https://old.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1awf1zu/inquiring_minds_want_to_know/
• Trust in The Mysterious Ways
  • https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs%203:5-6&version=NIV
    • "5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."
  • https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%2011%3A5&version=TLB
    • "God’s ways are as mysterious as the pathway of the wind and as the manner in which a human spirit is infused into the little body of a baby while it is yet in its mother’s womb."
  • So, to summarize: "He will make your paths straight, and as mysterious as the pathway of the wind."

Wedge / Class Divide

• Boomer / Generationalism: https://old.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/1b1txpn/generation_who_gutted_unions_retirement_and/
  • Over half of older adults have < $30k/year income: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1buruy2/bernie_sanders_report_reveals_over_half_of_older/
    • https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bernie-sanders-report-reveals-over-213150245.html
  • Adulting Classes: https://old.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1c0g9ai/media/
    • Boomers do the grindset thing. Introduce two-income households.
    • Latchkey kids become a thing, don't learn from their parents.
    • Average household income relative to cost of living climbs for a while, then flags despite two working parents.
      • The contents of a container expand to fill the container. Traffic increases until traffic sucks, regardless of # lanes.
    • Billionaires take the increased production.
    • Latchkey kids lack skills.
    • Boomers blame latchkey kids.
    • Latchkey kids blame boomers.
    • Billionaires laugh.
• Leviathan Wakes CH 30, 8m30s: Stirring The Pot
  • Holden: If we had enough people, we could make it. They couldn't kill all of us.
  • Miller: That's what the patrol goons are for. Make sure no-one can organize a big enough push. Keep stirring the pot.
• Song Lyrics: Simple, Angry, Self-Obsessed: https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1bqdkse/song_lyrics_getting_simpler_more_repetitive_angry/
• DNA & Parents: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191218153459.htm

Random

• Dating Starts Online: https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18h7k9g/how_heterosexual_couples_met_oc/
  • Be Nice: https://old.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/comments/1akrajm/my_husband_made_me_cry_tonight/
• Trans Sports Study: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/04/10/bjsports-2023-108029
  • https://old.reddit.com/r/trans/comments/1cajcis/ran_across_this_about_ioc_and_trans_ppls/
  • https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Athletes/IOC%20Framework/Presentation-IOC-Framework.pdf?_ga=2.2139888.1703603887.1691071607-844893123.1691071607
• Health Anti-Correlation with Copayments
  • https://academic.oup.com/qje/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/qje/qjae015/7664375?login=false
• Finland Homeless Solution (give them homes): https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1cglypn/just_makes_sense/
• Germany, East Germany, WW3
  • https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1dch7ya/2024_european_parliament_election_in_germany/
  • https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1ddp79z/german_farright_afd_calls_zelenskyy_illegitimate/
• Wealth / Happiness
  • https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/money-matters-to-happiness-perhaps-more-than-previously-thought
  • https://www.smh.com.au/business/entrepreneurship/you-can-t-have-too-much-money-happiness-researcher-finds-20240718-p5jum2.html
  • https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120
  • See Documents/hacking/socioeconomics/killingsworth-et-al-2023-income-and-emotional-well-being-a-conflict-resolved.pdf
• Crypto Anarchy
  • Marc Andreesen has a crypto anarchy manifesto, featuring the claim that unlimited tech capitalism would result in unlimited tech advancement which would result in unlimited price reduction.
  • TL;DR: "trickle down"
  • We know it does not: https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/1f9rf9t/the_waltons_have_more_wealth_than_elon_musk/
• Race and Exoneration: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/ExonerationsRaceByCrime.aspx
• Rescue Pets & Allendale Prison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUb1I571BXo