Raise the minimum or the sum?

[Wraith]

Firstly, this isn't about any subject in particular.

My question is, which do you think is most important for society to see to? The happiness of the least happy of its population, or its average happiness? In other words, is it better for the average members of a society to be as happy as possible, or for the most unhappy to be as happy as possible?

I'm leaving out raising the maximum from the poll, because that's a stupid answer. And yes, smartass, raising the minimum will probably raise the average as well, but the question is which is your goal?

Make whatever assumptions you'd like, but state them.

[RandBlade]

Both are important, but average is probably more important to me. However it depends where you mean by energies, for most people improving their own and others close to them will be the important thing to them and they are the people who make the average. The people who don't will be the minimum and may be the better focus for those offering altruistic assistance. It's complicated.

It's like what they say about an oxygen mask on a plane, put your own one on first before looking out for others.

[Wraith]

Both are important, but average is probably more important to me. However it depends where you mean by energies, for most people improving their own and others close to them will be the important thing to them and they are the people who make the average. The people who don't will be the minimum and may be the better focus for those offering altruistic assistance. It's complicated.

I was thinking more of society as a whole rather than actions by individuals. When I first started typing this, I used the word 'government' but I didn't want this turning into a discussion about what the government should or should not be doing.

[GGT]

Firstly, this isn't about any subject in particular.

My question is, which do you think is most important for society to see to? The happiness of the least happy of its population, or its average happiness? In other words, is it better for the average members of a society to be as happy as possible, or for the most unhappy to be as happy as possible?

I'm leaving out raising the maximum from the poll, because that's a stupid answer. And yes, smartass, raising the minimum will probably raise the average as well, but the question is which is your goal?

Make whatever assumptions you'd like, but state them.

It would depend on the society and what you mean by Happy. In a place like Haiti, where everyone needs help, seeing to orphans or cholera patients would be my priority.

[RandBlade]

I was thinking more of society as a whole rather than actions by individuals. When I first started typing this, I used the word 'government' but I didn't want this turning into a discussion about what the government should or should not be doing.

But society is not a whole, it is a sum of individuals.

[Khendraja'aro]

But society is not a whole, it is a sum of individuals.

By that logic, both sum and average must not be important to you as they're not functions targeted at individuals. Which in turn invalidates your first post.

[RandBlade]

By that logic, both sum and average must not be important to you as they're not functions targeted at individuals. Which in turn invalidates your first post.

That is obviously wrong. In my first post I say what is important to me in the second post I say that we are all individuals.

How does my claim of us all being individuals invalidate the notion that anything can be important to me individually? It backs it up, not invalidates it.

[GGT]

...for most people improving their own and others close to them will be the important thing to them and they are the people who make the average. The people who don't will be the minimum and may be the better focus for those offering altruistic assistance. It's complicated.

It is complicated, but don't most people tend to focus on "their own" and those closest to them? Thinking here of family, then neighbors or co-workers.

[Aimless]

I think it's more important to ensure that individuals in my society aren't tortured etc (regardless of the agent) than is is to maintain the happiness of people who can relatively easily maintain their own happiness. Who is really and truly suffering the most? Their suffering should be reduced if possible. I think that the extreme suffering of a single individual is different from and more important than the aggregate annoyance of a thousand individuals.

Sooner or later you get diminished returns (in terms of reduced suffering/increased happiness) from focusing on improving the battery-life of the average person's ipod.

I do think we should expend significant resources on preventing an average person from slipping down into the abyss.

[RandBlade]

It is complicated, but don't most people tend to focus on "their own" and those closest to them? Thinking here of family, then neighbors or co-workers.

That's what I said

Sooner or later you get diminished returns (in terms of reduced suffering/increased happiness) from focusing on improving the battery-life of the average person's ipod.

Disagreed with your logic.

[Loki]

Both are important, but average is probably more important to me.

The sum and average are equivalent measures in this case.

[Wraith]

But society is not a whole, it is a sum of individuals.

This is the kind of game I was hoping to avoid. Members of societies act as individuals, but societies as a whole also act (often through the government), and the two aren't always in concert.

The sum and average are equivalent measures in this case.

The alternative was minimum

[Aimless]

That's what I said
Disagreed with your logic.

It's not logic, it's observational data. Diminishing returns man, it's for reals.

[RandBlade]

This is the kind of game I was hoping to avoid. Members of societies act as individuals, but societies as a whole also act (often through the government), and the two aren't always in concert.

Disagreed entirely. I agree with this:

They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations.

Who is "society as a whole"? It doesn't exist, a collection of individuals exist but an individual collective does not.

Aimless: Source? I'm not seeing diminishing returns in how iPods are improving, they are utterly unrecognisable from a decade ago, or a decade before that. The opposite of diminishing returns is exponential improvements, which we've been getting lately.

[Aimless]

Aimless: Source? I'm not seeing diminishing returns in how iPods are improving, they are utterly unrecognisable from a decade ago, or a decade before that. The opposite of diminishing returns is exponential improvements, which we've been getting lately.

Sooner or later you get diminished returns (in terms of reduced suffering/increased happiness) from focusing on improving the battery-life of the average person's ipod.

A sentence isn't just a collection of individual words

[rumrunner]

Obviously the only answer is "average", because only a suicidally depressed person would consider themselves to be among the least happy members of society. In other words, which ever I feel would improve MY happiness.

[RandBlade]

A sentence isn't just a collection of individual words

And evidence of that?

iPod's have been improving exponentially and everybody seems to enjoy them now

[Ominous Gamer]

iPod's have been improving exponentially and everybody seems to enjoy them now

This doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

[RandBlade]

This doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

I know far more people who have iPods now than 10 years ago, in fact virtually everyone I know has an iPod or equivalent. And people who have them now enjoy them far more than what they had then.

[Crowheart]

I voted raise the minimum, because it seems better to concentrate on the ones at the bottom who would feel the benefit the most.

[GGT]

That's what I said

I didn't understand the second half of your post:

The people who don't will be the minimum and may be the better focus for those offering altruistic assistance. It's complicated.

Yet you said the average is probably more important to you. Just clarifying what you meant.

[Loki]

Here's a question for everyone, would you prefer society A or B.

Society A - median income is $50k, the bottom centile (tenth) make $10k
Society B - median income is $20k, the bottom centile make $20k

[Wraith]

Disagreed entirely. I agree with this:
Who is "society as a whole"? It doesn't exist, a collection of individuals exist but an individual collective does not.

This is a completely silly diversion centered on word games. Yeah, sure, you're technically correct when you say it's an individual is hands out the welfare checks, or individuals go to war, or individuals who write and other individuals who enforce the laws, but what value does it bring to the discussion to ignore the whole for the parts? Thatcher points out that society is an abstraction representing the sum of all the individuals and the relationships and various social mechanisms that exist, but so what? That doesn't mean you can't look at more than one person at a time.

[Dreadnaught]

Firstly, this isn't about any subject in particular.

My question is, which do you think is most important for society to see to? The happiness of the least happy of its population, or its average happiness? In other words, is it better for the average members of a society to be as happy as possible, or for the most unhappy to be as happy as possible?

I'm leaving out raising the maximum from the poll, because that's a stupid answer. And yes, smartass, raising the minimum will probably raise the average as well, but the question is which is your goal?

Make whatever assumptions you'd like, but state them.

I think the more interesting trend is that societies often tend to care about the sum first, then care about the average. IE we want our countries to get rich, then we start bickering over why our neighbors have more money than us.

China is a great example of this being very explicit. They will very readily do things that are detrimental to large numbers of people to, say, build a giant dam. Or a housing project. Individual rights will be trampled-on because of the perception that a particular project is progress.

[Loki]

I think the more interesting trend is that societies often tend to care about the sum first, then care about the average. IE we want our countries to get rich, then we start bickering over why our neighbors have more money than us.

China is a great example of this being very explicit. They will very readily do things that are detrimental to large numbers of people to, say, build a giant dam. Or a housing project. Individual rights will be trampled-on because of the perception that a particular project is progress.

Assuming a static population, anything that increases the sum increases the average and vice versa...

[Ominous Gamer]

I know far more people who have iPods now than 10 years ago, in fact virtually everyone I know has an iPod or equivalent. And people who have them now enjoy them far more than what they had then.

Its the concept of quantifying the lifeline of an ipod as "exponentially"
Especially given the fact that Apple is famous for delaying features so that ideas roll out at a trickle, and (specifically for the ipod) how Apple would borrow concepts and trends from the diluted mp3 market into their own designs.

Thats totally ignoring the idea that the ipod is dead, both within and outside Apple circles.

[littlelolligagged]

It disturbs me that Randy has chosen to go with the money can by you happiNess route.

I don't know why, I should have seen it coming.

I have no answer to Wraithy's question. I'm not even sure how we choose the least happy of the population.

[Wraith]

Chose another metric if it makes it simpler. Quality of life or some such.

[littlelolligagged]

It really doesn't make it simpler.

I'll sleep on it, though. It's a good question.

[Dreadnaught]

Assuming a static population, anything that increases the sum increases the average and vice versa...

In mathemetics, yes. But in reality there are situations where a few can have almost everything and most have almost nothing.

These kinds of inequalities are often balanced out in an open, dynamic economy. But in a closed society it's certainly possible that one person gaining more doesn't improve the lot of everyone else.