Comic Strips

To the shaving rant: I've eventually bought an electric shaver. No shaving cream needed, easy to store and to wash, no replacement heads needed unless the current one breaks. My skin also gets less irritated from dry shaving.

I, for one, enjoyed your rant. And long as it was, the paragraph separation helped a lot and is appreciated.

All hail Homo Economicus

Economics 101 is like physics 101. It absolutely works (assume no friction, assume perfect knowledge, assume all mass is in a single point, assume rational actors, assume assume assume)

to show how the study exposed the inherit rational selfishness of the average person.

If that's supposed to be a reference to Kant, your professor was severely misinterpreting it. If not, it's probably referencing some later theorist who was in turn referencing Kant (and severely misinterpreting it).

The rational egoist thought experiment imagines a society composed entirely of perfectly rational, completely egoistic people. Kant argues that they would all agree to abide by certain rules, in exchange for the guarantee that everyone else abides by those rules as well.

Being perfectly rational, they know that this is best for themselves; and being completely egoistic, they agree to it not out of altruism, empathy, or abstract ideals, but because concretely, it benefits them to do so.

The thought experiment is not:

1. Intended to describe reality
2. Intended to describe how things should be
3. Intended to encourage people to be selfish

What it is intended to do, is provide a rational basis for an argument that everyone should treat others the way that they themselves want to be treated.

Kant builds upon this thought experiment to describe the categorical imperative: "act only according to maxims which you believe should be universal." In other words, don't do things that you'd be upset if someone else did!

It is effectively a secular basis for the same thing as the "Golden Rule": not "because Jesus said so," but because "life is objectively better when we treat each other this way."

Of course, people who don't care about philosophy typically cut me off before I've got more than a sentence and a half out. So then they assume whatever the rest of it is supposed to be, based on their own ignorance, bias, and predisposition. So they hear me talking about "rational egoists" and think I'm arguing in favor of narcissism, or they hear "categorical imperative" and it either sounds like gibberish to them or they think I'm trying to be domineering. Neither of which are the case, but they never let me get enough words out to explain it to them, and even if I do, they only half listen and still make assumptions anyway.

It's why talking about philosophy in person never goes well. Even in a philosophy class (most people there are just there for the elective anyway; they think it's all bullshit and act all smug towards anyone who takes it seriously).

At least online, I can get all my thoughts out. Maybe people still don't read it all, but they can, and that's better than when I get interrupted in the middle of my second sentence in person and then no one knows what I was going to say, and anyone then gets to impose their own assumptions about what my point ultimately was going to be.

Of course, even online people will ignore critical points and take things out of context, and sea lion and strawman their way to scoring points. But at least on the fediverse most people recognize that and the downvotes usually reflect. Usually.

Anyway, I digress. I guess it was my turn to rant.

Supply and demand must be one of the worst lies ever told, it absolutely does not hold to scrutiny. Yet companies love using it to distract from their crimes.

Just monopolize and do what you want. Bleed them dry.

The best way to win the game is to not play.

Reddit had a lot of issues and I am glad I left, but one sub I really liked and wish Lemmy had was r/anticonsumption. You make a great point about razors, but that already relied on the assumption that you have decided to shave.

That is not to say that shaving is bad, but to recommend that all individuals think about it. WHY do they want to shave, and how much time and money do they want to put into that? How much of it is mere societal expectation, and is that really worth it?

Look at the Got Milk campaign as another example. That was not promoting any particular company, just the concept of consuming dairy, and led to disastrous health, environmental, and economic consequences in the US today.

Simple economic models assume perfect information on all sides and rational decision making by all market participants.

However you should have also talked about how price is set in monopolies, duopolies, oligopolies, and barriers to enter a market.

Of course economists know things are more complicated than is taught in an introductory course.

Would you expect to learn quantum physics or general relativity in a physics 101 class?

As a trans woman who values a close shave. I mirror your points on the safety razor. Capitalism's just been trying to sell us garbage cuz they perfected that tool ages ago.

I feel this watching people sending money to OpenAI after everything, even after serving an openly fascist regime

As someone who’s owned two different safety razors, I can say that they’re not all the same. I can’t say anything about your $20 one, but with the first one I bought I kept cutting the shit out of my face every time I replaced the blade no matter how slow or what angle I went with. Then I dropped it on the counter one day and the handle broke at threads. Whoops.

I decided to buy Henson saftey razor, the one that advertises via YouTubers (enter this code, get a free 100pk of blades blah blah blah.) I almost never cut myself with it at all.

But yeah, fuck those cartridge razors and their plastic crap. All they do is clog up with crap between the blades that is a pain in the ass to get to rinse out. A good safety razor rinses out with a quick splash under the sink.

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My old comment somewhere in my history was something like:

Macroeconomics on its way to ruin Microeconomics in literally every aspect

Also hilariously the first thing you learn in marketing is that having the impossible better, cheaper, and indestructible product will not guarantee you successfully sell said product.

Someone about to get a very angry call from a grid operator.

Exactly. This would result in a partial blackout, if there’s no other provider increasing their production.

In a real world electricity grid, there are always some fluctuations, load balancing, and also redundant generators, that turn on on demand.

You also can’t just turn most types of powerplants on and off easily or quickly.

Demand for electricity also isn’t constant. Some industries will select the time they use the most electricity according to price and supply.

Prime example: water pumped storage. When there’s superfluous electricity it pumps water uphill, if there’s more demand, it generates electricity.

So when the price is very high, the demand will drop, except the inelastic demand. So if this guy pushes up the price and demand falls, he might not make more money overall.

You can easily observe this in the real world as well. If things get too expensive, people change what they buy. Chocolates with Easter design was really expensive this year in Germany, demand fell immensely. The supermarkets are still full with it a huge discounts.

Exactly, so the price rises to price out quantity demanded until it falls to the supply.

Twist: you secretly own those companies too

Good thing electricity supply isn't a monopoly in most towns . . . Oh wait