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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   34792 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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they also tend to incorporate a policy-oriented lens such as public choice theory....

When analyzing things like how policy is made, sure. We're asking questions about prices/quantities, given some results of those things. This is a commonly done thing for many black-market goods.

you can't apply the same economic analyses that you would apply to physical goods to non-physical goods, which is absolutely true. You wouldn't download an illegal silencer.

Correct-ish. You do actually apply the same economic analysis. There are just some quantities in there that are different (MC=0 is the main one). Economists didn't just quit and go home ("Guess we can't perform economic analysis anymore") after the digital revolution happened. They analyzed the new situations, using pretty much the same tools.

I don't actually think there are any good economic analyses of them (that I'm aware of) because in most cases just learning about them (by observing their circulation in action)

That would be econometric (which, frankly, doesn't even require physical possession, if you design your study well). We can still apply basic economic theory to make predictions without observing literal child porn. You were trying to do this at one point, too... before you decided that CP was immune to economics.

If you can find me the work of an economist, sociologist, or some other academic who has actually personally violated child porn law

Not needed; as above. I'm not going to go look for it now, because it's not worth it for an economics-denier (you'll find some reason to deny it), but on related scores, I'm 100% confident that I've seen economic analysis (and econometric analysis) of illegal drugs and guns, without any academic personally violating gun/drug laws. There is zero reason, in principle, why an academic could not for example partner up with NCMEC to get access to decent-quality data without personally violating any laws.

I simply pointed out which form of economic analysis is applicable

No, you just baldly asserted that one thing (that you like) is applicable, but literally the rest of economics is magically inapplicable. You have not reasoned for it.

Anyway you are back to being obtuse, intentionally ignoring the main thrusts of my argument while snarking at snippets taken out of context to imply they express something that they don't. You do realize that this behavior is just making it more and more transparent that you don't have much of a real point and just want to argue to argue, right?

I'm not going to go look for it now, because it's not worth it for an economics-denier (you'll find some reason to deny it)

"It exists and proves that I'm right but I'm not going to show it to you because the fact that you don't already agree that it proves me right makes you an economics-denier." Sorry, but I have much better and smarter (including the girl who will be cooking my dinner) things to focus on this Thanksgiving. Feel free to talk to me in the future when you are willing to make an actual point.

That is, to be as charitable as possible, I will remind you that this is what you're supposed to be directly refuting, without reference to any of the other bizarre and irrelevant tangents you've become obsessed with over the course of our conversation:

Let's go back to basic logic here:

Fictional, eroticized depictions of minors and actual child porn are both taboo and difficult to access to some degree, but (in the US at least) only the latter is illegal and it's also far more taboo and far more difficult to access.

Because they both are to a degree substitutes for each other, and because the cost/price in terms of difficulty/risk/etc. of acquisition of the fictional stuff is much lower, many people who would otherwise turn to child porn thus turn to the fictional stuff instead.

The more difficult to access/taboo the fictional stuff becomes, the less of a difference of cost/price there becomes between it and the real thing, thus lowering the relative cost/price of the real thing (or, inversely as I've been stating, raising its relative cost/price should the fictional stuff be less taboo and inaccessible). This reduces the incentive to prefer the fictional stuff over the real thing (lower price = higher quantity demanded), which people who strongly care about lowering consumption of the real thing should be worried about. (All of this except maybe the last clause of the last sentence is indisputably true, again based on basic logic.)

The part where the real thing changes its absolute cost/price (as it might do if we were actually talking about standard substitute goods offered by standard economic competitors, black market or not, which we're not (as they're two different categories of product affected by different policies (which is what we're actually comparing), not producers)) in response to any of this doesn't happen (so ironically the central point you've been hammering on this whole time actually supports mine), because that cost/price is imposed by policy that is specifically intended to curtail it. (This is not any "immunity" to economic analysis, just recognizing that comparative analyses of policies (which are inherently enforced monopolistically within their jurisdiction) and comparative analyses of standard economic agents in a free market do not work in the same way.)

This has been my essential argument since the beginning of my participation in this subthread, even before replying to you. If you can't refute it, then everything else you're saying is nothing but a mere three ring circus of avoiding the core of the discussion.

That is a gross mischaracterization of what I said. I didn't claim that it exists. I said that I wasn't going to look, which implies that I don't actually know whether it exists. Then, I gave reasons why I wasn't going to look for your specific demand, one that involves an academic breaking the law, for two reasons. 1) I've 100% seen economic analysis done on other illegal products without breaking the law (which should be sufficient, but doesn't meet your stupid criteria), and 2) Your stupid criteria is stupid, because in principle, there is no reason why such work could be done without breaking the law. But you have this stupid criteria that they must break the law, so there would be no point in me wasting time finding something, anyway (because you would reject it, since they didn't break the law).

Feel free to come back in the future anytime you want to have non-stupid criteria and actually discuss economics of child porn rather than just baldly asserting that economics magically doesn't apply unless an academic broke the law.

I've 100% seen economic analysis done on other illegal products without breaking the law

This is, as I already explained, because information about other illegal products in and of itself generally doesn't run the risk of getting your house raided by a SWAT team. If I'm an economist, I can freely browse the dark web and look up anything I want directly on any dark market site about the drugs, guns, etc. available for purchase. It's only attempting to buy or sell that's gong to get me in trouble.

Meanwhile, from the moment I visit a URL of a CP forum in my browser, the immediate view presented to me of it is quite likely to display illegal content/CP directly itself (you wouldn't know because you're speaking out your ass about something you have zero knowledge of, but this is often integrated directly into the CSS, custom CAPTCHAs, or other front page/index elements of such sites), the viewing of which means I've already quite likely broken the law. (You could try using a browser extension that doesn't load and/or display images on your end (though then you couldn't get past the CAPTCHAs easily), but how are you going to prove that you had it active at the time to any police who come knocking? Are economists going to become experts in some sort of complicated verifiable computation cryptography schemes to prove they were visiting CP sites but couldn't be looking at the actual contents? I doubt it.)

And if the site has been compromised by a NIT (look that up), it is probably on that front page/index/etc. of that site ready to hijack the computer of anyone so much as visiting it. This is all before you've even loaded up a single subforum or thread: buyers and sellers, trades, requests, whatever you think is necessary for your economic analysis. (Your suggestion to just get information from the NCMEC is hopelessly naive too. Are you going to ask the National Center Against the Exploitation of Illegal and Harmful Drugs for objective data to analyze that market next too?)

(None of this is even getting into the extra taboo/social dimensions of such research in comparison to research on other illegal good categories too. If I'm an economist and tell people I'm researching the economics of heroin or something the response will probably be something like "Heh, cool. Drugs are fun." If I tell them I'm researching child pornography, that immediately shifts the whole mood in the room.)

That is, my criteria are not ignorant. You are simply ignorant of a subject you have no direct knowledge of but nevertheless feel very comfortable confidently bloviating about in response to someone who does have that knowledge.

Of course this is all mostly irrelevant because what economists will or won't or can or can't do is wholly irrelevant to my basic argument that I helpfully quoted for you, which thankfully for you does not require any direct knowledge of the subject to understand. That you refuse to acknowledge it at all proves that you have no meaningful response to it and are again apparently arguing just to argue.

In any case, I accept your admitted inability to refute my central point and consequent resignation from the conversation. Try again next time.

Your suggestion to just get information from the NCMEC is hopelessly naive too. Are you going to ask the National Center Against the Exploitation of Illegal and Harmful Drugs for objective data to analyze that market next too?

The only two options are, "Believe everything said by one of the organizations," or, "Don't even bother trying." Brilliant. If only we had the ability to work to acquire a source of data and then not be stupid about how we analyze it...

If I'm an economist and tell people I'm researching the economics of heroin or something the response will probably be something like "Heh, cool. Drugs are fun." If I tell them I'm researching child pornography, that immediately shifts the whole mood in the room.

Sure, this would be relevant for whether someone actually has done econometrics. Not at all relevant for whether basic economic reasoning is applicable to the product. You had started off trying to apply basic economic reasoning to the product, before changing course and deciding that all economic reasoning is inapplicable (except the one you did).

That you refuse to acknowledge it at all

Try again, maybe? I mean, I've ignored a lot of the total garbage you've been spewing; maybe I missed a nice, defensible motte in your comments.

I accept your admitted inability to refute my central point

You're funny. Please, try to state your central point. It would be nice if your central point didn't include, "...and therefore, child porn is immune to economics."

Please, try to state your central point. It would be nice if your central point didn't include, "...and therefore, child porn is immune to economics."

"This is not any 'immunity' to economic analysis"

Ah yes, a parenthetical in the middle of a paragraph that is mostly parentheticals (some nested!) is your central point. Right then.

Let me see if I can summarize your four paragraph 'basic logic'.

  1. Child porn is illegal. Fake child porn isn't.

  2. Economic reasoning can be applied to child porn and fake child porn. They are both goods and are to some degree considered substitutes, so the economic reasoning of substitute goods applies.

  3. Restating that the economic reasoning of substitute goods applies.

  4. Suddenly, economic reasoning of substitute goods doesn't apply, because... parentheticals. Um, I guess economic reasoning of substitute goods doesn't apply, because there is a public policy regarding these goods?

Is that about right?

Ah yes, a parenthetical in the middle of a paragraph that is mostly parentheticals (some nested!) is your central point.

I apologize if the structure of my communication is too complex for you. Like most people, I inevitably write in a manner that is best understood by people mostly as capable as myself in regards to parsing complexity.

Um, I guess economic reasoning of substitute goods doesn't apply, because there is a public policy regarding these goods?

Yes, naive basic econ reasoning from your high school classes does not automatically apply when government policy distorts the natural incentives applicable mostly only in simple hypothetical scenarios about competing lemonade stands or whatever. That's... kind of why governments make policy at all. I'm glad you've finally graduated to the absolute simplest understanding of the effect of policy on the economy.

Ok, so all of the academic economics work I've seen on other goods that have government policies which distort natural incentives... is wrong?

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