For the most part I think people's time preference is probably heavily genetically-influenced and to the extent it's environmentally-influenced, it's pretty baked in by someone's mid-20s. Decreasing time preference through learned self-restraint is probably just not a thing. External incentives are required.
Discussion
... or until you just get old and tired, and have no ambition but chilling out.
🤣🤣🤣
This is why the rich stay rich. Baked in time preferences that were learned unconsciously.
Well, I point this out, because at the bottom of a lot of AnCap arguments, is this belief that once we hand people tools like bitcoin, they're going to realize the wisdom of low time preference living, and have a spiritual awakening about the importance of self-reliance and responsibly.
I think that's about the most hilariously wrong read of the malleability of human behavioral incentives, I see around these parts.
I think you’re straw-manning a bit there. Really what people are getting at is the changing of time preference broadly distributed across society. Both of our grandfathers likely bought craftsman tools that were meant to last a lifetime and we both likely buy cheap crap that we don’t care for or take care of.
There's quite a few studies on this. From what I saw, it suggests that both learned and long-cultural (genetic factors play a role).
Ref: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122002438
Yes. People aren't going to want to hear this, but the reason there's so many bitcoin-libertarian-Austrian types talking about how wine people learn about bitcoin, they will awaken to the possibility of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility stems from a selection effect and echo chamber effect.
They will. But not as fast as we might think.
Ever heard the phrase “Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in 3 generations”? It’s an anomaly to have multigenerational wealth sustain.
Mainly it’s divorce that destroys family wealth. Many rich families have clued into this and now beat the idea of prenups into the heads of their children. There are even rich kid camps where they go to learn how not to marry someone who will ruin the family fortune.
That’s not actually true when you look at large multigenerational wealth. Mainly because divorce has only been more common in more recent generations. While divorce can significantly impact a couples finances when you’re looking at sustaining multigenerational wealth other factors come into play. Frequently one generation was able to make the wealth and successive generations do not know how to protect, grow, and sustain their wealth and end up squandering it. There’s also a comfort factor in successive generations who have the expectation of wealth and do not account for the work involved to maintain it.
If you look purely at numbers I would bet that more wealth is lost through bad business decisions by successive generations and repeated lavish overspending rather than a one off financial crisis like divorce. In preserving intergenerational wealth who you marry is one small piece of the puzzle. Many of these rich kid camps you speak spend much more time trying to teach business acumen and knowledge about managing money. Though I hear they also spend time discussing how all the relationships in your life affect your bottom line.
Who you marry can be a big indicator of whether a couple will accrue wealth in a lifetime. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley has some interesting insight into that.
If you look purely at numbers I would bet that more wealth is lost through bad business decisions by successive generations and repeated lavish overspending rather than a one off financial crisis like divorce. In preserving intergenerational wealth who you marry is one small piece of the puzzle. Many of these rich kid camps you speak spend much more time trying to teach business acumen and knowledge about managing money. Though I hear they also spend time discussing how all the relationships in your life affect your bottom line.
Who you marry can be a big indicator of whether a couple will accrue wealth in a lifetime. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley has some interesting insight into that.
not to make everything about bitcoin but pretty sure the rich stay rich because they can recycle their surplus into endlessly monetising assets rather than needing to create any real value …
see what recession does to time-preference dummy
Those would be the sorts of external incentives I'm talking about. As opposed to intrinsic incentives.
Many of us are example to the contrary
Literal eugenicist argument
No it's not.
I'm failing to see how it could be interpreted differently. Care to elaborate on the distinction?
I can't even begin to understand how you think I'm advancing a eugenics argument, so I'm not even going to try to argue the contrary argument, since I have no grounding upon which to do so.
Maybe I'm not understanding your point.. It appeared you were claiming that people can't willfully change their inhereted traits or habits.
Just pointing out that's the foundational belief behind eugenics.
I don't believe our brains are blank slates. I do think many personality traits are genetic, yes. The evidence for this is high. Many studies have been done on identical twins, who were separated at birth, for instance -- and these studies have consistently shown shared behavioral traits that can't be explained by random chance in the samples.
But it doesn't follow from that, I think we should engage in eugenics. That's an insane leap.
I knew you weren't intentionally advancing a eugenics argument, but I have only heard statements like the OP from people who are.
It comes down to a personal belief in the capability of individuals to change. In my view the more someone believes they're pre-programmed the less likely they are to engage in behaviors to improve their lives.
I've seen tremendous changes in myself and others well past age 20. In my case it's difficult to attibute it to anything but Bitcoin. It's impossible to do a controlled study, but the before and after is enough imo.
I know many people who have come to bitcoin, myself included, and maintained pretty stable political views throughout the process. Which is why I suggest this belief could be a selection effect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias
I can see why you would reach that conclusion.
I've noticed observable behavioral changes and shifts in perspective among people who adopt bitcoin, but it's all anecdotal at this point.
Time will tell I suppose.
Societally influenced for sure. I don’t think eugenics was the intent of the point #[2]​ is trying to make.
I think humans are pretty predisposed to high time preference behavior, on average. To the extent we have low time preference behavior happening systematically, are features of incentives built by organized societies, and are a little more top down in nature than people want to admit.
Genetically? I don’t see how…
Everything you said to be false here was true for me. My time preference changed significantly after bitcoin. I grew up poor and had a survive day to day mentality. It wasn’t until I didn’t have to struggle financially that I was able to learn about investing, and thinking long term. Bitcoin then amplified that type of thinking.
Imo time preferences are learned, and depend a lot on your state of mind. When you don’t have the resources you can’t be bothered to think long term. But as your needs are met and you learn more, it’s easier to plan ahead.
Your environment, living conditions and external incentives affect your time preference, yes. Like, if you think an asset you're sitting on -- say bitcoin -- is going to be worth 100x in the near future, that is going to affect your time preference, yes. But what if it didn't? What if you didn't believe it was going to go up? Would you have equally lower time preference?
This has all been extensively researched to look at baselines in people. See: Stanford marshmallow experiment, etc.
Yeah I’ve read those but did not reach the same conclusions. The person’s state of mind was not in a struggling mentality hence the marshmallow experiment useless.
I'm not arguing that people would express different time preferences in different circumstances. If we didn't, that would not be conducive to survival. My objection is to the idea that there's a sort of "spiritual awakening" people will have once they understand bitcoin which will shift them towards a more anarchistic worldview and disciplined, low time preference behavior.
I actually think this is quasi-religious in the way some people talk like that.
Ok. Yeah hard to say, I imagine it depends on the individual and their life circumstances. You can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink. Some people will stick to their ways no matter what.
Well, I understand bitcoin very deeply and I don't think that way. I talk to many prominent bitcoiners -- including some core devs -- that don't think that way. So the empirical evidence that people who have convinced themselves of this are echo-chambering and part of a self-selection effect is actually quite high, in my opinion.
Interesting. I’ve heard many similar stories to mine in bitcoin spaces / clubhouse conversations.
My time preference for bitcoin does not rest on fiat valuation. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel more at peace knowing my grandkids or maybe their grandkids might be well off, but that’s not why I hodl. To me, a more fair and inclusive monetary system is more important.
Also, bitcoin alone didn’t lower my time preference, that was already changed when I stopped struggling and could think ahead for a rainy day - starting with savings and ultimately investing.
It is also just true that people's time preference drifts lower as we age and mature. Which is why I might push back on comparing ourselves to our younger selves as proof, here.
Age probably also plays a role but doesn’t that also mean you just had more time to learn? Regardless of age, I think your immediate mentality has more impact on your time preference.
This is the truth. Maslow didn’t make that hierarchy of needs for nothing.
When you’re focus is on “can I make rent this month, or buy food” it’s hard to think of anything else.
And if any of us returned to that state, by environmental favors or turn of fortune, the luxury of saving for the future would evaporate. At a certain lack of income, regardless of whether your money is deflationary, stable or inflationary, is going to demand high time preference behavior as a necessity of subsistence.
pretty bearish on humanity here, Mike …
I’m not bearish on humanity. But I think surviving the technological age is not without certain perils that need to be acknowledged honestly, if we are to successfully navigate them.
How is that different than 25, 50, 100 years ago or 200 years ago etc? Why is this time different?
I’m not entirely sure that you are wrong, but I am entirely sure the most moral path is to act *as if* you are wrong.
have faith in every human soul - “faith” being an especially sneaky word choice here …
I don’t think you can rely on the notion that some conception of normative ethics can be expected to represent some sort of center of gravity, which pulls individual behavior, and by extension, collective behavior towards functional outcomes that more closely align with that under their own weight.
This is actually at the middle of my objections to many arguments people make about the “inevitability” of certain futures: be it hyperbitcoinization, or the belief we will regress towards something more like an anarcho-capitalist future, merely because of some functional behavioralist weight that these supposedly universalist conceptions of ethics supposedly tend towards. Because those systems are somehow more "self-consistent" in terms of their ethical constructions (a point I object to, but will not do so here), or that the a priori arguments around the superior incentives in some conception of economics will wash away the hypocrisy.
I believe these sorts of arguments are fanciful thinking, and indirectly advocate for depoliticization. That we don't have to engage in political power games to advance our interests. Instead, we can simply wait for the hypocrisies and self-contradictions of the current systems of power to play out, and can expect future outcomes to "naturally" come into alignment with some notion of universal ethics and purer notions of economic incentives.
I just don't buy that. I know it makes me feel like a party pooper to say that. But I don't think the completely a priori arguments that get made in that direction seem reasonable against what I understand about human nature (particularly as it pertains to group dynamics), collective action problems (like classic tragedy of the commons issues), or empirical counterexamples from history itself.
I try to push a pro-bitcoin narrative through the lens of accepting these as problems. Rather than assuming these problems just "go away" when everything comes out in the wash.
I think you misunderstand my point. I’m not saying this *will* happen for xyz nonsense axiomatic reason. I’m saying that, as an individual making decisions, you should act as if everybody *can* “lower their time preference through learned self-restraint,” even if that may not be true.
in fact I’d go further and say that successful group dynamics and the resolution of collective action problems to a large extent depends on it: people only cooperate and restrain from negative-sum violence at all when there is reason to believe that meaningful trust can create a positive-sum outcome. if you don’t believe you will be treated fairly because you are just a high-time preference idiot/idler/whatever then you won’t develop or reciprocate any trust. hence for those who are low-time preference clever/industrious/whatever, the moral thing to do is to act as if this (probably to some extent true) underlying distribution is actually false.
I’d even go as far as to say that civilisation depends on the self-fulfilling inertia of this choice continuing to be made by a majority, if not a supermajority.
I don't think that most people would disagree in the abstract that you should strive for low time preference behavior and act morally, though. The real arguments come in around how we structure society to achieve that.
One data-point - my son (5) seems to have a VERY high time-preference, despite my many many attempts to encourage him to wait. My daughter (3) on the other hand has a very low time-preference, often volunteering to things for later with no prompting.