I understand your position here, but I still have to disagree. You smuggled in a value-laden concept in the second paragraph: "unhealthy."

"Due to your knowledge of the unhealthy consequences of ice-cream, this will likely reduce your valuation of the good."

"Knowledge of the unhealthy"

=

Knowledge of a negative

Without objective value, what differentiates health and unhealth?

Perhaps by "knowledge" you are referring to a mere opinion or preference, but it sounds like you don't mean that. It sounds like you are talking about knowledge of an objective fact.

I think there's a slight difference between your concept of "subjective value" and my concept of "context-dependent objective value," but correct me if I'm wrong.

My version of this concept preserves the ability for a person to be more or less correct in their evaluations, whereas yours doesn't.

In my conceptualization, there's the thing I'm valuing, how much I consciously value it, and then there's it's actual, objective value relative to me. These last two are separate.

The reason I think it's necessary to keep these separate is because...

For example:

I could value ice cream, and I could buy it to eat it, but that doesn't mean that it was a good thing that I bought and ate that ice cream (even for me).

After all, Ice cream is generally not good for me. There are exceptions, but there really is truth to the statement "I shouldn't eat ice cream three times a day, even if I go ahead and do so."

If I did this, I'd be expressing incorrect value to the market. The market would begin overproducing ice cream because of my increased demand, and this wouldn't be a good thing.

Does this mean that I think government should step in and regulate ice cream out of existence? No, it doesn't. It just means that the market is only as good as it's participants at approximating value. It just happens to be the best means we have of doing so.

Yeah, one of these days I hope we'll have a better client for philosophical discussions. 🤞

I should add that I don't think value can be measured with 100% certainty. But neither can anything else.

I also don't think value is absolute. I don't think one thing can have the same value in all contexts. I think value is objective, but context-dependant.

I don't think saying that value is subjective helps us measure anything.

How can you measure something that is purely subjective without a standard of measurement?

The reason I've come to this conclusion is because without first accepting (implicitly or explicitly) the existence of objective value, nothing else can possibly make sense. No theories, observations, descriptions of the world... Nothing.

The acceptance of the existence of objective value can also explain the question you just asked.

You asked me "what's the point?" You used the word purpose, and you specifically asked about the purpose of viewing something as "wrong."

Asking for the point is to presume that there can in fact be "a point."

If value were purely subjective, there couldn't be a meaningful point to anything. Yes, all valuations are subjective, but those valuations come in degrees of quality. In economics, the market judges that quality though a quasi-evolutionary process (when it's working correctly, but under subjective value theory there is no such thing as "working correctly").

Yes, I agree that there Nigerian prince falls under the first category. I would just phrase it differently to better reflect what's actually going on (in my view).

Better information can help us make better evaluations and therefore, better decisions. This includes economic decisions.

Try to get work done, pass out in front of the screen.

Lay in bed to take a power nap, can't sleep.

Nope

This, along with new apps that take advantage of the protocol in creative and unique ways. It has to do things that many people want that can't be achieved elsewhere.

Smuggle in the censorship resistance without using it as the selling point.

We could play with examples in parallel. One is the ice cream example, perhaps another could be the following:

A Nigerian prince emails you. He promises that if you help him move his multi-million dollar fortune out of Nigeria by sending a certain sum of money by wire-transfer, he will share part of the fortune with you.

You assess the situation and decide to express value by sending the money. Then, the prince vanishes without a trace.

Was that expression of value wrong?

I suggest that it was at least less-than-ideal, or not 100% correct. In fact, I would say you've been scammed.

The alternative is to say that there's no such thing as a "better" or "worse" decision in this situation.

Essentially, yes, but it's not my place to tell you or anyone which flavour you should have picked. I believe you are in the best position to determine what you should pick, but there's a big difference between "best" and "perfect."

As for "what way" in which it might be wrong, I do not know. I don't think I understand the question.

As for triviality, perhaps you're right. Maybe your choice of ice cream flavour will have cascading consequences that end up causing WW3 or something. We can't really know for sure.

If I were to accept that the value of ice cream flavours is subjective, then I would have to somehow conceptually make ice cream flavour distinct from other things people can value (that aren't subjective). I don't think that sort of conceptualization exists, and I haven't been able to generate one.

Meme gold

I don't think we can know with 100% certainty. However, that doesn't mean that a correct answer doesn't exist.

This is why we can look back on our decisions and say "that was a good deal" or "I should've done something better" etc...

Ice cream flavor is a pretty trivial and inconsequential thing to analyze, which is why we don't care to do it. There are more consequential examples we could use, such as cigarettes or bioweapons. Is it actually worth giving up money for cigarettes, or for bioweapons? I'm sure it depends on context, but I do think there are right and wrong answers to that question.

I certainly think that the economy is better off when individuals come to these realizations by themselves, instead of having a central authority dictate them to the masses.

But still, that just means that decentralized economic systems are better than centralized economic systems. It doesn't mean that value itself is inherently subjective.

I struggle to see how additional insight wouldn't be seen as objectively better information. Or an improvement of some sort.

The idea that value is subjective throws into question a lot of our strong intuitions, including our moral intuitions like "It's wrong to shoot up schools."

Yes, you understand my approach. Although "absolute" could imply that a good has the same value always and forever and in every place and circumstance, which I do not believe.

I think everything that could be valued has an absolute value, given the circumstances or context in which it's being evaluated. This is not the same thing as subjectivity in my view.

The theory is interesting, but from what I've heard so far I have to disagree. Still going to read more into it though.

Overcome your incentives

Thanks for posting these man 🤙

It's brought me peace as well. I can discuss these matters with much more confidence than I could before I had fleshed the idea of "context-dependant objective value" out.

I appreciate the engagement from your end as well. It seems we've arrived at similar conclusions.

This exchange shows how Nostr is pure signal. I'd zap you but you're not setup for it.

Those who believe value is subjective: what do you mean by this?

Do you mean to say that what is valuable is a matter of opinion or social consensus (group opinion)?

Or...

Do you mean something like "context dependant?"

Or do you mean something else?