"Human beings act in ways that are motivated by economic rationality, and will always seek to maximize profit"
*looks upon millions and millions of words of fan fiction*
friend
your model has something of an explanatory gap
@sargoth after so much time under keynessian economics people don't realize that their perception is distorted. I believe the statement is right, but boosting demand leads to perception of savings capacity and thus people choose things that can be consumed immediately. There, the malinvestments and the explainatory gap.
@sargoth *leads to loss of perception ins savings capacity
@sargoth and not only boosting demand. The snowball of state intervention
@eazel7 I love how this is empirically testable
economic upturn for the demographics primarily involved in fan fic -> less fan fic ^^
@sargoth well I don't really think that economics are really that testable. Lord Kelvin (the one of the temperature) stated that if you want to measure something, you better alter it as little as possible in the measurement. In the economy we are all measurment instruments, measuring prices and how we value each offer. How do you test a web of subjective testers? I think that those who think they do are just trying to confirm their bias.
@sargoth Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the most accurate predictor of human motivations I've seen. When people aren't thinking about money, other factors (peer respect, self-actualization) motivate far more effectively.
It's sort of like one of those mathematical proofs that goes through a whole bunch of convoluted steps that look reasonable but are subtly flawed, except at the end instead of getting "1 = 2" or the like, you get "humans = money".
Smash capitalism!
@sargoth replace "Humans" with "I".
The science agrees that people are generally not motivated by economic benefit, especially when it comes to anything that involves thinking (e.g. writing).
The only area where economic benefit seems to motivate is mindless scutwork.
@sargoth
"Animal Spirits"