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218 sats \ 6 replies \ @k00b 9 Mar freebie \ on: Psychology and btc price bitcoin
It makes me wonder what's unique about prices:
- we track them to an insane degree - unlike anything else
- they're out of our control
- there's a direct benefit in predicting prices well and direct loss in predicting prices poorly
- because we track them so, our benefits and losses are certain
Could there be other things that make prices so psychologically interesting? Could we enhance priceless things with price-like qualities to create more price-like psychological effects? I'd guess that's what we're getting at with all the bio-tracking.
Could we enhance priceless things with price-like qualities to create more price-like psychological effects?
I think this is an important question. Doomberg recently mocked the shit out of efforts to price aspects of nature in an article about natural asset companies. From what I read of the article, it sounds like NACs are unworkable and perhaps ill-motivated, but it's also true that one of the biggest dangers -- perhaps the single biggest one -- of the modern world is that people think that things that don't have prices also have no value. Or they don't really think this, but the machinery of capitalism compels the most powerful entities in the world to act accordingly. Any effort to solve that problem should be taken seriously.
But wrt what makes prices special: imo, it's that they roll up such gigantic and diffuse kinds of value and instantiate that massive vector into a single number that people can think with. Which means that everything pertaining to price carries that complex bouquet with it -- it's inherently compelling, the perfect psychological racoon trap.
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it's that they roll up such gigantic and diffuse kinds of value and instantiate that massive vector into a single number that people can think with
Aha! We do love treating a vector like a scalar. Lex interviewed Meta's head of AI who made a related point arguing LLMs will not produce AGI because language is a lossy compressed thought and experience. Whether a scalar or language, compression allows information to travel far and wide.
I've been thinking about the tendency to vector collapse in founder friends; "successful founders do x, so I'm doing x" or "it's really all about y, so I'm doing y." They compress to coordinate with their future self. (Really founders need an element in their vector for nearly every role that a mature organization has. You can probably get away with compressing the vector to 2 or 3 dimensions, but hardly ever just 1 afaict.)
Which means that everything pertaining to price carries that complex bouquet with it -- it's inherently compelling, the perfect psychological racoon trap
This clicks. Prices are like the outline of something seen through a sheer curtain and we are all some sort of peeping tom.
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Please turn this into its own post!
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I think with "direct benefit" you basically mean tangible and non-abstract consequences. If you can predict prices well, it's pretty clear that you can be rich af and what being rich af means is also pretty tangible for most people since they suffer from not being rich af everyday.
I guess that's why most people don't do bio-tracking: Not living a healthier life has long-term consequences which are abstract and non-tangible until you suffer from them. Bio-tracking makes at least the short-term of living healthier more tangible by comparing numbers. But long-term is still not tangible and abstract.
I am kind of using abstract as the contrary of tangible but I think there is a difference, lol.
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I guess that's why most people don't do bio-tracking: Not living a healthier life has long-term consequences which are abstract and non-tangible until you suffer from them.
It's even more stark than that: in most ways that matter, your brain considers future-you to essentially be an entirely separate person. Which is also philosophically interesting, bc now your own success, based on how 'nice' you are to future you, looks dependent on how thoughtful you generally are to other people.
Hmmm.
Bio-tracking makes at least the short-term of living healthier more tangible by comparing numbers. But long-term is still not tangible and abstract.
Another great aspect of where psychology comes into play -- a number moving, and the rate of its movement, has hedonic implications, even when the number itself is meaningless to you.
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I think you're right that health is less tangible/direct than wealth in that health is more like an annuity than a cash prize. They are both fairly abstract as I see them, but I'd rather order take out than mince words.
I think health tracking done right can make you feel the benefit of positive changes.
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