I want to do well in school.
I want to always have Sunday lunches.
I want to have spending money.
I want to have nice jeans that aren't falling apart.
I want to new shoes.
I want to be with.
I want to start painting my Tau.
I want to turn my awesome idea for a D&D campaign into an awesome D&D campaign.
I want to stop doing things I regret.
I want to go through with the design idea I have.
I want to be happy.
Recently in The Game of Life Category
I dedicate this post to Nick Davey, because he writes blogs for me to learn what he knows too.
Election day always cuts me deep. It involves far too much thinking and emotions, and I'm less and less able to deal with it every time.
In economics, personal choice is explained through mathematics. It essentially turns humans into formulas, and then builds models to try and figure out what will happen. One of the simplest things about a "normal consumer" is that he (or she) will makes decisions to maximize utility. (I don't know how much these wikipedia links will help. I found them confusing and I study the stuff.) Choice, is displayed on a simple graph using indifference curves (functions that show all of the possible combinations of goods, but not bads) and the production-possibility frontier (PPF) or "transformation curve" (a graph that shows combinations of two goods that are achievable given limited resources, ie. time, money, etc. ). Basically, a budget curve showing all combinations of how you can spend whatever you're spending. It then uses calculus to find a maximum point of utility, found where the two curves are tangent to each other. That developed into what I tell everyone is my rule for life: marginal revenue equals marginal cost. This then devlops into other ideas, like Pareto Efficiency, but I won't get into that this time.
So, with these functions you get pretty simple rules that try to explain how things work, like "more is always prefered to less". Each modle makes complete sense if you take the assumptions that the model is build on. The issue comes from arguing whether or not certain assumptions are valid. I'm yammering, so I'll try and get back to my point.
Certain people get some sort of utility from helping others. That good feeling they get from certain actions of what anyong would say is "good" are worth more than money. Just like my dad's education is worth more than any money to him - although, let's be honest, that money is pretty nice. It's also possible that there are people who derive no utility from helping others. Aboslutely nothing. More likely, what about a person who is completely indifferent. They just don't care. What if we move to that point as a country? I understand that everyone has a right to their individual beliefs. They get to choose their beliefs to maximize their utility. I would never attack someone, I would attack their belief system. (Some people argue that is a de facto attack on a person, but I like to see it as trying to get people to change their minds). I understand that we live in a world where the majority holds sway. I'm fine with that. I would just prefer to live in a world where my belief system is a majority. That's what I'm seriously starting to consider Europe as an alternative after I finish school if things go really downhill in the next four years.
I'm going to do my best to try and convince people that we do still need to change. But if it doesn't work, I don't think I'll have a problme giving up and peacing out to another country.
Addendum (12:00AM): I would like to say, I do take solace in the fact that the it's only a minority. I think we should take this as an opportunity to rally the other parties. This isn't a set back. This is proof we can do better. The Green Shift was great. But we need to start showing actual numbers for everything. And we need Canadians to stop buying into stupid soundbites. I also want the Greens to do the same thing. I wanted them to win a seat so badly.
Also, I just want you all to know I'm really, really upset about the number of young people I know who didn't vote because they didn't have time today. Or they didn't realize that they needed to vote in their riding. I'm sorry, what? But I won't get into it that. You guys should have made time. I went home a week ago to vote. It wasn't that hard to do.
Sometimes I find myself feeling so conflicted. I completely understand personal freedom. I sometimes feel like I respect the idea of personal freedom more than any organized religion claims it does. The more I study economics, the more I slide farther and father toward what seems to be the right on a lot of things. I think people should be able to choose what they want. At the same time I feel like we should strive for something bigger. Something better.
I completely support the idea of our universal health care. I think it's great that we have it. I think the biggest issue with it is the fact that the only way to get better service is to pay more money. A leftist plan would raise taxes. A rightist plan would likely allow privatization so people could pay more for better service if they wanted to. You would argue the difference is a matter of coverage; the leftist one covers everyone. This is the same for anything like, say, universal post-secondary education. My disdain for certain Canadian political parties comes from their inability to accept that better service and coverage would require more money, or taxes (Hello, NDP).
So I come to the issue where I'm conflicted on how I feel things should work, and how they could actually work. I don't have a problem with a monetary exchange for sexual services. My issue comes from the fact I wish people didn't have to do it. Like, is it that hard for you to get laid that you have to do it? I know that some people are just really, really into the idea of the edge it adds to the situation. I'm fine with that. I just wish it didn't really add the edge.
