How are your views and democracy compatible, my dear statist friends?

I think you're terribly wrong. The contribution the footballer makes is obviously a lot greater for various reasons. For starters, I could go on and argue on your level. That's pretty easy right there - the footballer does his thing every Sunday, and if he's good a little more often. A couple ten thousand people come and pay to watch him. So right there, you have him entertaining, say, 60'000 people every week.
Now, there's considerable further economic revenue created by that (beer sold etc.) but that's not really my point either. The nurse simply has no way of ever doing the same kind of "good", which also happens to be why the footballer gets paid more (obviously, if he isn't that good a footballer, he won't).
But again, that's not really what I'd respond to you (see, I'm replying whereas you people are dodging my questions - but I'll get to that later on ). You are quite wrong in assuming that "there are things you can't put an economic value on". It's similar to what environmentalists do - "the environment's worth so much you can't put a price tag on it/you shouldn't put a price tag on it". Well, I'm sorry but you can.
People decide how much they value a clean environment. People also decide how much they value the service a nurse has to offer and they decide how much they're willing to pay for a footballer's service.
Now, obviously supply comes into the equasion here as well - there's obviously far fewer great footballers than there's good nurses which is why they're being paid more (i.e. there services are valued more highly). I really can't see what's so hard to understand about this - nothing "rabidly materialistic", as far as I'm concerned.

See, here it is again. You're basically saying "we can't trust those people". Then how come they should have the kind of rights democracy gives them?
You declare them incapable of handling themselves for whatever reason. In need of someone else's support.
I just find this to be a glaring contradiction when considering what they can still do.

Uhm, I vehemently disagree with the word "deserve" here. It bothers me as it implies someone else owes this to them.
See, I don't disagree with you - I'm very much aware of "merit goods". It just so happens that I'd rather be able to decide myself who gets my money and what gets done with it.
See, I think it would be a much better idea to educate ten more MBAs and pay 35k Swiss francs less than to educate one agricultural expert. But then I can't really decide what gets done with the money I'm being taxed.

That's not what I'm asking here - I'm not even taking a decidedly libertarian position, as far as I can tell. Yet all you seem to be capable of doing is attacking libertarianism instead of defending your own position.

See, I'd probably agree with you. I'm not entirely sure, tbh. I consider this to be more of a philosophical excercise rather than anything political (I'm not that naive to expect to live to see the day where a libertarian society gets realised somewhere) and there remain a few aspects of government I can't yet find myself comfortable with privatising. Mainly the justice system and the police (to a certain extent). Possibly the military but as far as the rest goes? Don't really see why people shouldn't be able to organise amongst themselves of their own free will.

Aren't you some kind of biologist? I seem to remember that altruism in the animal world usually boils down to "I'll help you because you're a relative so you'll kinda be spreading my genes too".

It does and it doesn't. Normally that is what happens, but a lot of the time, members of a social group are not related.

Reciprocal altruism takes a lot of different forms. For example, some species of birds will help out unrelated individuals in their reproductive efforts, and in so doing build social status for themselves, which helps them out in the long run in getting mates.

Human society I think is an application of this. For a seemingly altruistic sacrifice, you help yourself in the long run.

Additionally, there are two primary reasons why we are reciprocally altruistic in larger groups... 1) we have less genetic diversity in our entire species than in one troupe of chimps, because our population dropped basically to one migratory family group about 80000 years ago (the mitochindrial eve) and we are ALL descendants of Ghengis(sp) Khan (traced back using Y chromosome mutations)

2 The same rules apply to a slightly different system in larger social groups. In order for a group larger than a family group to function, we still need the same social rules. This is why we have in-group/out-group thinking. People in the in-group (IE our society) are treated preferentially over those in out-groups (IE. Iraqis) And within in-groups there are smaller sub-groups that get treated preferentially over other sub-groups. (IE. You treat your family and closest friends better than you treat acquaintances). This is analagous to treating your closest relatives better than you treat members of your clan, who you treat better than more distantly related members of your tribe, who you certainly treat better than members of the competing tribe on the other side of the river.

A tad simplistic? Also I doubt whether many footballers have the mental capacity to be a "good" nurse

I didn't realise you lived in a country with privatised healthcare.

I hear that "great" table tennis players aren't really rolling in cash either.

And I know which group of people I'm a bit more grateful for.

As well as I understand it, this part is not at all true.

It's not.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html

*shrug* Info was out of date I suppose. CURSE YOU DISCOVERY SCIENCE!

Either way, we still dont have much genetic diversity

How so?
And how those the second part in any way relate to what I posted? How is it important whether the footballer's "clever" or would make a good nurse when considering how much people are willing to pay for his service (i.e. how valuable they consider his services)?

Well then you obviously value the service a nurse has to offer more highly than the service a footballer has to offer. A majority of people disagree, therefore the footballer gets more money.
I'm sure you may consider your opinion more reasonable but then again trying to impose that wouldn't be very democratic, now would it?
At least Chris is honest about these things...

Genetics has not been working for you today, Herp.

Herp can simply declare there's a consensus, ending all debate 4-evah.

Nice grandstanding. You still have a burden of proof to meet.

Attention! Flawed logic and unverified claims!

I've tried to impose nothing.


I think you're probably posting drunk though.

Another scientist enters the thread to offer some expert opinion.


Oh, wait a minute.

Reality verifies my claims.
It's why Becks makes a couple mill a year and a nurse makes - I don't even know? 25k? 20k?

Also, I forgot to point out that yeah, I actually do live in kind of a privatised health care society.
You know, I've seen up close two people who'd like our system to be a lot closer to yours come to appreciate what we have over the last two months. Great fun.

No, you do. As stated in the other thread, "you don't breed Tony the Pony to get a Triple Crown winner". Why do you think champion horses get retired to stud for very lucrative fees?

Genetics is like computers: garbage in, garbage out.

Yeah, like you're a scientist.

Because you automatically seem to equate "value" and "monetary value"

Even if it was solely monetary value, it's still difficult to argue that "footballers are more valuable because they get paid more".

There are so many levels where your argument can be disputed.

1. You're only considering the best footballers, who only get paid over a much shorter period of time than the average nurse

2. (In this country at least), everyone has paid a nurse indirectly. Most of the coutry hasn't contributed a single penny towards a given footballer's wages.

3. Take away all the nurses, and you've got a much bigger economic problem on your hands than if all footballers disappeared.

And so on.

Then you need to take into account that most people don't treat "value" as "economic value".

......

Anyone here can claim to be whatever they like. You may say that you're a quantum physicist but actually wind up just being a high-school dropout who works at a loading dock who happened to read up on his Hawking and his Einstein. How are any of us to know?

Hell, The Flashlight wants people to think that he's a lawyer, and Cassandra wants people to think that she's some kind of Lara Croft.

Yet you're adamant that I can't be a scientist.


Why do I feel that you'd be more likely to believe me if I said any other profession...

Infact I think I may have mentioned what I do at some point in the past.

I don't care what you claim you do. You might be lying or you might be telling the truth. I don't particularly care. Your general character and personality suggest that you would probably lie to appear of higher status.

What other value is there?
"Emotional value"? You can quantify that, as well. You can even quantify the value of your "life" - IIRC, it normally boils down to about 10 million $.

Their service are obviously valued a lot higher than those of others - based on how common the required traits are, among other thigns.

Doesn't really matter though - even if you assume they'd work 20-30 years more, a nurse probably makes less in all her life than a footballer makes in a single year.

I doubt that - the government subsidises all kinds of things related to football (and thereby a footballer's wage). This may be different in Britain but in Switzerland there's rarely a stadium built without at least the local government supporting it.
Add to that what governments to in support of youth sports etc.

In which case the nurse's wage would rise as supply decreases while demand stays the same.
What's so hard about this to understand?

Prices (or in this case wages) are a pretty good way of assessing something's value. Sure, the market's not exactly without external influences (especially when talking wages) but there's no other measure that's better suited to represent what value something means to a large number of people.

Not explicitly.

Usually, scientists aren't total imbeciles.

Therefore, I cannot say whether Fox is a total scientist.

Every purchase of any product advertised during football matches helps to pay their wages. Like beer? So, pretty much everyone in the country helps pay, I'd guess.

The market price is the best measure of value if it's a free market. Since the UK health care system apparently sets the nurse's wage, we really have no way of knowing what a nurse's skillset would be worth in an open market.

Exactly, it's a part of every economic decision even if they don't realize it. You're kind not to throw utils at him.

Even within the purely material considerations of a free market, there are more ways to measure the value of a service than its current price.

Here's just one example: What is typically called "marginal" value.

Petrol is more expensive than clean water by the gallon; diamonds cost more than bread. But that is only true as long as sufficient supply of water and bread is guaranteed. You might pay 100 times the price of bread for the same weight indiamonds, but if it's the only way to get bread, you'll happily spend that amount of diamonds and more to buy a loaf. Ask your 60K football fans if they'd rather do without one of their top-notch footballers playing football every Sunday, or without a functioning ER in reach when they find their lives threatened by injury or disease.

Keep working on sounding clever. You've got a long ways to go.