add new ranking for policies: donations

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right now we have the option to vote for policies. i can click on “top” and see that “single issue bills for congress” has received 21,884 votes.

imagine if we also had the option to donate for policies. all the money would go to this website. right next to “top” there would be “urgent” where we could see policies sorted by donations.

what are the chances that “single issue bills for congress” would also be #1 in the urgent category? there’s zero chance. otherwise we could simply vote for steaks instead of having to sacrifice for them.

as it is, with the current system, we don’t know which policy is truly the most urgent to us. i don’t know which policy is most urgent to you, and vice versa.

how many policies have you voted for? 5? 50? 500? are they all equally urgent to you? of course not. take $20 and divide it between all the policies that you’ve voted for. you’re not going to equally divide the $20. you’re going to unequally divide the $20 in a way that reveals your priorities. i’ll see and know which policy is most urgent to you, and vice versa. this is how and why markets work.

in the absence of markets we can’t see what’s truly important to each other. so the wrong amount of land is going to be used for cattle. the supply of steak will be really wrong.

this website isn’t a market, but obviously the limited resource that’s being wasted isn’t land, it’s attention. any given policy will receive either way too much, or way too little, attention. if this wasn’t the case then markets wouldn’t be the most useful tool ever invented.

please, for your sake, for my sake, for humanity’s sake, please stop underestimating the necessity of having the opportunity to put your money where your mouth is. this is by far our most powerful weapon in the fight for freedom. it’s how we win the war.

I suppose it was when the clouds opened up over the target at Nagasaki. The target was there, pretty as a picture. I made the run, let the bomb go. That was my greatest thrill. - K. Beahan

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What would the money be used for after it’s received?

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ideally you’d be given the opportunity to specify how the money you donate should be used. site development would be determined by demand.

currently, with all websites, development is not determined by demand. users clamor for bells and whistles, and the website owners have to try and decide whether the benefit will be greater than the cost.

but here’s an incredibly useful fact that’s been tragically overlooked by the vast majority of people…

It is impossible for anyone, even if he be a statesman of genius, to weigh the whole community’s utility and sacrifice against each other. - Knut Wicksell

the chances are extremely slim that the owner of a website is going to correctly guess how much utility (benefit) i get from any bell and whistle. this is why we are constantly “foot voting” for new websites…

friendster → myspace → facebook → ???

why is it beneficial for websites to be in a market? it’s the same exact reason why it’s beneficial for each website to be a market. in all cases it’s necessary to know what consumers truly want. website owners aren’t mind-readers. so consumers need to communicate their wants to owners, but votes and words aren’t enough, there has to be sacrifice. consumers need the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.

consumers: we want this bell and whistle!
owner: how badly do you want it?
consumers: $$$$$$$$$$
owner: wow, i never would have guessed that the demand for this bell and whistle was so large!

the only reason we are here on this website is because the owners of our previous websites guessed wrong about our wants. but this is exactly why we will eventually leave this website as well…unless the owner of this website adequately appreciates wicksell. anyone who doesn’t adequately appreciate wicksell doesn’t really understand liberty.

real liberty is only possible in markets. since this website isn’t a market, there’s no real liberty here. we don’t have the opportunity to make sacrifices for the things that are truly important for us, whether it’s a policy or a function. so we’re ignorant of what’s truly important to each other. it’s not a good system. it’s a bad system. the results and consequences are never good when people don’t have real liberty. otherwise, liberty really wouldn’t matter. we could all be slaves with an abundance of good things. in reality, without real liberty there’s a severe scarcity of good things. liberty and abundance go hand in hand.

in the current world we live in there are markets (+ liberty) and not-markets (- liberty). people think that the not-markets deserve credit for all the abundance in the world. nothing could be further from the truth. all the abundance we have is despite, not because of, not-markets. so if we replace all the not-markets with markets, abundance will be infinitely greater. wherever we are in the world, whether in the physical world or the virtual world, we should have the freedom to put our money where our mouth is.

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Yes what would the money be used for??? I would think hot policies would represent most urgent. Second I was just notified that I only have 1 vote left. Is there a limit??? If so I would not have voted on my low priority issues. Who that matters policy wise is actually monitoring this site??? Do we know??? Lastly, does anybody know how to find any replies I may have??? I sure don’t. Thanks.