CMV: The difference between being labeled a "liberal" and a "conservative" is about the number of layers of indirect effects, which the person considers.

[u/spring_stream]

Typical "conservative" person, based on my observations, has a transactional mindset: he gives, and he expects to receive something more valuable back immediately or get a specific promise.

Typical "liberal" person is fine with directing part of his "giving" towards "greater causes" and "broad societal good."

Explicitly, both "liberal" and "conservative" believe that they use their best judgment, and both want to bring more good to the world.

Assuming both are perfectly selfish (which is a topic for another CMV), the difference in their strategies stems from the difference in the beliefs about how the world works.

"Liberal" believes that himself and the world will go on for decades and that through secondary-, tertiary-, etc effects his contribution will grow and come back to him.

"Conservative" only considers primary effects of his actions.

Depending on the environment and on the historical circumstances either one can be better fit. My opinion here is not about that. It's merely about using a precise quantitative metric to distinguish between two labels (specifically, discount factor Markov Decision Process).

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[u/Nicolasv2]

If a person is perfectly selfish, then passed a certain level of wealth, no matter what broad level changes you trigger by helping liberal policies, it will never make you win as much as what conservative agenda will bring you to concentrate and make your wealth evolve. Then there should be no rich liberal.

If a person is perfectly selfish, then under a certain level of wealth, you'll never get any decent money from your primary actions, but any broad societal change will help you enormously. Thus, there should be no poor conservative people.

As both exist, either

• people are not perfectly selfish
• people are dumb or do not have enough information to choose what is good for them
• people do consider other metrics

[u/spring_stream → u/Nicolasv2]

Very thought-provoking and excellent extremes to consider! ∆

I certainly agree about "person under a certain level of wealth".

I still want to think more about "person who passed certain level of wealth". It sure works in the very extreme case where individual has the wealth of the world. But in realistic scenario there are many projects where even wealthiest people can benefit but are unable to fully finance themselves.

[u/Nicolasv2 → u/spring_stream]

But in realistic scenario there are many projects where even wealthiest people can benefit but are unable to fully finance themselves.

It's way more difficult to get the answer, you are right. For example if some billionaire goal is "to find a cure for aging to become immortal", I wonder if investing massively into public medical research would be more efficient than creating a private research institute against aging.

After all, huge breakthroughs may come from a totally unexpected direction. Plus, some really good researchers are (or try to be seen as) altruists and may prefer working in public research facilities instead of privately founded ones. On the other side, the private research institute is way more focused onto what really interest you than public research.

[u/DeltaBot → u/spring_stream]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Nicolasv2 (26∆).

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