Talk:Utility

Lower-case ‘U’ and ‘&Upsilon;’
u and &upsilon; are difficult to distinguish. - Patrick 09:39, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Are formulas correctly written??
I was wondering if the formulas are correctly written. In the section on Utility functions in game theory, there are statments like: the probability of u is &#945;(u) and the probability of &#965; is (1 - &#945;)(&#965;). Now the formula doesn't make sense. Some expert please cleanup that section. It is misnformation rather than information.

Karthik Iyer

Risk Aversion and CES
The statement that: "CES (constant elasticity of substitution) utility is one with constant relative risk aversion" is generally not correct. A utility function with constant elasticity of intertemporal substitution is one with constant relative risk aversion (of the form (c^(1-t))/(1-t)). However CES can also be (x^a+y^a)^(1/a) if you're talking about intratemporal choice among two (or more) goods.

Axioms incorrectly stated
In the section on "additive Von-Neumann Morgenstern expected utility" the independence axiom was incorrectly stated using equalities rather than preference relations. I fixed it. This section still needs a lot of work. It would be nice if someone would carefully review this section and perhaps post the axioms as stated in Mas-Colell et al, Kreps, or any other standard reference.

Narrow/end-point starting point of the article?
RESEARCH SUGGESTION ; ( & page-disambiguation suggestion, near the end )

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Sorry? to have to try be the one to drag 'the'(singular) argument back to some un-imaginable, and probably forgotten time, but to-many, the term Utility, does NOT; refer-to primarily this (relatively)recent definition made up within quite soft/idealistic preferences/claims of ethical legitimacy based on pleasure/happiness of the 18th-19th C.s,

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but instead, refers to a much broader term encompassing capacities (capacity-TO-use) of the people, of-a-nation / of-a-state,

ex.s ; the people's utility-WITH irrigation, the people's utility-WITH internal-security,

or ; the people's utility-WITH aqua-engineering technology and design, the people's utility-WITH information collection, interrogation, and enforcement of laws,

(both verb-noun, and collective-verb, as well as other points-in-time conjugations)

to-save time, the suffix -WITH, is shortened.

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Although singular terms for 'the people' of a nation, which themselves are usually dynamically-changing and rarely stagnant/static, and-so the idea of encompassing all-people within any is itself 'folly',

the POINT of the term, and trying to then propose systems of government that-USE-ALL-that a nation contains or has the capacity FOR (that utilizes (verb) all that we have), is to as i remember it ; 1 Highlight and better separate for-comprehensive-clarity/planning both who-does-what and which utilities(verb-noun capacity sense) are connected with other utilities(-of-the-people), 2 Measure capacities of a people of a nation, and 3 To be able to DELEGATE, especially, so that you do not end up with sub-sections of government sometimes working against each other

i.e. a step back for-an-overview, in terms of monitoring, purpose (of existing-utilizations within the people),.. can be done more-easily,.. if ongoing demarcations of the people's utilities(capacity-verb present/future tense) are maintained,

and then also, being able to more easily notice WHEN assessed/planned-for utilities-of(capacity sense) the people, will need support, assistance, funding, whatever, to work in-concordance with other people's-utility or outside-assistance, trade, etc,.. can also be ... over-viewed, with a clearer idea of what is available TO a state, compared to private interest's unreliability/delays/betrayals, etc (within a nation).

So in an overall sense, utilizING, the people's utility(s),

requires both defining them, but also then USING them (using what the people already-utilize), or could be, with assistance, from then, a UtilitarIAN, policy, or fundamentalist government, that does not UN-ethically, let capacity be-wasted constantly, by waiting for things like offers-TO government - instead, government going-OUTward, to research/monitor, what COULD be possible, then allows a government that is ALSO utilitarian,

extra-chances, to be MAKING offers, to private, as-opposed to only opportunistic deals amongst the power-brokers, and often already co-self-interested.

It also had/has implications in terms of RISK, that non-utilitarian, are more likely to fall victim to cronyism / insuarism, as-opposed to being more-aware of opportunity, & positioning of one's country, in the immediate future, via the monitoring.

Contrasted-with soft-border liberalism, where looser private relationships, indirectly create more opportunity, but it falls victim to politics and current affairs, dynastic feuds, etc

To some extent similar to mobilization. An original Utilitarian (supporter of the spending/effort to maintain the bureaucracy/agency needed for it, is a supporter of the ongoing cost/sacrifice, that does not always yield anything EACH time, but maintains a presence, and also-usually makes some things more efficient / more consistently macro-managed, over-time)

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Prrrrety sure that was actually what was MEANT, in older definitions, in terms of then BROADER SCOPE of the aims of utilisING, what can be potentially ustilisED.

i.e. the happiness / pleasure  hijackings, in the more recent books, concepts, are only-that, a attempted hijacking of-a-term, of-an-identity (a supporter-of), in-amongst presumably embitterness(es)/political upheaval. Considering whatshisname and whatshisname, are 17th/18th century, my money'd be on IMPERIAL embitternesses.

These hijackings have been added on-the-end more recently, and only-APPEAR TO REFER to a past similar term, as-though continuing-on, the intent of past-concepts, but actually inserting the difference somewhere along in their own arguments/publications, for WHY it should(prioritize happiness/pleasure when PREVIOUSLY, did-not, and so the OLDER definition has primacy/originality ),

but then what... we've only ended up remembering / been-distracted-by, attracted-to-the-hate, of behind-safe-Imperial-walls toffs & fops, of the most-recent? (i'm only 40-ish, and i can remember it - that's NOT OLD, in terms of one's reading)

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The one i'm referring to, could well be Greek or something, & deserve a separate wiki all on it's own! :)

So for the page/wiki, perhaps a better separation of TERMS? , or a differentiation at the top of the page, would re-direct people (myself included) to whatever original term.

''(if it's in greek, in-greek, if it's Egyptian-hieroglyphs, in-Egyptian-hieroglyphs, if it's in ancient Chinese, ancient-Chinese! whichever! -  the point is, the multiple terms / different definitions, would be clear, and we'd end up at the right page - many might COME to this page, but not find the other definition, a mistaken-assumption-definition of one writer from the past or otherwise  -  if someone's defunct term, HAS-A-HISTORY, i'm saying that could get a mention near the top, so we don't waste our time  -  a disambiguation page) ''

I can't help refer to exactly where, sorry. Get the feeling by-memory, that it was a greek realization about organization and awareness-limitations-of-any-ruler no matter how in-touch, or popular they might be ;

That-there's a solid argument for specifically observing/monitoring what the people realistically, will actually be able to achieve/be able to RELIED upon,.. -for, WHEN THEY use, when-they, utilize _________, whatever-in-question.

( possibly a counter-argument for too much power/rule centralization? ) 120.21.151.36 (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2023 (UTC)


 * This is very hard to read, you need to follow proper formatting guidelines (Help:Talk pages) and be concise on your point.
 * Actually, this goes a little bit beyond wikipedia guidelines, you shouldn't be using this much hyphenation anywhere when writing in English. Are you auto-translating from another language? That would explain it a little.
 * But more importantly, be concise. This reads like a rant written in stream-of-consciousness format, not something you would find at Wikipedia.
 * Ignoring most of the tangents, i guess your main complain is that the article fails to describe the real meaning of Utility. I do think the article jumps between the philosophical and economical meanings of utility with little-to-no warning, and separation in 2 articles might be needed. But i remain unconvinced by your argument to make the article about a - according to you - ancient and absolute meaning of the word . First of all, how do you know what words meant in ancient times? You didn't provide any source for it beyond "i think i heard of it and i think its greek", and independently of all this you should really work a bit more if you want to change something here, at least research the topic and provide sources, dont expect people to expend their time going after sources just to validate your "i think i saw it somewhere" claim.
 * At the end of the day, it really feels like you are arguing from common-sense, and expected to find the semantic meaning of the word utility here, as seen in day-to-day use. Your talk about semantics, etymology, maybe greek origins of the word, are more aligned with what you would find on a dictionary than wikipedia(or encyclopedias in general).
 * Luckily we have wikitionary : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/utility Nilanz (talk) 02:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)