= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
aausch comments on Disclosure vs. Bans: Reply to Robin Hanson - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (56)
The same point could be made about any price on a competative market: it's that price or nothing for an individual customer. Nonetheless, if large numbers of people were unwilling to pay that price/accept those terms, competitors would enter the market to cater for them.
There is something inefficient about the market, but I think it's just hyperbolic discounting: when signing the contracts, people don't care enough about their future selves.
So, if the average consumer is not aware of the effects of hyperbolic discounting, and of how to counter them, then we have an information imbalance, which can be rectified by passing laws which prohibit contracts from taking advantage of this bias.
If it were only ignorance that were the problem, the Government could simply inform people about hyperbolic discounting.
Furthermore, this would be an incredibly broad set of laws: virtually every aspect of our lives is sub-optimal because of hyperbolic discounting. Given that these terms and conditions aren’t even unpopular ex ante, the general application of this principle would permit virtually any legislation to be enacted; and given public choice theory, they probably would be. I’m pretty sure that every lobbying group could pretty quickly translate its grievances into ones about hyperbolic discounting: feminists, environmentalists & religious moralists spring to mind immediately.
Hyperbolic discounting may be a big problem (the big problem?), but even ignoring regulatory capture, I don’t think legislation is the answer.