Comment author: asr 11 June 2012 09:27:57PM 3 points [-]

What do you mean by "system"?

If you look at the history of retail, transparently priced stores, with price tags on items, having been winning out convincingly over the previous system of "always haggle" in most domains. Is that outside the scope of your claim, or have I misunderstood you?

Comment author: saliency 11 June 2012 10:18:13PM 0 points [-]

made article more clear by adding /institution.

Comment author: asr 11 June 2012 09:27:57PM 3 points [-]

What do you mean by "system"?

If you look at the history of retail, transparently priced stores, with price tags on items, having been winning out convincingly over the previous system of "always haggle" in most domains. Is that outside the scope of your claim, or have I misunderstood you?

Comment author: saliency 11 June 2012 09:53:50PM *  1 point [-]

In the first world people haggle by cutting coupons out of the newspaper. This is a form of price discrimination. It is also non-transparent pricing. Coupons also add to the asymmetry of information, ect,ect.

I would argue just the opposite, that we are way past our peak of transparent pricing and as time passes you will see a more byzantine maze develop.

As far as retail goes JC Penney recently failed in such a strategy be transparent.

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/25/11864178-fair-and-square-pricing-thatll-never-work-jc-penney-we-like-being-shafted

Highlighted by MR

P.S. "You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 3 minutes." - Is this really needed?

Comment author: asr 11 June 2012 09:27:57PM 3 points [-]

What do you mean by "system"?

If you look at the history of retail, transparently priced stores, with price tags on items, having been winning out convincingly over the previous system of "always haggle" in most domains. Is that outside the scope of your claim, or have I misunderstood you?

Comment author: saliency 11 June 2012 09:40:51PM -1 points [-]

All systems: A cities zoning board. The network of mortgage back securities. A large firm.

In all individual agents have incentive to shroud and prefer subscribing to a shrouded systems so as to extract rents.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 11 June 2012 09:14:25PM 2 points [-]

I think "fragile" is a poor choice of a word.

Comment author: saliency 11 June 2012 09:29:30PM *  2 points [-]

Thanks for the comment. I use fragile because I am rifting off, and a bit against, what I expect is Taleb's idea for his new book antifragility.

In response to Poly marriage?
Comment author: saliency 11 June 2012 05:08:36PM -1 points [-]

I'm baffled as to why this was down voted.

Opaque fragile systems/institutions dominate.

-7 saliency 11 June 2012 03:06PM

 

Opaque fragile systems/institutions dominate.

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.”

All systems compete against each other for users.  I believe opaque fragile systems dominate transparent robust systems.  First I believe individuals choose shrouded systems more tightly bounding their rationality.  Second I believe even when individuals know a system is fragile they believe they will not be victim to its fragility; the greater fools will be.

First sophisticated consumers like price discrimination while myopic consumers are ignorant they are being discriminated against or unwilling to commit the time needed to exploit the system.  Information asymmetry is a feature of the system not a bug.

See “Shrouded Attributes, Consumer Myopia, and Information Suppression in Competitive Markets” http://aida.wss.yale.edu/~shiller/behmacro/2003-11/gabaix-laibson.pdf for more detail.

Second sophisticated individuals, even when they perceive the system to be fragile, often subscribe to the the greater fool theory.  They feel they will win out over the greater fools, but they do not understand how tightly bound their rationality has become due to the layers upon layers of shrouding.  The myopics of course are largely ignorant of the risks.

This is a very pessimistic view that offers no solution to the problem of system fragility.  I think though most solutions to fragility only create larger equally fragile systems.

 

Comment author: saliency 06 September 2011 11:27:32PM 0 points [-]

very cool

Comment author: Dustin 20 May 2011 09:12:12PM 2 points [-]

The problem is not including a link to said arguments.

Comment author: saliency 20 May 2011 10:23:10PM 1 point [-]

Google negative income tax and read the article...

Naz I think you are a little off though. the negative income tax is an implementation of a few possible implementations of a basic income system. Friedman liked it because it was better then normal welfair or the progressive tax we have. He wanted a flat tax. He did not particuly want the NIT, he wanted less welfair overhead and a flat tax.

If you do not have an income tax you can not use a negative income tax to implement a basic income.

Falkvinge is coming from the other direction. He is saying we will be forced to have a flat tax (VAT) because of bitcoin and that in order to still have wellfair we will need to implement a basic income, his citizens income.


It is all crazy talk though.

In response to comment by saliency on Coercion is far
Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 17 May 2011 09:28:43AM 1 point [-]

On readability when I say the below what do you think? "I thought that coercion may be one of the mechanisms that have enabled humans to engage and execute long term plans."

This particular sentence was easy to read. The next one was not.

To say it a different way. People often don't engage in long-term action that are good for them because they are unable to overcome their resistance to paying the short term costs. Leaders, those in a group able to exercise coercion, are no different but have the ability to coerce members into paying the short-term costs leading them to engage in more long-term action.

And this is much better than the original. In particular, the role of leaders was not originally clear.

In response to comment by Kaj_Sotala on Coercion is far
Comment author: saliency 17 May 2011 04:29:00PM *  0 points [-]

"families patriarch"......"sacrifice for the greater good of the family that she would be coerced into making"

Is it not clear I am talking about group level dynamics?


"I'm also not sure that "short-term" and "long-term" are a good way of classifying things into near and far. For instance, ideals about improving and ennobling yourself in school are "far" and part of what motivates one to go to school, and this is a long-term objective. But the actual task of going to school in the present and actually attending the lectures and doing the exercises is "near". (And effectively studying is difficult because the near and far modes don't necessarily pull in the same direction.)"

umm yes that is what this is all predicated on.... and I am saying "coercion may be one of the mechanisms that have enabled humans to engage and execute long term plans."

In response to comment by saliency on Coercion is far
Comment author: jimrandomh 16 May 2011 03:05:57AM 12 points [-]

I think that by the time you get to asking "is coercion near or far", you have already gone astray; it seems like a type error. There is no particular reason for coercion, which is a broad category of actions, to be connected to the near/far distinction, which is a fuzzy classification of modes of thought. It's also a very particular, familiar type error - it's Robin Hanson's trademark confusion. I can't downvote when he does it, since Overcoming Bias doesn't have that feature, but I would.

In response to comment by jimrandomh on Coercion is far
Comment author: saliency 16 May 2011 03:55:49PM 0 points [-]

Can you give me an example of short term coercion being of benefit at the group level?

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