I decided a few weeks ago that upon getting married I will sign a pre-nup which specifies that all of my children will receive paternity testing without exception. This constrains my options in a way that prevents goal distortion in myself and certain types of mistrust in the hypothetical husband.
Right. The intended signal is "I am so sure that I will not cheat (at least with the particular result of a child) that I don't mind guaranteeing I'll get caught if I do".
Even if it's unenforceable, it changes the dynamic of raising the question. In the normal state, asking for a paternity test could reasonably cause offense - "Are you saying I cheated?". Writing up the contract makes the test the default, and then not wanting the test would be suspicious - "What, now you change your mind? You said you'd test them all."
It wouldn't weird me out, but I am not at all typical. Though I doubt Alicorn's hypothetical husband would be typical either.
Typical people are boring! Why would I want to marry one? Then I might have typical children. Ew.
Maybe I should start a startup that requires you to pay a $1000 fee if you do business with anyone who signs a precommitment contract intended to give them a negotiating advantage.
Then, if two of your clients did business with each other, they would both have to pay the fee, right?
How would you get around the problem of the weirdness signal sent by such a measure? Sure, if everyone was doing it, there would be no such problem, but if you assume away the problem of collective action, many other more convenient solutions are also available in that idealized world. If you're the only one doing it, I would say that the weirdness signal is likely to be more dangerous once she finds out about it than if you just said openly "I want a prenup, here's the deal, and it's my way or the highway."
You're right that engagement rings have mostly lost their former economic function as a collateral of commitment. However, despite these legal changes, it's not correct to say that the ring doesn't cost the proposer anything. If the engagement is broken, he'll get it back, but it can't be resold for anything near the original price, and reuse for a subsequent woman is out of the question (well, he could try, but it would be considered an insulting move leading to a near-certain disaster, and if he tried it surreptitiously, the consequences would be even more catastrophic if discovered). Moreover, even as a part of the couple's community property, it's a white elephant asset that will never be sold except in direst desperation, doesn't yield any rent or interest, and just sucks up money for insurance, so for all practical purposes, the man has parted with a significant amount of money by buying it.
However, despite these legal changes, it's not correct to say that the ring doesn't cost the proposer anything.
You've changed my mind: there is a real cost to the ring. I considered the ring a thing equal in value to its price but didn't think it through enough to realize that after it's bought it only retains much value (as sentimental value to the couple) if the proposal succeeds. Thanks for the links; I had no idea diamonds were so over-priced.
Interesting idea. For some reason it has a very "Robin Hanson feel" to it. (I had to scroll back up to check if he was the author, in fact)
The individuals themselves might get carried away by emotion and believe that they have found "the one" and assign a much lower probability of divorce or forcible concessions that they would need to make in future when faced with the threat of divorce. In such a situation, they would fail to realize that 50% of Americans who went on to eventually get divorced probably felt that they found "the one" as well prior to their wedding.
The interesting figure should be the fraction of Americans who divorced, among those who "felt they found the one", not the fraction of Americans who "felt they found the one" among those who divorced.
There are a couple of legal devices that people use for just this type of "strategic commitment" in regards to divorce
the first is called a "spendthrift trust" or a domestic asset protection trust. Prior to marriage you put all of your assets into a trust that benefits you, but that you do not "control." the legal conceit here is that, since you do not really control these assets, but rather they are held in trust for your benefit, you could not have contributed these to communal property when you got married. so unlike th
I think this kind of strategic-legal hacking is very promising. Another example would be a company that wants to commit itself to a certain product. Say Apple wants to commit itself to producing the iPad, so they could sign a contract that says, if they fail to manufacture 100K iPads per year until the year 2020, they forfeit 10 billion dollars. That commitment would encourage developers who are considering iPad development and companies thinking about integrating the iPad into their IT architecture. It would also deter rival tablet manufacturers.
Great idea. Very clever.
Perhaps someone has said this already, but it's worth noting that if you did this in the car dealer example, car dealers could sign similar contracts--your deal would not go through.
Then, negotiating with car dealers would have a game theoretic hawk/dove or snowdrift equilibrium. Similarly with potential wives. They could sign contracts that agree they will never sign prenups--another hawk/dove equilibrium.
Of course this type of preprenup being common would create a market for the opposite preprenup "I will not agree to a prenup or I will pay max(my_net_worth,partners_net_worth)/2".
Actually it would make sense for the same company to market both of them. They could even pay something to get young people to agree to these contacts financed by the conflicts the preprenups would create later on.
Three comments, in decreasing order of seriousness.
1) The law prevents you from waiving some rights, and this could be viewed as waiving such an "inalienable right". Also, how do you define a bullet-proof pre-nup? What if its constraints conflict with the other party's pre-nup?
2) So would you call such a contract a "pre-pre-nup"? What if someone did a pre-pre-pre-nup where they agree not to marry anyone's who's signed a pre-pre-nup?
3) Why don't you post something of actual RELEVANCE to the people who come he...
...Ideally, the individu
You only need a contract like this if there is only one party with whom you can make your deal. So the marriage example is a good one (unless you are alpha and indifferent enough to pull off: "if you won't sign the prenup my other Fiancée will"). However the used car example is silly. You don't need a contract stating that you will be penalized for paying more than $4000. You can just get a competing dealer to make an offer in which case this competing offer becomes your upper bound.
I realize it may seem like I'm fighting the hypothetical her...
I don't know game theory very well, but wouldn't this only work as long as not everyone did it. Using the car example, if these contracts were common practice, you could have one for 4000 and the dealer could have one for 5000, in which case you could not reach the pareto optimum.
In general, doesn't this infinitely regress up meta levels? Adopting precomittments is beneficial, so everyone adopts them, then pre-precomittments are beneficial... (up to some constraint from reality like being too young, although then parents might become involved)
Is this (like...
I work for a company that resells and recycles used electronics. As we work with larger and larger suppliers, it's become necessary to file for compliance with RIOS, R2, and other environmental certification organizations. A large part of what this entails is purposefully sacrificing our ability to handle hazardous materials in ways that are entirely legal, to gain credibility with other companies as being 'green'. That reputation is worth a lot, to the point where we've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in time and fees for the certification,...
One general question, folks. This is my first lesswrong post. What do I need to have this post as part of the "promoted posts" and consequently accessible to more readers of this site. Till today I never even noticed the new tabs post, which is currently the only easy way to reach my post.
Thanks.
The statement that you trust someone absolutely, more often heard of future spouses than any other time, is one of the most arrogant things you can say. You are not only saying you trust the other person, which is quite reasonable, but you are also saying you could not possibly be mistaken. Given the rate at which people actually do make mistakes, especially when their emotions are running high, a pre-nup strikes me as quite reasonable insurance.
Some types of handicap are sexy - but I think this one would probably just make you look stupid. Best to keep it quiet until the other party has already invested plenty of time and effort - and doesn't flee on the prospect of being forced through unromantic inconveniences.
I would strongly advise you to look at the short review on Thomas Schelling's Strategy of Conflict posted on Less Wrong some time back. The idea that deliberately constraining one's own choices can actually leave a person better off in a negotiation is a very interesting one. The most classic game theoretic example of this is the game of Chicken. In the game of Chicken, two people drive toward each other on a wide freeway. If neither of them swerve, they both stand to lose by way of substantial financial damage and possible loss of lives. If not, the first one to swerve is the proverbial "chicken" and stands to lose face against the other person who was brave enough to not swerve. If one person were to throw away their steering wheel and blindfold themselves before driving on the freeway, that would force the other person to swerve given that the first person has completely given up control of the situation.
There is a slightly more generalizable example of a similar principle at work. Suppose you wanted to buy a used car from a car dealer and were prepared to pay up to $5000 for the car and the car dealer in turn was willing to sell it for any price above $4000. In such a situation, any price between $4000 and $5000 is an admissible solution. However you ideally want to pay as close to $4000 as possible, while the car dealer would like you to pay close to $5000. In a such a situation, each party would pretend that their "last price" (the price that represents the worst possible outcome for them, which they would nonetheless be willing to accept) was different from the true last price, since if one party realizes the other party's true last price, that party can put it to effective use in the negotiation. Let us now assume a situation wherein you and the car dealer know perfectly well about the each other's financial details, the degree of urgency in having the transaction done etc., and have a very reliable idea of the last price of the other person. Now, you can break the symmetry and get the best possible deal out of the situation by deliberately handicapping yourself in the following fashion. You sign a contract with a third party individual which states that if you happen to do this transaction and pay more than $4000, you will have to pay the third party $1500. Now, all you need to do is show this contract to your used card dealer which would make it clear to him that your last price has now shrunk to $4000 since paying anything above that effectively means paying in excess of $5500 which is well past your original last price.
For countries that face the menace of airline hijacking, it can likewise be an effective deterrent to future hijackers if release of terrorists or other kinds of negotiations with hijackers were explicitly prohibited by the country's laws, and these laws would be impossible to overturn during a hijacking incident.
This brings to mind the following question. Why don't there exist companies that explicitly sign contracts with individuals or other entities for a fee, which would handicap the entities in some way that cannot be easily overturned and consequently give them negotiating leverage as a result.
One example I can think of is pertaining to wealthy individuals in California and other US States with Community Property laws. Given the high divorce rates in the US, it would be prudent for such individuals to have as tight prenuptial agreements as possible prior to getting married, to minimize financial loss in the event of a divorce and also to avoid financially incentivizing one's spouse to initiate a divorce with a promise of a financial windfall. However there are some practical difficulties which might make many such individuals shy away from doing this. A couple of the practical issues are:
A. It is clearly rather unromantic to have to haggle with one's fiancée and their lawyers regarding a prenuptial agreement. The implied "lack of belief" in the potential durability of the marriage might be a turn off for one's partner and other close people involved.
B. The individuals themselves might get carried away by emotion and believe that they have found "the one" and assign a much lower probability of divorce or forcible concessions that they would need to make in future when faced with the threat of divorce. In such a situation, they would fail to realize that probably 50% of Americans who felt they found "the one" just like them, went on to eventually get divorced.
Now imagine the beneficial role a company signing such contracts could provide. The individual in question could sign a contract with this company stating that if they were to get married without a bullet proof pre-specified prenuptial agreement, the company could lay claim to half their net worth immediately after the wedding were registered. Ideally, the individual in question could sign such a contract when they were single or not seriously seeing anyone with the intention of getting married. The advantage of such a contract is the following:
1. Community property and other modern divorce laws essentially change the defaults with regard to what happens in the aftermath of a divorce, compared to how marriages worked prior to the existence of such laws. Such a contract would reset the default state to one where neither party would financially profit in the aftermath of a divorce. Most of the awkwardness comes when trying to override the default state with a bunch of legal riders at the time of a wedding.
2. The advantage of signing up for a contract well in advance is that the aforesaid individual is then not exposed to issues A and B above. Signing a tight pre-nuptial agreement in the background of such a contract, simply means that the individual in question has no desire to part with half their finances to this third party company. It makes no implicit statement about the individual's probability estimate for the durability of the marriage. There always exists the plausible explanation that the individual in question was opposed to non-prenup marriages in the past, but now saw no need for that given that they subsequently found "the one". However they are constrained by a certain contract they signed in the past that they are now powerless to change.
Do you know if there are entities that play the role of the third party company with regard to signing contracts that enable people to handicap themselves and consequently come out stronger in future negotiations? Do you know of people who did this specifically with regard to prenuptial agreements? If such companies don't exist, is that a potential business opportunity? I would love to hear from you in the comments.