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Old 10-27-2006, 11:36 AM
hmkpoker hmkpoker is offline
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Default Re: Nice little article introducing neuro-economics

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I suppose I didn't make my point clear enough with that example. It would have been better if I had simply sad "If 5,000 other people had to type the same thing in order for this post to be created, their is no way I am going to post it"; leaving out the part about me having to do something to convince them to do it.

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That's extremely misleading, because you're aligning the action that one takes to undergo a large reformation (one requiring the consent of 5,000) with a result that obviously doesn't justify it. Large, cooperative reformations carry higher transaction costs. Duh. But they do so in a democracy just as in a free market; read my last post in the freerider problem.

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I suppose I didn't make my point clear enough with that example. It would have been better if I had simply sad "If 5,000 other people had to type the same thing in order for this post to be created, their is no way I am going to post it"; leaving out the part about me having to do something to convince them to do it.

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More ridiculous analogy. You're assuming that no one incurs any cost to producing the post, because there is none (so who cares if there's a freerider?) A better analogy would be to say that a certain public good would be great for a certain small democracy. The good costs $100,000, there are 500 people in the democracy, so each has to pay $200. But alas, no one's going to pay it individually.

All one has to do is set up a conditional contract, an agreement to pay a certain amount upon fulfillment of the condition that everyone else has paid. If the public good is genuinely desirable, there should be no problem. The only people who aren't going to sign are those for whom it isn't worth $200 for them (in which case, why should they have to pay?) If you're concerned about a few sticklers who don't want to pay for it, simply raise the cost and lower the conditional requirements to compensate. If you still can't get enough signatures, well your public good is probably not that valuable now is it?

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Edit: using your example I might be able to better illustrate this. A man walks up to you and a group of 999 other people. He says: If 800 of you contribute $1,000 bucks to me secretly, I will buy one of you a mercedes. Which one of you that will get the Mercedes will be decided by a lottery. The lottery will include all of your names i.e. you can win the car whether or not you contribute the 1,000$ or not, as long as at least 800 people contribute. Assume you know the dealer is telling the truth. Do you contribute 1k to him?

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No, because I can calculate EV and no mercedes is worth $800,000. I'll say yes if what I'm winning is worth more than $800,000 to me. This is a lottery, totally different. Lotteries flourish in the free market. That should seem obvious. The only thing stopping them from flourishing now is government. I don't see what your point is.

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I don't think that we should think of it as something that is simply ended when it goes on for a long time or gets too bad.

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It ends when the oppressed finally value their revolutionary action more than the benefits of their consent. That's all there is to it.

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We also need to consider how likely it is that the opression will be ended; people need hope that a social movement will occur or be sucessful before engaging in one/starting one.

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When the oppression gets bad enough, individuals will start sending signals of their wilingness to cooperate via activism. If half this country suddenly went anarcho-capitalist overnight, the ancaps would all rapidly become aware of each others' preferences and revolution would break out.
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