On 6/29/06, Daniel Reeves <dreeves Æ umich.edu> wrote:

I'm getting responses offline indicating mass misunderstanding of
Bethany's yootles mechanism.  I encourage you all to spam the group
(reply-all) since it's really no problem for people to just ignore/delete
the whole thread (as long as you don't change the subject line).

The main question is "what good is a yootle?"  The answer is, as
established by precedent, about a fiftieth of a ride to the airport.
Yootles are not meant to be exchanged for money.  Nonetheless, if you
acquire yootles you will, in a real sense, get positive utility out of
them.  In fact, I personally guarantee it.  If you can't find anything
else to do with them I will give you cash for them.  Seriously, they're
very useful to me for things like influencing family decisions or getting
out of doing the dishes.  Or getting out of tasks my boss assigns (I kid
you not -- ask him; he's cc'd).  Which perhaps means I shouldn't be
allowed to buy yootles -- that question is still under debate.  The whole
yootles thing is still brand new.  It would be great to get input from you
all.

The other question about Bethany's airport auction people are asking is,
why are people who aren't even in Michigan bidding thousands of yootles?
Yes, it would be very dumb for me to fly to Detroit to take Bethany to the
airport to fly to New York to visit me.  But my bid just reflects that if
for some crazy hypothetical reason she needed one of us to drive her at
any cost, that's roughly what the cost to me would be.  The auction
mechanism now uses that information to decide that, yes, it would be dumb
for Danny to do it!  And, as you can see, I'm fortunately losing the
auction.

One anonymous person (ok, fine, my grandfather) has opined that this is an
awful idea and that people should arrange exchanges of favors with no
explicit tracking system.  The yootles system, he says, undermines the
spirit of magnanimity in favor-giving and fairness in decision-making and
is bad for society.

How's that for a gauntlet throwdown?  Let's hear some side-taking...

Danny

--- \/   FROM Daniel Reeves AT 06.06.29 12:13 (Today)   \/ ---

> Oh, wow, airport rides are a great example.  I've more than once wished I
> could respond along these lines:
>  "I could but it's at a bad time.  But I'd rather take you than leave
>   you high and dry.  So, um, could I just pay for your cab?"
> But of course that's not an option.
>
> So, yes, we're making far from socially optimal decisions about rides to the
> airport.  Bethany's idea to auction off the favor is a really good one!
>
> If you could humor us and put in a bid even if you can't realistically do it,
> that would really help get a feel for how this system might work.
> Like I put in Y$2000 estimating that's how much it would cost to get a last
> minute flight to detroit, rent a car, and drive Bethany to the airport.
>
> Ooh, and let me sweeten the deal:  if you take Bethany to the airport you can
> use her car while she's gone.  It's technically still my car, so I can say
> that. :)
>
> Danny
>
> --- \/   FROM bethany soule AT 06.06.29 08:35 (Today)   \/ ---
>
>> Inasmuch as fairer favor tracking and better group decision making
>> improve the world, I'd like to open this up for discussion:  Can
>> people make better decisions when they can explicitly compare their
>> utilities for the different options?
>>
>> Or, more specifically, can I identify from among my friends, who would
>> least mind taking me to the airport tomorrow?  Let's find out:
>>
>> http://www.editgrid.com/user/bsoule/taxi-cab
>>   Or the view-only version since the above is browser-picky:
>> http://www.editgrid.com/user/bsoule/taxi-cab.html
>>
>> (Getting 50 yootles should be plenty to get your own ride to the
>> airport from me or others later.  More at yootles.com.)
>>
>> Bethany
>>
>
>

--
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"

"Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of
which I disapprove."