I think there's a simple answer to this concern: you can pay yootles for
favors that you ask for but never for spontaneous favors. (And if you're
holding back on acts of generosity because you're holding out for yootles
then there's a clear karma imbalance that points all the more to a need
for yootles!)
This is similar to the principle that you should always be generous in
your actions but being generous with yootles violates the spirit of
yootles. The Yootles motto is "in The Invisible Hand we trust". For the
non-economists: the point is that yootles measure your utility. The
beauty of the decision mechanisms is that they take individuals' utility
functions and compute fair, aggregate-utility maximizing outcomes.
That's often not possible to do without yootles...
Who would get more happiness out of that last piece of pie?
Do you want pizza more than I want Thai?
Who has time today to book our flights?
Who least minds giving Bethany a ride? [Answer: Monica, as of this
writing... http://www.editgrid.com/user/bsoule/taxi-cab ]
And one more thought on the generosity question:
We don't need yootles to be generous but we do need to be appreciated.
So if ever we had motivation to be generous, knowing that we could've but
didn't hold out for yootles should motivate us all the more. After all,
what better definition of appreciation is there than that it brought the
recipient happiness, ie, they would've paid yootles!
D.
> the thing that really sold me on the yootles idea is the anecdote danny had
> in his faq from dave...that sometimes he and exes have been at odds over
> something, and he "won" the argument when it really mattered much less to
> him than her, whatever it was. i think there is always room for
> spontaneity/generousity, but there are times where one of us wants something
> (pizza) and another wants something else (thai food) and we need some medium
> of arbitration...so i think it would be cool for my fiance and i to try
> yootles.
>
> a concern though, that i didn't think of until i saw melanie's email and
> danny's email, is that then you might feel you get "owed" yootles for being
> generous. like, if one day i just felt like making him his favorite food,
> and he didn't act sufficiently grateful ;), then i'd feel like he should
> have given me a bunch of yootles...hmmm...and eventually i might stop
> offering spontaneous gestures...??
>
> i'm just thinking out loud here.
>
> i used to be concise and eloquent, before i became a full time engineer in
> college. somehow, james has managed to keep his linguistic gifts, lucky him
> :).
>
> lisa
>
> On 6/29/06, Daniel Reeves 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."
>>
>>
>
--
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves - - search://"Daniel Reeves"
Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only
specification is that it should run noiselessly.
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