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Message-ID: <732694.44552.qm &AElig web38304.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2007 09:03:18 -0700 (PDT)
To: Daniel Reeves <dreeves &AElig umich.edu>,         James W Mickens <jmickens &AElig eecs.umich.edu>
Cc: Dave Morris <thecat &AElig umich.edu>, improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu,         Steven Reeves <steven &AElig aptigi.com>, reeves-hayos &AElig umich.edu,         reeves-kalkman &AElig umich.edu
From: Laurie Reeves <laurie.reeves &AElig yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: mind the gap

I'll just put in my two cents (two punies) on the
yootling.  

I like yootling because it takes a fundamental
concept, that is, equality and autonomy of
individuals, and forces the concept to be acknowledged
and respected between my husband and myself.  Strange
as it may sound, perfectly nice people like Martin
(and me?  Oh, horrors) can struggle with this very
basic concept
perhaps because of their upbringing or any number of
reasons.  With a simple thing like yootling, each of
us discards all second-guessing, all presumptions,
etc., and arrive at equitable outcome, and even more
importantly, what FEEL like equitable outcomes (as
opposed to grudgingly conceding).  We're happily
forced, if you will, to acknowledge each other's
autonomy and equal
status.    

For someone like Rosie (my niece) it's a great thing
too.  Rosie
is not very good at expressing herself verbally, so in
discussions or arguments where she needs to express
her desires, preferences, etc. she often succumbs to
someone more demanding, persuasive, or even
manipulative.  Not surprisingly, she loves yootling. 
She is
experiencing true fairness in decision making.  For
someone like her it's a breath of fresh air in her
life.  I told you how she told her counselor about
yootles, and that yootling was one of the reasons she
wanted to
live with us.  The counselor thought it sounded very
cool.  And Danny, you know from the start that I have
tended to see yootle's usefulness in interpersonal
relations.  From the start I have said that, for
example, marriage counselors or family counselors
might really be able to help their clients with
something like a yootles program.  I mean, we can talk
all day about what we want from ourselves and the
other person in a relationship but yootles puts it
into "Yootles and Punies?"  I don't remember what
cents are called.  Dollars and SENSE.  

Anyway, dad and I still don't yootle enough but in
concept I am on board with the whole idea.  Rosie
tends to suggest yootling more often and it works
great for
us. 

Oh, and no doubt about it, yootling saves time and
frustration over figuring out what to do, what's fair,
what the other person really wants, etc.  I think it's
a great experience (especially for children) to learn
to assess their own (and in relation to others) real
value and utility for things, and perhaps equally
important, to accept the outcome, learning as they go
to more rapidly and accurately assess these things.   

Laurie 
--- Daniel Reeves <dreeves &AElig umich.edu> wrote:

> I have to respond to your yootles critique first!
>   Our aim is both to decrease to next to nothing the
> overhead of applying 
> more formal mechanisms to decision-making (and more
> recently, prediction 
> and prediction+decisions) as well as convince you
> there's plenty to be 
> gained.  Bethany and I yootle every day for every
> little (and big) thing 
> imaginable.  (Being both indecisive types it often
> saves us a ton of 
> time.) Granted, we're gigantic dorks and no one else
> cares yet.
> 
> I'm of course not done defending my boyfriend Paul
> either.  More on that 
> later.
> 
> But I'm actually delighted that we're making real
> progress on 
> circumscribing the disagreement while identifying
> common ground (eg, 
> Graham is at least right in some other fantasy
> universe; Trixie won't like 
> that concession at all!  and of course I conceded on
> slavery and may do so 
> on health care, where basic human rights are at
> stake.. although Kevin 
> may set you straight on the healthcare issue!).
> 
> 
> --- \/   FROM James W Mickens AT 07.08.31 22:21
> (Yesterday)   \/ ---
> 
> >> You're characterizing our disagreement as hinging
> on whether public
> >> policy should optimize economics subject to moral
> constraints or
> >> optimize morality subject to economic
> constraints.  I'm unclear on what
> >> either of those really mean for public policy.
> >
> >
> > There's a difference in the intent of your policy
> and the methods that you 
> > will use to evaluate it. For example, suppose that
> you've devised a new tax 
> > code for an underdeveloped country. When you
> evaluate its success, will you 
> > look at how much additional wealth it generated,
> or some actual measure of 
> > utility such as the percentage of citizens who
> have access to electricity or 
> > clean water? I use the term "actual measure of
> utility" because I think that 
> > just examining, say, the increase in GDP is a bad
> way to measure net social 
> > welfare. The net wealth of a society is, at best,
> an indirect measure of its 
> > net welfare because aggregate wealth trends tell
> us nothing about the 
> > *distribution* of wealth or whether that wealth is
> being used to satisfy some 
> > particular goal. The classic example is health
> care. Despite rising levels of 
> > aggregate wealth in America, many *individual*
> Americans have poor health and 
> > inadequate access to proper medical care. Is the
> solution to this problem the 
> > creation of even more wealth in the hope that the
> health care industry will 
> > spontaneously reorganize? Or is the solution a
> targeted policy, whether it be 
> > nationalized health care, better health education
> in schools, and/or 
> > something else? I argue that the latter approach
> would be better, 
> > particularly since the market has thus far been
> ineffective in addressing 
> > this issue.
> >
> > The failure of wealth-driven policies is even more
> obvious in the 
> > international pharmaceutical market, where drug
> companies develop medicines 
> > for diseases that affluent people care about
> (e.g., restless leg syndrome, 
> > diabetes) and ignore a huge number of illnesses
> (e.g., diarrheal diseases) 
> > that affect a much larger number of people who
> have much less money. People 
> > who care about net welfare should find this
> problematic. So, in the 
> > international drug market, should we pursue
> wealth-driven or morality-driven 
> > policies? In other words, should we allow drug
> companies to maximize their 
> > profits and hope that they'll turn a charitable
> eye towards the developing 
> > world, or should we force them through regulation,
> subsidies, tax credits, 
> > etc., to address the needs of poorer countries?
> History suggests that the 
> > former strategy will fail if you're trying to
> optimize for health and not 
> > profit.
> >
> > I understand that it is extremely expensive to
> develop new drugs and that 
> > pharmaceutical companies must be given a way to
> recoup these costs. However, 
> > it's obvious that a market system which focuses on
> maximizing their profits 
> > will not lead to a net increase in global health
> (an important utility 
> > metric).
> >
> >
> >
> >> Let me first defend Graham's point.  He concedes
> whole classes of 
> >> exceptions and I think social injustices are
> included, if not explicitly. 
> >> His argument -- that income inequality is not,
> inherently, unjust -- 
> >> remains intact.
> >
> > Once again, I'm claiming that economic justness
> does not equal moral 
> > justness. When you say that income inequality is
> "not inherently unjust," you 
> > should specify whether you refer to the economic
> definition, the moral 
> > definition, or both.
> >
> > If Graham includes social injustice in his
> exceptions list, then I suppose 
> > that he and I are in agreement. But if Graham
> believes in the entrenched, 
> > pervasive nature of social injustice, why does he
> spend so much time waxing 
> > poetic about the inherent fairness of economic
> inequality? This fairness only 
> > exists in an idealized model of the economy which
> bears little resemblance to 
> > the real one. The fact that Graham spends most of
> his time talking about this 
> > idealized world suggests that either a) he is a
> hopeless utopian, or b) he 
> > does not, in fact, believe that social injustice
> is entrenched and pervasive 
> > ;-).
> >
> > ~j
> >
> >
> > p.s.
> >
> >> And just to nip a potential subthread: the
> non-mathematically inclined are 
> >> not allowed to blithely declare human motivation
> to be irreducible to 
> >> mathematics.
> >
> > Ah, but I claim that the mathematically inclined
> are not allowed to blithely 
> > declare that human motivation *is* reducible to
> mathematics ;-). The reason 
> > that I do not use yootles to determine who will
> pick me up from the airport 
> > is that, in the common case, this decision is not
> subject to rigorous 
> > mathematical or economic constraints, nor should
> it be. In many scenarios, I 
> > only care about approximate notions of fairness. I
> suppose that if gasoline 
> > were $27,000 a gallon, it might be reasonable to
> employ a strong mathematical 
> > framework to prevent tragedy (e.g., "Oh no, Todd
> has taken me to the airport 
> > fifteen times but I haven't taken him at all. Todd
> has now spent $405,000 on 
> > gas while I have escaped scot-free."). Absent such
> extreme conditions, the 
> > introduction of mathematics into simple human
> transactions will often just 
> > add overhead and produce little tangible benefit.
> >
> > It is frequently possible and fruitful to analyze
> people's behavior using 
> > mathematical models. However, that doesn't mean
> that the underlying 
> > psychology of the individual is actually driven by
> these models, or that 
> > giving the math to people will make it easier for
> them to manage their lives.
> >
> 
> -- 
> http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - - 
> search://"Daniel Reeves"
> 
=== message truncated ===


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