I see it being useful in some situations and "undermining the magnanimity in favor-giving" in others. It could take the romance out of nice spontaneous favors between couples or friends like a back rub, for instance, like Cam said. I think it's more useful for coming to an agreement about something that all parties are responsible for, like a family having to do their dishes each night or any other household duty or maybe a group going on vacation together and needing to make arrangements, etc. Taking someone to the airport, having them over for dinner, giving someone a back rub, paying for a dinner or dessert out - these are all things that should be left to random and unspoken trade-offs of being generous and doing favors.

"So and so had us over for dinner last month, so we should invite them this coming weekend". Not, "We paid so and so 20 yootles to have us over for dinner and it's been a month, so we better have them over to zero out our balance". There's no generosity there - it's equivalent to paying a random store clerk you don't know for the groceries you want. Even though people keep it even for the most part, you don't want to act like you need currency to cook your friends a meal. The giving of rides to the airport when each party needs it IS the currency and the cooking of meals for each other IS the currency there.

It does make sense, however, with daily reponsibilities: "I'll pay you 10 yootles to do the dishes for me tonight since I really need to catch up on all my emails from Danny about yootles :-)." Then a month later, "Can I take care of renewing our car insurance for 10 yootles to zero out my balance?" Most couples have already established what they feel is an equal distribution of chores, but there are some things that come up that neither party normally does or wants to do and that's where yootles seem handy to me.

We already have a system for society at large - money, so yootles seems best for small groups of people that share responsibilities in life - those responsibilities can be doled out based on true utility. If every little thing was a trading of yootles, life would seem a little less loving and generous among your closest family and friends.

Melanie (Danny's sister)

----- Original Message ----
From: Daniel Reeves <dreeves Æ umich.edu>
To: improvetheworld Æ umich.edu
Cc: Michael Schwarz <schwarz.m Æ gmail.com>; David Pennock <pennockd Æ yahoo-inc.com>; Yiling Chen <cheny Æ yahoo-inc.com>; Daniel Reeves <dreeves Æ yahoo-inc.com>; yootopia-discuss Æ yahoo-inc.com
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 2:26:16 PM
Subject: Re: Fairer Favors

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."