Open Thread

By Robin Hanson · January 1, 2013 6:30 am · Comments (5) · ·

This is our monthly place to discuss relevant issues that have not appeared in recent posts.

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  • rapscallion

    I have a pet theory that bad judging and officiating in sports is actually demand-driven because people enjoy expressing self-righteous indignation at bad calls; it’s one of the great pleasures of being a sports fan. Anyone else think this might be true?

  • Robert Koslover

    Does our experimental observation of the existence of ostensibly-serious people, making ostensibly-serious suggestions that the federal government mint a handful of trillion-dollar-deonominated coins out of platinum (and then use them in a bookkeeping-trick to allow expansion of the money supply without legally raising the federal debt limit, while at the same time asserting that this act will have no economic consequences) indicate that we are all living in a simulation?   After all, this could not be possible in a rational universe.  Right?   :-)

    • Margin

      Universes can’t be rational.

      Only agents can be rational.

      Game theory predicts that rational agents can end up with seemingly bizarre actions.

      Technically obeying a law or keeping a promise, while breaking its spirit, can be a completely rational tactic.

      It might hurt long-term trust in politics, but not all players care about that.

      • Robert Koslover

        You are entirely correct, of course, but my comment was not really intended to be taken too seriously in the first place.  I was simply noting the absurdity of the subject news item, which I attempted to associate, in an amusing manner, with a common theme in this blog.  (Note the smiley-face at the end of my comment.)

  • http://juridicalcoherence.blogspot.com/ srdiamond

    Robin capitalizes every word in the titles of his posts, whereas Robert and Katja only capitalize the first word./blockquote>

    Why do you care? Seriously. Is it an Aspy thing? I think one should only worry about keeping those things consistent that benefit from consistency.

    (I’m curious because on LW there was an uproar that I posted an article in Verdana rather than the house font, whatever that is.)