We hold businesses strongly liable for lies, and even for truths that authorities call misleading. Ordinary people, in contrast, are mainly held liable only for lying under oath in court, lying to police officers, lying for clear financial gain, and when a factual claim defames one person to another sufficiently carelessly. Otherwise we are
This could make resumes dramatically more truthful. One survey put the number of Americans who lie on their job resume at 72%.
This could also help with fraud in science. The three scholars who uncovered Francesca Gino's likely data fabrication got no particular reward for their efforts.
Once you disentangle the question of whether you think people should (1) put their money where their mouth is more from (2) the claim that it should it be easy to make these bets with a special verbal formula I think the case for 2 falls apart.
While it might seem obvious that if it was super easy to make such a binding commitment we would demand it all the time, that isn't what the historical precedent suggests. Back in the day, many people believed that all it took to net your very soul on the fact that you weren't lying was to take an oath on the bible. Yet, even though it was expected in a trial it very much didn't propogate to your average spat or discussion short of a formal trial.
If people don't treat saying the magic 'vow' word as a big deal and are willing to say it w/o serious consideration you'll have a lot of people losing their life savings etc because of ill-considered remarks eg a brag at the bar. OTOH suppose people do treat it the way they treated swearing on the bible in earlier time -- it's not something you do w/o substantial consideration. Then we haven't gained anything over just letting people go through the usual rituals we use to ensure important agreements aren't confused with mere puffery: notarization, multiple signatures in front of witnesses, various other psychological hints we use to indicate that a real binding contract is being formed.
Yes, it introduces a bit of additional overhead. But that's a good thing. Only pretty significant vows wont impose more adjudication costs than they are worth anyway so we want to discourage the tiny ones and that additional overhead is important for solving the nasty practical issues.
If my two friends back up my lie about your vow can we steal all your shit? Or at least bancrupt you? When does a vow even count, what if you vow never to leave someone during an orgasm? Our usual rituals are pretty good at solving these problems.
I'd expect this to be useful if there were a significant number of people who currently went through publicly announcing a similar bond in a more complicated way, or said they would make such a bond but can't find a way to. Are there?
This wouldn't work because the court system is already useless - lawyers earn too much, and the system is rigged such that LLCs can't pursue litigation without a lawyer, so only big companies have the ability to use the court system to their advantage.
The biggest improvement we could make to society right now is to put a lot of money into developing a binding AI dispute resolution method, so that the number of lawsuits can be dramatically expanded. The positive effects that would have on human behavior would be unprecedented - imagine actually having to be careful about not defaming people by making false statements because I could input your tweet into the AI and get a judgment instantly.
This is brilliant. We already put money on the line with a bet, and once upon a time would swear oaths by the gods, daring their wrath if our words proved false. This is a natural extension of both of those practices.
In the spirit of your brilliant idea, I hereby vow by $100 that there will be a post at my blog every Friday at least through this September (unless Substack does something weird like that month when they took my blog down for three days and then apologized). I'm already good for this week; the current post says the blogosphere doesn't understand basic personality theory as well as it should: https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/the-big-five-is-incomplete
Unfortunately courts do not work well (or at all) in many countries. My personal experience has been that even the usual house rent contracts are not enforceable because of judicial system's inefficiencies. Add corruption and other similar practices on top.
Looking at arbitrators, enforcement becomes an issue. But should be more viable than to target fixing judicial systems!
What Does Your Money Vow?
This could make resumes dramatically more truthful. One survey put the number of Americans who lie on their job resume at 72%.
This could also help with fraud in science. The three scholars who uncovered Francesca Gino's likely data fabrication got no particular reward for their efforts.
I hate to be that guy but... Sounds like the blockchain would be ideal for this.
I want this. I also want to which politicians if any make such vows during televised political debates and what the opponents say or do in response.
Once you disentangle the question of whether you think people should (1) put their money where their mouth is more from (2) the claim that it should it be easy to make these bets with a special verbal formula I think the case for 2 falls apart.
While it might seem obvious that if it was super easy to make such a binding commitment we would demand it all the time, that isn't what the historical precedent suggests. Back in the day, many people believed that all it took to net your very soul on the fact that you weren't lying was to take an oath on the bible. Yet, even though it was expected in a trial it very much didn't propogate to your average spat or discussion short of a formal trial.
If people don't treat saying the magic 'vow' word as a big deal and are willing to say it w/o serious consideration you'll have a lot of people losing their life savings etc because of ill-considered remarks eg a brag at the bar. OTOH suppose people do treat it the way they treated swearing on the bible in earlier time -- it's not something you do w/o substantial consideration. Then we haven't gained anything over just letting people go through the usual rituals we use to ensure important agreements aren't confused with mere puffery: notarization, multiple signatures in front of witnesses, various other psychological hints we use to indicate that a real binding contract is being formed.
Yes, it introduces a bit of additional overhead. But that's a good thing. Only pretty significant vows wont impose more adjudication costs than they are worth anyway so we want to discourage the tiny ones and that additional overhead is important for solving the nasty practical issues.
If my two friends back up my lie about your vow can we steal all your shit? Or at least bancrupt you? When does a vow even count, what if you vow never to leave someone during an orgasm? Our usual rituals are pretty good at solving these problems.
Related: Use of “I’d bet” on the EA Forum is mostly metaphorical, @ https://nunosempere.com/blog/2023/03/02/metaphorical-bets/
I'd love this, but I mostly gave up on this the last time someone said "I will literally bet all my money" and then walked it back.
I'd expect this to be useful if there were a significant number of people who currently went through publicly announcing a similar bond in a more complicated way, or said they would make such a bond but can't find a way to. Are there?
This wouldn't work because the court system is already useless - lawyers earn too much, and the system is rigged such that LLCs can't pursue litigation without a lawyer, so only big companies have the ability to use the court system to their advantage.
The biggest improvement we could make to society right now is to put a lot of money into developing a binding AI dispute resolution method, so that the number of lawsuits can be dramatically expanded. The positive effects that would have on human behavior would be unprecedented - imagine actually having to be careful about not defaming people by making false statements because I could input your tweet into the AI and get a judgment instantly.
This is brilliant. We already put money on the line with a bet, and once upon a time would swear oaths by the gods, daring their wrath if our words proved false. This is a natural extension of both of those practices.
In the spirit of your brilliant idea, I hereby vow by $100 that there will be a post at my blog every Friday at least through this September (unless Substack does something weird like that month when they took my blog down for three days and then apologized). I'm already good for this week; the current post says the blogosphere doesn't understand basic personality theory as well as it should: https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/the-big-five-is-incomplete
This feels like thinking in bets, just applied across society.
Unfortunately courts do not work well (or at all) in many countries. My personal experience has been that even the usual house rent contracts are not enforceable because of judicial system's inefficiencies. Add corruption and other similar practices on top.
Looking at arbitrators, enforcement becomes an issue. But should be more viable than to target fixing judicial systems!
This would have to be enforced by....