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I'm not sure how the Prisoner's Dilemma applies here? I agree that consumers should be educated and have the ability to make informed decisions; in many ways, t

I'm not sure how the Prisoner's Dilemma applies here? I agree that consumers should be educated and have the ability to make informed decisions; in many ways, this is what makes a market more "fair": make sure that consumers have access to information, and let them make the best decisions they can. > I believe the same things about markets/government. Why should we purposefully handicap ourselves to the individual realm stuck with Echo with ads when we can go to the collective realm to grant ourselves a better outcome. This is something I think we disagree on: I don't see this as a handicap at all. I also disagree that the better outcome is to grow the government's role in something like this. To me, this is a case where the so-called "invisible hand of the market" is the way to go: ensure that consumers have access to the information they need, and let consumers make the best decisions for themselves. > If the people collectively decide that then yes. I think we have to be very careful about how this is used; people collectively decide silly things all the time ("Pink Slime" comes to mind, for some reason), and we have to be very careful about how we encode things into law. Once the government is responsible for something, it's hard to walk back on that. Leaving things to the market leaves things in a more fluid state, in my opinion. > To me, a useful way to think of markets is as a very sharp knife: it can be extremely useful in the right situations, but you can really hurt yourself if you're not careful. This may be true to some degree, but it aligns pretty well with people's changing opinions and wants/needs. If we're careful about some things (e.g. monopolies, access to information, etc -- things that allow markets to work efficiently), we can avoid having to bring out the sledgehammer when it's not needed. Some of the early 20th century government involvements led to humanitarian crises (the Communist revolutions in China and Russia); that's not to say that governments necessarily lead to the worst situations, just that sometimes markets are better at things than government involvement. This is a case where I believe this to be especially true.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>I'm not sure how the Prisoner's Dilemma applies here? I agree that consumers should be educated and have the ability to make informed decisions; in many ways, this is what makes a market more "fair": make sure that consumers have access to information, and let them make the best decisions they can. But that's the point of the prisoner's dilemma. Individuals who are educated, can make informed decisions, have access to information about the results of their decision will always make a decision that isn't the best decision they can make. What the prisoner's dilemma reveals is that the only way to beat the game is through a coordination mechanism. Nothing else will ever help. >This is something I think we disagree on: I don't see this as a handicap at all. Hmm so in the prisoner's dilemma you don't see the prisoners without coordination as handicapped? To me it's obvious. Prisoners with coordination realize the best overall outcome, prisoner's without coordination are never able to realize that outcome. Seems straightforwardly handicapped to me. >To me, this is a case where the so-called "invisible hand of the market" is the way to go: ensure that consumers have access to the information they need, and let consumers make the best decisions for themselves. I'm providing you with examples where the invisible hand doesn't work the way we like to pretend. The hand is guided towards overall societal benefit by individually selfish actions. What I'm talking about are cases where individually selfish actions lead the invisible hand to overall societal detriment. And that in those instances we need government as a way to coordinate together so that we may reposition the invisible hand where we desire. >Leaving things to the market leaves things in a more fluid state, in my opinion. Fluid isn't necessarily good however. We will persist 'fluidly' with Echo with ads until we get the government to act and then we will exist 'statically' with Echo without ads. I suppose I'm fine with that static-ness. >Some of the early 20th century government involvements led to humanitarian crises (the Communist revolutions in China and Russia); You're being a bit funny with 'government involvement' here. Maybe there should be some corollary to Godwin's Law where the first one to compare a government program to Mao loses. Anyhow, I'm not talking about seizing the means of production, I'm talking about regulating existing markets. >that's not to say that governments necessarily lead to the worst situations, just that sometimes markets are better at things than government involvement. There's also plenty of instances where government involvement is better than markets. That's the case I'm making - essentially that we need government regulation as a way of reigning back the invisible hand when it goes awry aka smart homes that secretly advertise to you.
- JonFish85 9y ago
  I thought Prisoner's Dilemma was more about the inability to have good information: the prisoners can't communicate with each other, and therefore have imperfect information about their decision. To me, this supports my argument: if the prisoners are free to communicate and gather information as they see fit, they can make a good decision. What it sounds like you're saying is that the government should tell the prisoners what to do. I prefer the former, because I think it keeps the responsibility still on the prisoner ("consumer" in our case). You keep using the word "coordination", and I guess I just don't see it applying in the way I think that you mean. There are other, perhaps better, ways to coordinate than governmental intervention. You've said that boycotts don't work, but I'd say that if the market doesn't want a product, it will fail; why does a government have to enforce that? A boycott may fail because a loud minority isn't representative of the overall market; isn't that the behavior you want? You may find the references to some communist revolutions distasteful, but I think it's an appropriate comparison in that folks see government as the solution to a problem that markets solve really well. I specifically didn't say that what you're espousing will lead to 50m deaths, but I do think it's a useful tool for showing where government can take on too big of a role with regards to things that markets are very efficient at doing themselves. >"I suppose I'm fine with that static-ness." Isn't Hacker News full of people that explicitly disagree with this? That static laws are a big tool for incumbent companies to build their moat, and entrepreneurs try to break those down in ways that are intended to be better for everyone. Maybe you disagree (which I respect), but in many ways, static laws look good on the surface but have real downsides in the long run. > aka smart homes that secretly advertise to you. I don't think that these things should be done secretly. I think companies should have to make this information available to consumers, and I think the government should enforce this to some degree (e.g. if a company is recording my phone calls to send back to their headquarters, absolutely it should be known).
  - theclaw 9y ago
    > I thought Prisoner's Dilemma was more about the inability to have good information: the prisoners can't communicate with each other That sounds like the Byzantine Generals Problem. Prisoners can communicate all they like, it just doesn't really matter what they agree at the end of the day.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

>I'm not sure how the Prisoner's Dilemma applies here? I agree that consumers should be educated and have the ability to make informed decisions; in many ways, this is what makes a market more "fair": make sure that consumers have access to information, and let them make the best decisions they can. But that's the point of the prisoner's dilemma. Individuals who are educated, can make informed decisions, have access to information about the results of their decision will always make a decision that isn't the best decision they can make. What the prisoner's dilemma reveals is that the only way to beat the game is through a coordination mechanism. Nothing else will ever help. >This is something I think we disagree on: I don't see this as a handicap at all. Hmm so in the prisoner's dilemma you don't see the prisoners without coordination as handicapped? To me it's obvious. Prisoners with coordination realize the best overall outcome, prisoner's without coordination are never able to realize that outcome. Seems straightforwardly handicapped to me. >To me, this is a case where the so-called "invisible hand of the market" is the way to go: ensure that consumers have access to the information they need, and let consumers make the best decisions for themselves. I'm providing you with examples where the invisible hand doesn't work the way we like to pretend. The hand is guided towards overall societal benefit by individually selfish actions. What I'm talking about are cases where individually selfish actions lead the invisible hand to overall societal detriment. And that in those instances we need government as a way to coordinate together so that we may reposition the invisible hand where we desire. >Leaving things to the market leaves things in a more fluid state, in my opinion. Fluid isn't necessarily good however. We will persist 'fluidly' with Echo with ads until we get the government to act and then we will exist 'statically' with Echo without ads. I suppose I'm fine with that static-ness. >Some of the early 20th century government involvements led to humanitarian crises (the Communist revolutions in China and Russia); You're being a bit funny with 'government involvement' here. Maybe there should be some corollary to Godwin's Law where the first one to compare a government program to Mao loses. Anyhow, I'm not talking about seizing the means of production, I'm talking about regulating existing markets. >that's not to say that governments necessarily lead to the worst situations, just that sometimes markets are better at things than government involvement. There's also plenty of instances where government involvement is better than markets. That's the case I'm making - essentially that we need government regulation as a way of reigning back the invisible hand when it goes awry aka smart homes that secretly advertise to you.

JonFish85 9y ago
I thought Prisoner's Dilemma was more about the inability to have good information: the prisoners can't communicate with each other, and therefore have imperfect information about their decision. To me, this supports my argument: if the prisoners are free to communicate and gather information as they see fit, they can make a good decision. What it sounds like you're saying is that the government should tell the prisoners what to do. I prefer the former, because I think it keeps the responsibility still on the prisoner ("consumer" in our case). You keep using the word "coordination", and I guess I just don't see it applying in the way I think that you mean. There are other, perhaps better, ways to coordinate than governmental intervention. You've said that boycotts don't work, but I'd say that if the market doesn't want a product, it will fail; why does a government have to enforce that? A boycott may fail because a loud minority isn't representative of the overall market; isn't that the behavior you want? You may find the references to some communist revolutions distasteful, but I think it's an appropriate comparison in that folks see government as the solution to a problem that markets solve really well. I specifically didn't say that what you're espousing will lead to 50m deaths, but I do think it's a useful tool for showing where government can take on too big of a role with regards to things that markets are very efficient at doing themselves. >"I suppose I'm fine with that static-ness." Isn't Hacker News full of people that explicitly disagree with this? That static laws are a big tool for incumbent companies to build their moat, and entrepreneurs try to break those down in ways that are intended to be better for everyone. Maybe you disagree (which I respect), but in many ways, static laws look good on the surface but have real downsides in the long run. > aka smart homes that secretly advertise to you. I don't think that these things should be done secretly. I think companies should have to make this information available to consumers, and I think the government should enforce this to some degree (e.g. if a company is recording my phone calls to send back to their headquarters, absolutely it should be known).
- theclaw 9y ago
  > I thought Prisoner's Dilemma was more about the inability to have good information: the prisoners can't communicate with each other That sounds like the Byzantine Generals Problem. Prisoners can communicate all they like, it just doesn't really matter what they agree at the end of the day.