6 ms·

I wonder how many people use stuff like this to cheat the system? I remember seeing someone on reddit bragging about attaching their Fitbit to a reciprocating s

by kpwags 8y ago

I wonder how many people use stuff like this to cheat the system? I remember seeing someone on reddit bragging about attaching their Fitbit to a reciprocating saw to get more steps than his wife. I couldn't figure out why it was that important, but with insurance discounts, I can definitely see the financial incentives.

ams6110 8y ago
A lot. I'd be surprised if any Business Management 101 class didn't teach that if there is a reward involved, people will maximize for whatever critera you measure.
- eli 8y ago
  Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    That's only true to the extent that the chosen measure was only coincidentally something that looked like a good measure to start with; if you were actually measuring the true feature of merit, making it a target wouldn't make it a bad measure. Making a measure a target incentivizes discovery of its deficiencies, if any, as a measure.
    - pmichaud 8y ago
      I agree with you in the narrow sense, but I bet you can't think of a metric that should be hyper-focused on for any purpose. Even something like "Lives Saved" fails pretty hard if you do it hard enough.
    - eli 8y ago
      What's an example of a metric that measures the true merit of something?
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        No metric is perfect, but if you were measuring fat percentage in a moderately-accurate way it would be a very solid basis for an incentive.
- Johnny555 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect The term cobra effect originated in an anecdote set at the time of British rule of colonial India. The British government was concerned about the number of venomous cobra snakes in Delhi.[3] The government therefore offered bounty for every dead cobra. Initially this was a successful strategy as large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, enterprising people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped, causing the cobra breeders to set the now-worthless snakes free. As a result, the wild cobra population further increased. The apparent solution for the problem made the situation even worse
  - tzs 8y ago
    What did the Delhi residents themselves think about cobras? Were the natives OK with cobras running around and it was just the British that wanted to reduce the population? I'm curious because if everybody disliked wild cobras loose in the city I'd have expected the breeders to kill their stock when the bounty ended, not free it.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      Why would you expect that in a world where people dump hazardous waste into rivers to save money?
      - tedunangst 8y ago
        Because dehazarding waste is more difficult than chopping up a snake?
        emodendroket 8y ago
        But letting the snakes go is even easier. Use the example of people littering instead of using a trash can, or not flushing public toilets, if you need a demonstration of how people can't be bothered with even simple tasks.
- kevin_nisbet 8y ago
  Reminds me of one of my favourite stories about this: https://www.inc.com/magazine/20081001/how-hard-could-it-be-sins-of-commissions.html?partner=fogcreek https://www.inc.com/magazine/20081001/how-hard-could-it-be-s...
- ryandrake 8y ago
  This is probably true for all jobs and compensation schemes, but for some reason super true in Sales. Take a sales guy who failed middle school math, give him as complicated a salary/bonus structure as you can and overnight he will turn into Albert Einstein and optimize his behavior to produce the most money.
bluedino 8y ago
I worked in this space, and yes, if the employer offers an incentive, people will cheat. Even for something like a $10 Dunkin Donuts gift card (heck of a incentive for a health/wellness program). We'd go through logs and see people sequentially logging for each day, one team member after another, on the last day of the competition. You'd also find people scrutinizing the accuracy of any reporting we did as a company - some very odd bugs were found by companies with participants armed with Excel and too much time on their hands.
- sundvor 8y ago
  Donuts as a reward for physical activity - what the actual??
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    "That's why little chocolate donuts have been on my training table since I was a kid..." https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/little-chocolate-donuts/n8655 https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/little-chocola...
    - sundvor 8y ago
      Geographic Restriction This content is not available in your location.
      - sokoloff 8y ago
        Sorry. It's an old John Belushi Saturday Night Live sketch where he wins some Olympic-type events and then the voiceover claims that "little chocolate donuts" were part of his training regimen. Last shot is a picture of some fat, stubby fingers holding a half-smoked cigarette and reaching for another donut.
        sundvor 8y ago
        :) Thanks!
Splines 8y ago
People are willing to go quite far sometimes: https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/8fu7wi/albertan_changes_gender_to_save_25_on_car/ https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/8fu7wi/albertan_cha...
- userbinator 8y ago
  Gender is a state of mind in Canada and therefore Alberta. If it catches on, it will probably stop working once the statistics reveal gender-changed MtoF's to be just as high in accident rates as regular males.
  - geofft 8y ago
    Assuming that's what they reveal, yes. If accident rates are linked to testosterone levels, trans women taking hormone-replacement therapy should have statistically lower accident rates - and trans men taking hormone-replacement therapy should have statistically higher accident rates.
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      But HRT is not necessary for registering a legal Gender.
- geofft 8y ago
  This feels like an abstracted form of arbitrage: the markets have figured out that there's a quantifiable risk difference between men and women, but they have not distinguished cis and trans folks in their model, and not figured out whether this is a hormones-at-birth difference, or a current-hormones difference, or a socialization difference, or what. They have also certainly not figured out how to distinguish actual trans folks from arbitrageurs (this is something that I think the law ought not to try too hard to figure out, on limited-government grounds, but the markets would love to take as much data as they can and feed it into a model). Once they figure it out, they'll price this person as a person, and he won't be able to swing it as dramatically. Gender is a pretty crude (though effective) axis to make this sort of risk distinction on. An insurance company that can accurately figure out which men are lower-risk to insure than the average man will probably have a pretty good time in the market. (And get a head start on any policy changes about not discriminating on gender.)

by kpwags 8y ago

ams6110 8y ago

A lot. I'd be surprised if any Business Management 101 class didn't teach that if there is a reward involved, people will maximize for whatever critera you measure.

eli 8y ago
Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  That's only true to the extent that the chosen measure was only coincidentally something that looked like a good measure to start with; if you were actually measuring the true feature of merit, making it a target wouldn't make it a bad measure. Making a measure a target incentivizes discovery of its deficiencies, if any, as a measure.
  - pmichaud 8y ago
    I agree with you in the narrow sense, but I bet you can't think of a metric that should be hyper-focused on for any purpose. Even something like "Lives Saved" fails pretty hard if you do it hard enough.
  - eli 8y ago
    What's an example of a metric that measures the true merit of something?
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      No metric is perfect, but if you were measuring fat percentage in a moderately-accurate way it would be a very solid basis for an incentive.
Johnny555 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect The term cobra effect originated in an anecdote set at the time of British rule of colonial India. The British government was concerned about the number of venomous cobra snakes in Delhi.[3] The government therefore offered bounty for every dead cobra. Initially this was a successful strategy as large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, enterprising people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped, causing the cobra breeders to set the now-worthless snakes free. As a result, the wild cobra population further increased. The apparent solution for the problem made the situation even worse
- tzs 8y ago
  What did the Delhi residents themselves think about cobras? Were the natives OK with cobras running around and it was just the British that wanted to reduce the population? I'm curious because if everybody disliked wild cobras loose in the city I'd have expected the breeders to kill their stock when the bounty ended, not free it.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Why would you expect that in a world where people dump hazardous waste into rivers to save money?
    - tedunangst 8y ago
      Because dehazarding waste is more difficult than chopping up a snake?
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        But letting the snakes go is even easier. Use the example of people littering instead of using a trash can, or not flushing public toilets, if you need a demonstration of how people can't be bothered with even simple tasks.
kevin_nisbet 8y ago
Reminds me of one of my favourite stories about this: https://www.inc.com/magazine/20081001/how-hard-could-it-be-sins-of-commissions.html?partner=fogcreek https://www.inc.com/magazine/20081001/how-hard-could-it-be-s...
ryandrake 8y ago
This is probably true for all jobs and compensation schemes, but for some reason super true in Sales. Take a sales guy who failed middle school math, give him as complicated a salary/bonus structure as you can and overnight he will turn into Albert Einstein and optimize his behavior to produce the most money.

bluedino 8y ago

I worked in this space, and yes, if the employer offers an incentive, people will cheat. Even for something like a $10 Dunkin Donuts gift card (heck of a incentive for a health/wellness program). We'd go through logs and see people sequentially logging for each day, one team member after another, on the last day of the competition. You'd also find people scrutinizing the accuracy of any reporting we did as a company - some very odd bugs were found by companies with participants armed with Excel and too much time on their hands.

sundvor 8y ago
Donuts as a reward for physical activity - what the actual??
- sokoloff 8y ago
  "That's why little chocolate donuts have been on my training table since I was a kid..." https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/little-chocolate-donuts/n8655 https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/little-chocola...
  - sundvor 8y ago
    Geographic Restriction This content is not available in your location.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      Sorry. It's an old John Belushi Saturday Night Live sketch where he wins some Olympic-type events and then the voiceover claims that "little chocolate donuts" were part of his training regimen. Last shot is a picture of some fat, stubby fingers holding a half-smoked cigarette and reaching for another donut.
      - sundvor 8y ago
        :) Thanks!

Splines 8y ago

People are willing to go quite far sometimes: https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/8fu7wi/albertan_changes_gender_to_save_25_on_car/ https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/8fu7wi/albertan_cha...

userbinator 8y ago
Gender is a state of mind in Canada and therefore Alberta. If it catches on, it will probably stop working once the statistics reveal gender-changed MtoF's to be just as high in accident rates as regular males.
- geofft 8y ago
  Assuming that's what they reveal, yes. If accident rates are linked to testosterone levels, trans women taking hormone-replacement therapy should have statistically lower accident rates - and trans men taking hormone-replacement therapy should have statistically higher accident rates.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    But HRT is not necessary for registering a legal Gender.
geofft 8y ago
This feels like an abstracted form of arbitrage: the markets have figured out that there's a quantifiable risk difference between men and women, but they have not distinguished cis and trans folks in their model, and not figured out whether this is a hormones-at-birth difference, or a current-hormones difference, or a socialization difference, or what. They have also certainly not figured out how to distinguish actual trans folks from arbitrageurs (this is something that I think the law ought not to try too hard to figure out, on limited-government grounds, but the markets would love to take as much data as they can and feed it into a model). Once they figure it out, they'll price this person as a person, and he won't be able to swing it as dramatically. Gender is a pretty crude (though effective) axis to make this sort of risk distinction on. An insurance company that can accurately figure out which men are lower-risk to insure than the average man will probably have a pretty good time in the market. (And get a head start on any policy changes about not discriminating on gender.)