5 ms·

I think this is bullshit - from a psychological perspective. We need to foster our children that our actions take a toll out of our shared resources. It's cle

by kpil 8y ago

I think this is bullshit - from a psychological perspective. We need to foster our children that our actions take a toll out of our shared resources. It's clear that "free" sometimes is valued as "worthless" - The Swedish city Uppsala introduced free bus rides for teenagers a couple (20?) years ago, and the experiment was cancelled after short period due to extensive vandalism - buss seats where destroyed, etc. If you look closely enough, a lot of "free" resources that are actually funded or subsidised are overused or misused, or just plain vandalised - probably due to that it's not obvious how the resource is being paid for in the "background".

hk__2 8y ago
> The Swedish city Uppsala introduced free bus rides for teenagers a couple (20?) years ago, and the experiment was cancelled after short period due to extensive vandalism - buss seats where destroyed, etc. Anecdata. Dunkerque, a city in the North of France, saw a 59% decrease in vandalism acts when they tried free transports on Sundays and holidays during 6 months.
emodendroket 8y ago
I don't think it's bullshit. I think it makes a lot of sense. In the US driving is free (excluding the cost of maintaining your own car, but if you own one you're already committed to most of these costs) despite the substantial cost of maintaining the roads, while riding the train costs money. This is pretty much backwards when we consider the relative effect of riding the train versus driving.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Gas is free in the US?
  - crispyporkbites 8y ago
    It’s basically subsidised- if you had to pay for the external costs of the gas you burn per trip you wouldn’t do it.
  - yread 8y ago
    Are roads free or not?
    - swebs 8y ago
      Some are private and paid with tolls. Others are public and paid through gasoline taxes.
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        In most places most roads aren't toll roads. Furthermore, the gas tax is very low and doesn't come close to paying the cost of maintaining the roads. Are you just nitpicking for the sake of it?
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    No, but do you think the roads maintain themselves? The gas is only a fraction of the cost.
- kpil 8y ago
  Driving isn't exactly free, but it's most likely so that petrol and the roads are not taxed in proportion to the true costs for the society. I believe that costs should be made as transparent as possible. Public transport only makes sense above a certain density. In the best case it's possible to create economic incentives that align at some kind of optima.
jahaja 8y ago
> The Swedish city Uppsala introduced free bus rides for teenagers a couple (20?) years ago, and the experiment was cancelled after short period due to extensive vandalism - buss seats where destroyed, etc. It's very weird then that it's free in Uppsala again this summer: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/uppsala/gratis-buss-och-tag-for-alla-unga-i-sommar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/uppsala/gratis-buss-och-ta... Headline translation: "Free bus and trains for young people this summer". What year was this?
- kpil 8y ago
  I'm not sure 1995 - 2000. I doubt it will work out better this time - rather the opposite if I'm allowed to guess, and it's just sad that this particular mistake is repeated as a consequence of ideologically induced reality distortion effects.
clairity 8y ago
your reasoning is a little lacking, but you make an important point to consider: we often expect price to signal value. when making pricing decisions, "free" can be an important and effective marketing tool, but used indiscriminately, can just lead to market distortions and other unintended consequences (not sure vandalism is easily correlated in your example based on the evidence you present).
- kpil 8y ago
  I made a few generalisations based on observing the world for a while, as an attempt to understand why kids destroy things for no apparent reason other than passing time - it's not exactly a scientific study. But ok: My hypothesis is that in many cases it's simply that they do not value the things they destroy in relation to the cost, because the costs are hidden to them. As a counter example, very few kids will cut up the seats of the sofa in their living room although it's most likely as entertaining as cutting up a seat in a bus. As it's as inconvenient to sit on a cut-up bus seat as a cut-up sofa, there must be something that differs in their valuation. I guess there are many factors in play - it's a higher risk of getting caught cutting up your parents sofa; There is a disconnect between them and the community owned bus company so the sense of ownership is limited; There are many more bus seats than sitting furniture in their living room so bus seats seems abundant in relation, and finally; They probably realise that they paid a significant amount of money for the sofa while the visible cost of using the bus seat is very small - so my hypothesis is that it reduces the perceived value. The other factors are a bit hard to change, so my bet is that if the actual costs were more visible, you'd get less vandalism. I suppose you could also try to work out a way to increase the sense of ownership, but I think it's harder than playing with visible costs. (Donating thousands of canapés to schoolkids to level things out can probably be ruled out as a solution to the problem.) It would be interesting to create an experiment where school kids would get access to free bus rides . Certain cities could be handing out free bus passes, others could instead hand out money for buying a bus pass, and the effects could be evaluated. (This assumes that they have acquired a sense for the value that money represents.)

by kpil 8y ago

hk__2 8y ago

> The Swedish city Uppsala introduced free bus rides for teenagers a couple (20?) years ago, and the experiment was cancelled after short period due to extensive vandalism - buss seats where destroyed, etc. Anecdata. Dunkerque, a city in the North of France, saw a 59% decrease in vandalism acts when they tried free transports on Sundays and holidays during 6 months.

emodendroket 8y ago

I don't think it's bullshit. I think it makes a lot of sense. In the US driving is free (excluding the cost of maintaining your own car, but if you own one you're already committed to most of these costs) despite the substantial cost of maintaining the roads, while riding the train costs money. This is pretty much backwards when we consider the relative effect of riding the train versus driving.

icebraining 8y ago
Gas is free in the US?
- crispyporkbites 8y ago
  It’s basically subsidised- if you had to pay for the external costs of the gas you burn per trip you wouldn’t do it.
- yread 8y ago
  Are roads free or not?
  - swebs 8y ago
    Some are private and paid with tolls. Others are public and paid through gasoline taxes.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      In most places most roads aren't toll roads. Furthermore, the gas tax is very low and doesn't come close to paying the cost of maintaining the roads. Are you just nitpicking for the sake of it?
- emodendroket 8y ago
  No, but do you think the roads maintain themselves? The gas is only a fraction of the cost.
kpil 8y ago
Driving isn't exactly free, but it's most likely so that petrol and the roads are not taxed in proportion to the true costs for the society. I believe that costs should be made as transparent as possible. Public transport only makes sense above a certain density. In the best case it's possible to create economic incentives that align at some kind of optima.

jahaja 8y ago

> The Swedish city Uppsala introduced free bus rides for teenagers a couple (20?) years ago, and the experiment was cancelled after short period due to extensive vandalism - buss seats where destroyed, etc. It's very weird then that it's free in Uppsala again this summer: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/uppsala/gratis-buss-och-tag-for-alla-unga-i-sommar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/uppsala/gratis-buss-och-ta... Headline translation: "Free bus and trains for young people this summer". What year was this?

kpil 8y ago
I'm not sure 1995 - 2000. I doubt it will work out better this time - rather the opposite if I'm allowed to guess, and it's just sad that this particular mistake is repeated as a consequence of ideologically induced reality distortion effects.

clairity 8y ago

your reasoning is a little lacking, but you make an important point to consider: we often expect price to signal value. when making pricing decisions, "free" can be an important and effective marketing tool, but used indiscriminately, can just lead to market distortions and other unintended consequences (not sure vandalism is easily correlated in your example based on the evidence you present).

kpil 8y ago
I made a few generalisations based on observing the world for a while, as an attempt to understand why kids destroy things for no apparent reason other than passing time - it's not exactly a scientific study. But ok: My hypothesis is that in many cases it's simply that they do not value the things they destroy in relation to the cost, because the costs are hidden to them. As a counter example, very few kids will cut up the seats of the sofa in their living room although it's most likely as entertaining as cutting up a seat in a bus. As it's as inconvenient to sit on a cut-up bus seat as a cut-up sofa, there must be something that differs in their valuation. I guess there are many factors in play - it's a higher risk of getting caught cutting up your parents sofa; There is a disconnect between them and the community owned bus company so the sense of ownership is limited; There are many more bus seats than sitting furniture in their living room so bus seats seems abundant in relation, and finally; They probably realise that they paid a significant amount of money for the sofa while the visible cost of using the bus seat is very small - so my hypothesis is that it reduces the perceived value. The other factors are a bit hard to change, so my bet is that if the actual costs were more visible, you'd get less vandalism. I suppose you could also try to work out a way to increase the sense of ownership, but I think it's harder than playing with visible costs. (Donating thousands of canapés to schoolkids to level things out can probably be ruled out as a solution to the problem.) It would be interesting to create an experiment where school kids would get access to free bus rides . Certain cities could be handing out free bus passes, others could instead hand out money for buying a bus pass, and the effects could be evaluated. (This assumes that they have acquired a sense for the value that money represents.)