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So when you buy a discounted item is it a charade? How can two people being prevented to perform an exchange make things better globally? I don’t think that ob

So when you buy a discounted item is it a charade? How can two people being prevented to perform an exchange make things better globally? I don’t think that obvious at all. In fact allowing the exchange will make things better globally, by definition, because more people will be better off, while no one not engaging in the exchange will be worse off (unless you consider maybe envy).

philipkglass 8y ago
Consider people who buy concert tickets and immediately resell them at higher than retail prices. I don't personally object to that, but I note that it makes a lot of people angry. It's not terribly clear that it makes things "better globally, by definition" either. The same number of people get to attend the concert with or without resellers. The band and the venue don't get any more money with resellers in play. The only set of people really better off are the resellers, who strategically mimic interest in attending but immediately trade their dozens of tickets for more money. That's a very narrow, rather than global, improvement from strategic trading. The same possible dynamic with schools is, according to the article, one reason school trades aren't allowed. Strategizing traders could mimic interest in attending popular school X, but really intend to trade a school X place for their true preference later. Everyone who isn't strategizing that way is worse-off or no-better-off when the strategic behavior is allowed. Note that more complex rules with more potential for strategizing don't just inconvenience individuals. More complex tax codes or regulatory codes, too, tend to disadvantage e.g. small businesses that can't afford legal teams to strategically take advantage of non-obvious consequences of the rules. The small businesses aren't "envious" that bigger ones have a higher laywer-to-engineer ratio. Small business employees aren't necessarily any more foolish than big-co employees, except in specific matters of legal interpretation and strategizing. They just want less exploitable rules so that facially-optimal and actually-optimal behaviors stay closer to each other.
- dnautics 8y ago
  >The band and the venue don't get any more money with resellers in play. That's true, but the existence of resellers signals that the band and the venue could have made more money by structuring their prices differently
danharaj 8y ago
> So when you buy a discounted item is it a charade? It being valid in one instance does not justify it at every instance. > How can two people being prevented to perform an exchange make things better globally? I don’t think that obvious at all. It is an instance of an optimization problem. It is algorithmically true that there are instances of optimization problems where local strategies, e.g hill climbing or trade between individuals, can only find local optima. Since the real world is far more complicated than any particular optimization problem... This does not even touch market failures such as externalities where exchange isn't even aware of all the interested parties involved. Frankly, this whole business about trade being better than any other way of distributing resources is so naive it boggles the mind how it can be such a widespread meme. Except, of course, for the fact that millions of dollars of propaganda are pumped into it by institutions far larger than individuals who have an interest in individuals thinking they're playing the same game and it's the best game in town.
- andrenth 8y ago
  First consider that students switching schools also can’t be sure their choice is better (what if there’s a bully who will make their life horrible in their preferred school?). So even your premise that “trade is not valid if both parts know they’re getting a good deal” (which makes little if any sense) does not apply here. You follow with angry anti-market rethoric but you never explain how a number of people trading places in schools, according to their own interest, makes anything worse for those not involved in an exchange.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    > So even your premise that “trade is not valid if both parts know they’re getting a good deal” (which makes little if any sense) does not apply here. Your assertion that trade always implies that both parties are better off is just wrong, that's my only point. That you build an ideology around that premise is none of my business; I didn't propose any normative philosophy about trade. > You follow with angry anti-market rethoric but you never explain how a number of people trading places in schools, according to their own interest, makes anything worse for those not involved in an exchange. I just pointed out that the premise to your reasoning did not really hold. If the premise doesn't hold then your position might be justified, but it hasn't been justified. If you can't entertain the possibility that you're wrong, then I don't know what to say; perhaps peruse the other lines of reasoning that were considered in this submission's comments? P.S. just because i'm dismissive doesn't mean i'm angry
BrandonM 8y ago
A lot of this stuff people are asking about was literally in the article. They want to incentivize students to rank their true preferences rather than strategizing. If you can trade, then the right strategy is to rank the most popular school first so that you can trade it for the school you actually want.

philipkglass 8y ago

Consider people who buy concert tickets and immediately resell them at higher than retail prices. I don't personally object to that, but I note that it makes a lot of people angry. It's not terribly clear that it makes things "better globally, by definition" either. The same number of people get to attend the concert with or without resellers. The band and the venue don't get any more money with resellers in play. The only set of people really better off are the resellers, who strategically mimic interest in attending but immediately trade their dozens of tickets for more money. That's a very narrow, rather than global, improvement from strategic trading. The same possible dynamic with schools is, according to the article, one reason school trades aren't allowed. Strategizing traders could mimic interest in attending popular school X, but really intend to trade a school X place for their true preference later. Everyone who isn't strategizing that way is worse-off or no-better-off when the strategic behavior is allowed. Note that more complex rules with more potential for strategizing don't just inconvenience individuals. More complex tax codes or regulatory codes, too, tend to disadvantage e.g. small businesses that can't afford legal teams to strategically take advantage of non-obvious consequences of the rules. The small businesses aren't "envious" that bigger ones have a higher laywer-to-engineer ratio. Small business employees aren't necessarily any more foolish than big-co employees, except in specific matters of legal interpretation and strategizing. They just want less exploitable rules so that facially-optimal and actually-optimal behaviors stay closer to each other.

dnautics 8y ago
>The band and the venue don't get any more money with resellers in play. That's true, but the existence of resellers signals that the band and the venue could have made more money by structuring their prices differently

danharaj 8y ago

> So when you buy a discounted item is it a charade? It being valid in one instance does not justify it at every instance. > How can two people being prevented to perform an exchange make things better globally? I don’t think that obvious at all. It is an instance of an optimization problem. It is algorithmically true that there are instances of optimization problems where local strategies, e.g hill climbing or trade between individuals, can only find local optima. Since the real world is far more complicated than any particular optimization problem... This does not even touch market failures such as externalities where exchange isn't even aware of all the interested parties involved. Frankly, this whole business about trade being better than any other way of distributing resources is so naive it boggles the mind how it can be such a widespread meme. Except, of course, for the fact that millions of dollars of propaganda are pumped into it by institutions far larger than individuals who have an interest in individuals thinking they're playing the same game and it's the best game in town.

andrenth 8y ago
First consider that students switching schools also can’t be sure their choice is better (what if there’s a bully who will make their life horrible in their preferred school?). So even your premise that “trade is not valid if both parts know they’re getting a good deal” (which makes little if any sense) does not apply here. You follow with angry anti-market rethoric but you never explain how a number of people trading places in schools, according to their own interest, makes anything worse for those not involved in an exchange.
- danharaj 8y ago
  > So even your premise that “trade is not valid if both parts know they’re getting a good deal” (which makes little if any sense) does not apply here. Your assertion that trade always implies that both parties are better off is just wrong, that's my only point. That you build an ideology around that premise is none of my business; I didn't propose any normative philosophy about trade. > You follow with angry anti-market rethoric but you never explain how a number of people trading places in schools, according to their own interest, makes anything worse for those not involved in an exchange. I just pointed out that the premise to your reasoning did not really hold. If the premise doesn't hold then your position might be justified, but it hasn't been justified. If you can't entertain the possibility that you're wrong, then I don't know what to say; perhaps peruse the other lines of reasoning that were considered in this submission's comments? P.S. just because i'm dismissive doesn't mean i'm angry

BrandonM 8y ago

A lot of this stuff people are asking about was literally in the article. They want to incentivize students to rank their true preferences rather than strategizing. If you can trade, then the right strategy is to rank the most popular school first so that you can trade it for the school you actually want.