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> voluntarily better their individual positions in a way that wouldn't affect the positions of others Except that it does affect the positions of others, by pu

> voluntarily better their individual positions in a way that wouldn't affect the positions of others Except that it does affect the positions of others, by pushing them down the list. If there were another opening at someone's preferred school, that doesn't mean that someone would get it. Others likely want it, and one may be ranked higher. But by voluntarily swapping in this way, the results of each of the schools' lotteries are discarded, and others are disadvantaged as a result. One way to keep it fairer would be to modify the algorithm to rank and swap in such cases. Ranking would be necessary, because it could be that three people in school B want to attend school A, while only two people in school A want to attend school B.

IncRnd 8y ago
> Except that it does affect the positions of others, by pushing them down the list. If there were another opening at someone's preferred school, that doesn't mean that someone would get it. Others likely want it, and one may be ranked higher. But by voluntarily swapping in this way, the results of each of the schools' lotteries are discarded, and others are disadvantaged as a result. You're creating a strawman and arguing against that. I am talking about the exact situation that is covered in the article. This is what the article says: Suppose a student loses the lottery at their number one school (school A). But they win the lottery at school B. And suppose that another student likes school B best. But loses the lottery at school B, and wins the lottery at school A. Then these students won each other’s jackpot. And so they both want to trade. The article continues: With these trades, more than 600 further students could get a place at their top choice school, it later turned out. So many students wanted to trade. This prospective trade wouldn't disadvantage anyone. It would only swap positions to increase people's choices and positions.
IncRnd 8y ago
> Ranking would be necessary, because it could be that three people in school B want to attend school A, while only two people in school A want to attend school B. That is exactly what I wrote, "That is some sort of perversion of personal greed into a form that instead limits what others may have." Do you honestly not see the injustice with choosing to disadvantage all five instead of only one in your example?

IncRnd 8y ago

> Except that it does affect the positions of others, by pushing them down the list. If there were another opening at someone's preferred school, that doesn't mean that someone would get it. Others likely want it, and one may be ranked higher. But by voluntarily swapping in this way, the results of each of the schools' lotteries are discarded, and others are disadvantaged as a result. You're creating a strawman and arguing against that. I am talking about the exact situation that is covered in the article. This is what the article says: Suppose a student loses the lottery at their number one school (school A). But they win the lottery at school B. And suppose that another student likes school B best. But loses the lottery at school B, and wins the lottery at school A. Then these students won each other’s jackpot. And so they both want to trade. The article continues: With these trades, more than 600 further students could get a place at their top choice school, it later turned out. So many students wanted to trade. This prospective trade wouldn't disadvantage anyone. It would only swap positions to increase people's choices and positions.

IncRnd 8y ago

> Ranking would be necessary, because it could be that three people in school B want to attend school A, while only two people in school A want to attend school B. That is exactly what I wrote, "That is some sort of perversion of personal greed into a form that instead limits what others may have." Do you honestly not see the injustice with choosing to disadvantage all five instead of only one in your example?