5 ms·

Please be specific. What are these effects?

dctoedt 8y ago
For example: Externalities — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality Instrumental rationality — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_value_rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_value_rationa... Cognitive biases of various flavors — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
- andrenth 8y ago
  Again, please be specific. You trade places with someone else. Now you're on your preferred school and so is the person you traded with. I wasn't able to trade, therefore I'm in the school I was assigned by the lottery. My situation is exactly the same whether you traded your place or not. How can it possibly be worse? And the global consequences, which seem to be the main concern here, has clearly improved, as more people are happier in their preferred schools.
  - dctoedt 8y ago
    OK, we'll talk about your specific example and not globally. Suppose that Alice inherently belongs to some identifiable Group A — based on IQ, artistic- or athletic ability, ethnicity, whatever — but she gets randomly assigned to a school where the majority of students belong to Group B. It's the other way around for Bob, who inherently belongs to Group B but is randomly assigned to a school where the majority of students belong to Group A. Now suppose that Alice and Bob would each rather be in schools in which the majority consisted of "their own kind." And imagine that there are, say, 50,000 Alices and Bobs in the school district. In that situation, allowing Alices and Bobs to swap schools at will could easily result in self-sorting that might legitimately be disfavored by the school district, the state government, etc. For example, the school district might well legitimately want students to experience school with a cross-section of students from other groups, not just with "their own kind."
    - andrenth 8y ago
      Well honestly this example isn’t very convincing. If some bureaucrat thinks children should go to this or that school, we should do it because...? Would you prevent Alice and Bob from experiencing schools that are perfect matches for their abilities? Shouldn’t this be their or their parents’ call?
      - smallnamespace 8y ago
        Why not go to the actual example from the article, which is that if you allow trading, then you will encourage strategic behavior from parents in picking schools in future rounds. People who don't engage in strategic ranking will on average be worse off than they were before. If all people engage in strategic ranking, then it essentially imposes the 'search cost' of gaming the system optimally on all participants; this search cost may be much greater than the local benefit of swaps. Also, some parents (e.g. the locals, the wealthy and connected) may be much better at doing strategic ranking then other parents, so it may inherently advantages certain groups over others. I think there is legitimate debate over whether the local benefits to the few are more important than global objectives, but denying that there are shared objectives (e.g. 'fairness' and de-escalating local competition) that sometimes demand local sacrifices is silly. I would be individually better off if I didn't have to pay taxes and not receive services, and yet we all recognize that if everyone could individually opt out of taxes, then the entire system would probably collapse. And don't tell me that I had the rational choice to pay taxes: my tax obligation was put on me because of my citizenship and birth, which I did not enter in out of my free will.
        andrenth 8y ago
        I wrote about this elsewhere in the thread. You can make this pout about strategizing in future lotteries, but this doesn’t seem to be what happened at all in this specific instance. A more reasonable decision then would have been to allow the exchange, even if just this one time. You should also consider that if we got each others’ best preference, this is a sign of a broken system, because we could have clearly been assigned to our first choices in the first place. So in my view, the exchange should be allowed, and then the system fixed so that such situations are not possible. > People who don't engage in strategic ranking will on average be worse off than they were before. How? They will be in the same school regardless of other students switching or not. And even if you didn’t strategize, you might receive an offer for an exchange, so you could even end up just as well as someone who did strategize. I don’t get where this idea that globally the students will be better off if exchanging places is forbidden. Some people will be better off by exchanging, others will be in the same position as they were before. It’s clear that globally the system will have gained from more people being at their preferred schools. Your tax example doesn’t apply, because obviously if I stop paying taxes there will be less government resources available to get things done (although we could discuss whether giving money to the government is actually a good way to get things done). Switching schools is different because it only affects the two people involved.

For example: Externalities — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality Instrumental rationality — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_value_rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_value_rationa... Cognitive biases of various flavors — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

andrenth 8y ago
Again, please be specific. You trade places with someone else. Now you're on your preferred school and so is the person you traded with. I wasn't able to trade, therefore I'm in the school I was assigned by the lottery. My situation is exactly the same whether you traded your place or not. How can it possibly be worse? And the global consequences, which seem to be the main concern here, has clearly improved, as more people are happier in their preferred schools.
- dctoedt 8y ago
  OK, we'll talk about your specific example and not globally. Suppose that Alice inherently belongs to some identifiable Group A — based on IQ, artistic- or athletic ability, ethnicity, whatever — but she gets randomly assigned to a school where the majority of students belong to Group B. It's the other way around for Bob, who inherently belongs to Group B but is randomly assigned to a school where the majority of students belong to Group A. Now suppose that Alice and Bob would each rather be in schools in which the majority consisted of "their own kind." And imagine that there are, say, 50,000 Alices and Bobs in the school district. In that situation, allowing Alices and Bobs to swap schools at will could easily result in self-sorting that might legitimately be disfavored by the school district, the state government, etc. For example, the school district might well legitimately want students to experience school with a cross-section of students from other groups, not just with "their own kind."
  - andrenth 8y ago
    Well honestly this example isn’t very convincing. If some bureaucrat thinks children should go to this or that school, we should do it because...? Would you prevent Alice and Bob from experiencing schools that are perfect matches for their abilities? Shouldn’t this be their or their parents’ call?
    - smallnamespace 8y ago
      Why not go to the actual example from the article, which is that if you allow trading, then you will encourage strategic behavior from parents in picking schools in future rounds. People who don't engage in strategic ranking will on average be worse off than they were before. If all people engage in strategic ranking, then it essentially imposes the 'search cost' of gaming the system optimally on all participants; this search cost may be much greater than the local benefit of swaps. Also, some parents (e.g. the locals, the wealthy and connected) may be much better at doing strategic ranking then other parents, so it may inherently advantages certain groups over others. I think there is legitimate debate over whether the local benefits to the few are more important than global objectives, but denying that there are shared objectives (e.g. 'fairness' and de-escalating local competition) that sometimes demand local sacrifices is silly. I would be individually better off if I didn't have to pay taxes and not receive services, and yet we all recognize that if everyone could individually opt out of taxes, then the entire system would probably collapse. And don't tell me that I had the rational choice to pay taxes: my tax obligation was put on me because of my citizenship and birth, which I did not enter in out of my free will.
      - andrenth 8y ago
        I wrote about this elsewhere in the thread. You can make this pout about strategizing in future lotteries, but this doesn’t seem to be what happened at all in this specific instance. A more reasonable decision then would have been to allow the exchange, even if just this one time. You should also consider that if we got each others’ best preference, this is a sign of a broken system, because we could have clearly been assigned to our first choices in the first place. So in my view, the exchange should be allowed, and then the system fixed so that such situations are not possible. > People who don't engage in strategic ranking will on average be worse off than they were before. How? They will be in the same school regardless of other students switching or not. And even if you didn’t strategize, you might receive an offer for an exchange, so you could even end up just as well as someone who did strategize. I don’t get where this idea that globally the students will be better off if exchanging places is forbidden. Some people will be better off by exchanging, others will be in the same position as they were before. It’s clear that globally the system will have gained from more people being at their preferred schools. Your tax example doesn’t apply, because obviously if I stop paying taxes there will be less government resources available to get things done (although we could discuss whether giving money to the government is actually a good way to get things done). Switching schools is different because it only affects the two people involved.