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I wonder how they deal with differences in income levels. The article only touches on that briefly: "He's also earned more in his life, giving him a bigger pot

I wonder how they deal with differences in income levels. The article only touches on that briefly: "He's also earned more in his life, giving him a bigger pot to bet with. " For example, my long-term girlfriend has an art degree, and I'm a professional developer. It's likely that I will make more than her for the foreseeable future; maybe as much as 1.5x to 2x. Should I do half the housework? It seems like that leads inexorably to the 1950s logic of "I bring home the bacon so you should keep the house." (That said, it seems to be working for these two, so more power to them. :) )

sliverstorm 13y ago
Was the 1950's logic fundamentally wrong? If one partner is not working, should they not contribute more to the house?
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
  And is 1950's logic different than logic?
  - throwawayXYZ83 13y ago
    The second definition is being used here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- aneisf 13y ago
  Maybe not, but in this case both partners are working. In fact, the wife could very well be working more and still earning less.
- dsrguru 13y ago
  1950s logic (at least in the US) was not that if one partner is not earning money, they should contribute more to the house. 1950s logic was that the male partner earns the money, and the female partner should be satisfied with housework, regardless of whether or not she prefers it. This logic cyclically resulted from, and resulted in, many parents only putting their male children through college.
  - kcanini 13y ago
    Interesting that you're concerned about whether the woman preferred the role she was assigned, but fail to consider the man's preferences.
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  IMO the part where the full-time worker was expected to do less at home than the one with no job was not wrong, the wrong part came in the form of the assumption that the person working would be the man, and that other than in exceptional cases he would be the only one working. Also, assuming both partners are working roughly equally, I don't think it is fair to split the household contributions based on money earned. eg. If I'm a software developer making $150,000 and I'm married to a teacher who is making $50k and we both work full-time, it makes no sense for me to expect her to contribute 2/3rd more effort at home -- her job is probably more stressful, draining and in most ways "harder" than mine.
  - eru 13y ago
    At these income levels you should probably just hire a maid.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Haven't you heard, $200k household income is barely scraping by
dreeves 13y ago
Here was my answer to a similar question on LessWrong: Bethany and I philosophically bite the bullet on this, which is basically ... the wealthy person gets their way all the time and the poor person gets what's to them a lot of money and everyone is happy. If that's unpalatable or feels unfair then I think the principled solution is for the wealthy person to simply redress the unfairness with a lump sum payment to redistribute the wealth. I don't think it's reasonable -- ignoring all the psychology and social intricacies, as I'm wont to do [https://xkcd.com/592/ https://xkcd.com/592/] -- to object both to auctions with disparate wealth and to lump sum redistribution to achieve fairness. Now that I'm introspecting, I suppose it's the case that Bethany and I tend to seize excuses to redistribute wealth, but they have to be plausible ones.
- phillmv 13y ago
  I think it's valuable as a method for resolving disputes. But I think you'll probably have to permanently redistribute wealth within your relationship or else I can imagine it breeding resentment. Cashflow is going to make a bigger difference in all the little disputes that will grow into bigger disputes. Or you could apply an inflation multiplier on your respective bets adjusted to the ratio of your respective incomes - but then the exercise may become moot as it renders it as less simple dispute settling mechanism. At the end of the day, you still have to apply some psychology above and beyond your auction market - the article concludes with >Recently Danny and Bethany haggled to see if he would drive her home after a long day of work or if she would have to ride her bike. She bet $15, and he intentionally "lost," so that he could do her the favor. :P
  - dreeves 13y ago
    Here's the full story on that, as told by me and Bethany to the reporter: BETHANY: > Here's another example of real-world yootling: I worked late at the office yesterday and once all our beemergencies were dispatched, we had an auction over IM to see if Danny would come pick me up from the office or if I'd ride my bike / the bus home: > [IM transcript where sealed bids are revealed to be 15 (Bethany) and 14 (me); we have a hipchat bot to facilitate this] > So Danny came to fetch me, and I paid him 0 * 14 DANNY: > To clarify "drive you halfway home" was my way of offering to make it a joint decision whether to drive her home. So I'd either drive her home and she'd pay me something or I'd not drive her and pay her something. That probably sounds impossibly weird. The advantage is that I can offer the favor and the auction makes sure it only happens if she values it more than it costs me. Ie, it's the quantified equivalent of "are you sure? don't you need to get to sleep yourself?" etc. > Yootling to do her the favor is mathematically equivalent to doing her half the favor. Or you can think of it like this: I'm committing to either doing her the favor for less money than she values the favor, or to giving her an amount of money equal to how much she values the favor. > Again, the real point is just to make sure the favor only happens if it's actually socially efficient -- if it's not more skin off my nose than the favor is actually worth to her.
richforrester 13y ago
They should just factor the bids. Both bid 10, but his counts as 10 and hers as 15 or 20 for win/lose purposes. Bam. Solved. (read: "this post is slightly tongue-in-cheek")

sliverstorm 13y ago

Was the 1950's logic fundamentally wrong? If one partner is not working, should they not contribute more to the house?

0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
And is 1950's logic different than logic?
- throwawayXYZ83 13y ago
  The second definition is being used here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
aneisf 13y ago
Maybe not, but in this case both partners are working. In fact, the wife could very well be working more and still earning less.
dsrguru 13y ago
1950s logic (at least in the US) was not that if one partner is not earning money, they should contribute more to the house. 1950s logic was that the male partner earns the money, and the female partner should be satisfied with housework, regardless of whether or not she prefers it. This logic cyclically resulted from, and resulted in, many parents only putting their male children through college.
- kcanini 13y ago
  Interesting that you're concerned about whether the woman preferred the role she was assigned, but fail to consider the man's preferences.
georgemcbay 13y ago
IMO the part where the full-time worker was expected to do less at home than the one with no job was not wrong, the wrong part came in the form of the assumption that the person working would be the man, and that other than in exceptional cases he would be the only one working. Also, assuming both partners are working roughly equally, I don't think it is fair to split the household contributions based on money earned. eg. If I'm a software developer making $150,000 and I'm married to a teacher who is making $50k and we both work full-time, it makes no sense for me to expect her to contribute 2/3rd more effort at home -- her job is probably more stressful, draining and in most ways "harder" than mine.
- eru 13y ago
  At these income levels you should probably just hire a maid.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Haven't you heard, $200k household income is barely scraping by

dreeves 13y ago

Here was my answer to a similar question on LessWrong: Bethany and I philosophically bite the bullet on this, which is basically ... the wealthy person gets their way all the time and the poor person gets what's to them a lot of money and everyone is happy. If that's unpalatable or feels unfair then I think the principled solution is for the wealthy person to simply redress the unfairness with a lump sum payment to redistribute the wealth. I don't think it's reasonable -- ignoring all the psychology and social intricacies, as I'm wont to do [https://xkcd.com/592/ https://xkcd.com/592/] -- to object both to auctions with disparate wealth and to lump sum redistribution to achieve fairness. Now that I'm introspecting, I suppose it's the case that Bethany and I tend to seize excuses to redistribute wealth, but they have to be plausible ones.

phillmv 13y ago
I think it's valuable as a method for resolving disputes. But I think you'll probably have to permanently redistribute wealth within your relationship or else I can imagine it breeding resentment. Cashflow is going to make a bigger difference in all the little disputes that will grow into bigger disputes. Or you could apply an inflation multiplier on your respective bets adjusted to the ratio of your respective incomes - but then the exercise may become moot as it renders it as less simple dispute settling mechanism. At the end of the day, you still have to apply some psychology above and beyond your auction market - the article concludes with >Recently Danny and Bethany haggled to see if he would drive her home after a long day of work or if she would have to ride her bike. She bet $15, and he intentionally "lost," so that he could do her the favor. :P
- dreeves 13y ago
  Here's the full story on that, as told by me and Bethany to the reporter: BETHANY: > Here's another example of real-world yootling: I worked late at the office yesterday and once all our beemergencies were dispatched, we had an auction over IM to see if Danny would come pick me up from the office or if I'd ride my bike / the bus home: > [IM transcript where sealed bids are revealed to be 15 (Bethany) and 14 (me); we have a hipchat bot to facilitate this] > So Danny came to fetch me, and I paid him 0 * 14 DANNY: > To clarify "drive you halfway home" was my way of offering to make it a joint decision whether to drive her home. So I'd either drive her home and she'd pay me something or I'd not drive her and pay her something. That probably sounds impossibly weird. The advantage is that I can offer the favor and the auction makes sure it only happens if she values it more than it costs me. Ie, it's the quantified equivalent of "are you sure? don't you need to get to sleep yourself?" etc. > Yootling to do her the favor is mathematically equivalent to doing her half the favor. Or you can think of it like this: I'm committing to either doing her the favor for less money than she values the favor, or to giving her an amount of money equal to how much she values the favor. > Again, the real point is just to make sure the favor only happens if it's actually socially efficient -- if it's not more skin off my nose than the favor is actually worth to her.

richforrester 13y ago

They should just factor the bids. Both bid 10, but his counts as 10 and hers as 15 or 20 for win/lose purposes. Bam. Solved. (read: "this post is slightly tongue-in-cheek")