Thanks so much for the awesome discussion here, everyone! Here's another example as told by us to the reporter, that didn't make the cut: ("D" is me and "B" is

Thanks so much for the awesome discussion here, everyone! Here's another example as told by us to the reporter, that didn't make the cut: ("D" is me and "B" is Bethany, my spouse/cofounder) Another funny auction today, with discussion in our Beeminder developer chatroom. We also conducted the auction via a chatbot that we wrote [https://github.com/aaronpk/zenircbot-bid https://github.com/aaronpk/zenircbot-bid]. You'll see what I mean: (there's actually another little auction that happens as well) D: /bid with @bee for skate in with keys Bot: Ok, collecting bids from: @bee, @dreev Bot: Bidding complete! Here are the bids: @bee: 8, @dreev: 45 D: /roll 10 Bot: 1 [we upgraded the bot in the meantime so the dice rolling to determine payment is built in] D: !! D: now i have to pay bee $80 [$8*10] to not skate her the keys D: done Aaron: so confused D: we can explain if you'd like! D: here's a hypothetical normal-person equivalent of what just happened: "i forgot my keys, any chance you were going to skate in soon?" "i wasn't going to but i could, because i love you!" "that's ok, honey, i'm fine at this coffee shop till my next appointment, when i was going to come home anyway" "well, ok, i'll let you fend for yourself. i'll clean the bathroom to make it up to you." D: so the bids replace the feeling each other out -- "i *could* skate in", "that's ok", etc. -- and the payment replaces the "i'll make it up to you" Uluc: Ok, I committed the change. It might be best if you took a look at the source in case I screwed something obvious up. app/models/goal.rb line 197 D: /bid with @bee for deploying uluc's code Bot: Ok, collecting bids from: @bee, @dreev [nerd discussion about beeminder code redacted] Bot: Bidding complete! Here are the bids: @bee: 0, @dreev: 10 [bethany deploys the code] Aaron: do those bids mean bee doesn't care, and dreev was more willing to pay $10 than to deploy? B: yes D: right D: did my normal-person equivalent make sense? Aaron: sort of yes D: we think of it as mathematically equivalent to me *halfway* skating bethany the keys. i could've just done it cuz i'm nice, or she could've just refused the favor cuz she's nice. instead we made it a 50/50 joint decision for which outcome would happen so it's like half a favor. and more importantly, it ensures the favor only happens if it's socially efficient for the favor to happen B: also, the "hey, i forgot my keys. were you planning to skate in today?" "Not really, maybe." "Oh, well I was planning to come home after this appointment anyway..." all did happen behind the scenes. but instead of continuing that back and forth for another few iterations we stopped there and yootled.