4th Grade Nation State

[Camicon]

*snip*

Fantastic job completely ignoring the issue that Dazchan raised.

[Galloism]

Honestly what's more interesting to me is the bidding amounts from the gamblers. In the morning they took a severe uptick. In the afternoon they nudged upwards slightly.

There were more gamblers this time. All the gamblers in the morning class were burned while none of the gamblers in the afternoon class were burned. When being burned gambling is so random, it doesn't seem like it's a very profitable long-term strategy.

Did you forget to mention the decision of the voting class? Or did I miss it?

Don't remember if I mentioned it and hard to dig through the forum on a phone.

In case I missed it, it was 15 - 2, in favor of outside.

[Lost heros]

Honestly what's more interesting to me is the bidding amounts from the gamblers. In the morning they took a severe uptick. In the afternoon they nudged upwards slightly.

There were more gamblers this time. All the gamblers in the morning class were burned while none of the gamblers in the afternoon class were burned. When being burned gambling is so random, it doesn't seem like it's a very profitable long-term strategy.

Did you forget to mention the decision of the voting class? Or did I miss it?

If only there were a long term, reliable way to always turn a profit that had been mentioned is many numerous times in this thread.

If only

[Salandriagado]

According to Google, the US population, rounded to the nearest million, is 319 million.

Let's say that someone comes up with the idea that humans of a certain race/colour/religion are "less human" than others, and we should be able to own them like property. The overwhelming majority of people would consider this to be a very bad idea. Let's assume that 99.7% of Americans consider the idea of owning another human abhorrent. In raw numbers, this would be approximately 318 million people, with around 1 million people being pro-slavery.

The issue comes up for voting. It's dead in the water. Why? Because the majority of people recognise a disgusting idea when they see it.

The issue comes up for bidding. 318 million people spend an average of $1000 each on the "no" campaign. Some more, some less, depending on circumstances, but it averages to $1000 per person. That's $318 billion. 1 million people spend $320,000 on the "yes" campaign. That's $320 billion. Despite the overwhelming majority finding the idea detestable, slavery is now a thing because a couple of people have deeper pockets than the rest.

"Ah," you say, "but they'll get MONEY!"

Yes, they will. Their civil rights, liberty and personhood was valued at a little over 1 billion dollars. Given that they've lost their personhood and are no longer considered human, would they even receive it? That would depend on how the law that 0.3% of people actually wanted was written.

Now do you understand why coasianism is worse than voting?

If you had searched this thread for slavery, you would have realized that we've already discussed/debated the example of slavery.

Let's say that each month we had to pay $1 dollar but we could choose which posts we spend our pennies on. What happens when you click on this thread? Chances are pretty good that you'd sort the posts by their value. You'd want to quickly/easily find and read the most valuable posts in this thread. Would Galloism's posts on slavery be on the first page? I don't know exactly where they'd be. But I do know that the more pennies that Galloism and others were willing to spend on his slavery posts... the more likely it is that you and others would see them when you sorted the posts in this thread by their value.

Of course, if Galloism spent his pennies on his own posts... the money wouldn't go into his digital wallet... it would go into Max Barry's digital wallet.

So are you with me? Can you imagine all 673 posts in this thread sorted by their value?

Sure: it would be completely and utterly unreadable.

Along comes Bob. He posts in this thread... "Slavery is wonderful". How many pennies would he spend on his post? How many pennies would you spend on his post? Personally, I wouldn't spend any pennies on his post. I'm pretty sure that, in this regard, I'm the rule rather than the exception. So we can reasonably guess that, when the posts in this thread were sorted by their value, Bob's post would be towards the very bottom of the list.

So would we use coasianism to determine whether slavery should be legal? What would be the point? We would all be able to clearly see that slavery is a very lowly ranked/valued idea.

If you're interested in a fuller/deeper/bigger/longer explanation... Sorting Ideas.

You continue to assume that the people running your system will be doing so in good faith, wanting nothing more than to present only the "right" sort of things to the general population (meaning ones where the bidding will be close), and that everybody involved will participate in good faith: a brief look at any collection of politicians in the world will tell you exactly how wrong this assumption is.

[Lost heros]

If you had searched this thread for slavery, you would have realized that we've already discussed/debated the example of slavery.

Let's say that each month we had to pay $1 dollar but we could choose which posts we spend our pennies on. What happens when you click on this thread? Chances are pretty good that you'd sort the posts by their value. You'd want to quickly/easily find and read the most valuable posts in this thread. Would Galloism's posts on slavery be on the first page? I don't know exactly where they'd be. But I do know that the more pennies that Galloism and others were willing to spend on his slavery posts... the more likely it is that you and others would see them when you sorted the posts in this thread by their value.

Of course, if Galloism spent his pennies on his own posts... the money wouldn't go into his digital wallet... it would go into Max Barry's digital wallet.

So are you with me? Can you imagine all 673 posts in this thread sorted by their value?

Sure: it would be completely and utterly unreadable.

Along comes Bob. He posts in this thread... "Slavery is wonderful". How many pennies would he spend on his post? How many pennies would you spend on his post? Personally, I wouldn't spend any pennies on his post. I'm pretty sure that, in this regard, I'm the rule rather than the exception. So we can reasonably guess that, when the posts in this thread were sorted by their value, Bob's post would be towards the very bottom of the list.

So would we use coasianism to determine whether slavery should be legal? What would be the point? We would all be able to clearly see that slavery is a very lowly ranked/valued idea.

If you're interested in a fuller/deeper/bigger/longer explanation... Sorting Ideas.

You continue to assume that the people running your system will be doing so in good faith, wanting nothing more than to present only the "right" sort of things to the general population (meaning ones where the bidding will be close), and that everybody involved will participate in good faith: a brief look at any collection of politicians in the world will tell you exactly how wrong this assumption is.

Not only does he assume people will act in good faith, he actually believes that the best strategy to make money and value content would be to act in good faith, which is so blatantly naive and factually wrong.

[Galloism]

Of course, if Galloism spent his pennies on his own posts... the money wouldn't go into his digital wallet... it would go into Max Barry's digital wallet.

Then Galloism, if he bothered to stay at all (unlikely in of itself) would allocate all 100 pennies to his wife's posts, and his wife would allocate all 100 pennies to his posts. Heck, Galloism could probably make a script that would do it automatically.

So are you with me? Can you imagine all 673 posts in this thread sorted by their value?

Posts divorced of all context would be borderline unreadable if not completely nonsensical.

Imagine if you took the third presidential debate and sorted each sentence in alphabetical order and listened to it that way. Although that sounds hilarious for lots of reasons, and I am now considering doing just that for the lulz value, it would be impossible to follow. That's basically what you're proposing.


Also, repeatedly linking to your own blog doesn't convince us of anything.

[Xerographica]

Of course, if Galloism spent his pennies on his own posts... the money wouldn't go into his digital wallet... it would go into Max Barry's digital wallet.

Then Galloism, if he bothered to stay at all (unlikely in of itself) would allocate all 100 pennies to his wife's posts, and his wife would allocate all 100 pennies to his posts. Heck, Galloism could probably make a script that would do it automatically.

Which is it? Do you want me to believe that you would leave? Or do you want me to believe that you would stay in order to exploit the system? If you want me to believe that you would leave, then clearly I'm not going to believe that exploiting the system would be that profitable.

So are you with me? Can you imagine all 673 posts in this thread sorted by their value?

Posts divorced of all context would be borderline unreadable if not completely nonsensical.

Check out the comments on this article. You can sort them three ways...

1. Best
2. Newest
3. Oldest

Did that just blow your little mind?

Also, repeatedly linking to your own blog doesn't convince us of anything.

Define "repeatedly".

[Salandriagado]

Then Galloism, if he bothered to stay at all (unlikely in of itself) would allocate all 100 pennies to his wife's posts, and his wife would allocate all 100 pennies to his posts. Heck, Galloism could probably make a script that would do it automatically.

Which is it? Do you want me to believe that you would leave? Or do you want me to believe that you would stay in order to exploit the system? If you want me to believe that you would leave, then clearly I'm not going to believe that exploiting the system would be that profitable.

Posts divorced of all context would be borderline unreadable if not completely nonsensical.

Check out the comments on this article. You can sort them three ways...

1. Best
2. Newest
3. Oldest

Did that just blow your little mind?

Notice how no actual discussion is happening in those comments. Funny, that.

[Lost heros]

1. Best Illogical and random
2. Newest Backwards
3. Oldest Forwards

Fixed that for ya.

Which is it? Do you want me to believe that you would leave? Or do you want me to believe that you would stay in order to exploit the system? If you want me to believe that you would leave, then clearly I'm not going to believe that exploiting the system would be that profitable.


Check out the comments on this article. You can sort them three ways...

1. Best
2. Newest
3. Oldest

Did that just blow your little mind?

Notice how no actual discussion is happening in those comments. Funny, that.

They also use Reddit's comments within comments to create multilinear dialogue, which is quite different from NS's system of threads with replies.

[Galloism]

Then Galloism, if he bothered to stay at all (unlikely in of itself) would allocate all 100 pennies to his wife's posts, and his wife would allocate all 100 pennies to his posts. Heck, Galloism could probably make a script that would do it automatically.

Which is it? Do you want me to believe that you would leave? Or do you want me to believe that you would stay in order to exploit the system? If you want me to believe that you would leave, then clearly I'm not going to believe that exploiting the system would be that profitable.

Well, a forum only has value to the extent it has interesting members. Nationstates has many interesting members. If most of those left as a result of putting in a paywall, which would likely happen, I would also likely also leave and find another forum which has interesting members. There's also the problem of putting credit card or banking information out there to fund the original dollar. I don't like that information being out there (sorry Max, it's not that I don't trust you per se, but hacking is a problem these days).

So, in the sense the entire forum would probably crash and burn if it implemented your idea, and giving the substantial opportunity costs of even putting banking/CC information out there, it would be likely that I'd leave. If I decided to take the risk and stay, and sufficient nationstaters also did so, it would likely be in the full knowledge that we could exploit the shit out of the system so as to avoid paying into the pool more than once.

Posts divorced of all context would be borderline unreadable if not completely nonsensical.

Check out the comments on this article. You can sort them three ways...

1. Best
2. Newest
3. Oldest

Did that just blow your little mind?

Different structure to a different purpose, and even in the "best" structure, the posts maintain their conversation trees. IE, if comment B is responding to comment A and comment C and responding to comment A, and comment D is responding to comment B, comment C and B could be in either order but always under comment A, while comment D will always be under comment B, so even if you sort by "best" it doesn't all wind up out of order like it would in a forum conversation.

Applies to a forum, which is more like a group conversation than a conversation tree, these are the options:

1. Nonsensical
2. Backwards
3. Forwards

Also, repeatedly linking to your own blog doesn't convince us of anything.

Define "repeatedly".

To do again and again.


EDIT: Btw, I've just received the spreadsheets (well, just got to the computer anyway). I'm in the process of merging comment data with spreadsheet data and will crop screenshots and upload shortly.

EDIT #2: And... photobucket is down for maintenance again. Their cat gif says they'll be back up shortly.

[Xuskeuclite]

why are you people arguing over this so much you people dislike the idea some of you like it end of story shut the f#ck up the end

[Camicon]

why are you people arguing over this so much you people dislike the idea some of you like it end of story shut the f#ck up the end

If you have nothing to add then why post?

[Lost heros]

why are you people arguing over this so much you people dislike the idea some of you like it end of story shut the f#ck up the end

What a quality post that contributed to the overall ongoing dialogue on an idea in debate forum where people have discussions on ideas. Truly spectacular.

[Xuskeuclite]

why are you people arguing over this so much you people dislike the idea some of you like it end of story shut the f#ck up the end

If you have nothing to add then why post?

if your post mean nothing why post?

[Camicon]

If you have nothing to add then why post?

if your post mean nothing why post?

That's what I asked you.

[Xuskeuclite]

if your post mean nothing why post?

That's what I asked you.

same to you still

[Camicon]

That's what I asked you.

same to you still

Are you confused?

You posted about how this thread is pointless and blahblahblah "you people dislike the idea some of you like it end of story shut the f#ck up the end", demanding that we cease our conversation because you don't see the point of having it.

So I asked you why you bothered posting if you didn't intend to add anything to the conversation. In turn, you asked me why I bother posting if I don't add anything to the conversation.

Your question makes no sense. You're asking me why I do something that I don't do.

Look, this seems to be a little much for you, so you might be more comfortable with something more your speed. I'm sure F7 has some fun threads you can run around in.

[The Archregimancy]

why are you people arguing over this so much you people dislike the idea some of you like it end of story shut the f#ck up the end

*** 1-day ban for trolling. ***

You seriously need to consider the pattern of your posting behaviour on this site.

[Galloism]

Photobucket is back up. Here's the morning spreadsheet:



Weather: 58 degrees, few clouds, wind light and variable (very little breeze for you non-aviation types)


Afternoon and analysis shortly.

[Galloism]

Here's the afternoon. Weather: 71 degrees, clear skies, wind out of the south southwest at 4 knots.

[Lost heros]

Finally the profiteers figured it out in the morning class: I wonder how long till the afternoon class gets it.
Also note, that after the profiteers got burned from gambling, instead of giving up on turning a profit, they retreated to the safety option in the system which always made money, even if it would be less than the gamble.

[Galloism]

Finally the profiteers figured it out in the morning class: I wonder how long till the afternoon class gets it

There also seems to be, in general, a dwindling of people playing it Xero's way class to class.

I was hesitant to point that out with only two trend points (Mon and Wed), but through Friday, it seems to be a consistent trend.

[Xerographica]

Finally the profiteers figured it out in the morning class: I wonder how long till the afternoon class gets it.
Also note, that after the profiteers got burned from gambling, instead of giving up on turning a profit, they retreated to the safety option in the system which always made money, even if it would be less than the gamble.

In the morning class, there were 4 students who weren't willing to spend anything. What can we guess? We can guess that they could care less whether class is inside or outside. But what if it was raining/snowing/freezing outside? Would these 4 students still be perfectly ambivalent?

You refer to hedging (spending equally on both sides) as the "safety option". But will it truly be the "safety option" when the potential outcome of winning chump change is having class outside in a blizzard?

Hey Galloism, what was the outcome of the voting class?

[Neutraligon]

Finally the profiteers figured it out in the morning class: I wonder how long till the afternoon class gets it.
Also note, that after the profiteers got burned from gambling, instead of giving up on turning a profit, they retreated to the safety option in the system which always made money, even if it would be less than the gamble.

In the morning class, there were 4 students who weren't willing to spend anything. What can we guess? We can guess that they could care less whether class is inside or outside. But what if it was raining/snowing/freezing outside? Would these 4 students still be perfectly ambivalent?

You refer to hedging (spending equally on both sides) as the "safety option". But will it truly be the "safety option" when the potential outcome of winning chump change is having class outside in a blizzard?

Hey Galloism, what was the outcome of the voting class?

And in those condition if outside wins it then gets in the way of learning the purpose of the class. So how does your system deal with outcomes that directly harm the system and cannot be changed (the day is already lost once the vote has been set)?

I have also asked repeatedly how your system deals with someone who is deliberately trying to harm the government and gotten no answer. I am a supporter of Russia who is an American citizen. I want the US to release all classified documents and "bet" on that. I will likely lose, and make money, which I then bet on the classified documents being released. Eventually my money will be high enough that those who do not want the classified documents released cannot pay enough to prevent it from happening. Now what?

[Xerographica]

In the morning class, there were 4 students who weren't willing to spend anything. What can we guess? We can guess that they could care less whether class is inside or outside. But what if it was raining/snowing/freezing outside? Would these 4 students still be perfectly ambivalent?

You refer to hedging (spending equally on both sides) as the "safety option". But will it truly be the "safety option" when the potential outcome of winning chump change is having class outside in a blizzard?

Hey Galloism, what was the outcome of the voting class?

And in those condition if outside wins it then gets in the way of learning the purpose of the class. So how does your system deal with outcomes that directly harm the system and cannot be changed (the day is already lost once the vote has been set)?

All else being equal, if there are two classes that use coasianism... whichever class has the least cheaters... will win. I recently shared pragmatarianism and coasianism with The Economist. Let's say that The Economist and The Wall Street Journal both use coasianism to make decisions. Whichever publication has the most team players (honest spenders) will make better decisions.

I have also asked repeatedly how your system deals with someone who is deliberately trying to harm the government and gotten no answer. I am a supporter of Russia who is an American citizen. I want the US to release all classified documents and "bet" on that. I will likely lose, and make money, which I then bet on the classified documents being released. Eventually my money will be high enough that those who do not want the classified documents released cannot pay enough to prevent it from happening. Now what?

As I explained in this post, we would use the pragmatarian model to sort ideas by their value. Would we use coasianism for the least valuable ideas? Nope.