Game Theory For Baby Names

[Xmara]

Heh. I stole my name from Tillandsia xerographica. How was the name of this species chosen? What about Begonia darthvaderiana or Dracula vampira?

Have you ever participated in the naming of a species?

Yes.

And if we had done it your way, it would have been Exxon Mobilosaurus. So I'm glad we didn't.

If we are talking about naming people or things for corporations, then let's take a moment and appreciate the couple who named their child Facebook.

[Neanderthaland]

Yes.

And if we had done it your way, it would have been Exxon Mobilosaurus. So I'm glad we didn't.

There’s some book called.. umm.. Nation- something or other by some Australian author that relates to all this.. no surprise if you’ve not heard of it.

I can't imagine what such an obscure author has to do with this thread, forum, or game.

[Bombadil]

There’s some book called.. umm.. Nation- something or other by some Australian author that relates to all this.. no surprise if you’ve not heard of it.

I can't imagine what such an obscure author has to do with this thread, forum, or game.

I’ve heard he’s a neo-nazi too, google his image, total skinhead..

[Petrasylvania]

Any parents lazy enough to crowdsource their children's names can't say they didn't have it coming later on in life when the child is either messed up spectacularly due to the unique vapidness of their birthname or decides it's time to make Mommy/Daddy and Mommy/Daddy pay for the life of humiliating misery.

[Xerographica]

This is why you wrap it up into hypotheticals - it means you don't have to show your hand and you can just try to force people into giving up and picking a face-down card you've gimmicked earlier, instead of coming out clean, showing us your sleeves, and outlining a) what your system is, and b) what the fuck it's supposed to do better than a normal system. This gives you the ability to talk yourself to climax without having to actually deal with meaningful criticism, because you get to explain the increasingly more arcane hypotheticals and shoehorn the system in while people are trying to figure out why the fuck you've recently become obsessed with child education, or baby names, or growling stomachs, or whatever.

In the OP I gave a real-life example of voting being used to name something. I did not, however, provide a real-life example of spending being used to name something. Well... sure there are plenty real-life examples of naming rights being sold to the highest bidder. But I don't think that any of these examples are the same as what I described in the OP.

In real life, three of my friends and I are starting a website. We came up with a list of more than 400 potential domain names. We are in the process of using the system that I described in the OP to try and choose the most valuable name. I went first and divided up around $30 dollars between a dozen or so names. My friend Mimi went next and put $10 dollars on one name that I did not put any money on. If the game ended now then her name would win. The two other people can now see our allocations. What strategy will they use? I don't know. They can allocate their money to names with or without allocations. What are the chances that they will prefer any of the dozen or so allocated names out of the 400 names?

Unfortunately, I really don't have the words to effectively describe this system. Perhaps somebody would be inclined to use the word "chaos". But it really isn't chaos. None of us are going to randomly allocate our money. None of us would put any money on names that don't match our preferences. We're only going to put our money on names that match our preferences. We logically want to put our money on the names that most closely match our preferences. Except, if nobody else puts any money on Mimi's preferred name, then it's not going to win. So she will either spend more money on this name or take her $10 dollars and try and redistribute it somehow.

In one sense it's like chess or checkers. There's action and reaction. But in neither of those games can you combine forces with other players. So perhaps it's closer to the Chinese card game dou dizhu.

Last year I started a thread about how the Libertarian Party (LP) gave donors the opportunity to use their donations to help choose a convention theme. Here were the results...

$6,327.00 — I’m That Libertarian!
$5,200.00 — Building Bridges, Not Walls
$1,620.00 — Pro Choice on Everything
$1,377.77 — Empowering the Individual
$395.00 — The Power of Principle
$150.00 — Future of Freedom
$135.00 — Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
$105.00 — Rise of the Libertarians
$75.00 — Free Lives Matter
$42.00 — Be Me, Be Free
$17.76 — Make Taxation Theft Again
$15.42 — Taxation is Theft
$15.00 — Jazzed About Liberty
$15.00 — All of Your Freedoms, All of the Time
$5.00 — Am I Being Detained!
$5.00 — Liberty Here and Now

I don't know how many donors participated in this process. But I'm sure that the number of donors greatly exceeded the number of potential themes. Was the most useful theme chosen out of all the potential themes? Would a more useful theme have been chosen if voting had been used instead of spending? What if the LP leadership had simply selected the theme?

I wrap things in hypotheticals because there's a scarcity of real-life examples to examine/analyze. Personally I don't think that the scarcity of real-life examples proves that this system is inferior to the alternatives. Most people haven't even thought of using this type of system. To figure out the true usefulness of this system there really needs to be a lot more people examining it. Not just examining, but testing as well. We're really not going to make much scientific progress without actual testing.

Sure, I can ask you to be open-minded. But can anybody choose to be open-minded? I'm not sure. Right now I'm majorly biased towards this system. Can I choose to be less biased? Probably not. This is why more scrutiny is always better than less scrutiny.

[Xerographica]

Heh. I stole my name from Tillandsia xerographica. How was the name of this species chosen? What about Begonia darthvaderiana or Dracula vampira?

Have you ever participated in the naming of a species?

Yes.

And if we had done it your way, it would have been Exxon Mobilosaurus. So I'm glad we didn't.

Many species are named after their discoverers. I don't see any sort of real difference between a species being named after a person or after a company. At least in the case of the company, money would be raised for a worthy cause.

Right now you're assuming that companies would even be interested in naming new species. I have no idea whether this assumption is true. If it is true, I have no idea how large the demand would be.

I thought that you could buy the naming rights for stars but a quick search revealed this...

Thus, like true love and many other of the best things in human life, the beauty of the night sky is not for sale, but is free for all to enjoy. True, the 'gift' of a star may open someone's eyes to the beauty of the night sky. This is indeed a worthy goal, but it does not justify deceiving people into believing that real star names can be bought like any other commodity.

If NASA had sold the naming rights for stars then right now there would be a thriving colony on Mars. I'm not sure if this is true but I do like the sound of it. Alternatively, if government organizations did everything in their power to minimize the burden on taxpayers, I'm sure that taxpayers would be very appreciative.

[Camicon]

*snip*
If NASA had sold the naming rights for stars then right now there would be a thriving colony on Mars. I'm not sure if this is true but I do like the sound of it. Alternatively, if government organizations did everything in their power to minimize the burden on taxpayers, I'm sure that taxpayers would be very appreciative.

NASA didn't discover Mars, and implying that they would even be able to "sell the naming rights" to a planet epitomizes your complete lack of awareness about the world in general.

[Saiwania]

I might have input, but whether someone listens to me or not is on them. I say screw having a unique name. A proper name has to be culturally accepted or resume worthy. There is a certain list of recognized names out there, but it is specific to culture or geographic location. In Russia, Ivan is a good name, not so much in Australia. In Australia you'd want a name which is more common there.

If someone has a silly or stupid name because their parents didn't care or know any better, they will just wind up legally changing their name anyways, if they want a slightly easier time moving up in the world. I definitely would.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Thinking too small. Why not crowdfund small cash bribes to persuade the poor to sign away naming rights for their family in perpetuity and then set up a stock market for name futures backed by a cryptocurrency based on the number of babies in the system?

[Xerographica]

Thinking too small. Why not crowdfund small cash bribes to persuade the poor to sign away naming rights for their family in perpetuity and then set up a stock market for name futures backed by a cryptocurrency based on the number of babies in the system?

Can we also commodify signature spaces? I want to buy your entire signature space for one week. How much? Does it depend on what I want to promote?

[Dumb Ideologies]

Thinking too small. Why not crowdfund small cash bribes to persuade the poor to sign away naming rights for their family in perpetuity and then set up a stock market for name futures backed by a cryptocurrency based on the number of babies in the system?

Can we also commodify signature spaces? I want to buy your entire signature space for one week. How much? Does it depend on what I want to promote?

Good question. My current combination of self-expression and ego-stroking evidently has a certain value to me or I wouldn't spend time editing it.

But I don't know how far this market could go, what opportunities it might offer for "trading up". Maybe with a few months of rent I could afford a couple of primetime TV advert slots or for all the local buses to be emblazoned with adverts singing my praises.

[Hack Nike]

Yes.

And if we had done it your way, it would have been Exxon Mobilosaurus. So I'm glad we didn't.

If we are talking about naming people or things for corporations, then let's take a moment and appreciate the couple who named their child Facebook.

Hi.

Or we can just look at the book called Jennifer Government

[Ethel mermania]

Any parents lazy enough to crowdsource their children's names can't say they didn't have it coming later on in life when the child is either messed up spectacularly due to the unique vapidness of their birthname or decides it's time to make Mommy/Daddy and Mommy/Daddy pay for the life of humiliating misery.

A couple things.

Crowdsoucing a name seems like a hell of a lot of work, putting thr thing together, promoting it to maximize the size of the crowd, tabulating the results, giving time for people to spend their money. It would be a lot easier to just call the kid "ethel", or "fred" if it's a girl.

Two. ThebKids are going to embarrass the hell out of you anyway, it's what they do.

[Ethel mermania]

Thinking too small. Why not crowdfund small cash bribes to persuade the poor to sign away naming rights for their family in perpetuity and then set up a stock market for name futures backed by a cryptocurrency based on the number of babies in the system?

Can we also commodify signature spaces? I want to buy your entire signature space for one week. How much? Does it depend on what I want to promote?

100 dollars american. sig. Can't insult anyone or be obscene.

[Trumptonium]

Um there is a time limit, it's called birth. Ya need a name before the kid is born. Also I'm extremely confused about how my future boyfriend is pregos

What?

'Time limit' for naming a child goes from a minimum of 6 months in Australia to a maximum of never receiving a legal name in Germany.

My dad was named almost a full year after his birth.

42 days in the UK, albeit the fines are so small for not following this guideline that it's basically forever.

I can't find any relevant information about a federal US law regarding naming customs, so I can only assume it is your own discretion as well, so long as you aren't rushing to get a Social Security number. I bet the Amish can survive from cradle to grave with no legal name.

[Thermodolia]

Um there is a time limit, it's called birth. Ya need a name before the kid is born. Also I'm extremely confused about how my future boyfriend is pregos

How long would it take until no more pareto improvements could be made? In the scenario you're the significant other.

Generally about 9 months. Ok either way it still doesn't work because I'm a dude and a dude can't get pregos.

[Thermodolia]

Um there is a time limit, it's called birth. Ya need a name before the kid is born. Also I'm extremely confused about how my future boyfriend is pregos

What?

'Time limit' for naming a child goes from a minimum of 6 months in Australia to a maximum of never receiving a legal name in Germany.

My dad was named almost a full year after his birth.

42 days in the UK, albeit the fines are so small for not following this guideline that it's basically forever.

I can't find any relevant information about a federal US law regarding naming customs, so I can only assume it is your own discretion as well, so long as you aren't rushing to get a Social Security number. I bet the Amish can survive from cradle to grave with no legal name.

A few pointers first:

The US is a federal government so the states have way more power than in the UK or Poland
Theoretically each state sets its own naming requirements, however because social security is mandatory at birth all naming limits are generally at birth to just a few days after

Social Security is mandatory and automatic. You have to fill out an exemption form before your kid is born if you don't want a social security number, however exemptions are extremely rare.

So like I said earlier, around here it's generally at birth or before it.

[Salandriagado]

Um there is a time limit, it's called birth. Ya need a name before the kid is born. Also I'm extremely confused about how my future boyfriend is pregos

How long would it take until no more pareto improvements could be made? In the scenario you're the significant other.

Literally instant, because no spending at all is pareto optimal here.

[The Holy Therns]

You just pick a name and then give everyone enough money until they agree with you. Do you have any other threads?

How much money would that take? And, what are the chances that you have that much money? If you do have that much money, what are the chances that you'd be willing to spend it on a baby name? I do have another thread... Growling Stomach Proves You're Truly Hungry. If you read through that thread then you'll notice that I clearly won it. So now I'm going for double or nothing.

This post made me think about this tweet for some mysterious reason.

[Galloism]

How long would it take until no more pareto improvements could be made? In the scenario you're the significant other.

Literally instant, because no spending at all is pareto optimal here.

Can't be instant. You forgot the speed of light delay.

[Xerographica]

How long would it take until no more pareto improvements could be made? In the scenario you're the significant other.

Generally about 9 months. Ok either way it still doesn't work because I'm a dude and a dude can't get pregos.

I'm not sure about 9 months. In order for a baby to get named, one has to be borned, so somebody gotta get preggo.

[Xerographica]

How much money would that take? And, what are the chances that you have that much money? If you do have that much money, what are the chances that you'd be willing to spend it on a baby name? I do have another thread... Growling Stomach Proves You're Truly Hungry. If you read through that thread then you'll notice that I clearly won it. So now I'm going for double or nothing.

This post made me think about this tweet for some mysterious reason.

I hadn't heard of "dril" before. It felt like there was some real meaning there, but it was always just out of reach.

[Xerographica]

Can we also commodify signature spaces? I want to buy your entire signature space for one week. How much? Does it depend on what I want to promote?

100 dollars american. sig. Can't insult anyone or be obscene.

Seems rather... pricey. Is this a better or worse deal?

[Community Values]

why would I want to influence what a baby's name would be? I'm not spending a single cent for the kid to be named Richard.

[Xerographica]

why would I want to influence what a baby's name would be? I'm not spending a single cent for the kid to be named Richard.

You only have an incentive to influence things that interest you. No interest? No incentive. No influence. Are you interested in making sure that some baby has the most useful name? If not, then you'd have absolutely no incentive to influence the baby's name.