Game Theory For Baby Names

[Salandriagado]

Time is still our currency so that's the budget constraint taken care of. The next question is the utility of listening to music and everything that isn't doing that. This is like how consumer utilities for butter and milk-solids ultimately follow through to what the producer's going to offer. Based on the utility set up, the consumer will spend however much time to purchase however much listening to music time.

You can only prefer minutes over dollars if you perceive that minutes are a more accurate measure of usefulness. Because, if you perceived that minutes and dollars are equal measures of usefulness... then you would be indifferent which was used. I'd say, "Spotify should replace minutes with dollars." You'd say, "That's fine, the results will be exactly the same." There would be no debate/discussion/disagreement.

Given that you do obviously oppose replacing minutes with dollars, then you must perceive that minutes are a superior measure of usefulness. Personally, I have absolutely no reason to believe that minutes are a superior measure of usefulness. I obviously spend a lot more time in my threads than in other people's threads. Given the opportunity, I'd also spend a lot more dollars on my threads than on other people's threads.

What about books? From my perspective, by far the most useful book in the world is Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Let's say that Spotify and Amazon Kindle Unlimited were combined. If the Wealth of the Nations was one of the available titles, how would I divide my time between reading it and listening to music? I wouldn't spend any of my time reading the Wealth of Nations. I already read it. Instead, I'd spend far more time listening to music. Therefore, music is more useful to me than the Wealth of Nations? No. As usual, you forget the most fundamental economic question...

How should society's resources be divided?

Society's attention is an incredibly valuable resource. How do I want it divided between the Wealth of Nations and music? The only useful way to answer this question is by dollar division...

$10: Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations
$0: Blonde Redhead - Tons Confession
$0: Jamie xx - Gosh
$0: Weekend Wolves - You
$0: Hello Seahorse! - La Flotadera
$0: Kid Simius - The Flute Song
$0: Rone - Down for the Cause
$0: Jan Blomqvist - More
$0: Moderat - Running
$0: Bomb the Bass & Lali Puna - Recut

This really isn't how I divide my time between these things. But it is how I want society's attention divided between them.

This also contradicts your statements: your spending just told us that you don't want anybody to listen to any of that music ever.

[Maqo]

You know, i think i can connect the dots from here to an intetesting idea. However because you're so bad at articulating it, im going to claim the idea as my own (even though its probably not particularly novel and even less feasible) and post it when i get home.

I have an idea with this too, I'm curious to see if we're on the same train of thought...

I'm trying, really trying to give Xero the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there is some point he's getting at that he can't articulate properly.

So maybe the point is this:
A TV show has been running for a season or two. It's not doing well. Its is sold for (average) $3 per episdoe via iTunes and Google Play and all those places. But as it gets cancelled, a fan speaks up. He's an eccentric billionaire with an unhealthy obsession with the show, but he'll pay $1000 per episode and the producers can spend that money on advertising or whatever else they need.
And the producers think, by gosh! We should have thought of this before! There are some people out there who will pay more than $3 per episode. If the people who would still watch it for $4 per episode pay $4, and the people who would pay $10 pay $10, heck we can even let the people who would only pay $2 join in as well! If we do this we'll make heaps more money. We'll set it up as a website where people can donate, and all proceeds will go to advertising our show!

And then they implement the idea and suddenly their revenue falls by 33% as everyone starts paying $2 per episode and the show gets cancelled anyway.

I THINK what Xero is aiming at (and this meshes with other threads of his, and this silly idea of 'sacrifice') is that he wants consumers to voluntarily [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination]perfectly price discriminate[/quote] against themselves.

Just reading that phrase should give you an idea why it doesn't work.
Why would you voluntarily discriminate against yourself?

The reality is that the natural inclination, and the basic assumption of markets, is that people will do the opposite of this. A rational consumer will try to make things better for themselves by acquiring the same product at lower prices. Even if it was superrational to price discriminate against ones self, consumers are not superrational and the way to maximize value will be to pay less when possible.

Firms try all the time to price discriminate (or segregate), to varying degrees of success. However it is not something that people enter in to voluntarily and generally occurs due to either an imbalance of power between buyer and seller or lack of communication between buyers. Once buyers can communicate with each other they can discover what the lowest price other people have paid is, and strive to get that for themselves. Hence, in the example, the revenue actually drops rather than increasing.

[Xerographica]

For your reference, here's the equivalent exchange in human terms:
[Xero enters a restaurant and takes his seat].
Wendy: "Hi, I'm your waitress Wendy, how can I help you tonight?"
Xero: "Hmm. I've never been here before, can you tell me what's good?"
Wendy: "Sure thing. In my opinion, the best things on the menu are the veal tortellini or the beef cheeks"
Xero: "I don't believe you"
Wendy: "I beg your pardon?"
Xero: "You're not sacrificing anything to give me your opinion. How do I know you're being serious?"
Wendy: "I'm not really sure what you mean sir, I think those are our best dishes. If you don't like them perhaps the baked salmon might be more to your taste?"
Xero: "It's too risky for me to take your advice without some kind of show of sacrifice. Give me $10 then I'll take you seriously"
Wendy: "Ummm sir? This is a restaurant, you're the one who is supposed to be paying us, at least when you've ordered your food."
Xero: "You don't even have to give it to me, you can burn it if you'd like"
Wendy: "I'm not going to burn ten dollars to give you some advice. You can take my advice on the menu or not at all."
Xero: "Its really simple. Imagine you're ten bee stranded on a deserted island and the only things you can buy are the name of your sister's baby and 'The wealth of Nations'.... "
[Wendy leaves the table. Xero continues talking to himself]

The findings suggest that infants are able to calculate how much another person values something based on how much effort they put into getting it. - Anne Trafton, How badly do you want something? Babies can tell

[Maqo]

The findings suggest that infants are able to calculate how much another person values something based on how much effort they put into getting it. - Anne Trafton, How badly do you want something? Babies can tell

Thats nice. It doesnt rebut any of my points.

[Ifreann]

Take a step back for a moment.

Let's pretend you're a big fan of Breaking Bad... I don't know if this is true or not. You learn that someone else, say, me hasn't seen it. Do you:

1. Do nothing.
2. Crowdfund some advertising to encourage me to watch it.
3. Make a recommendation to me, e.g. "hey, Forsher, you should watch this show".
4. Do something else.

For whatever reason Xero seems to believe that there is widespread interest in (b). There isn't really. Sometimes you hear about people crowdfunding cancelled programmes but that's about it. However, (c) which is basically the same thing (actually, Breaking Bad's marketing staff prefer it) is quite likely something you might do. The difference is that the cost of typing such a recommendation is worth the reward of typing it.

Okay, so it turned out that you did recommend Breaking Bad to me and it's now the future. I learn that you've never seen a programme called Cracker, starring Robbie Coltrane. I face a similar dilemma to you do I:

1. Do nothing.
2. Crowdfund some advertising to encourage you to watch it.
3. Make a recommendation to you, e.g. "hey, your grace, you should watch this show, it's even better than Breaking Bad".
4. Do something else.

Like you (b) doesn't give me any personal reward so the cost of carrying it out isn't worth it. Like the hypothetical you, though, I do find (c) worthwhile so I do it.

Now, there might be some lunatics out there who get value from (b): I can believe that. But everyone who does (b) is probably also going to do (c)... and some people that might have done (b) are likely going to decide not to because they know "word of mouth" is more effective than (traditional) advertising. Where Xero goes wrong is that the people who do (b) aren't helping to determine the optimal amount of Breaking Bad or Cracker in the universe but rather the optimal amount of advertising for two programmes which no longer air. There's no great insight to learn from crowdfunded advertising and the way Xero talks about it just misunderstands what markets are being participated in. It's all... pretty boring, certainly compared to crowdfunding itself, Breaking Bad or Cracker.

(Forsher has in fact seen Breaking Bad and does, in fact, think Cracker is better than it.)

Funny thing, there is one show I can think of that has an actual relevant thing to this example. A while back there was a show Young justice. The show however was not popular among the target audience but was instead popular among a slightly older group. The show was canceled after two seasons, much to many people's disappointment. For a few years man people did attempt to have the show start up again using crowdfunding. It didn't work. You know what did work, word of mouth. People getting together and mass watching the show, and getting other people to mass watch the show on netflix. It became a thing on twitter. Thanks to that campaign the show has been restarted and will release season 3 in 2018.

There's gonna be a third season of Young Justice? Awesome.

[Xerographica]

The reality is that the natural inclination, and the basic assumption of markets, is that people will do the opposite of this. A rational consumer will try to make things better for themselves by acquiring the same product at lower prices. Even if it was superrational to price discriminate against ones self, consumers are not superrational and the way to maximize value will be to pay less when possible.

Imagine the crowdfunding advertising website. Here's the very first valuation...

$5: Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

It's my valuation. And maybe it doesn't perfectly reflect my perception of the Wealth of Nations' usefulness to me. But it's at the top of the list. It's the most useful thing on the list. Then again, it's the only thing on the list.

Some liberal happens to see the website. The only thing on the entire website is my valuation of Smith's book. What does the liberal do? That depends, what are the chances that he's a troll? Just how many liberal trolls are there anyways? We'll say that this liberal is a troll. So he decides that it's totally worth it to ruin my ranking joy...

$6: Capital by Thomas Piketty
$5: Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

I see this new ranking and it fundamentally disturbs me. According to this new ranking, Piketty's book is more useful than Smiths' book. This really isn't true. It's fundamentally false.

Imagine that you're a hardcore American patriot and you see this ranking...

$6: Canada
$5: America

How would this ranking make you feel?

Imagine that you're a rabid Green Bay Packers fan and you see this ranking...

$6: Pittsburgh Steelers
$5: Green Bay Packers

How would this ranking make you feel?

Imagine that you're a rabid liberal and you see this ranking...

$6: Donald Trump
$5: Elizabeth Warren

How would this ranking make you feel?

Imagine that you're a rabid pragmatarian and you see this ranking...

$6: Not-market
$5: Market

How would this ranking make you feel?

When people perceive that things are in the really wrong order they naturally want to correct the order. This is fundamentally basic human nature. A market is all about people using their money to improve how things are ordered. People don't consciously perceive that their spending decisions help to improve the order of things. They just think about buying the things that they need. But the fact of the matter is that people's spending decisions do change how things are ordered. Let me say that again...people's spending decisions change how things are ordered. People's spending decisions reorder society. Society is constantly being reordered by everyone's spending decisions.

So it's an issue that there are so many spaces and places that aren't markets. Reddit and Flickr and Facebook and Netflix and Youtube and Twitter and Spotify and Amazon Kindle Unlimited and Google and the NY Times and Buzzfeed and NationStates and countless other websites are not markets. All the content on these sites isn't being continually reordered by everybody's spending decisions. How could this not be the biggest problem? Am I seriously overestimating the usefulness of markets? Am I seriously overestimating the importance of everyone's sacrifices determining how society is ordered? Am I overestimating the necessity of the Invisible Hand? I sure don't think so.

All it would take is one website to incredibly improve the order of everything. This site would easily be the single most beneficially disruptive thing in history.

[Maqo]

All it would take is one website to incredibly improve the order of everything. This site would easily be the single most beneficially disruptive thing in history.

If you truly believe thst, then make the website. Or pay someone to do it for you. In a month you could be changing the world.

Your premise is that spending indicates sacrifice, indicates intensity of desire. So spend. Get your website running. If you don't want to spend the money, then can we conclude that your idea is wrong, or that you don't believe in it?

[Xerographica]

This tweet is relevant. It's a survey on who tips more... gals or guys.

[Maqo]

This tweet is relevant. It's a survey on who tips more... gals or guys.

No its not, not really.
Other than it shows another way to part fools from their money.

[Xerographica]

This tweet is relevant. It's a survey on who tips more... gals or guys.

No its not, not really.
Other than it shows another way to part fools from their money.

Is this relevant?

And I wonder, in the end, if the new cash cow is good business. These big-budget films full of explosions are expensive. No more diversified portfolio of different kinds of movies at all different budgets. Only new installments in safe blockbuster franchises. Surely that's how Hollywood loses the battle for attention. But can anything be done to reverse the trend? - Megan McArdle, Saving Hollywood From the Chinese Box Office

[Galloism]

This tweet is relevant. It's a survey on who tips more... gals or guys.

No its not, not really.
Other than it shows another way to part fools from their money.

You know, that's so lame it just might work. People are weird.

[Maqo]

Is this relevant?

And I wonder, in the end, if the new cash cow is good business. These big-budget films full of explosions are expensive. No more diversified portfolio of different kinds of movies at all different budgets. Only new installments in safe blockbuster franchises. Surely that's how Hollywood loses the battle for attention. But can anything be done to reverse the trend? - Megan McArdle, Saving Hollywood From the Chinese Box Office

Why would it be? What part of the conversation do you think it is even vaguely related to?

Do you know what IS relevant though?

I think one of the major flaws in your 'market for baby names' is that the entire thing is ill defined, and as far as I can tell you've changed your mind about who is what in the analogy.
So can you fill out this little form and map out the analogy for us?
In the 'market for baby names:

• The product is:
• The producer is:
• The consumer is:
• There are (many) / (not many) substitute goods
• The product has (high) / (low) externalities
• Demand is probably (elastic) / (inelastic)
• Supply is probably (elastic) / (inelastic)
• The marginal cost is:

(anyone else have other questions?)

[The Empire of Pretantia]

You know, what if we could somehow convince people not to spend as little money as possible, but as much as possible?

[Xerographica]

Is this relevant?

Why would it be? What part of the conversation do you think it is even vaguely related to?

That passage refers to the battle for attention. What we're discussing in this thread is how to efficiently allocate attention. One of my very favorite movies is Chunking Express. It is very very very different from the Transformers. Does it matter how I'd divide my promotional dollars between these two movies? Can society's limited attention be efficiently allocated in the absence of all our direct monetary input on how we want it to be allocated?

Do you know what IS relevant though?

I think one of the major flaws in your 'market for baby names' is that the entire thing is ill defined, and as far as I can tell you've changed your mind about who is what in the analogy.
So can you fill out this little form and map out the analogy for us?
In the 'market for baby names:

• The product is:
• The producer is:
• The consumer is:
• There are (many) / (not many) substitute goods
• The product has (high) / (low) externalities
• Demand is probably (elastic) / (inelastic)
• Supply is probably (elastic) / (inelastic)
• The marginal cost is:

(anyone else have other questions?)

Think about this in terms of movies. We'd all prefer society to pay more attention to some movies and less attention to others. The crowdfunded advertising website would give everyone in the world the opportunity to use their dollars to convey how they wanted society's attention to be divided between all the movies ever made.

Essentially, all participants would be "buying" eyeballs for their favorite movies. Participants would "buy" space on everyone's radar. Can you guess which movie would end up on top of the list? Personally, I have absolutely no idea.

According to a quick Google search, Gone with the Wind is the highest grossing film of all time. Would this be the one movie that the entire world would be willing to pay the most money to promote? I suppose this is like asking whether McDonald's would be the one restaurant that the entire world would be willing to pay the most money to promote.

While I do occasionally enjoy having McDonald's, I wouldn't be willing to pay any money to promote it. Why pay to promote something that already has more than enough eyeballs? Why pay to advertise something that already is on everybody's radar? If I was going to pay to promote a restaurant... it would be one that isn't, but should be, on more people's radar.

What changes if we switch restaurants and movies with baby names? Absolutely nothing. If I'm going to pay to promote a name, would I do so for names that are already on everybody's radar? Probably not. Maybe I'd pay to promote a name like "Vaombe". For some reason I think it's a pretty cool name. If somebody told me that their name is "Vaombe" I'd be like, "What?! Really!? What a cool name!!!"

The crowdfunded advertising website would be a decision market. What movie should you watch? The market website would help you decide. Which restaurant should you try? The market website would help you decide. Which forum thread should you participate in? The market website would help you decide. What should you name your baby? The market website would help you decide. The market website would reveal the usefulness of everything. This would help everybody make far more useful decisions.

The product is: eyeballs
The producer is: the owners
The consumer is: the promoters
There are (many) / (not many) substitute goods: none
The product has (high) / (low) externalities: high
Demand is probably (elastic) / (inelastic): inelastic
Supply is probably (elastic) / (inelastic): inelastic
The marginal cost is: high

[Camicon]

You know, what if we could somehow convince people not to spend as little money as possible, but as much as possible?

Most people already do? As much as they are able, that is. The number of people that live paycheque to paycheque is staggering.

[Maqo]

Why would it be? What part of the conversation do you think it is even vaguely related to?

That passage refers to the battle for attention. What we're discussing in this thread is how to efficiently allocate attention. One of my very favorite movies is Chunking Express. It is very very very different from the Transformers. Does it matter how I'd divide my promotional dollars between these two movies? Can society's limited attention be efficiently allocated in the absence of all our direct monetary input on how we want it to be allocated?

I'm not going to bother. Just no.

Think about this in terms of movies.

I'd really rather not, but it seems that the only way you have of communicating a point is to repeat the same essay but change the nouns around.
There are a host of new problems you've introduced now, but we'll just skip those for the moment until we've hashed out the previous ones.

What changes if we switch restaurants and movies with baby names? Absolutely nothing.

Sure, but this is a completely different system than the one you proposed in the OP, were you were selling the legal right to name a specific child in exchange for putting money in to a college fund.

The crowdfunded advertising website would be a decision market. What movie should you watch? The market website would help you decide. Which restaurant should you try? The market website would help you decide. Which forum thread should you participate in? The market website would help you decide. What should you name your baby? The market website would help you decide. The market website would reveal the usefulness of everything. This would help everybody make far more useful decisions.

So I would visit this website, and there would be a ranked list of movies (or whatevers). And if I wanted to know what a good movie to watch was, I would pick something close to the top of the list.

Hmm.
Where have I seen that before?

The product you want to sell exists, and it is free.

Lets dispense of the talk of 'eyeballs' and 'radars'. What you're really asking people to do is to crowd fund advertising for causes they think are worthy. Which does occasionally happen - political campaigns, charity causes, as you mention there have been fan efforts for cancelled shows.
However I think you'll find that the vast majority of people would find that spending any amount of money to promote any movie would fall off the bottom of their list of priorities. And its like my little restaurant skit earlier - while someone may have a vague interest in you being slightly more happy, they probably won't feel the need to spend any kind of money to do it when they can do it for free.
I'm not saying that its an idea that is so bad you'd cause the entire world economy to collapse (like some of your other suggestions), I just don't think that many people would participate in buying advertising when they can communicate effectively the same information on other services; and if not many people are buying advertising then not many people are viewing it. As I said before, if you really believe that it is a revolutionary idea, it would be trivial to create the website and change the world. I'm just not seeing the market.

The product is: eyeballs
The producer is: the owners
The consumer is: the promoters
There are (many) / (not many) substitute goods: none
The product has (high) / (low) externalities: high
Demand is probably (elastic) / (inelastic): inelastic
Supply is probably (elastic) / (inelastic): inelastic
The marginal cost is: high

... I literally can't even.
Your answers indicate that you don't understand what most of those words even mean.

[Maqo]

You know, what if we could somehow convince people not to spend as little money as possible, but as much as possible?

Most people already do? As much as they are able, that is. The number of people that live paycheque to paycheque is staggering.

He means, if we follow Xero's idea, instead of hunting down sales to buy apples for $1 each, you should voluntarily pay $50 per apple, because that somehow makes sense.

[Xerographica]

So I would visit this website, and there would be a ranked list of movies (or whatevers). And if I wanted to know what a good movie to watch was, I would pick something close to the top of the list.

Hmm.
Where have I seen that before?

The product you want to sell exists, and it is free.

Those are all cheap-talk websites, "I LOVE this new restaurant!!!!! Five stars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The only real meaning can be found in the time and effort it took to write a review. In other words, the only real meaning can be found in the size of the sacrifice. With this in mind, there should be a website that entirely focuses on the size of the sacrifice that people are willing to make.

Lets dispense of the talk of 'eyeballs' and 'radars'. What you're really asking people to do is to crowd fund advertising for causes they think are worthy. Which does occasionally happen - political campaigns, charity causes, as you mention there have been fan efforts for cancelled shows.
However I think you'll find that the vast majority of people would find that spending any amount of money to promote any movie would fall off the bottom of their list of priorities.

Let's say that you watch a movie and really love it. So you spend an hour writing a glowing review. But you won't spend a penny to promote the movie? You'll sacrifice an hour but you won't sacrifice a penny? That's crazy. Most people aren't this crazy. In any case, people aren't equally crazy.

Admittedly, some people do have more time than money. But other people have more money than time. For people who have more time than money, then yeah, perhaps they'll prefer to spend more time than money promoting a movie. But for people who have more money than time, then they'll definitely prefer to spend more money than time promoting a movie. It will just take a few seconds for them to spend $10 bucks to help promote a movie.

As I said before, if you really believe that it is a revolutionary idea, it would be trivial to create the website and change the world. I'm just not seeing the market.

It's inherently challenging to see markets when they are invisible. My best guess is that the market for crowdfunded advertising is substantial. Of course, the proof is in the pudding. It would be trivial to create the website. Well... it would be relatively trivial. The worst case scenario is that the website would solely feature the links that are most useful to me.

I'm guessing that you wouldn't be interested in participating? Carefully consider the following scenario. Let's say that the website only contains these 6 links...

$4: Blonde Redhead - Tons Confession
$2: Jamie xx - Gosh
$1: Weekend Wolves - You
$1: Hello Seahorse! - La Flotadera
$1: Kid Simius - The Flute Song
$1: Rone - Down for the Cause

The thing is, it's not like I can give myself $10 dollars. In order for there to be any realism, I actually have to spend the $10 dollars. So I decide that I'll spend the $10 dollars on promoting the website. Which is the same exact thing as spending $10 dollars to promote these 6 songs.

However, it would seem kind of a waste to draw visitors to a website that only has 6 links on it...

Xero: Hey Maqo, I'm about to spend $10 bucks to promote the site. Right now there are only 6 links on it. Want me to add any links for you?
Maqo: Would it cost me an arm and a leg?
Xero: Naw, I'm feeling generous, I'll add as many links as you want for free. But, I'll put them below my links.
Maqo: That's a pretty decent deal! I'll send you a dozen of my favorite links. Thanks!
Xero: No problem.

Is that how the discussion would go down? If not, feel free to correct it.

Let's tweak the scenario to test our intuition...

Xero: Hey Maqo, I'm about to spend $1 million bucks to promote the site. Right now there are only 6 links on it. Want me to add any links for you?
Maqo: Woah! Are you seriously going to spend $1 million bucks????
Xero: Yup. So want me to add any links for you?
Maqo: How much would it cost me?
Xero: What's the most that you'd be willing to pay?
Maqo: That's a really good question. I'll have to seriously think about it.

Here's some more intuition testing...

Xero: Hey Maqo, there are around a dozen links that I'd like to promote. Problem is, my budget is slim. I can only spare $30 bucks.
Maqo: I'm in kinda the same boat. There are around twenty links that I'd like to promote but I can only spare $15 bucks.
Xero: Here's an idea. Why don't we pool our promotion money and put all our links on the same page?
Maqo: That's a great idea! We'll be able to reach a wider audience. But how will we determine the order of the links?
Xero: Let's use our dollars to arrange the list of links.
Maqo: That makes sense. Since you're putting more money into the promotion pool, your links should be higher on the list.

It's pretty fascinating to think about this in terms of the free-rider problem. If I'm going to spend $1 million dollars to promote a website that only has six links on it, then of course you'd jump at the chance to include your favorite links for free. Everybody would. But imagine that everybody could freely include their links. The thing is, everybody's links couldn't be equally high on the page. So what would happen if the order of the links was determined by spending? Then the free-rider problem would naturally sort itself out.

[The Two Jerseys]

Those are all cheap-talk websites, "I LOVE this new restaurant!!!!! Five stars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The only real meaning can be found in the time and effort it took to write a review. In other words, the only real meaning can be found in the size of the sacrifice. With this in mind, there should be a website that entirely focuses on the size of the sacrifice that people are willing to make.

Then practice what you preach and use your own money to start that website.

[Kyrusia]

Xerographica: You have a history of threadjacking your own threads. That ends now. You will constrain your thread discussions to the topic. The topic of this thread was baby names, the selection thereof, and the relation thereof to game theory - not your pet project for a website. Nor is this thread the appropriate venue for the development, establishment, maintenance, etc. thereof. Nor is it the appropriate place to advertise for a website unrelated to NS. If you want to advertise on NationStates, there is an appropriate way to do such.

Considering your record of threadjacking and history of similar behavior in the past: *** 3-day ban for threadjacking and violation of the commercialism rule ***. Furthermore, the link in your signature will be stripped-out; if it is re-added, or if you attempt to do something similar, your signature privileges will be revoked.

That said, there are several players who encouraged, or outright requested this behavior, thus contributing to the threadjacking.

Then practice what you preach and use your own money to start that website.

Did you actually spend five dollars on The Wealth of Nations? If so, where did that money go? What was it used for? How is anyone else supposed to use that website to spend money when it doesn't even have the coding to allow for online transactions; the webpage isn't even HTTPS for Chrissake. Who is responsible for keeping the site up to date? Are the getting paid, and if so who is paying them?

Etcetera.

Minimum viable product my ass. Two Jersey's asked for a picture and you gave him a sheet of blank paper with "PIKCHUR3" scribbled on it in dry-erase marker. That website is useless, and a waste of everyone's time.

Clearly, they should pay $5 in order to explain why they'd give it a hard pass.

[snip]

$100 to one person is not the same as $100 to another, how will you equalise this in your website?

Why the fuck would you restrict your attention to one tiny sub? Here's the actual top ten for reddit:

1) Obama AMA
2) An Elon Musk based pun
3-7) Net Neutrality
Panama papers
9) More Net Neutrality
10) Apple admitting to slowing down older iPhones.

[snip]

Based on your statements, it looks like they're both equally wrong.

1) It would certainly be an optimal strategy for making free money.
2) No, there wouldn't be. The only way I can think of would be to hack the site where all this is happening to either increase your total or decrease that of opposing teams, and that's counterfeiting or robbery (and probably a host of other crimes), respectively.

The Two Jerseys: *** Warning for threadjacking ***.

Camicon: *** Warning for threadjacking. ***

The Holy Therns: *** Warning for threadjacking. ***

Maqo: *** Warning for threadjacking. ***

Bombadil: *** Warning for threadjacking. ***

Salandriagado: *** Warning for threadjacking. ***

Forsher: *** Warning for threadjacking. ***

Galloism: *** Warning for threadjacking. ***

Evil Dictators Happyland: *** Warning for threadjacking. *** Warning overturned by issuer.

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The topic of this thread was baby names and the applicability of game theory. Not books, websites, songs, or "pragmatarianism." We're quite well aware that the OP has a propensity for threadjacking their own topics; that doesn't excuse players to contribute to it, help instigate it, or carry it on. If you think someone is threadjacking - even their own thread - report it. Period.

Due to the nature of the later portion of this thread, it has been split-off and can be reviewed by Moderation via the Evidence Locker. This thread will not be re-opened.