Well, then… have a moderate social cost for stating strong preferences? I mean, it seems like you’re saying that it’s hard to get that balanced close enough that people can approximate optimal strategy as ‘just tell the truth’.
And you haven’t at all argued that the change in this cost over time would be away from balance rather than towards, which is what unstable means.
First off, you said it was unstable, which means there would have to be positive feedback to make it UN-stable.
Secondly, it seems to me that there is a source of negative feedback in that if people want to be able to express stronger preferences themselves, they might tolerate stronger preferences expressed from others.
Edited to Add Clarification:
We are attempting to calibrate the social cost of expressing strong preferences. The strength of preferences expressed will vary in normal encounters due to actual variance of preferences, variance in peoples’ habits of how to express those preferences, and variance in details of delivery.
If you would like to be freer to express your preferences more strongly, you can dial back the social costs you personally impose on others for expressing strong preferences. If they shift up their expressed preferences in response, then either you may as well or they are being hypocritical.
Conversely, if you think others are expressing preferences rather too strongly, first back off the strength of your own expressed preferences towards the desired level and then begin imposing more social costs on strong expressions of preferences.
Either do this gradually so people hardly notice, or out in the open, negotiated. Both options seem fairly intuitive and natural to me, though of course either one will itself impose social costs. Social skills help a lot in mitigating these costs.
First off, you said it was unstable, which means there would have to be positive feedback to make it UN-stable.
You don’t need a positive feedback to have instability.
Secondly, it seems to me that there is a source of negative feedback in that if people want to be able to express stronger preferences themselves, they might tolerate stronger preferences expressed from others.
Which means that there is an incentive to overstate preferences.
You don’t need a positive feedback to have instability.
Yes you do. Like, rigid pendulum at the top of its swing, F = +kx. That’s positive feedback. I suppose you can get around this requirement with discrete timesteps or other hackery, but classically speaking positive feedback <-> instability.
Which means that there is an incentive to overstate preferences.
… differentially so, from a starting point of understated preferences, so that’s a correcting change.
Okay, so that’s the definition of ‘unstable’ you were using. You’ve now taken care of the nitpick and left the main thrust of the argument unaddressed.
Well, then… have a moderate social cost for stating strong preferences? I mean, it seems like you’re saying that it’s hard to get that balanced close enough that people can approximate optimal strategy as ‘just tell the truth’.
And you haven’t at all argued that the change in this cost over time would be away from balance rather than towards, which is what unstable means.
there doesn’t seem to be any obvious negative feedback to keep the balance stable.
First off, you said it was unstable, which means there would have to be positive feedback to make it UN-stable.
Secondly, it seems to me that there is a source of negative feedback in that if people want to be able to express stronger preferences themselves, they might tolerate stronger preferences expressed from others.
Edited to Add Clarification:
We are attempting to calibrate the social cost of expressing strong preferences. The strength of preferences expressed will vary in normal encounters due to actual variance of preferences, variance in peoples’ habits of how to express those preferences, and variance in details of delivery.
If you would like to be freer to express your preferences more strongly, you can dial back the social costs you personally impose on others for expressing strong preferences. If they shift up their expressed preferences in response, then either you may as well or they are being hypocritical.
Conversely, if you think others are expressing preferences rather too strongly, first back off the strength of your own expressed preferences towards the desired level and then begin imposing more social costs on strong expressions of preferences.
Either do this gradually so people hardly notice, or out in the open, negotiated. Both options seem fairly intuitive and natural to me, though of course either one will itself impose social costs. Social skills help a lot in mitigating these costs.
You don’t need a positive feedback to have instability.
Which means that there is an incentive to overstate preferences.
Yes you do. Like, rigid pendulum at the top of its swing, F = +kx. That’s positive feedback. I suppose you can get around this requirement with discrete timesteps or other hackery, but classically speaking positive feedback <-> instability.
… differentially so, from a starting point of understated preferences, so that’s a correcting change.
an unbiased random walk sufficies.
Okay, so that’s the definition of ‘unstable’ you were using. You’ve now taken care of the nitpick and left the main thrust of the argument unaddressed.
(edited for spelling)
Can you rephrase the the main thrust of the argument?
All right. To keep it from ending up at the leaf of this back-and-forth, I’ll edit-to-add it earlier on.