Yes, exactly. Obviously, the strategy involved for not looking/feeling like a masochist is to cover up with philanthropy. And of course the motivation behind philanthropy is not at all feigned; philanthropy is a stance of hope, and despair is one primary cause of my akrasia. But as you say, the only reason to connect that philanthropy to self-binding is to cover up the essential irrationality.
I thought of a good way to express another reason for this desire: I also want to assert that I still have some “consumer-like” power over you, akin to an upward-sloping demand curve. As pjeby said, this is a question of status. But insofar as I’m addressing an “unjust” status relationship, where your fees are unrelated to your value provided, my refusal to buy without a charity option is (in some sense) a common human meta-rational bias to devote resources to punishing injustice. Anyway, as a startup business, status doesn’t concern you in this sense, as much as growth.
Note that both of these reasons—not looking like a masochist, and addressing the “unjust” (or at least, unconventional in your favor) commercial status imbalance—are essentially status concerns, so even while they are logically separate, they are emotionally related.
(Of course, the status concerns in our commercial relationship are unrelated to our personal status relationship here, where you’re the guy who actually did something useful, and I’m the guy who’s bikeshedding it.)
ps. I fixed the numbering above with an initial “####”. Yes, it’s annoying to have to do that. I actually like it when markdown changes 1,2,2,3 to 1,2,3,4; but 3,4,4 should at worst become 3,4,5 not 1,2,3
In short, we (the founders) are reciprocating with our own commitment contracts, pledging $1395 to Beeminder users to force ourselves to stay on our own yellow brick roads. Maybe it’s more in the category of a nice little gesture that most users won’t even know about. It certainly doesn’t address fundamentally the issue you raised. (Of course, that wasn’t the point of it—we just really needed to raise the stakes on our own commitment contracts since paying ourselves wasn’t cutting it!)
(PS: Not bikeshedding by any means! You can’t imagine how helpful all this has been. Especially the further consultation we’ve been having with pjeby offline, but this whole comment thread as well.)
Not really. I mean, I guess it helps with the general status differential, but it doesn’t resolve the general “ick” I get from the idea of a transaction where one of two things will happen:
I will get value, and you will not get paid.
I will get negative value, and you will get paid.
Basically, someone always loses; it pattern-matches a negative-sum game, even though it’s not one. But you’re binding me to give to charity, then there’s a way to see it as win/win from my perspective, and win/win from your perspective (success story, or charity story plus money; either of which is helpful for your marketing).
...
This is about the 3rd or 4th rationalization I’ve given for why this is important to me. I honestly can’t give a good external reason for why you should believe any of them, since they’re probably not all truly necessary factors in why I’m making an issue of this. But I can sincerely attest that despite the shifting rationalizations, this feels to me like a good line for me to hold, and like something that will honestly help you get customers if you do it.
Yes, exactly. Obviously, the strategy involved for not looking/feeling like a masochist is to cover up with philanthropy. And of course the motivation behind philanthropy is not at all feigned; philanthropy is a stance of hope, and despair is one primary cause of my akrasia. But as you say, the only reason to connect that philanthropy to self-binding is to cover up the essential irrationality.
I thought of a good way to express another reason for this desire: I also want to assert that I still have some “consumer-like” power over you, akin to an upward-sloping demand curve. As pjeby said, this is a question of status. But insofar as I’m addressing an “unjust” status relationship, where your fees are unrelated to your value provided, my refusal to buy without a charity option is (in some sense) a common human meta-rational bias to devote resources to punishing injustice. Anyway, as a startup business, status doesn’t concern you in this sense, as much as growth.
Note that both of these reasons—not looking like a masochist, and addressing the “unjust” (or at least, unconventional in your favor) commercial status imbalance—are essentially status concerns, so even while they are logically separate, they are emotionally related.
(Of course, the status concerns in our commercial relationship are unrelated to our personal status relationship here, where you’re the guy who actually did something useful, and I’m the guy who’s bikeshedding it.)
ps. I fixed the numbering above with an initial “####”. Yes, it’s annoying to have to do that. I actually like it when markdown changes 1,2,2,3 to 1,2,3,4; but 3,4,4 should at worst become 3,4,5 not 1,2,3
Do you think this mitigates the problem at all: http://blog.beeminder.com/blogdog
In short, we (the founders) are reciprocating with our own commitment contracts, pledging $1395 to Beeminder users to force ourselves to stay on our own yellow brick roads. Maybe it’s more in the category of a nice little gesture that most users won’t even know about. It certainly doesn’t address fundamentally the issue you raised. (Of course, that wasn’t the point of it—we just really needed to raise the stakes on our own commitment contracts since paying ourselves wasn’t cutting it!)
(PS: Not bikeshedding by any means! You can’t imagine how helpful all this has been. Especially the further consultation we’ve been having with pjeby offline, but this whole comment thread as well.)
Not really. I mean, I guess it helps with the general status differential, but it doesn’t resolve the general “ick” I get from the idea of a transaction where one of two things will happen:
I will get value, and you will not get paid.
I will get negative value, and you will get paid.
Basically, someone always loses; it pattern-matches a negative-sum game, even though it’s not one. But you’re binding me to give to charity, then there’s a way to see it as win/win from my perspective, and win/win from your perspective (success story, or charity story plus money; either of which is helpful for your marketing).
...
This is about the 3rd or 4th rationalization I’ve given for why this is important to me. I honestly can’t give a good external reason for why you should believe any of them, since they’re probably not all truly necessary factors in why I’m making an issue of this. But I can sincerely attest that despite the shifting rationalizations, this feels to me like a good line for me to hold, and like something that will honestly help you get customers if you do it.