Maia and I have been working on a chore market for our house, and we just started using it. People bid how much they want to be paid (in points) to do a chore, and when the auction closes everyone is taxed to pay for it. If you go into debt, you’re forced to bid on chores. This is the closest thing to a “major software project” I’ve ever done, so it’s pretty nice to see my baby actually sort of working.
It’s on Github if you’re interested, but it’s pretty buggy at the moment and not well documented, so user beware.
Q. [any problem whatsoever] A. THE MARKET WILL PROVIDE!
It’s worth a try, and if it works then excellent :-) But I suspect the sharehouse problem is not a problem of mechanism.
IME, all I’ve found to work is every person personally considering household chores their own problem. (Approximately: If you all feel you’re doing 1/N + 20% of the work, it’s probably about even.) If even one doesn’t, things get crappy and someone suggests a mechanism. Bogged-down household resentment ensues and it all goes a bit Strategy of Conflict.
(Some of the housemates I’ve had, the friendly AI would choose “nuke from orbit” as the only reasonable answer.)
It strikes me as quite likely that I am speaking through personal post-sharehouse stress disorder. Further reading: John Birmingham. 12. The standard texts on the subject. Australia in the ’80s and ’90s, when the system really did love you and want to be your friend.
The system operates on a sort of baseline of trust anyway, so it’s not too likely it would work in a situation where some roommates are unwilling to pull their weight. The goal is more to give people a better idea of how much work they’re actually doing.
Also, its value to us in chore-distribution-optimization has so far been far less than its value as a fun project and an interesting idea to discuss (and I anticipate the latter being more valuable in the long run, too).
Maia and I have been working on a chore market for our house, and we just started using it. People bid how much they want to be paid (in points) to do a chore, and when the auction closes everyone is taxed to pay for it. If you go into debt, you’re forced to bid on chores. This is the closest thing to a “major software project” I’ve ever done, so it’s pretty nice to see my baby actually sort of working.
It’s on Github if you’re interested, but it’s pretty buggy at the moment and not well documented, so user beware.
Q. [any problem whatsoever]
A. THE MARKET WILL PROVIDE!
It’s worth a try, and if it works then excellent :-) But I suspect the sharehouse problem is not a problem of mechanism.
IME, all I’ve found to work is every person personally considering household chores their own problem. (Approximately: If you all feel you’re doing 1/N + 20% of the work, it’s probably about even.) If even one doesn’t, things get crappy and someone suggests a mechanism. Bogged-down household resentment ensues and it all goes a bit Strategy of Conflict.
(Some of the housemates I’ve had, the friendly AI would choose “nuke from orbit” as the only reasonable answer.)
It strikes me as quite likely that I am speaking through personal post-sharehouse stress disorder. Further reading: John Birmingham. 1 2. The standard texts on the subject. Australia in the ’80s and ’90s, when the system really did love you and want to be your friend.
The system operates on a sort of baseline of trust anyway, so it’s not too likely it would work in a situation where some roommates are unwilling to pull their weight. The goal is more to give people a better idea of how much work they’re actually doing.
Also, its value to us in chore-distribution-optimization has so far been far less than its value as a fun project and an interesting idea to discuss (and I anticipate the latter being more valuable in the long run, too).