Allocation of blame/causality is difficult, but I think you have it wrong.
ex. 1 … He would also waste Tim’s $100 which counterfactually could have been used to buy something else for Bob. So Bob is stuck with using the $100 headphone and spending the $300 somewhere else instead.
No. TIM wasted $100 on a headset that Bob did not want (because he planned to buy a better one). Bob can choose whether to to hide this waste (at a cost of the utility loss by having $300 and worse listening experience, but a “benefit” of misleading Tim about his misplaced altruism), or to discard the gift and buy the headphones like he’d already planned (for the benefit of being $300 poorer and having better sound, and the cost of making Tim feel bad but perhaps learning to ask before wasting money).
ex. 2 The world is now stuck with Chris’ poor translation on book X with Andy and Bob never touching it again because they have other books to work on.
Umm, here I just disagree. The world is no worse off for having a bad translation than having no translation. If the bad translation is good enough that the incremental value of a good translation doesn’t justify doing it, then that is your answer. If it’s not valuable enough to change the marginal decision to translate, then Andy or Bob should re-translate it. Either way, Chris has improved the value of books, or has had no effect except wasting his own time.
Bob can choose whether to to hide this waste (at a cost of the utility loss by having $300 and worse listening experience, but a “benefit” of misleading Tim about his misplaced altruism)
True in my example. I acknowledge that my example is wrong and should have been more explicit about having an alternative. Quoting myself from the comment to Vladimir_Nesov:
Anyways, the unwritten thing is that Bob care about having a quality headphone and a good pair of shoes equally. So given that he already has an alright headphone, he would get more utility by buying a good pairs of shoes instead. It is essentially a choice between (a) getting a $300 headphone and (b) getting a $100 headphone and a $300 pair of shoes.
If the bad translation is good enough that the incremental value of a good translation doesn’t justify doing it, then that is your answer.
I do accept this as the rational answer, doesn’t mean it is not irritating. If A (skillful translator) cares about having a good translation of X slightly more than Y, and B (poor translator) cares about Y much more than X. If B can act first, he can work on X and “force” A (via expected utility) to work on Y. This is a failure of mine to not talk about difference in preference in my examples and expect people to extrapolate and infer it out.
Allocation of blame/causality is difficult, but I think you have it wrong.
No. TIM wasted $100 on a headset that Bob did not want (because he planned to buy a better one). Bob can choose whether to to hide this waste (at a cost of the utility loss by having $300 and worse listening experience, but a “benefit” of misleading Tim about his misplaced altruism), or to discard the gift and buy the headphones like he’d already planned (for the benefit of being $300 poorer and having better sound, and the cost of making Tim feel bad but perhaps learning to ask before wasting money).
Umm, here I just disagree. The world is no worse off for having a bad translation than having no translation. If the bad translation is good enough that the incremental value of a good translation doesn’t justify doing it, then that is your answer. If it’s not valuable enough to change the marginal decision to translate, then Andy or Bob should re-translate it. Either way, Chris has improved the value of books, or has had no effect except wasting his own time.
True in my example. I acknowledge that my example is wrong and should have been more explicit about having an alternative. Quoting myself from the comment to Vladimir_Nesov:
Anyways, the unwritten thing is that Bob care about having a quality headphone and a good pair of shoes equally. So given that he already has an alright headphone, he would get more utility by buying a good pairs of shoes instead. It is essentially a choice between (a) getting a $300 headphone and (b) getting a $100 headphone and a $300 pair of shoes.
I do accept this as the rational answer, doesn’t mean it is not irritating. If A (skillful translator) cares about having a good translation of X slightly more than Y, and B (poor translator) cares about Y much more than X. If B can act first, he can work on X and “force” A (via expected utility) to work on Y. This is a failure of mine to not talk about difference in preference in my examples and expect people to extrapolate and infer it out.