How about “Extortion: Any offer of trade (t) by A to B, where A knows that the likely utility of B would be maximized if A had in advance treated (t) as certainly rejected.”
In short extortion is any offer to you in which you could rationally wish you had clearly precommitted to reject it (and signalled such precommitment effectively), and A knows that.
Another example.
A and B share an apartment, and so far A has been doing all that household chores even though both A and B care almost equally about a clean house. (Maybe A cares slightly more, so that A’s cleanliness threshold is always reached slightly before B’s threshold, so that A ends up doing the chore every time.)
So one day A gives B an ultimatum: if they do not share household chores equally, A will simply go on strike.
B realizes, too late, that B should have effectively and convincingly pre-committed earlier to never doing household chores, since this way A would never be tempted to offer the ultimatum.
A is aware of all this and breathes a sigh of relief that he made his ultimatum before B made that pre-commitment.
I’m almost convinced my definition is faulty, but not completely yet. In this case, if the offer was sure to be rejected, Alice (A) may move out, or evict Bob (B), or react in a different way that minimizes Bob’s utility, or Alice may just decide to stop chores anyway because she just prefers a messy and just household than a clean and injust one.
So precommitment to reject the offer doesn’t necessarily help Bob. But I need to think about this. Upvoting both examples.
Another example.
A and B share an apartment, and so far A has been doing all that household chores even though both A and B care almost equally about a clean house. (Maybe A cares slightly more, so that A’s cleanliness threshold is always reached slightly before B’s threshold, so that A ends up doing the chore every time.)
So one day A gives B an ultimatum: if they do not share household chores equally, A will simply go on strike.
B realizes, too late, that B should have effectively and convincingly pre-committed earlier to never doing household chores, since this way A would never be tempted to offer the ultimatum.
A is aware of all this and breathes a sigh of relief that he made his ultimatum before B made that pre-commitment.
By the above definition, A is an extortionist.
I’m almost convinced my definition is faulty, but not completely yet. In this case, if the offer was sure to be rejected, Alice (A) may move out, or evict Bob (B), or react in a different way that minimizes Bob’s utility, or Alice may just decide to stop chores anyway because she just prefers a messy and just household than a clean and injust one.
So precommitment to reject the offer doesn’t necessarily help Bob. But I need to think about this. Upvoting both examples.