Maybe Gandhi’s best option is to “fence off” an area of the slippery slope by establishing a Schelling point—an arbitrary point that takes on special value as a dividing line. If he can hold himself to the precommitment, he can maximize his winnings. For example, original Gandhi could swear a mighty oath to take only five pills—or if he didn’t trust even his own legendary virtue, he could give all his most valuable possessions to a friend and tell the friend to destroy them if he took more than five pills. This would commit his future self to stick to the 95% boundary (even though that future self is itching to try to the same precommitment strategy to stick to its own 90% boundary)
There’s nothing “Schelling” about that. A Schelling point is a non arbItrary point that multiple people can agree on spontaneously—without being told about it. But Gandhi’s precommitment is arbitrary and only relevant to himself.
There can be fences across slippery slopes that work in a Schelling like way,and fences that don t. An example of a non Schelling fence is a speed limit. If everyone tried to overtake everyone else, that’s clearly a slippery slope towards everyone driving at an unsafe speed. And the remedy is a speed limit ,an arbitrary number that is imposed by a top down process.
If something is Schelling in any strong sense, it doesn’t need to be backed by law.
There’s nothing “Schelling” about that. A Schelling point is a non arbItrary point that multiple people can agree on spontaneously—without being told about it. But Gandhi’s precommitment is arbitrary and only relevant to himself.
There can be fences across slippery slopes that work in a Schelling like way,and fences that don t. An example of a non Schelling fence is a speed limit. If everyone tried to overtake everyone else, that’s clearly a slippery slope towards everyone driving at an unsafe speed. And the remedy is a speed limit ,an arbitrary number that is imposed by a top down process.
If something is Schelling in any strong sense, it doesn’t need to be backed by law.