Someone who you’re likely to trade with (either because they offer you a trade or because they are around when you want to trade) are on average more experienced than you at trading. So trades available to you are disproportionately unfavorable and you cannot figure out which ones “are likely to lead to favorable trades in the future”, by assumption that they are incomparable.
This is what you mean by “trades are often adversarialy chosen” in (1.), right? I don’t understand why or in what situation you’re dismissing that argument in (1.).
There can be a lot of other reasons to avoid incomparable trades. In accepting a trade where you don’t clearly gain anything, you’re taking a risk to be cheated and reveal information to others about your preferences, which can risk social embarrassment and might enable others to cheat you in the future. You’re investing the mental effort to evaluate these things despite already having decided that you don’t stand to gain anything.
An interesting counterexample are social contexts where trading is an established and central activity. For example, people who exchange certain collectibles. In such a context, people feel that the act of trading itself has positive value and thus will make incomparable trades.
I think this situation is somewhat analogous to betting. Most people (cultures?) are averse to betting in general. Risk aversion and the known danger of gambling addiction explains aversion to betting for money/valuables. However, many people also strongly dislike betting without stakes. In some social contexts (horse racing, LW) betting is encouraged, even between “incomparable options”, where the odds correctly reflect your credence.
In such cases, most people seem to consider it impolite to answer an off-hand probability estimate by offering a bet. It is understood perhaps as questioning their credibility/competence/sincerity, or as an attempt to cheat them when betting for money. People will decline the bet but maintain their off-hand estimate. This might very well make sense, especially if they don’t explicitly value “training to make good probability estimates”, and perhaps for some of the same reasons as apply to trades?
I don’t understand why or in what situation you’re dismissing that argument in (1.).
Consider the specific example from the post: it’s a store that has a longstanding policy of being willing to sell people items. There’s almost no adversarial pressure from them: you know what’s available, and it’s purely your choice whether to swap or not. In other words, this is “a social context where trading is an established and central activity”. So maybe we’re just disagreeing on how common that is in general.
However, many people also strongly dislike betting without stakes.
Someone who you’re likely to trade with (either because they offer you a trade or because they are around when you want to trade) are on average more experienced than you at trading. So trades available to you are disproportionately unfavorable and you cannot figure out which ones “are likely to lead to favorable trades in the future”, by assumption that they are incomparable.
This is what you mean by “trades are often adversarialy chosen” in (1.), right? I don’t understand why or in what situation you’re dismissing that argument in (1.).
There can be a lot of other reasons to avoid incomparable trades. In accepting a trade where you don’t clearly gain anything, you’re taking a risk to be cheated and reveal information to others about your preferences, which can risk social embarrassment and might enable others to cheat you in the future. You’re investing the mental effort to evaluate these things despite already having decided that you don’t stand to gain anything.
An interesting counterexample are social contexts where trading is an established and central activity. For example, people who exchange certain collectibles. In such a context, people feel that the act of trading itself has positive value and thus will make incomparable trades.
I think this situation is somewhat analogous to betting. Most people (cultures?) are averse to betting in general. Risk aversion and the known danger of gambling addiction explains aversion to betting for money/valuables. However, many people also strongly dislike betting without stakes. In some social contexts (horse racing, LW) betting is encouraged, even between “incomparable options”, where the odds correctly reflect your credence.
In such cases, most people seem to consider it impolite to answer an off-hand probability estimate by offering a bet. It is understood perhaps as questioning their credibility/competence/sincerity, or as an attempt to cheat them when betting for money. People will decline the bet but maintain their off-hand estimate. This might very well make sense, especially if they don’t explicitly value “training to make good probability estimates”, and perhaps for some of the same reasons as apply to trades?
Consider the specific example from the post: it’s a store that has a longstanding policy of being willing to sell people items. There’s almost no adversarial pressure from them: you know what’s available, and it’s purely your choice whether to swap or not. In other words, this is “a social context where trading is an established and central activity”. So maybe we’re just disagreeing on how common that is in general.
Good point, I’ll need to think about that.