I was trying to come up with examples where the exchange was very small. I agree the three you don’t like were ways of resolving often unimportant preferences and can sound petty.
That said:
For the first one I know at least two people with PTSD-like symptoms who have requested something similar from me, which wasn’t petty. I expect that they’d feel more comfortable if they could offset the cost with money, rather than feeling like they’re paying an unknown, possibly large amount of social capital (indeed one of them was severely disruptive to me, and I never really brought it up).
For the second, I think that people have different standards for thinking about microcovids and such, and I have exchange great deals of money in this way. I wouldn’t think much of it if someone asked me that, likely we’re already exchanging dollars for microcovids.
This one is the one I most identify with! Clean surfaces are a big quality of life improvement for me, and I’d happily pay for it.
For the last, you say that even normies wouldn’t have a problem with it, but I think it’s plausible my mum would be upset if I offered to pay her to drive me to the airport.
Thanks! This has definitely helped me to think about the concept of cheerful prices. Here’s my current position.
I do see the value in avoiding the situation of “I’m paying you to do X, you accept, but are secretly annoyed about it”. By paying instead X + cheerfulness bonus you avoid it. However,
I don’t have much IRL experience with rationalists, but I would expect that if you buy into the idea of exchanging money in these sorts of scenarios, that you’d also buy into the idea of Tell Culture, at least enough such that you can have some back and forth and avoid the “but are secretly annoyed about it” part.
Even if I’m wrong about (1), isn’t the cheerfulness bonus too large? “Cheerful” and “excited” seem like they really overshoot “don’t have secret feelings of annoyance”. Maybe a “non-begrudging/non-reluctant/non-sour price” would make more sense. In practice, I expect that the payer would often feel resentment about paying cheerful prices. “Ugh, do I really have to keep paying this person $100 to clean up the kitchen?”
While in my experience the rationalists have some of the best conversational norms for communicating about conflict and costs and disagreements, I would not say that the rationalists I meet have solved these problems, to the extent where there are not costs that are very difficult to do conscious accounting of. So from one perspective, I’ll take all the tools I can get, and this seems like it may help with some such situations.
That said, I think you’re right that the cheerfulness bonus is probably too large in some of my examples. The actual cheerful price for the one I have in mind would’ve been… I feel confused, somewhere between $50 and $500. Still, I think it would’ve been a bit high for them. But my fair price would’ve been lower.
I guess I’ll look for opportunities to use cheerful prices with the people I know. I’ll see if I can find at least three occasions to use it in the next few weeks.
I used it this afternoon to pay a housemate to sterilize the contents of a package. They said $5.
Do any other examples come to mind? I’m finding it difficult to think about without, say, 5 concrete examples to latch on to.
What’s your cheerful price for not drumming your fingers on things when you’re in the living room
What’s your cheerful price for being responsible for background music at our party tonight?
What’s your cheerful price for keeping your mask on until you enter the house, rather than take it off near the house?
What’s your cheerful price for cleaning up the kitchen as soon as you’ve been cooking in there, rather than some point later that same day?
What’s your cheerful price for driving me to the airport at 5am on Monday?
My responses:
Bleep you
$20 and creative control. A great use of the concept.
Bleep you
Bleep you
A generally understood example that even normies wouldn’t have a problem with. Another good example.
I was trying to come up with examples where the exchange was very small. I agree the three you don’t like were ways of resolving often unimportant preferences and can sound petty.
That said:
For the first one I know at least two people with PTSD-like symptoms who have requested something similar from me, which wasn’t petty. I expect that they’d feel more comfortable if they could offset the cost with money, rather than feeling like they’re paying an unknown, possibly large amount of social capital (indeed one of them was severely disruptive to me, and I never really brought it up).
For the second, I think that people have different standards for thinking about microcovids and such, and I have exchange great deals of money in this way. I wouldn’t think much of it if someone asked me that, likely we’re already exchanging dollars for microcovids.
This one is the one I most identify with! Clean surfaces are a big quality of life improvement for me, and I’d happily pay for it.
For the last, you say that even normies wouldn’t have a problem with it, but I think it’s plausible my mum would be upset if I offered to pay her to drive me to the airport.
Thanks! This has definitely helped me to think about the concept of cheerful prices. Here’s my current position.
I do see the value in avoiding the situation of “I’m paying you to do X, you accept, but are secretly annoyed about it”. By paying instead
X + cheerfulness bonusyou avoid it. However,I don’t have much IRL experience with rationalists, but I would expect that if you buy into the idea of exchanging money in these sorts of scenarios, that you’d also buy into the idea of Tell Culture, at least enough such that you can have some back and forth and avoid the “but are secretly annoyed about it” part.
Even if I’m wrong about (1), isn’t the
cheerfulness bonustoo large? “Cheerful” and “excited” seem like they really overshoot “don’t have secret feelings of annoyance”. Maybe a “non-begrudging/non-reluctant/non-sour price” would make more sense. In practice, I expect that the payer would often feel resentment about paying cheerful prices. “Ugh, do I really have to keep paying this person $100 to clean up the kitchen?”Solid points.
While in my experience the rationalists have some of the best conversational norms for communicating about conflict and costs and disagreements, I would not say that the rationalists I meet have solved these problems, to the extent where there are not costs that are very difficult to do conscious accounting of. So from one perspective, I’ll take all the tools I can get, and this seems like it may help with some such situations.
That said, I think you’re right that the cheerfulness bonus is probably too large in some of my examples. The actual cheerful price for the one I have in mind would’ve been… I feel confused, somewhere between $50 and $500. Still, I think it would’ve been a bit high for them. But my fair price would’ve been lower.
I guess I’ll look for opportunities to use cheerful prices with the people I know. I’ll see if I can find at least three occasions to use it in the next few weeks.