I actually started this essay thinking “eh, I don’t think this matters too much”, but by the end of it I was just like “yeah, this checks out.”
I think “Don’t casually make contracts you don’t intent to keep” is just pretty cruxy for me. This is a key piece of being a trustworthy person who can coordinate in complex, novel domains. There might be a price where there is worth it to do it as a joke, but $10 is way too low.
Suppose instead that the acquaintance approached me with a piece of paper that says “I, TurnTrout, give [acquaintance] ownership over my florepti xor bobble.”
I think you should feel about this the same way you feel about some arbitrary cryptocoin or NFT. Sure, it’s an arbitrary stupid thing that only has value because people think it does. But, like, that’s what the whole finance industry is built on. You shouldn’t feel any more comfortably making a contract you don’t intend to keep about souls as you should about various currencies / beanie babies / whatever.
I’d bet 1000:1 odds against my ever wanting to “buy my soul back.”
This actually seems obviously wrong to me, if for no other reason than “I think it’s moderately likely at some point you will get approached by someone who’d buy it for more than $10.”
I think “Don’t casually make contracts you don’t intent to keep” is just pretty cruxy for me. This is a key piece of being a trustworthy person who can coordinate in complex, novel domains. There might be a price where there is worth it to do it as a joke, but $10 is way too low.
I agree that the contracts part was important, and I share this crux. I should have noted that. I did purposefully modify my hypothetical so that I wasn’t becoming less trustworthy by signing my acquaintance’s piece of paper.
This actually seems obviously wrong to me, if for no other reason than “I think it’s moderately likely at some point you will get approached by someone who’d buy it for more than $10.”
I meant something more like the desperate “oh no my soul was so important, I’m going to pay $10k, $20k, whatever it takes to get it back!”; I should have clarified that in my original comment.
I actually started this essay thinking “eh, I don’t think this matters too much”, but by the end of it I was just like “yeah, this checks out.”
I think “Don’t casually make contracts you don’t intent to keep” is just pretty cruxy for me. This is a key piece of being a trustworthy person who can coordinate in complex, novel domains. There might be a price where there is worth it to do it as a joke, but $10 is way too low.
I think you should feel about this the same way you feel about some arbitrary cryptocoin or NFT. Sure, it’s an arbitrary stupid thing that only has value because people think it does. But, like, that’s what the whole finance industry is built on. You shouldn’t feel any more comfortably making a contract you don’t intend to keep about souls as you should about various currencies / beanie babies / whatever.
This actually seems obviously wrong to me, if for no other reason than “I think it’s moderately likely at some point you will get approached by someone who’d buy it for more than $10.”
I agree that the contracts part was important, and I share this crux. I should have noted that. I did purposefully modify my hypothetical so that I wasn’t becoming less trustworthy by signing my acquaintance’s piece of paper.
I meant something more like the desperate “oh no my soul was so important, I’m going to pay $10k, $20k, whatever it takes to get it back!”; I should have clarified that in my original comment.