This needs to be tested for predictive power, but I believe the main reason you lost so quickly is that you bet money against another form of utility with no direct convertability. Having equally fungible forfeits on both sides of the bet makes it more symmetrical.
To venture into fuzzier grounds: The other reason I believe the asymmetry of the bet made you lose so quickly is that the average LWer can predict with high confidence that JoshuaZ will choose one of their top 5 charities.
I believe the main reason you lost so quickly is that you bet money against another form of utility
A decent analysis, but it’s premised on a bad assumption. I didn’t bet; I issued a challenge. Notice that, unlike in a bet, if JoshuaZ failed, he would not necessarily have forfeited karma to me or anyone else. I certainly agree with you that it would be foolish to bet money against karma. I see my actions more as offering a prize for the successful completion of a task than as betting that JoshuaZ would be unable to complete the task.
the average LWer can predict with high confidence that JoshuaZ will choose one of their top 5 charities.
Sure, but they’re still unlikely to vote up a bullshit post. Maybe that gives JoshuaZ a moderate handicap, but my primary purpose was to inspire JoshuaZ to produce a useful analysis that interested me, and not to inspire the LW crowd to precisely assess the worth of that analysis. I suppose in the future I might set a slightly higher threshold—maybe 7 or 8 karma points.
the average LWer can predict with high confidence that JoshuaZ will choose one of their top 5 charities.
Sure, but they’re still unlikely to vote up a bullshit post.
Having read JoshuaZ’s previous contributions to the conversation, and having read the challenge, I was pretty much intending to vote up his response as long as it wasn’t completely inane (it had already crossed the threshold when I read it, so I didn’t bother).
I wonder if any of the (presumably three) people who did upvote it before it crossed the threshold had similar thought processes...?
I wonder if any of the (presumably three) people who did upvote it before it crossed the threshold had similar thought processes...?
I’m one of the people who upvoted it, and I think I had a similar thought process. I wasn’t movitated by a belief that JoshuaZ would choose a charity I liked, though. I just read his post and thought his attempted definition was a good try, and (more importantly) that it was an interesting clarification that would provoke good discussion.
My analysis assumes that any challenge like that is a bet of money against some social value; if there were no utility on one side the challenge would not be taken up; if there were no utility on the other side the challenge would not be offered.
This needs to be tested for predictive power, but I believe the main reason you lost so quickly is that you bet money against another form of utility with no direct convertability. Having equally fungible forfeits on both sides of the bet makes it more symmetrical.
To venture into fuzzier grounds: The other reason I believe the asymmetry of the bet made you lose so quickly is that the average LWer can predict with high confidence that JoshuaZ will choose one of their top 5 charities.
A decent analysis, but it’s premised on a bad assumption. I didn’t bet; I issued a challenge. Notice that, unlike in a bet, if JoshuaZ failed, he would not necessarily have forfeited karma to me or anyone else. I certainly agree with you that it would be foolish to bet money against karma. I see my actions more as offering a prize for the successful completion of a task than as betting that JoshuaZ would be unable to complete the task.
Sure, but they’re still unlikely to vote up a bullshit post. Maybe that gives JoshuaZ a moderate handicap, but my primary purpose was to inspire JoshuaZ to produce a useful analysis that interested me, and not to inspire the LW crowd to precisely assess the worth of that analysis. I suppose in the future I might set a slightly higher threshold—maybe 7 or 8 karma points.
Having read JoshuaZ’s previous contributions to the conversation, and having read the challenge, I was pretty much intending to vote up his response as long as it wasn’t completely inane (it had already crossed the threshold when I read it, so I didn’t bother).
I wonder if any of the (presumably three) people who did upvote it before it crossed the threshold had similar thought processes...?
I’m one of the people who upvoted it, and I think I had a similar thought process. I wasn’t movitated by a belief that JoshuaZ would choose a charity I liked, though. I just read his post and thought his attempted definition was a good try, and (more importantly) that it was an interesting clarification that would provoke good discussion.
My analysis assumes that any challenge like that is a bet of money against some social value; if there were no utility on one side the challenge would not be taken up; if there were no utility on the other side the challenge would not be offered.
I’m sorry; I don’t understand.
There is, as you say, utility on both sides of the transaction. What does that have to with whether a bet has been placed?
Is it a challenge, or a bet? I’m just saying that examining it as a bet offers some insight into the unexpectedly lopsided results.