Surely, as rationalists, we should do a controlled test to determine if these are scams? This will require some blindly chosen users to respond in a variety of different ways, some of whom should go through with the possible scam, and report the results.
EDIT: I think it’s time to come clean. No, I am not the scammer, but this post wasn’t serious. I’m rather surprised anyone thought it could be, to be honest!
No, if we’re rationalist, we should figure out if the cost of doing the tests is worth the expected gain from getting the test results. If we’re fairly certain that it’s a scam already (so test results won’t change the situation much) and if the tests are expensive, it might be a better idea not to test.
Shouldn’t we first determine whether the amount of effort needed to figure out the costs of the tests is less than the expected value of ((cost of doing tests—expected gain)|(cost of doing tests > expected gain))?
No, because you don’t want ot get into an infinite regress about figuring out the cost of figuring out the cost to, etc. So you need to have a general policy about when to stop the regress, and ensure that your policy is good in most of the cases you’ll actually run into in practice, while acknowledging that it may not be optimal 100% of the time.
I thought it was a deliberate technique on the part of scammers to use bad grammar/spelling in order that their marks self-select for people that are less intelligent/educated etc
It is plausible that the scammer actually has excellent diction.
I thought it was a deliberate technique on the part of scammers to use bad grammar/spelling in order that their marks self-select for people that are less intelligent/educated
In general that’s a published theory. On the other hand I don’t think those spammers target LW. Anybody who can follow the argument of the importance of matching donations for MIRI is likely put of by the bad grammar.
What about those who treat matching donations as an applause light, and simply do it because it is ingroup behaviour and not because they’ve followed the argument?
Isn’t the whole concept of matching donations a bit irrational to begin with? If a company thinks that MIRI is a good cause, they should give money to MIRI. If they think that potential employees will be motivated by them giving money to MIRI, wouldn’t a naive application of economics predict that employees would value a salary increase of a particular amount at a utility that is equal or greater than the utility of that particular amount being donated to MIRI? An employee can convert a $1000 salary increase to a $1000 MIRI donation, but not the reverse. Either the company is being irrational, or it is expecting its employees to be irrational.
In some jurisdictions it may be cheaper for the company to donate a given amount to charity than to pay it to an employee (because of tax rules intended to incentivize charitable donations).
The company may value both employee-motivation and helping charities.
The company may value being seen as the sort of company that helps charities.
This seems like a correct answer. The company (1) wants to be seen as the sort of company that helps charities, (2) doesn’t care deeply about the charities, and (3) wants to motivate employees.
The first part explains why they have a budget for charities, and the second and third part together explain why they let employees allocate that budget instead of the company doing it itself. The charitable explanation of the second part is that the company trusts their employees to have good knowledge about charities, and thus kinda outsources the research of good charities to them.
On the other hand, an uncharitable explanation is that if most employees don’t donate to charities, then this strategy allows the company to appear more generous than it actually is. For example, if a company with 1000 employees publicly declares to match each employee’s donations up to $1000, it gives an impression as if they are going to donate $1000000 to charities, while in fact they may know that only five of their employees actually donate to charities, so the expected expense is $5000. (There is a risk this could backfire, but maybe they did experiments with smaller sums in the previous years, and/or maybe there is a small print somewhere making an exception in the case that too many employees decide to donate.)
Isn’t the whole concept of matching donations a bit irrational to begin with?
There no reason to call a practice irrational simply because you don’t understand it and it’s not explained by naive application of classical economics.
It seems to be good for branding. We know that spending money for others makes people happier. Employees who donate are happier than those who don’t. That’s valuable to the company.
An employee can convert a $1000 increase into a $1000 MIRI donation, but that requires the employee to get up and do something (i.e. log into his bank account and do a transfer). There’s a chance for procrastination, laziness, and mental inertia to prevent that donation; employees who really want MIRI to get the donation might appreciate the company handling the actual getting up and doing it part (which the company can do rather more efficiently—making one big transfer instead of hundreds of little ones, with a corresponding decrease in both individual effort and bank fees).
Also, since we’re talking potential employees, then it might be a strategic move by the company to more strongly attract potential employees who strongly value MIRI donations and reduce the company’s attraction to potential employees who do not value MIRI donations.
Surely, as rationalists, we should do a controlled test to determine if these are scams? This will require some blindly chosen users to respond in a variety of different ways, some of whom should go through with the possible scam, and report the results.
EDIT: I think it’s time to come clean. No, I am not the scammer, but this post wasn’t serious. I’m rather surprised anyone thought it could be, to be honest!
No, if we’re rationalist, we should figure out if the cost of doing the tests is worth the expected gain from getting the test results. If we’re fairly certain that it’s a scam already (so test results won’t change the situation much) and if the tests are expensive, it might be a better idea not to test.
If we’re rationalist, we don’t start our reasoning with “If we’re rationalist, then...”.
Shouldn’t we first determine whether the amount of effort needed to figure out the costs of the tests is less than the expected value of ((cost of doing tests—expected gain)|(cost of doing tests > expected gain))?
No, because you don’t want ot get into an infinite regress about figuring out the cost of figuring out the cost to, etc. So you need to have a general policy about when to stop the regress, and ensure that your policy is good in most of the cases you’ll actually run into in practice, while acknowledging that it may not be optimal 100% of the time.
So awkward it hurts that this is even a thing.
Why? Why do you believe that spending resources to run a controlled test is worth the effort?
I’m not sure whether people thinking I was being serious means I was being too dry, or exactly dry enough :D
This could be the scammer trying to get at least some return :)
Given the diction of the post of the scammer I doubt he’s capable of averaging 89% positive karma out of 150 the way rosyatrandom did.
I thought it was a deliberate technique on the part of scammers to use bad grammar/spelling in order that their marks self-select for people that are less intelligent/educated etc It is plausible that the scammer actually has excellent diction.
In general that’s a published theory. On the other hand I don’t think those spammers target LW. Anybody who can follow the argument of the importance of matching donations for MIRI is likely put of by the bad grammar.
What about those who treat matching donations as an applause light, and simply do it because it is ingroup behaviour and not because they’ve followed the argument?
Isn’t the whole concept of matching donations a bit irrational to begin with? If a company thinks that MIRI is a good cause, they should give money to MIRI. If they think that potential employees will be motivated by them giving money to MIRI, wouldn’t a naive application of economics predict that employees would value a salary increase of a particular amount at a utility that is equal or greater than the utility of that particular amount being donated to MIRI? An employee can convert a $1000 salary increase to a $1000 MIRI donation, but not the reverse. Either the company is being irrational, or it is expecting its employees to be irrational.
In some jurisdictions it may be cheaper for the company to donate a given amount to charity than to pay it to an employee (because of tax rules intended to incentivize charitable donations).
The company may value both employee-motivation and helping charities.
The company may value being seen as the sort of company that helps charities.
This seems like a correct answer. The company (1) wants to be seen as the sort of company that helps charities, (2) doesn’t care deeply about the charities, and (3) wants to motivate employees.
The first part explains why they have a budget for charities, and the second and third part together explain why they let employees allocate that budget instead of the company doing it itself. The charitable explanation of the second part is that the company trusts their employees to have good knowledge about charities, and thus kinda outsources the research of good charities to them.
On the other hand, an uncharitable explanation is that if most employees don’t donate to charities, then this strategy allows the company to appear more generous than it actually is. For example, if a company with 1000 employees publicly declares to match each employee’s donations up to $1000, it gives an impression as if they are going to donate $1000000 to charities, while in fact they may know that only five of their employees actually donate to charities, so the expected expense is $5000. (There is a risk this could backfire, but maybe they did experiments with smaller sums in the previous years, and/or maybe there is a small print somewhere making an exception in the case that too many employees decide to donate.)
There no reason to call a practice irrational simply because you don’t understand it and it’s not explained by naive application of classical economics.
It seems to be good for branding. We know that spending money for others makes people happier. Employees who donate are happier than those who don’t. That’s valuable to the company.
An employee can convert a $1000 increase into a $1000 MIRI donation, but that requires the employee to get up and do something (i.e. log into his bank account and do a transfer). There’s a chance for procrastination, laziness, and mental inertia to prevent that donation; employees who really want MIRI to get the donation might appreciate the company handling the actual getting up and doing it part (which the company can do rather more efficiently—making one big transfer instead of hundreds of little ones, with a corresponding decrease in both individual effort and bank fees).
Also, since we’re talking potential employees, then it might be a strategic move by the company to more strongly attract potential employees who strongly value MIRI donations and reduce the company’s attraction to potential employees who do not value MIRI donations.
put of for what nonsensical reason?
Exercise left for the reader.
Ahh.… I’ve always wondered, without ever noticing that I was confused. Thank you.
Wait a moment. I can agree that it’s a “common sense” guess that
P(bad spelling | less education) >> P(bad spelling)
but what that “technique” would imply is:
P(finds text with bad spelling belivable | less education) >> P(finds text with bad spelling belivable)
...which is kinda more interesting. So to speak.