Prepaid spam
On Tue, Jul 01, 2003 at 07:58:56PM -0500, John Morrow wrote: Subject: Re: Do Not Call -- The newest public interest miracle? At 07:41 PM 7/1/2003 -0400, Wei Dai wrote: I can... The Do Not Call form should take a bank account number and dollar amount. Any advertiser who pre-pays the amount I specify would be allowed to call me. This is precisely a thought that occurred to me as a way to prevent spam -- computers can reduce the marginal transaction cost, and liens could be put up against bandwidth providers to take care of any lag in the system. Would be spammers would sign contracts with their ISPs, and ISPs with the agencies who kept track of costs for individuals and authenticated email coming from contracted ISPs. A major problem is getting a critical mass of people to use it, so that people are not missing email from users of hold out ISPs. See my article Stamps vs Spam for a proposal to implement this idea that arguably doesn't have a critical mass problem with respect to number of users: http://fare.tunes.org/articles/stamps_vs_spam.html [ François-René ÐVB Rideau | ReflectionCybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ] [ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ] Please leave the State in the toilets where you found it.
Re: some people are optimizers
On 2003-07-01, Marko Paunovic uttered to [EMAIL PROTECTED]: However, I don't think that there is any evidence, except in social insects, for this kind of specialization that you are suggesting. The existence of two sexes appears an obvious counter-example. There are also some reasons to expect that the principle might work at a finer-grained level. I don't have a reference at hand, but I've once read a highly interesting sociobiology account of why homosexuality might be one such specialisation (that's where the childcare idea came from). I've also heard some speculation about the possibility of warrior genes (i.e. genes which cause aggression bordering on self-sacrifice). The same goes for novelty seeking (troubled youth), which I understand has been extensively studied. From the economic standpoint the ratio between novelty seekers and steady people determines the community's collective risk profile. So I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of genetic occupations (a wonderful term, BTW) just yet. Otherwise we're in vigorous agreement. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
Re: calculating the irrational in economics
Calculating the Irrational in Economics By STEPHEN J. DUBNER the average investor is hardly the superrational homo economicus that mainstream economists depict. Who depicts it? What's the difference between superrational and rational. behaviorists are essentially calling for an end to economics as we know it. A good reason to be wary. Most revolutions are just spin. The point is that too many options can flummox a consumer. So what? Standard economics would argue that people are better off with more options. Where does standard economics argue this? This sounds like straw. But behavioral economics argues that people behave less like mathematical models than like - well, people. No doubt many mathematical models are unrealistic. But their purpose is not to be realistic. Among the behaviorists, there is the common sentiment that economics has been ruined by math. Others say this also. Richard H. Thaler. His paper, written with the legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein, was called Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron. Mr. Thaler has concluded that too many people, no matter how educated or vigilant, are poor planners, inconsistent savers and haphazard investors. His solution: public and private institutions should gently steer individuals toward more enlightened choices. That is, they must be saved from themselves. Mr. Thaler's most concrete idea is Save More Tomorrow (SMarT), a savings plan whereby employees pledge a share of their future salary increases to a retirement account. That's a good idea, but it does not overturn economics. an automatic asset reallocation to keep an employee from holding more than 20 percent of his portfolio in company stock. Better yet, use modern portfolio theory and invest only in index funds. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
