RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
8mo ago·Edited 8mo ago
Interesting, good post. I made a post about similar ideas a few days earlier albeit much less thoughtfully and well-formed. It's an odd feeling to have someone write the exact same thing you were thinking about but better.
In game theory, there are a bunch of simple strategies like 'switch from always cooperate to defect if the other guy defects first'. But when you introduce uncertainty, if there's a chance of mistakes (pressing cooperate and getting defect) then things get more complicated. Depending on the rate of error, some strategies that would otherwise be uncompetitive become workable - always cooperate can actually compete in some cases!
I reckon that introducing uncertainty worsens the case for immigration. In the real world we can't quite be sure whether someone's credentials are real, whether their education is legit and earned, what sort of standards they'll work at... until we employ them. Skill levels are hard to determine since everyone wants to look as skillful as they can. Ascertaining skill is sort of possible but not perfect in a single nation-state since you can tell what a good resume looks like, what a good university is, you can pick up on diction and various personality facets in interviews since you know your countrymen best. And people are less likely to lie and cheat extensively and expertly if there's no great financial incentive to do so.
But if your income and quality of life is rising fourfold if you get the job or the university admission, then you'll try a lot harder to get in! You'll pull strings, draw on connections, pounce on places where incentives are imperfectly aligned. There are real problems with cost-cutting outsourcing resulting in lower quality products, in illegible factors that are hard to ascertain beforehand. We can imagine how changing the error-rate alters the dominant strategy from the employer's point of view. And then there are political factors that make it harder to sort people by skill level. Right now in Australia there's 'same work, same pay' legislation being discussed. Some people do the same work much better than others and logically deserve more pay.
Right now in Australia there's 'same work, same pay' legislation being discussed. Some people do the same work much better than others and logically deserve more pay.
Seems to me like it would be easy to do an end-run around this by giving high performing employees a slightly different job title while they're still doing the same work.
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Notes -
Interesting, good post. I made a post about similar ideas a few days earlier albeit much less thoughtfully and well-formed. It's an odd feeling to have someone write the exact same thing you were thinking about but better.
In game theory, there are a bunch of simple strategies like 'switch from always cooperate to defect if the other guy defects first'. But when you introduce uncertainty, if there's a chance of mistakes (pressing cooperate and getting defect) then things get more complicated. Depending on the rate of error, some strategies that would otherwise be uncompetitive become workable - always cooperate can actually compete in some cases!
I reckon that introducing uncertainty worsens the case for immigration. In the real world we can't quite be sure whether someone's credentials are real, whether their education is legit and earned, what sort of standards they'll work at... until we employ them. Skill levels are hard to determine since everyone wants to look as skillful as they can. Ascertaining skill is sort of possible but not perfect in a single nation-state since you can tell what a good resume looks like, what a good university is, you can pick up on diction and various personality facets in interviews since you know your countrymen best. And people are less likely to lie and cheat extensively and expertly if there's no great financial incentive to do so.
But if your income and quality of life is rising fourfold if you get the job or the university admission, then you'll try a lot harder to get in! You'll pull strings, draw on connections, pounce on places where incentives are imperfectly aligned. There are real problems with cost-cutting outsourcing resulting in lower quality products, in illegible factors that are hard to ascertain beforehand. We can imagine how changing the error-rate alters the dominant strategy from the employer's point of view. And then there are political factors that make it harder to sort people by skill level. Right now in Australia there's 'same work, same pay' legislation being discussed. Some people do the same work much better than others and logically deserve more pay.
Seems to me like it would be easy to do an end-run around this by giving high performing employees a slightly different job title while they're still doing the same work.
https://xkcd.com/1494/
Anyone creating such a law would have already thought of obvious workarounds like this and done something to avoid them.
sam brinton must have read the alt-text on that comic
Low effort swipes at your outgroup are not permitted. Don't post like this please.
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