From: Wei Dai (weidai@eskimo.com)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 13:14:28 MDT
On Sun, Jun 02, 2002 at 12:24:36PM -0700, Hal Finney wrote:
> The situation is analogous to the tragedy of the commons, in that
> each person individually has an incentive to take advantage of others,
> but when everyone does so, all are worse off. We solve that case by
> introducing property rights. Handling prejudice has been solved by
> making it illegal in certain ways (employment for example), which in
> the long run benefits everyone. I don't know if there could be a way
> to solve it that was more analogous to property rights.
If the only negative externality of rational prejudice were an increase in
riots and other violence, then it *could* be solved with property rights.
Just make it cheaper to enforce property rights, and the riots disappear.
But that doesn't seem right somehow. I think it must be that equality of
outcomes is also a public good, since most people don't seem to like to
see wide disparities in wealth. Rational prejudice has the externality of
increases inequality, and laws against prejudice could be considered just
another income redistribution program.
But in the future, how do we aggregate people's preferences when they are
very very different? I mean if we have an AI that doesn't like inequality,
and a hive mind that doesn't care, how many votes do each of them get?
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