laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) (11/09/85)
In article <237@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >Shortly after Teddy Green of the Bruins took a hockey stick in his >brain, *Newsweek* (October 6, 1969) commented: > > Players will not adopt helmets by individual choice for > several reasons. Chicago star Bobby Hull cites the simplest > factor: "Vanity." But many players honestly believe that > helmets will cut their efficiency and put them at a > disadvantage, and others fear the ridicule of opponents. The > use of helmets will spread only through fear caused by > injuries like Green's -- or through a rule making them > mandatory.... One player summed up the feelings of many: > "It's foolish not to wear a helmet. But I don't -- because > the other guys don't. I know that's silly, but most of the > players feel the same way. If the league made us do it, > though, we'd all wear them and nobody would mind." > >The *Newsweek* story went on to quote Don Awrey. "When I saw the way >Teddy looked, it was an awful feeling.... I'm going to start wearing >a helmet now, and I don't care what anybody says." But viewers of >Channel 38 (Boston) know that Awrey did not. --T. Schelling >-- Hello there. Bobby Hull is older than my father. This is ancient in hockey playing standards, where 27 year olds are considered ``veterans'' and 30 year olds are called ``aging''. Almost all hockey players are Canadians less than 35 years old. Most are in their early 20s. All of these people did junior hockey in Canada which is more organised than football in the US. As kids these people were *forced to wear helmets*. This is the ruling. If the NHL forced people to wear helmets, they would wear them but lots of people would mind. Remember that all the people these days who are not wearing helmets chose to take them off. Hockey helmets do decrease your periferal vision, and it is the case that a player will whack a helmeted player on the head if the referee i snot looking. This sort of thing does not happen as frequently to unhelmeted players. Also, if you are ever in a fight, a good many of the more comfortable helmets turn out to be lousy protection from directed punches and can do a great deal of damage. There are helmets that do not have this problem but they are lousy helmets for performance reasons. Helmets are hot. I've seen kids pass out because they were too hot in their helmets, though never a profesional. The fact is that unhelmeted professional hockey players have chosen to live this way. They are not minors. Why are you in such a hurry to take this choice away from them? Laura Creighton (daughter of minor league hockey coach, dater of professional hockey players, most of which are younger than I am now, sigh) -- Help beautify the world. I am writing a book called *How To Write Portable C Programs*. Send me anything that you would like to find in such a book when it appears in your bookstores. Get your name mentioned in the credits. Laura Creighton sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa
carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (11/11/85)
Laura Creighton writes: >The fact is that unhelmeted professional hockey players have chosen to live >this way. They are not minors. Why are you in such a hurry to take this >choice away from them? But what if both of the following statements are true: 1. Each player prefers to play without a helmet, regardless of whether anyone else is wearing a helmet or not; AND 2. Given a choice between A. everyone NOT wearing a helmet, including himself; and B. everyone wearing a helmet, including himself; everyone would prefer B to A. Then what do you do? If these statements are true, there arises a multi-person Prisoner's Dilemma, a.k.a. a free-rider problem. If somehow everyone was wearing a helmet at the beginning of the match, players would simply remove them, and they would end up at A instead of the preferred alternative B. The same problem arises even when everyone prefers C, "N players wearing a helmet, including himself," to A, where N is some number > 1. In real life, free-rider problems are sometimes overcome, in different ways. One way is through making the individually unpreferred option mandatory, the dreaded coercive solution. Another is through "solidarity" or "class consciousness," which is just a name for the empirically observed phenomenon that people sometimes make the collectively rather than individually rational choice, as often in strikes and revolutions. Another way is through irrationality: the individual thinks "if I choose my unpreferred option, everyone else will too" (magical thinking). Another explanation might be moral inculcation or indoctrination: e.g., people could be strict Kantians and always act so that they could will their maxim to be a universal law. The point is that it is a problem, both normative and explanatory. The normative (practical) problem is often a very serious one, e.g., how do we overthrow a dictatorship if each individual would risk his neck by becoming a revolutionary? How do we reduce the risk of nuclear war, or reduce violent crime, or reduce death and injuries on the streets owing to nonuse of seatbelts? The explanatory problem is how to explain why free-riding is sometimes overcome and sometimes is not. For example, no one really has a good explanation of how and why revolutions occur. The libertarian solution to everything seems to be "let the free market solve the problem." But the free market "works" only in cases where the costs and benefits of actions are accepted *voluntarily* by everyone, so libertarians advocate private ownership of everything to internalize costs and benefits. But this solution is utopian, i.e., totally unrealistic. In the real world, a person's actions unavoidably impose costs and benefits on other people, whether anyone wants them to or not. It is an inescapable fact of social life, and cannot be eliminated by imposing a regime of private control of objects, land, air, etc. -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) (11/12/85)
In article <242@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >Laura Creighton writes: > >>The fact is that unhelmeted professional hockey players have chosen to live >>this way. They are not minors. Why are you in such a hurry to take this >>choice away from them? > >But what if both of the following statements are true: > >1. Each player prefers to play without a helmet, regardless of >whether anyone else is wearing a helmet or not; AND > >2. Given a choice between > > A. everyone NOT wearing a helmet, including himself; and > B. everyone wearing a helmet, including himself; > >everyone would prefer B to A. > >Then what do you do? If these statements are true, there arises a >multi-person Prisoner's Dilemma, a.k.a. a free-rider problem. Richard, I enjoy Prisoner's Dilemmas. However, I am not so flexible in my thinking that I can extrapolate very far on any given set of postulates. There is no way that I can view helmet wearing in these lights, because these choices are too unrealistic to me. It is not the case that having other people wear helmets is a benefit to other hockey players. But I can say something about the general problem of free-rider situations. 1. If a basic assumption is that you must get everybody to comply or else it fails, then forget it -- it is going to fail. We can't keep people from murdering others now. The best we can do is see to it that most people do not murder. 2. Some people's primary objection is that it is not fair that some people get what I had to pay for for nothing. However, if the benefit I get is sufficiently large, it is worth paying for the free riders. Of course, I would like to have the time to convince them that it is not moral for them to rip me off, but I am not all that fanatical about fairness. This ``not be all that fantatical about fairness'' is often called charity, and has worked in the past. I think that if it is to work as a general solution to most free rider problems it will be necessary to have an attitude change in a great many people. 3. At lot of people talk about a problem as a ``free rider'' problem, when what they are really doing is a thinly disguised attempt to force their will on other people. For instance, if I thought that you were serious about calling the hockey-helmet dilemma a ``free rider'' problem, I would have the sneaking suspicion that what you were really doing was constructing a logical-sounding argument to back you up, when your real problem is a desire to force hockey players to be more ``reasonable'' and wear helmets because their unreasonableness grates upon you. There are real free-rider situations, of course. It is in my interest that everyone receives as much education as they want, even if some cannot pay for it. But in a society where enough people are sufficiently moral as to not be fanatical about fairness and where this basic point is clearly understood, sufficient people will be willing to pick up the costs of other people's education that everyone can receive as much education as they want. How one can encourage the development if such a society is a good and interesting question. -- Laura Creighton sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa
nrh@inmet.UUCP (11/13/85)
>/* Written 12:34 pm Nov 11, 1985 by carnes@gargoyle in inmet:net.politics.t */ >... >But what if both of the following statements are true: > >1. Each player prefers to play without a helmet, regardless of >whether anyone else is wearing a helmet or not; AND > >2. Given a choice between > > A. everyone NOT wearing a helmet, including himself; and > B. everyone wearing a helmet, including himself; > >everyone would prefer B to A. > >Then what do you do? If these statements are true, there arises a >multi-person Prisoner's Dilemma, a.k.a. a free-rider problem. If >somehow everyone was wearing a helmet at the beginning of the match, >players would simply remove them, and they would end up at A instead >of the preferred alternative B. The same problem arises even when >everyone prefers C, "N players wearing a helmet, including >himself," to A, where N is some number > 1. > >In real life, free-rider problems are sometimes overcome, in >different ways. One way is through making the individually >unpreferred option mandatory, the dreaded coercive solution. Another >is through "solidarity" or "class consciousness," which is just a >name for the empirically observed phenomenon that people sometimes >make the collectively rather than individually rational choice, as >often in strikes and revolutions. Another way is through >irrationality: the individual thinks "if I choose my unpreferred >option, everyone else will too" (magical thinking). Another >explanation might be moral inculcation or indoctrination: e.g., >people could be strict Kantians and always act so that they could >will their maxim to be a universal law. > >The point is that it is a problem, both normative and explanatory. >The normative (practical) problem is often a very serious one, e.g., >how do we overthrow a dictatorship if each individual would risk his >neck by becoming a revolutionary? How do we reduce the risk of >nuclear war, or reduce violent crime, or reduce death and injuries on >the streets owing to nonuse of seatbelts? The explanatory problem is >how to explain why free-riding is sometimes overcome and sometimes is >not. For example, no one really has a good explanation of how and >why revolutions occur. I think you're mixing microcosmic game theory with large-scale reality: In microcosmic game theory, the "public good" is NEVER supplied, because the assumption is that each person will act in his own best interest, and that each person is rational, and there are no ways of binding future consequences to present double-crosses. For example, in the prisoner's dilemma, it's seldom pointed out that the possibility of double-crossing the other fellow carries with it the danger of being killed by his friends, or that he'll be pretty angry when he gets out, or that other criminals, knowing you squealed, will not wish to risk working with you. If I remember right, Tim Sevener tried to attack the libertarian notions of the market and what it means on the basis of the simplifying assumptions normally used to explain microcosmic economics to folks (perfect, free information, comparability of all products of a given type). It sounds to me as if you've fallen into the trap Sevener was worrying about. There would, indeed, be no revolution if the government took care that everyone was just below the boiling point, but governments don't do this -- they can't. While I have no comprehensive theoretical reason for why revolutions occur, I do have a suggestion. An undesirable government doesn't treat all its citizens exactly alike (at least, they haven't to date), and also, some of its citizens will react differently to similar treatment. This sort of variation is, I think, quite healthy. Some folks despise a dictatorship more than they value their own safety. As is the case with any public good, we are no doubt undersupplied with revolutionaries, but NOT entirely lacking them. If you're a wealthy shopkeeper under Idi Amin, you won't rebel, but you might if his soldiers rape and kill your sister. In practice, the government is different things to different people, not one "average" thing. For some of these people, the government is more dangerous, more horrible, than the risk to their lives entailed in rebelling. These folks rebel. What does it mean when a good is "undersupplied"? It means that less than the optimal amount of the good will be called forth for the demand. It would certainly be nice if revolutions occurred by the simultaneous decision of almost everyone in the country to rebel ("Morning, dear, feel like a revolution?" "Yes indeed honey, and all our neighbors will to") which would result in rather quiet executions of people like Hitler, but this doesn't happen -- the fires of rebellion, like almost all real fires, start in spots and then spread. >The libertarian solution to everything seems to be "let the free >market solve the problem." Sorry, was that "Richard Carnes"... or "Richard *canard*"? Libertarians are against initiation of force or fraud. We've no objection to charity, do-gooder not-for-profit organizations, families caring for their own elderly, or people spending money on clearly lost causes -- so long as it is THEIR money. This notion that because libertarians regard the free market as a great resource ignores the fact that libertarians regard the free market as ONE OUTCOME of freedom and property. It is *NOT* the only outcome (charity is another) and this is *NOT* the first time I've said it. So if it seems to you that the libertarian solution to everything is to let the free market solve it, then you're simply ignoring the record. >But the free market "works" only in cases >where the costs and benefits of actions are accepted *voluntarily* by >everyone, so libertarians advocate private ownership of everything to >internalize costs and benefits. But this solution is utopian, i.e., >totally unrealistic. In the real world, a person's actions >unavoidably impose costs and benefits on other people, whether anyone >wants them to or not. It is an inescapable fact of social life, and >cannot be eliminated by imposing a regime of private control of >objects, land, air, etc. And it is supposed to be impossible to impose costs on other people? Hold your breath, mac, because there are germs that other people have spread around. Should you be able to sue them if you get sick? Should the government be able to round them up and lock them away if you get sick? Of course not. The government shouldn't be in the business of making all outcomes equal regardless of what people do. It should not be used to get you a job that you wanted if you lose it to someone who hustles more. Has that someone "harmed" you? In one sense, yes. Do you have the right to ask for government initiation of force against such a person? Of course not!