just a game

I am reposting a entry I made on Ycombinator’s hacker news.

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The most influential thing I’ve learned is that people act by their individual set of incentives. Apply choice aspects of psychology and economics – then you got something big. Think game theory.Also, I’m waiting for the Human Genome Project to help elucidate more on the placebo effect.

I think it has a major correlation with the phenotypic vs. genotypic expression of faith - something all humans display toward an institution, ideology, themselves, and/or another person.

This will be immensely powerful information.

So, something “BIG” clicked in my mind tonight.  I am ecstatic about fleshing the whole concept out.  Unfortunately, I have an exam tomorrow and should probably be asleep by now. (On a side note, can I ever write a post where I won’t gripe over my current school situation?)
The good news is that I begin Easter Break after my exam.  I was originally planning to organize a trip to Hilton Head, SC, with a bunch of friends, but have just decided I do not  have the time (I mean I have the time, but there are more pressing issues at hand that I must address).

I just wrote a rough outline on the post I will be composing.  Some parts will surely raise eyebrows.

Well, what’s the topic you ask?  Here’s the title as of this moment: “Communication and Expression”.

1. joeter

   March 11th, 2008 at 9:22 am

   @Richard - agreed.

   I’m a senior in college and am looking to get involved in startups in the Bay Area after I graduate - so I’ve been watching our economy very closely. I was able to realize getting an investment bank job would not be the smartest opportunity to pursue. I’m fearful for some of my friend’s positions…

   Basically, the major investment banks created CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), which were sold in ARS markets with a minimum investment of 25k. These banks kept releveraging themselves on value that never really existed. Now, since the housing bubble has collapsed (as it was guaranteed to - it was a faulty assumption to think housing prices would never slow) these cash flows have completely dried up.

   Also, the AAA bond insurers do not have enough cash to back all the defaulted claims since the investment banks are INSOLVENT.

   Expect increasing margin calls on these banks - a lot of them will have to sell off faulty divisions and possibly reconsolidate.

   Here is a great post from market ticker that explains what caused this issue:

   http://market-ticker.denninger…..thers.html

   I hope some of you find it useful. There are rough times ahead for the next few years.

______

Wow, who saw that coming? I also had this discussion with a few fraternity brothers colleagues about Bear a month and a half ago - I told one to be wary of his Bear Stearns New York City position. Unfortunately, since obtaining said position at Bear NYC is such a prestigious honor for the Rhodes business student who has best played the trite games of the department’s egotistical professors - my advice was brushed off his shoulders. Nonetheless, these professors also hastily dismissed me on a multitude of occasions for suggesting we were going into a recession.

I wonder what this means for my friend. After I find out, I’ll post an update. He’s a smart kid and good person, so I’m sure he will figure something out.

http://www.ratemycop.com/

I am a strong advocate for this site. I have seen police act outside their duty to protect and serve on innumerable occasions.

Being an economist, I understand incentives and human nature. If the risk of punishment for defecting from their civil duties is low - with the benefit being high - it makes logical sense that officers will defect.

This could keep the officers more honest and maybe even improve some of their demeanors. I’ve seen police officers abuse their authoritative power one too many times!

Although I understand the concern that misinformation may arrise (if a cop gives someone a ticket or inconveniences them personally enough to warrant that individual’s condemnation - this person could make up information), I still think that profiles which show patterned adverse behavior can be used to supplement complaints that have not been fully investigated by internal affairs.

Overall, this is a very good thing for freedom. This is the internet age where information is instantaneously available - age old institutions need to adapt and QUIT trying to exist externally.

America should be the premier nation ensuring freedom on the internet. It’s impractical for government to believe it can control information flow the way it was able in the past. There are too many mediums of transfer currently available.

Get Real.

I will be using this blog as a way to draw out bigger concepts that I have been pondering.

A lot of times, the articles that I write will later add to a larger idea that I will tackle in the future. I want to use this blog as a public way to display the evolution of my thought process.

For part I and II posts, I will leave the original post and link back to them. However, I will more than likely be editing both versions and reposting a full article (citing the original topics).

I’ll figure out the best way to archive this - school is just kind of in the way of me doing interesting stuff. I wish I had more time to write - there’s a lot I need to share. My goal is to get at least one good article accomplished a day. Hopefully that time will come soon.

I posted this on Fred Wilson’s blog about 2 weeks ago before I went to Europe.  His topic was discussing free web models. 

For my economics senior seminar I wanted to build a model on this. I was trying to figure out more about the attention economy. I felt labor economics was the best place to start and used the basic labor-leisure trade off.

Unfortunately, my proposal was turned down. My professor told me to try another topic he knew more about - like sports betting.

I’ll scan in a picture for the model soon. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/nyregion/10cnd-spitzer.html?hp

This is just great. At a time when the New York governor should be preoccupied with the economic well being of NYC’s financial businesses (and the global spill over effects), he now has to confront scandal.

If you need time with your family, buddy - then resign. We need to start figuring out how to fix this credit mess and how to instate laws to regulate shady leverage.

Didn’t his austere image develop because he was a ball-buster on Wall Street?  What has he done to help the current state it has found itself in?

OK so I’ll be making moves in Europe.  I will go to Amsterdam, Paris, and Vienna.  I will be meeting up with my friends over there - and probably meeting some new choice people.

Yes - choice is now one of my favorite adjectives…  Think about it…

So it seems I’m going to leave you stranded on the part II post.  I’ll finish it off when I get back.  However, it will tie everything together and make Part I represent the introduction it was set out to be - instead of a ramble.

Until then…

-joe

Bryan Kaplan came to Rhodes College last week. He packed out the auditorium and impressed the entire academic community. Every “renowned” social scientist and business professor at my school attended the lecture.

This is the guy who wrote “The Myth of the Rational Voter.” He discussed the major points of his famous book.

1) people do not understand how the pursuit of private profits often yield public benefits: anti-market bias.

2) people underestimate the benefits of interactions with foreigners: anti-foreign bias.

3) people equate prosperity with employment rather than productions: make-work bias.

4) people tend to think economic conditions are worse than they are: pessimism bias.

His major assumption is that when experts and non-experts disagree the expert is generally correct. (At the end of the lecture, the questions from professors were quite comical – they surely all felt themselves to be experts as well.)

He used the biases to explain how the general population makes decisions and as a means to refute that ignorant voters vote ignorantly. He called it rational irrationality. My labor teacher really liked that term – I wonder why…

I was far from impressed – despite his frail stage presence – his content was also LACKING.

Here’s the real bias he should have addressed – the faith bias. Let me first note that the faith bias has a major correlation with herd mentality.

Everyone places faith in something – even atheists. People will place faith in either an organized religion, a man made institution/movement, their friends, and/or their family.

For example, faith directed toward friends provides a point of reference for an individual. Organized religion allows a person to not only use the time proven institution as a point of reference but also all the other believers who follow same doctrine.

Friends can also direct a person’s opinion. If that person uses their friends as a point of reference, they may experience a positive mental reward from joining the movement or institution their friends belong to.

This faith brings ALL humans security. It allows us to think we are not crazy – that we’re not alone.

Many times, faith also keeps our minds from toiling over troublesome topics – such as the afterlife or moral responsibility.

Let’s face it, if the average person was left alone to create a workable society tabla rasa he would likely create something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than the contemporary and more than likely it would be INEFFECTIVE.

Faith is an important part of all human’s genotypic expression – with phenotype corollaries.

Part II of this post will substantiate why Kaplan was off with his judgment. I will also go on to discuss a visit by the CEO of St Jude’s to Rhodes – a far less public event than Kaplan’s.  He gave a lecture on the Human Genome Project - which applies to Kaplan’s faulty assumptions and my point.  I will also attack current economic practices that are hindering the advancement of the field.

People need to open their eyes.

So I looked at my facebook profile and realized I was now from Long Island, AL. I scrolled down and noticed the rest of my profile was intact - it wasn’t one of my hysterical friends.

I had Long Island, NY listed as my hometown - it’s a geographic location which I felt provided more insight about where I come from rather than having Franklin Square.

Now facebook forces you to pick from a predefined list. I can no longer be from Long Island, NY.

They may be trying to index users off their hometowns to leverage a discovery device. Time will tell.

*** Edit: Here are comments I made.

I was thinking that by indexing hometowns they could use it as a way to leverage their data.

If all parts of a profile could be cross section analyzed there would be tremendous potential for discovery of “friends you never knew you had… or services you never knew you would enjoy…”

However, I doubt they could appropriately cross section the whole profile to create substantial leverage until the semantic web has advanced further along.

The hometown thing could just be as simple as cutting out classmates.com. There’s several ways to go with it.

an example of discovery would be:

as mobile progresses - it could introduce you to people from your hometown who live near by and engage in similar tasks.