For any given future time period, there is no assured strategy for:
Corollary: Active trading in a system with non-zero transaction cost makes 2 achievable and 1 unlikely.
Out on a walk in the morning, I saw four or five very excited dogs that had surrounded a man sitting on his haunches.
Getting closer, I realised that this man had brought food for them, which naturally led to all the excitement. There was another dog (let's call him White) some paces away, who was kept pushed back and not allowed to join in the party by those who got there first!
I moved quickly to gain a safe distance. That's when I noticed yet another dog (Black, okay?) some 100 metres further down, also walking determinedly to crash the party.
The dramatis personae had gathered and I began to wonder how the script would unfold. Will the two latecomers be able to take on a numerically stronger, established group?
White seemed to debate the same question as he waited for his natural ally to reach the scene.
They were dealing with dangerous guys, and White knew the odds well. So he quickly went over his notes of Game Theory, that no doubt his professors in the school of hard knocks had drilled in very solidly. And he declared his strategy by energetically challenging the newcomer!
A ferocious, and probably unnecessary contest, seemed all set, when one from the entrenched group broke away and joined White in beating away the intruder.
And then both returned happily to the party. How cool, I thought!
I moved on, contemplating the lessons so brilliantly worked out by John Nash but even more amazed by how nature has given all her creatures the ability to work out answers, without recourse to any theory. Wish I learnt to theorize less and experience more.
A little later I saw the problem developing in to a game theory nightmare. Two more dogs were following the scent of the friendly man that brought food each morning.
Amit Varma asks the question, "Does your body belong to you?" And responds as follows:
Your answer, but naturally, would be: "Of course it does. How dare you even ask?"
And I presume that you'd strongly protest any attempt by the government to assume control over your body. If it issued a diktat that you may not use your left hand on Sundays, or pierce your left earlobe during summer, you would sneer in disbelief, and refuse to give in to the state's conceit.
I also presume that you'd extend your ownership to your kidneys.
Source: India Uncut: Does your body belong to you?
"Legalising the trade of kidneys, thus, should be a complete no-brainer," he goes on to argue.
Quite so, but it may not be correct to assume that because you have ownership of your body, you may trade in it as you please. That would allow unfettered licence for prostitution. Worse, it would make it legal for a very rich man to buy body parts--for making soup, for instance.
Therefore, the trade must be regulated because markets often do not produce desirable (or even efficient) outcomes. Not only in kidneys, but in all the other things that you may own or create.
Consider this: a rich man buys a kidney or two from people who's tissue-type matches his own, and then forbids them from donating or selling to anyone else, as a kind of insurance for himself. Would that be desirable, or even defensible?
Amit doesn't actually make the simplistic argument above. I made it up to present the case for regulation of any trade in kidneys.
How should such regulation be effected? How would I know, I'm only a blogger!
Steve Rubel has an interesting post on bloggers pitching their posts via email in the hope of getting a link.
The Underground Blogosphere is an intricate web of hundreds of thousands of emails that bloggers send to each other every day. In essence, they are "pitching" their latest posts in hopes of getting a link. Sometimes, bloggers are genuinely looking for good feedback, but more often than not all they are just looking for traffic.
Source: Micro Persuasion: The Underground Blogosphere
There are divergent and equally interesting viewpoints in the comments.
Here I want to share my own experience with emailing links:
My point is that there are bloggers (who almost always also read blogs, at least in their own area of interest). And there are other "normal" people, who don't.
The former are interested in links to posts they want to read. So it is fair, if you send them a mail, but only if you genuinely think they would be interested. (There can be no chance of a link, if they aren't interested. And even future possibilities would be closed if your email is put on the blocked senders' list. So it is a self-limiting problem.)
Finally, I've found that most influential, widely read and respected professionals are extremely nice people. And unless provoked to the extreme, are gracious in their response. Steve is one of them.
There is no point in testing their limits. They know how to deal with spam.
Here's an excerpt from an old post of Dave Pollard's.
In the Spring of 1969 I fell deliriously, profoundly in love with a tiny, intense young woman of quiet and staggering intelligence. Joanne was an accomplished pianist and flautist who planned to study music at the renowned Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. I wanted to study philosophy and political science and creative writing and an extensive and incongruous group of other subjects. But most of all I wanted to travel the world with Joanne, to transport us to some wondrous, distant place, wrapped in a mutually-woven cocoon of idealistic emotional and intellectual passion and protected from an outside world that I saw as nothing more than a coarse and rude intrusion into the perfection and purity that was we two.
Source: How to Save the World
I'm sure most of you have known a Joanne (or a Dave). For her sake, and for your own, do find the time to read the piece.
Talking about stories takes away from their charm, so I won't type a letter more.
