This will be the first of two posts. This one will summarize what we know about the connection between punishment and providing public goods. The follow-up post will be in ~meta and will be my thoughts on how this applies to Stacker News, specifically.
For the sake of brevity and clarity, I speak a little loosely in parts.
What are public goods?
A public good is an economic good that is neither rivalrous nor excludable in consumption. Ok, what does that mean?
- Economic goods are anything with a positive equilibrium price; i.e. things people are willing to pay for.
- Rivalrous goods can only be used by a single person; i.e. one person's use precludes someone else's use.
- Excludable goods can only be used with the permission of the seller.
So, a public good is something valuable that is available to everyone and usable by everyone. A common example of a public good is radio broadcasts. Once it's put out there anyone can receive it and my use won't prevent yours.
The concern with public goods is under-provision. That's because each of us has an incentive to not pay for it, since we'll get it either way (as long as someone pays enough for it to be produced). That's the Free Rider Problem.
There are many possible entrepreneurial solutions to overcome this (like inserting paid ads into the broadcast). Quick aside: the intentional combination of an economic good (the radio program) with an economic bad (the ads) is sometimes called a "kludge".
The role of punishment
Another solution to certain public goods situations, is to punish people for not chipping in. I'm most familiar with this in the setting of subsistence communities. Often, these communities have a communal food distribution because that acts as insurance for those who tried but had poor luck at hunting or fishing or whatever it is.
Because they've created a public good out of their food supply, each member of the community now has an incentive to put in less effort, because they'll get to eat either way. If everyone shirks, though, there won't be enough food for the community. That's why shirking tends to be heavily punished in these communities. That punishment will generally come in the form of some type of ostracism, possibly including loss of access to the communal food.
In that scenario, the public good was an artificial construct in the first place, so it was possible to exclude the bad actor. Also, as some of you probably thought, that food ends up being rivalrous if not enough was produced.
Still, one way to deal with free-riding is to punish it sufficiently that it's preferrable to just do the work.
Punishment itself can be a public good
A punishment like ostracism is also costly to the punisher, assuming they value that relationship. I may be tempted not to ostracize my lazy friend, which makes him less likely to change his ways. If I choose to ostracize my friend, the cost is borne by me, but I share the benefits with the rest of the community.
There are also scenarios where it's sufficient for one person to implement a punishment. This is basically the situation with criminal punishments. If I lock someone up for their antisocial behavior, the whole community benefits, but it comes at great expense to me.
TL;DR
In the context of producing public goods, punishing non-producers is itself a public good, because it produces benefits that are accessible to everyone. That means there likely won't be an optimal amount of punishment (dispersed benefits and concentrated costs), unless some other layer of compensation develops for those who do the punishing.
Referrences
Here are some publicly available sources for those who want to do a deep dive on the topic. I was initially going to tie them into this post, but I got carried away with my stream of consciousness and said most of what I wanted to say.
Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments
Different punishment systems in a public goods game with asymmetric endowments
Implementing punishment and reward in the public goods game
No
LNbits
Hey @k00b I have another proposal for SN.
When you want to fw sats from a post to another SN user, will be nice also to have a separate field for an external LN address.
Maybe the OP is not (yet) a SN user but you still want to send him the sats you get on SN for his article, video, note, whatever other content.
Is that possible?
Do you have the fear that micro payments of a few sats will one day problamatic for clogging the network?
No cryptocurrency sub is a feature, not a bug
I've been in Germany for 10 days visiting clients in 5 different regions of the country. What makes me stunned is that the vast majority of the people keeps ignoring the econ desaster of this country. My thesis: they will be the last to wake up to the debasement of their currency and the last to adopt btc. Sad to see (at least for me as a german that still has (orange pilled) family there). Have a nice week-end guys and girls!
I agree, would be amazing to see Block supporting this project.
The exponential function is my favorite thing in life 👍
Just started using this because I had to buy a temp laptop and it's simply incredible. The Linux virtual machine has instant startups and combined with nixos, makes it incredibly powerful to spin up and throw away reproducible builds. I'm migrating my whole development setup to it now.
Will Lightning one day be synonymous with Bitcoin?
Or will we have to say "Bitcoin-Lightning" and confuse normies from now until reality?
This is super unfortunate - I won't be sharing Twitter links to anyone anymore.
The stacker news experience is not quite complete unless Darthcoin spanks you here and there, is it?
This post is completely deranged and you'll read it 5 years from now and cringe, but I get it.
When I was younger, there was this girl I was super into. She didn't feel the same way and saw me as a "friend". We hung out every day. I was so "nice" to her and eagerly listened to all her problems. Of course I got nothing in return. She probably saw right through me and enjoyed the attention. It was honestly the most miserable period of my life and it turned me into a twisted, jealous, bitter goblin for a couple of years railing against the universe for being so unjust. Actually, I recall making a post just like this on some forum somewhere too.
The funny thing is that I can now look back on all that and laugh. Literally. She was completely wrong for me by every metric. I have no idea why the fuck my hormones went wild with that one, but they did. I think I might actually have been insane? I don't know. For all I care, that version of me has ceased to exist and might as well be an angry little alien on a planet far far away.
I am laughing at this post like I laugh at the old me, but in a good way if you get what I mean. I think you're a smart dude with a lot to offer. You're also young and kind of retarded. That's OK, you'll grow out of it. Just don't yourself too seriously and make yourself miserable like I did. We're all fallible.
That answers my question 😝
Thanks for describing your muting criteria, I've been thinking about this since the feature was released. Given how contagious culture is, I mute rudeness, condescension, bullying, and abuse. It's the opposite of the community I want to be a part of and I have no patience for it. One Twitter is enough.
After a number of exposures, I eventually mute people whose signal-to-noise ratio is super low. If I know exactly what you're going to say, it's a waste of my attention to see the millionth version of the same thing. (This is the reason I hardly ever listen to btc podcasts anymore. Most of them have had nothing new to say since 2020.)
From time to time I reveal a "someone you muted" post, as @carlosfandango mentioned, to see if the person deserves another chance. So far, nope.
Oh, no. Ilhan, this ain't it, and it's not going to distract from whatever latest controversy you're embroiled in.
Now check out https://stacker.news/top/cowboys and keep climbing the ladder :)
If you're wading through recent, I agree that the quality isn't great.
@benthecarman recommended we create a "cowboys only" mode so you only see stuff from cowboys.
A variation I like on this: an economic threshold, eg "only show me posts that have at least 100 sats invested in them, either by post costs, zapping, or otherwise."
Some of Roosevelt's campaign speeches indicate to me that he was quite open about fighting "speculators" and effectively taking their profits away.
Here is a selection from one of his campaign addresses, the Commonwealth Club Address in 1932:
It starts out great: everyone has a right to their own property. But then Roosevelt announces that your property rights "must yield to" the limitation that savings exist for the sake of "carry[ing] the burdens of...sickness...[and] old age," and that for people to actually carry those burdens during the Depression, the government must "restrict the operations of the speculator" and ensure that the "princes of property" make a "sacrifice [of] this or that private advantage." He does not say "they must sacrifice their gold." Only that they must sacrifice an unnamed "private advantage."
Here is a selection from another of his campaign addresses, his Presidential Nomination Address in 1932:
This one seems a bit more explicit at first: the wealthy are hoarding their wealth and he campaigns for emergency powers to effect "the reduction of [those] surpluses" -- and though he says he'd like for this reduction to be "voluntary," it is "necessary" (according to him) to act immediately, as in an emergency, without waiting for people to voluntarily hand over their wealth.
However, in order to make that paragraph sound a bit more explicit, I've done some careful chopping. The surpluses he explicitly promises to reduce “by immediate emergency measures” were actually “staple commodities” – namely, farm products, food, “agriculture.” (He uses that specific word in one of my dot-dot-dots.) The “enormous corporate surpluses” – he claims – were already drained: “Where, under the spell of delirious speculation, did those surpluses go? …into new and unnecessary plants which now stand stark and idle…[and] into the call-money market of Wall Street... Those are the facts. Why blink at them?”
Consequently, neither in this speech nor in the previous one that I quoted does Roosevelt explicitly call for emergency measures to confiscate speculative profits or gold. But perhaps he suggests it by calling attention, via proximity, to “enormous…surpluses” produced by speculation and the “reduction” of surpluses “by immediate emergency measures” – even though he technically aimed the latter at a claimed surplus of agriculture rather than at a claimed surplus of gold (which he never explicitly mentions in either speech). His remarks about "abandon"ing the "false prophets" of "Mammon" and "the profits of speculation" are also telling.
I don't know that gold-holders were surprised when Roosevelt tried to confiscate nearly all their gold. It seems to me that, because of his campaign speeches, most people not only knew or had an intuition of what was coming, they voted for it. Remember, most people in the Depression did not have gold that could be confiscated. The wealthy had gold, and the other voters seemed -- based on these speeches and others -- to be angry with them or maybe jealous of them. In Roosevelt's many other campaign speeches he frequently decries "speculation" and "hoarding," and in the two I quoted he even seems to say that the government must do something about it. He seems somewhat vague or indirect about exactly what, but it certainly involves rich people sacrificing something and someone's surpluses being involuntarily reduced. So perhaps the blame for the gold confiscation needs to be placed not just on the president, but on all those who voted for him in unjust anger or jealousy at the bogeymen of "speculators" and "hoarders."
That’s just because you’re a frequent zapper!
Did my 1st pull request ever on github today... Just a little translation work for microlancer.io but nonetheless that feels good to help!
The list also tries to restrain every US citizen to prevent them from publishing text (i.e. transactions) that eth wallets interpret as a payment to tornado cash: https://www.coincenter.org/u-s-treasury-sanction-of-privacy-tools-places-sweeping-restrictions-on-all-americans/
People who publish such text anyway (even in a format such as a physical book) are apparently in violation of OFAC and subject to prosecution. But in order to punish them OFAC has to examine the transaction they published (i.e. some text they wrote) and prosecute them for its contents. This is grounds for a lawsuit for violating the first amendment.
Let's agree that 81-160 is the view results option.
Yes, it's Antun. I appreciate all your comments and advice. This project has me truly excited. Giving you a glimpse into Phase 2, which I hinted at during the Gayser crowdfunding campaign.
Here's the scoop: On my property sits a traditional local house, over 150 years old from my ancestors, in dire need of restoration. The vision? To breathe new life into it, transforming it into a Bitcoin HUB. Picture this: 6-8 cozy beds nestled in the attic, with a spacious meeting room downstairs on the first floor around 40 m2.
Stay tuned right here at SN (thanks to Lux) for updates every step of the way. Crossing fingers, because everyone I know outside the Bitcoin world thinks I've gone off the deep end!
https://m.stacker.news/27812
https://m.stacker.news/27813
https://m.stacker.news/27814
https://m.stacker.news/27815
https://m.stacker.news/27816
https://m.stacker.news/27817
https://m.stacker.news/27818
https://m.stacker.news/27819
https://m.stacker.news/27820
It's a good example of how scientific advancements can require us to rethink our property rights framework.
I think market coordination could have solved that, though, since it's not in anybody's interest to broadcast an indecipherable message.
SN is a mood-lifter! Love you guys!
This reminds me of that scene at BTC2023 when Ihotep said something similar about self-custody...
Here it is
https://xcancel.com/HodlMagoo/status/1659304408117551104
Haha, it's like your own personal block reward halving -- your shadowy super-coding keeps going down as a result of your shadowy super-coding. Eventually it asymptotes.
Oh I dont know if I have used it enough yet to say, but I will try to answer:
maybe it already does some of these things or these are bad ideas, just riffing!
"The average holding among their conservative counterparts: 17%."
It shows that everyone is aware if btc, and all kinds of people are buying.
As more people accept it, it will become more stable.
I cant wait for that day.
Preach it, brother, as a small business owner I pride myself in always paying my service providers on time, but others don't seem to feel that way, having a mismatch in cash flow is a pain in the arse, and now as a business owner, you need to build in buffers for everything and then still think of the fiat leakage of holding those buffers and like you say that money could have been used to grow the business instead
Gonna try to make some progress in @niftynei’s course but this makeprisms API looks cool. Major squirrel vibes rn.
https://m.stacker.news/16152
@grayruby your wish has been granted, wen ~sports?
Haven't read through the whole thing yet, but:
👏 YES. I've been thinking about exactly this solution since I read the recent discussion about pinning attack issues earlier this year.
Another related realization I had recently is that in many cases there's no need to broadcast a transaction until it has a chance to get into the next block. You can use the time waiting to e.g. batch further payments into the pending transaction or raising the feerate without having to deal with fee-inefficient CPFP or privacy-degrading RBF.
When I was younger I did multi-day fasts every so often. Now, I've switched to regular intermittent fasting, as in not eating for about 16 hours every day. I find this to be the easiest to do habitually, basically by just skipping breakfast and not eating snacks in the evening.
You should join the PlebDevs discord: https://discord.gg/t4NkDKRCK8
Check their website out here: https://www.plebdevs.com/
Paging: @bitcoinplebdev
My biggest problem is I always have too many ideas in my head. Most of the time, I write them down and wait to see if they return.
Often times, I will give them away to people who are working on similar things, even when it’s a great one I want to get to someday, took me a long time to come to terms with this. I firmly believe now that being a facilitator of ideas is far more important than keeping them to yourself. This just reaffirms why I believe more ideas come to me lately.
Idea generation is a ton of fun in a room with a whiteboard, no doubt. But I’ve learned doing PlebLab for these many years it's much better to bring thought-out ideas to the surface before this, especially if it's something new.
Let me explain…
Lately, I have been trying to think through this idea I have had for a year, initially last year, when I would think about it, I couldn't visualize it. It stumped me; the longer I thought about it, it bothered me. It also wasn’t an idea that I know I needed to do because it was “a nice to have.” So I shelved it in my head. Had someone came up to me during that time with a similar idea I would have gave it to them to do. But it never happened.
However, late last year, when I was listening to the advice of a lot of new people that came into my life, I began taking what they were telling me at face value. Because it was something I heard before, just said different.
Again, I went back to looking at this idea again. With new information and time passing, I can now visualize how it will look in my head and possibly play out in a few different scenarios without backstops...now in March, it is starting to feel right as things have just naturally fallen into place for this idea to come to life. Again will see only time will tell, thing is not to force things with ideas. Let it flow naturally.
So to recap three things I've learned when coming up with ideas before shelving them.
This is important when optimizing for understanding if it's the right time. Let it flow. God will always naturally guide you to the place your supposed to be.
This will help so much when having to explain to others and give you some peace of mind. But ultimately it’s good to have the data to back up a lot of the “flow state” process. Aquinas often used the metaphor of a two-story building to illustrate this concept. I’ve written more about it here.
This one I just learned to trust more and more especially in the last year. I used to avoid big ideas that did this to me, but now, not so much.
Before going through with any idea talk about it with people who want to help you tear it down while it’s still in a dream state. It’s the only way to see if the idea is firmly planted in your mind. This will be helpful when you finally go through with it.
Hope this helps, honestly this is the stuff me and @k00b talk about all the time.
Working on the localization of Bitcoin Core in Colombian Spanish... I am also translating Tomer Strolight's 'Why Bitcoin?' in Spanish.
A quiet saloon,
your absence echoes loudly,
searching for you @ek
In your view, what is the biggest risk bitcoiners should be aware of when using Bold?
Great work of @supertestnet https://stacker.news/items/222527
Tip of the day!
How to use Bisq and LN with the same BTC wallet in Electrum app.
m/44’/0’/1′ (default is m / 84/0/0). This step is very important!
Very good, from now on you already have the Bisq funds connected with LN without having to move them through another wallet.
Optional you can do swaps between Ln <->onchain directly in Electrum.
The scale of the answers might be misleading. Some of us are pretty anti-social, so knowing one person who got laid off is not trivial.
Foreign TV subscription for 6 months :-) Gotta learn and keep them languages...
"was"? - none
"will be"? - when the fiat money dies and banksters hang themselves.
Or when I will die. I will be the happiest dead man in the world. Why? Because this world is full of shit and idiots.