Chronic Murmuring

See, that's why I was always the kid who argued vehemently against meeting or anything like that, and then showed up anyway.

Andy, are you reading this?

He and I were IMing about this the other day. Scott, how does this realte to the people that love to hate Wal-Mart? Those who say that they want Wal-Mart out and the mom-and-pops back, but do not now choose to shop at those places when the time comes to make the decision at the margin? I think that is an interesting phenomenon--it's like people often don't realize the disconnect between idealistic political beliefs and their rational behavior. I think some people would like the government to take away Wal-Mart because it would force them to make a decision at the margin that they would like to make when they're not at the margin--a precommitment, so to speak, much like a web porn filter, or a self-imposed deadline, or tying oneself to the mast of your ship when you pass the isle of the sirens. A self-imposed limit to circumvent undesirable decisions being made in a situation that causes a change of preferences at the margin.

As for the class vote, see "cheap talk" games in Gibbons. It's a very interesting class of games (and arises in political and social situations more than you'd think).

Voting against Walmart isn't necessarily the same thing. It could be that they want to be saved from their own choices: If Walmart is available they KNOW they will patronize it (because of price & convenience), and they know (or at least believe) that their actions will contribute to a coarsening of their town's social envirnment. So they vote against Walmart as a means of optimally constraining their own choices; as a commitment mechanism.

If that's the motivation, then definitely. Wal-mart then represents a kind of externality, in a way. It almost sounds like the voting process serving as a kind of committment mechanism. I know that my future actions (or believe) will lead to me to a strategy that is ultimately not one I want, so I eliminate that strategy ahead of time. I did this the other day, in a way, when I filled a ziploc bag up with water and froze my credit card in it in the freezer. That's a good point, and thanks for the Gibbons reference. I'll check it out when I get home.

Matt - that sounds right. I heard that when Cortez came to Mexico, he burnt his ships at the shore. He wanted to remove an out ahead of time.

My niece is going through something similar. She's been placed at a new school, and hates it (4th grader). She misses her old school, and refuses to commit herself to her new school in hopes that she can return to her old school next year. My sister is going to sit her down and tell her definitively that she cannot go back, because at present, they've not been completely straight down the line about that, which allows Lucy (my cousin) to continue to hope for that future event. But if it were removed completely, it would force her to deal with the school in a way she refuses to right now.

So I imagine that it's kind of the same thing with Wal-Mart. We know we're not strong enough to resist the draw of Wal-mart when it comes to town, so let's simply eliminate it ahead of time, and therefore place ourselves at a certain margin where we ideally want to be.

Mind you, the argument is only that this "could" be true, not that it "is" true.

I've wondered a bit about this and the legal suppression of "victimeless" crimes such pornography and etc.: the bulk of us would choose to penalize such actions not because of "paternalism" but simply to increase the cost to ourselves of a potential future action that we wish to avoid.

This is the entire point of contracts, after all. And voting is nothing more than a mechanism by which we provide consent to public policies.

Not living in a place without a wal-mart, I don't know what I would do if there wasn't one and they tried to come in. I think I would likely be opposed--I already try to avoid wal-mart as much as possible because I hate the hugeness of the place, but since the only other option is to pay more for my shampoo at equally souless chain drugstores, well... I go for cheap.

I have an aunt and uncle that live in a Wal-Martless area of Pennsylvania, and I know that they are adamantly against getting one. It's kind of a different world in that part of PA--they still have a huge weekly market where people go to buy their produce and meat and baked goods--it's an honest to goodness market like they had years ago before the advent of the supermarket, and unlike the flea-markets you find most places.

A WalMart-less area of Pennsylvania...ah, I remember when Lancaster County was one of those. Apparently they had some kind of benefit concert against WalMart a while back near my home town, since they want put yet _another_ one in. The main reason I oppose it is that it's going to bring a lot of people into what used to be a fairly sheltered community, maybe some crime, but definitely screwed-up traffic patterns.

I don't like WalMart, by and large, but as said above, I'll go for cheap, depending what my other options are.

How to quantify to the margin:

Instant gratification. As we have a society which is engined by that, if you factor in whatever gives the quickest gratification to the unknowns of those people in the equation, you will figure out whether it will fly or not.

Until time is spent cultivating a desire for value, it is going to be whatever feeds the desire of moment that will rise to the surface and proliferate in the culture ( or the schedule...).

So, reaquaintance with the idea of value apart from the context of money and quick gratification will weight the balance of the margin differently.

The big question:

where does one find that rendevous with a deeper view of value?

ilona, rake your yard with an actual rake.

Work among the poor. Help the so-called "illegal immigrants" to recognize themselves as the worthy individuals they are. Listen to the prisoners and comfort them.

And never vote again.