Thought experiment - Would you take the money?

[AMX]

Anybody who claims that he would give up 50 bucks just to avoid giving some jackass positive reenforcement is a liar.

Oh, please. I've burned more than that on useless junk I didn't need; this would actually be of some theoretical importance.



@Zod: Are you drunk, or something? Greed would motivate people to take the money (it's not like they could get a better offer by refusing).



@Klatoo: In the case of really large sums, you may want to use an alternate approach: accepting the offer, and administering corrective action later on.
Like beating the guy with a stick until he forks over the money.

...

What?

[General Zod]

@Zod: Are you drunk, or something? Greed would motivate people to take the money (it's not like they could get a better offer by refusing).

Try reading what I say before responding. Or at least looking the term up in the dictionary.

Main Entry: greed
Pronunciation: 'grEd
Function: noun
Etymology: back-formation from greedy
: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed

They're refusing because they aren't getting more than what they're being offered, for not having to do anything at all but say yes. Plus they seem to want to reject it just to screw over the other guy in many cases. Seems like a good example of greed in action to me.




.

[Big Phil]

Anybody who claims that he would give up 50 bucks just to avoid giving some jackass positive reenforcement is a liar.

How about a nice big cup of shut the fuck up? Think before you say something stupid. This is simply a consideration of whether me getting $50 somebody else getting $450 is fair, or if I'd rather that both of us just got nothing. If you're willing to get screwed over $50, that's fine, but I'm not; I'd rather we both just got nothing rather than me get screwed.

[AMX]

Main Entry: greed
Pronunciation: 'grEd
Function: noun
Etymology: back-formation from greedy
: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed

They're refusing because they aren't getting more than what they're being offered, for not having to do anything at all but say yes.

How is that supposed to back up your position?
They want more than they are offered - but refusing reduces their profit even more. (Keep in mind that in this special case, they don't have a chance to get a better offer later on - it's "take X, or get nothing".)
Thus the motivator "greed" simply doesn't fit.

Plus they seem to want to reject it just to screw over the other guy in many cases. Seems like a good example of greed in action to me.

That's not greed, that's simply being a jerk.

[General Zod]

Anybody who claims that he would give up 50 bucks just to avoid giving some jackass positive reenforcement is a liar.

How about a nice big cup of shut the fuck up? Think before you say something stupid. This is simply a consideration of whether me getting $50 somebody else getting $450 is fair, or if I'd rather that both of us just got nothing. If you're willing to get screwed over $50, that's fine, but I'm not; I'd rather we both just got nothing rather than me get screwed.

The gesture of offering you anything at all is effectively a case of charity. How are you getting screwed over when you don't actually have to do anything to earn it?

They want more than they are offered - but refusing reduces their profit even more. (Keep in mind that in this special case, they don't have a chance to get a better offer later on - it's "take X, or get nothing".)
Thus the motivator "greed" simply doesn't fit.

It does when you consider that someone who wasn't greedy would simply go with what was offered. It's not as if they have to do anything to earn it.

[Kuroneko]

I would say yes to a ~40% split, but would say no to anything less than ~30% out of a sense of duty. The splitter believes they can profit by offering an unfair split and if I agree to it I have given positive reinforcement to that belief. Had the splitter learned in previous dealings with other people that this behaviour is unacceptable I might not be in this situation.

Why is it unacceptable? It "splitter" has no apparent obligation, explicit or implicit, to the particular person that happens to be the "chooser". The splitter may have some duties towards the public or society in general, but if so, there are more direct methods of fulfilling them that do not need to directly involve the chooser (such as taxes and charity). Avoiding the generation of such feelings of spite in the chooser gives the splitter a pragmatic reason to be more equitable, but there seems to be very little to make it an ethical one.

[Surlethe]

If I'm offered a trivial amount of money, I'll refuse; if I'm offered more than, say, $5, I'll probably accept.

Funnily enough, the petulant child in me says that I deserve as much as the person offering the cash, so if I don't get at least half, he shouldn't either. I can't really figure why, though.

[Big Phil]

Anybody who claims that he would give up 50 bucks just to avoid giving some jackass positive reenforcement is a liar.

How about a nice big cup of shut the fuck up? Think before you say something stupid. This is simply a consideration of whether me getting $50 somebody else getting $450 is fair, or if I'd rather that both of us just got nothing. If you're willing to get screwed over $50, that's fine, but I'm not; I'd rather we both just got nothing rather than me get screwed.

The gesture of offering you anything at all is effectively a case of charity. How are you getting screwed over when you don't actually have to do anything to earn it?

They may be offering you money for nothing, but it's not charity. The money must still be earned by both parties - the splitter must earn it by making an offer the decider thinks is reasonable, and the decider can accept or reject the offer based on any number of criteria. Since I don't think it's fair that the splitter gets 90% of the money for no valid reason, I would reject his offer, and we'd both get nothing. We end no worse than we started. If I accept his offer, he ends up 90% better off than I do. I don't need $5 or $50 so badly that I'm willing to let somebody else take advantage of me that much.

[Big Phil]

If I'm offered a trivial amount of money, I'll refuse; if I'm offered more than, say, $5, I'll probably accept.

Funnily enough, the petulant child in me says that I deserve as much as the person offering the cash, so if I don't get at least half, he shouldn't either. I can't really figure why, though.

Which is it? You both deserve the money equally, or neither of you deserve the money? It's just the flip side.

You're both being offered money for nothing - there's no reason for the decider to accept being taken advantage of; it's not the splitter's money, after all.

[salm]

Anybody who claims that he would give up 50 bucks just to avoid giving some jackass positive reenforcement is a liar.

How about a nice big cup of shut the fuck up? Think before you say something stupid. This is simply a consideration of whether me getting $50 somebody else getting $450 is fair, or if I'd rather that both of us just got nothing. If you're willing to get screwed over $50, that's fine, but I'm not; I'd rather we both just got nothing rather than me get screwed.

If you had read my post correctly, especially paired with my first post, you´d know that my stance is pretty much the same as yours. So i´ll just hand that cup back to you.
What i mean is that i find it hard to believe that anybody would give up 50€ for the purpose of educating a random person.
Giving up 50€ for telling someone else to fuck off because he offered so little while taking a much larger chunk themselves is a different matter. I´d do that myself.

The difference here is that in the one scenario you give up the money in order to make the other person a better person (less greedy and less likely to fuck someone else over).
In the other scenario you give up the money in order to harm the other person because he insulted your pride by trying to fuck you over.
The result would be entirely the same but the intent is different which is interesting in order to find out why people do certain things.

However i´ll retract the statement that everybody who claims that he´d waste 50€ in order to make the other person a better person because it´s probably wrong.
There most likely are people who are so ungreedy (is that a word?) and at the same time care about the improvement of the other persons character.
But i think that a very high number of people who would give up the money would do it because they want to harm the other person whom they perceive as a fuck wit.

[Mad]

This is simply a consideration of whether me getting $50 somebody else getting $450 is fair, or if I'd rather that both of us just got nothing. If you're willing to get screwed over $50, that's fine, but I'm not; I'd rather we both just got nothing rather than me get screwed.

How are you getting screwed over? You're getting $50 for doing basically nothing as opposed to $250 for doing basically nothing. Normally, you get precisely $0 for doing nothing, so it's a profit no matter what.

I would feel responsible for delivering the negative reinforcement that the splitter seems to have evaded for years. I would likely fail, but that doesn't release me from my duty.

The splitter could even see you as a self-righteous jerk and learn absolutely nothing useful. You could at least be glad he didn't profit off of it.

As the raw amount goes up I would have a harder and harder time doing this even though it's more important that I do it. Saying no to a few thousand would haunt me and $10,000 and up I don't know if I could say no to.

Interestingly, were I the splitter, as the amount goes up, I'd be more inclined to split it evenly simply to have a better chance of the chooser accepting. I don't need some self-righteous jerk screwing me over.

[AMX]

They want more than they are offered - but refusing reduces their profit even more. (Keep in mind that in this special case, they don't have a chance to get a better offer later on - it's "take X, or get nothing".)
Thus the motivator "greed" simply doesn't fit.

It does when you consider that someone who wasn't greedy would simply go with what was offered.

Prove that.
Because IMO you got it exactly the wrong way around: A greedy person will strive to maximize his profits - and since he can't influence the amount offered, and is not investing anything himself, he'll accept any offer.
But a person who is not greedy is more likely to refuse the offer, due to some (real or perceived) side effect (like conditioning the other guy to be more fair in the future; or just out of spite, for that matter).

It's not as if they have to do anything to earn it.

So what?

[General Zod]

They may be offering you money for nothing, but it's not charity. The money must still be earned by both parties - the splitter must earn it by making an offer the decider thinks is reasonable, and the decider can accept or reject the offer based on any number of criteria. Since I don't think it's fair that the splitter gets 90% of the money for no valid reason, I would reject his offer, and we'd both get nothing. We end no worse than we started. If I accept his offer, he ends up 90% better off than I do. I don't need $5 or $50 so badly that I'm willing to let somebody else take advantage of me that much.

One could logically make the case that such a situation would be similar to someone deciding to give a friend $10 out of their birthday money, and then the friend refusing it because they don't see it as a fair split when they don't actually have to do anything to get it except say "Sure, I'll take it." Since it could have just as easily been given to some other random person. Naturally the person refusing the $10 because they didn't see it as "fair" would be rightfully seen as a prick.

[SAMAS]

This is simply a consideration of whether me getting $50 somebody else getting $450 is fair, or if I'd rather that both of us just got nothing. If you're willing to get screwed over $50, that's fine, but I'm not; I'd rather we both just got nothing rather than me get screwed.

How are you getting screwed over? You're getting $50 for doing basically nothing as opposed to $250 for doing basically nothing. Normally, you get precisely $0 for doing nothing, so it's a profit no matter what.

I dunno. If I knew about the conditions, I would ask myself: "Is fifty bucks worth screwing this jerkoff over?"

[General Zod]

They want more than they are offered - but refusing reduces their profit even more. (Keep in mind that in this special case, they don't have a chance to get a better offer later on - it's "take X, or get nothing".)
Thus the motivator "greed" simply doesn't fit.

It does when you consider that someone who wasn't greedy would simply go with what was offered.

Prove that.

Prove what? That someone who isn't greedy would be content with being offered a few extra bucks for doing nothing?

Because IMO you got it exactly the wrong way around: A greedy person will strive to maximize his profits - and since he can't influence the amount offered, and is not investing anything himself, he'll accept any offer.

Since there is no method for maximizing your profits, someone who's greedy would, I would think, be logically inclined to screw over someone else just because they didn't get what they feel is owed to them. Even though logically the splitter isn't obligated to be "fair" at all.

But a person who is not greedy is more likely to refuse the offer, due to some (real or perceived) side effect (like conditioning the other guy to be more fair in the future; or just out of spite, for that matter).

It seems that we're working off opposite viewpoints for greed here.

It's not as if they have to do anything to earn it.

So what?

[/quote]

If they had to actually have earned their profits, then there would be a case for arguing it to be unfair. But since they're merely asked whether they want $10 (effectively), they aren't actually earning it, and thus have no entitlement whatsoever. The person doing the splitting has no obligation to make it fair, so it's strictly his good graces as to what the person on the receiving end will get. So you can make a case for this being an act of charity, which in turn people who are refusing it because it's not enough can be seen as greedy pricks.

[Big Phil]

This is simply a consideration of whether me getting $50 somebody else getting $450 is fair, or if I'd rather that both of us just got nothing. If you're willing to get screwed over $50, that's fine, but I'm not; I'd rather we both just got nothing rather than me get screwed.

How are you getting screwed over? You're getting $50 for doing basically nothing as opposed to $250 for doing basically nothing. Normally, you get precisely $0 for doing nothing, so it's a profit no matter what.

Option A - Decider (you) gets nothing, Splitter gets nothing
Option B - Decider (you) get $50, Splitter gets $450
Option C - Decider (you) get $250, Splitter gets $250

I see minimal benefit to me (as the Decider) in helping the splitter get $450 for doing nothing, while I only get $50 for doing that same nothing. If there $500 being offered for doing nothing, either we both split it or nobody gets it. There's nothing fair about the Splitter getting $450 while the Decider only gets $50.

[Big Phil]

They may be offering you money for nothing, but it's not charity. The money must still be earned by both parties - the splitter must earn it by making an offer the decider thinks is reasonable, and the decider can accept or reject the offer based on any number of criteria. Since I don't think it's fair that the splitter gets 90% of the money for no valid reason, I would reject his offer, and we'd both get nothing. We end no worse than we started. If I accept his offer, he ends up 90% better off than I do. I don't need $5 or $50 so badly that I'm willing to let somebody else take advantage of me that much.

One could logically make the case that such a situation would be similar to someone deciding to give a friend $10 out of their birthday money, and then the friend refusing it because they don't see it as a fair split when they don't actually have to do anything to get it except say "Sure, I'll take it." Since it could have just as easily been given to some other random person. Naturally the person refusing the $10 because they didn't see it as "fair" would be rightfully seen as a prick.

Total Red Herring - if you want to talk about money and friends, start another thread, but that's not the topic of this one.

[Klatoo]

Why is it unacceptable?

Because it is unequitable. I believe that equitable dealings being the norm is good for all of society. I believe it generates feelings of comraderie, trust and inclusion making societal ties stronger. I believe it also helps prevent poverty, cutting out the middleman of charity or welfare in some cases. I don't think it is unethical or else I would seek punishment for the action, it's mearly undesireable and somewhat anti-social. Society will not collapse if the majority of people favor unequitable dealings, it will just be less pleasant than it otherwise could have been.

[Kuroneko]

If A gives B some money for no particular reason whatsoever, the situation may be "unfair" in the sense that some other person C was equally deserving of receiving that money, but it introduces no obligations on B's part to C in particular. Now, suppose that C has the power to veto the transaction unless he or she is sufficiently paid off--this gives B a pragmatic reason to appease C, but there still doesn't seem to be any ethical obligation on B's part. And if that's the case, any such obligation (if existing) must have been introduced by the last wrinkle in this scenario, which is that A forces B to share at least a little bit. However, there is no apparent ethical component there either... unless, of course, someone would like to explain exactly where it is.

---[Edit]---

I believe it also helps prevent poverty, cutting out the middleman of charity or welfare in some cases.

As I said previously, if that's the main concern, there are much more direct methods of fulfilling those obligations than giving money to the chooser in particular.

[Lord Zentei]

Anybody who claims that he would give up 50 bucks just to avoid giving some jackass positive reenforcement is a liar.

How about a nice big cup of shut the fuck up? Think before you say something stupid. This is simply a consideration of whether me getting $50 somebody else getting $450 is fair, or if I'd rather that both of us just got nothing. If you're willing to get screwed over $50, that's fine, but I'm not; I'd rather we both just got nothing rather than me get screwed.

How are you getting "screwed" by receiving free money? The splitter has no obligation to you at all, unless the two of you had made a prior deal about how the splitting should take place.

So if your only choices involve getting either $50 or $0, it seems to me the only way you can be "screwed" is if you get the lesser of the two amounts, and that's your own damn fault.

[AMX]

Prove what? That someone who isn't greedy would be content with being offered a few extra bucks for doing nothing?

No - that they would actually go along with it, despite any random circumstances.
Besides the already mentioned "hope to educate the jerk", there's also "screw him over because you're a rich jerk and find it funny", or "be too paranoid to belive that there are really no strings attached", etc.

Because IMO you got it exactly the wrong way around: A greedy person will strive to maximize his profits - and since he can't influence the amount offered, and is not investing anything himself, he'll accept any offer.

Since there is no method for maximizing your profits, someone who's greedy would, I would think, be logically inclined to screw over someone else just because they didn't get what they feel is owed to them. Even though logically the splitter isn't obligated to be "fair" at all.

But a person who is not greedy is more likely to refuse the offer, due to some (real or perceived) side effect (like conditioning the other guy to be more fair in the future; or just out of spite, for that matter).

It seems that we're working off opposite viewpoints for greed here.

More or less, yes.
Near as I can tell, your definition of "greedy" runs as "greedy and spiteful" in my book (possibly going into "more spiteful than greedy", since he's accepting a loss to harm the other guy).

It's not as if they have to do anything to earn it.

So what?

If they had to actually have earned their profits, then there would be a case for arguing it to be unfair. But since they're merely asked whether they want $10 (effectively), they aren't actually earning it, and thus have no entitlement whatsoever. The person doing the splitting has no obligation to make it fair, so it's strictly his good graces as to what the person on the receiving end will get. So you can make a case for this being an act of charity, which in turn people who are refusing it because it's not enough can be seen as greedy pricks.

That argument works both ways - the splitter is not doing all that much, either; so any money he ends up with is not an entitlement, but strictly in the good graces of the chooser, who has no obligation to let him keep any of it...

[Mad]

Option A - Decider (you) gets nothing, Splitter gets nothing
Option B - Decider (you) get $50, Splitter gets $450
Option C - Decider (you) get $250, Splitter gets $250

I see minimal benefit to me (as the Decider) in helping the splitter get $450 for doing nothing, while I only get $50 for doing that same nothing. If there $500 being offered for doing nothing, either we both split it or nobody gets it. There's nothing fair about the Splitter getting $450 while the Decider only gets $50.

In none of those situations are you being "screwed over," as you put it earlier.

And there's nothing fair about either the Splitter or Chooser getting any money at all when compared to an observer who gets $0 no matter what.

For you, it is worth $50 to screw over the Splitter for making a selfish gamble regarding your pride. But you weren't screwed over, because you didn't lose anything until you said "no," and losing that $50 was your own choice.

[Big Phil]

How are you getting "screwed" by receiving free money? The splitter has no obligation to you at all, unless the two of you had made a prior deal about how the splitting should take place.

So if your only choices involve getting either $50 or $0, it seems to me the only way you can be "screwed" is if you get the lesser of the two amounts, and that's your own damn fault.

Here's another scenario. You and a co-worker each receive identical performance reviews, and you both currently make exactly the same salary. You are given a 3% raise; your co-worker receives a 30% raise. Keep in mind, you both did exactly the same job and performed equally well. In this scenario, would you say you're getting screwed or not? You've still gotten a raise, it's just not as much of a raise as the other guy.

This hypothetical scenario in this thread is very similar - neither of you deserves the money any more or less than the other. The decider benefits if he accepts $50, while the splitter benefits nine times more by getting $450. That hardly seems fair to me.

[General Zod]

How are you getting "screwed" by receiving free money? The splitter has no obligation to you at all, unless the two of you had made a prior deal about how the splitting should take place.

So if your only choices involve getting either $50 or $0, it seems to me the only way you can be "screwed" is if you get the lesser of the two amounts, and that's your own damn fault.

Here's another scenario. You and a co-worker each receive identical performance reviews, and you both currently make exactly the same salary. You are given a 3% raise; your co-worker receives a 30% raise. Keep in mind, you both did exactly the same job and performed equally well. In this scenario, would you say you're getting screwed or not? You've still gotten a raise, it's just not as much of a raise as the other guy.

This hypothetical scenario in this thread is very similar - neither of you deserves the money any more or less than the other. The decider benefits if he accepts $50, while the splitter benefits nine times more by getting $450. That hardly seems fair to me.

Red herring. In the OP nobody actually has to "work" for their money, and neither the splitter nor the receiver know each other. It also isn't comparable since your co-worker doesn't decide who receives what, unlike the OP.

[Klatoo]

As I said previously, if that's the main concern, there are much more direct methods of fulfilling those obligations than giving money to the chooser in particular.

I view this as the most direct method of fufilling these obligations. The chooser is now one step further away from needing charity and is in a better position to give charity and contribute to society in general. The best form of charity is to prevent people from falling into poverty to begin with and allow them access to the resources needed to better their lot. This is not my main concern though, it's more about making the world more unpleasant than it needs to be.