Comments on: Comments on 16813

Post number 16813

Geo — Wed, 01 May 2002 18:50:27 -0800

Don't you just hate a winner? You don't? A study by Professors Oswald and Zizzo showed 62% of us are willing to pay to burn some of the winners' cash. Let's ignore danf and extrapolate all sorts of wild conclusions about the nature of mankind. Maybe envy explains a lot of things.

By: boltman

boltman — Wed, 01 May 2002 18:55:16 -0800

more evidence to support the theory that a society with small disparities in wealth is a happier, more stable place than one with large wealth disparities.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Wed, 01 May 2002 19:36:50 -0800

So why don't we just use leaves for money? That'd solve everyone's financial woes. No more burning leaves. Deforestation wouldn't be a problem anymore. People would go out of their way to grow trees. That was sarcasm, by the way.

By: rdr

rdr — Wed, 01 May 2002 19:56:23 -0800

The game involves a small group of people exchanging money. So if someone else ends up wealthier than you there's a good chance that they took some money from you. So in the context of this game it's not so suprising that people would retaliate. If this study had any validity, then in the real world there would be huge, well funded political action commitees dedicated to screwing the wealthy and there just aren't.

By: kindall

kindall — Wed, 01 May 2002 20:04:37 -0800

Deforestation wouldn't be a problem anymore. No, deforestation would be embarked upon fairly soon as an inflation-staving measure. Haven't you read your Douglas Adams?

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Wed, 01 May 2002 20:10:14 -0800

If this study had any validity, then in the real world there would be huge, well funded political action commitees dedicated to screwing the wealthy and there just aren't. I don't think this really reflects on the study's validity. It seems to be a well designed, carefully controlled study. Sure, you can't make massive sociopolitical generalizations based on the results, but I don't think the researchers would ever suggest that you could. Studies like this are strictly micro, not macro.

By: rdr

rdr — Wed, 01 May 2002 20:21:29 -0800

Sure, you can't make massive sociopolitical generalizations based on the results, but I don't think the researchers would ever suggest that you could. Studies like this are strictly micro, not macro. Ok, that seems reasonable.

By: D.C.

D.C. — Thu, 02 May 2002 12:25:46 -0800

This reminds me of a recent study on altruistic punishment.

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Thu, 02 May 2002 12:47:20 -0800

Which reminds me of a MetaFilter Thread.

By: D.C.

D.C. — Thu, 02 May 2002 18:14:30 -0800

Feh. I'm surprised that the phrase "altruistic punishment" doesn't appear anywhere in that thread. At least I tried.