DonManuel t1_j4g5t80 wrote
I don't think gamification as such is the bad thing. It's the lack of intelligent rules which cause harm for a large number of participants in the game. But I still think all rules can improve and the game can become much better.
Bubbagumpredditor t1_j4gbqdg wrote
The problem is when it's used to help companies accomplish goals instead of people.
DonManuel t1_j4gfts4 wrote
Sure, that's why I think we should drastically improve the rules, contrary to the religion of the free market , the failing of which I think is best described in the so called Yard Sale Model.
khansian t1_j4hef9m wrote
How does this Yard Sale Model represent economic activity?
This Yard Sale Model involves people randomly pairing up and randomly exchanging wealth in a way that one person is always the loser and one person is always the winner. The model shows people flipping a coin and then trading a fraction of the others’ wealth.
How does that mimic trade? In voluntary trade, people are engaging in mutually beneficial trade exchange. I trade you my tchotchke for $5 because I value $5 more than my tchotchke; you do it because you value my tchotchke more than $5. Neither of us walks away “poorer.”
This is the kind of stupid stuff physicists come up with when they try to do economics.
reverie42 t1_j4hu7jz wrote
They also assert that somehow being owed a debt counts towards your net worth, but having debt doesn't count against it, which is absolutely nonsensical. Meanwhile, they completely ignore how the net wealth of society actually changes (the creation and consumption/loss of things).
[deleted] t1_j4ilxtb wrote
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Throwawayingaccount t1_j4oegwi wrote
> They also assert that somehow being owed a debt counts towards your net worth, but having debt doesn't count against it, which is absolutely nonsensical.
Have you looked at how money enters circulation?
Hint hint: it's because of shenanigans like what you just wrote.
(I'm explicitly not defending it. I think it's dumb, but it's what our financial system is based off of.)
reverie42 t1_j4pc6nd wrote
Introducing more money to an economy is not the same as a loan.
In this case, you haven't created value in that case, you've simply fractionalized the value that currently exists. This is an important distinction.
Even with more loan-like things like treasury bonds, the instrument is a little more like a future (in reverse) than a loan.
None of these things create money on a balance sheet. There are huge benefits to owning assets and taking loans on them, but doing so does not mean you suddenly have no liabilities.
frogandbanjo t1_j4j4ejb wrote
> In voluntary trade, people are engaging in mutually beneficial trade exchange. I trade you my tchotchke for $5 because I value $5 more than my tchotchke; you do it because you value my tchotchke more than $5. Neither of us walks away “poorer.”
So it's non-zero-sum because of a subjective tautology? That's a great theory. I can't imagine it ever producing unintended negative outcomes. <massive eyeroll>
khansian t1_j4jb6u7 wrote
Not every aspect of economics has to be wrong in order for your preferred economic theory to be correct.
It’s hilarious how socialists/communists/idiots will disagree with anything and everything about economics, as if they “win” by default if economics is wrong. Yet they fail to realize their own theories would fall apart too if they deny even the most basic building blocks. Marx’s theories of exchange are also based on the principle that people trade on this basis of mutual benefit. His theories of exploitation don’t rely on workers being so stupid that they don’t realize they’re trading their labor for too little; his theories rely on the idea that they simply can’t get as much as they’re worth because of the capitalists’ power.
I’ve had self-described Marxists tell me that capitalists always collude and competition never drives down profit rates. The guy didn’t realize Marx’s whole theory of economic crisis is based on the idea that capitalists drive drown profits through competition.
DonManuel t1_j4hfevw wrote
It's of course a model, an experiment and not a descriptive explanation. But it ends up with a similar accumulation of wealth like we observe in unregulated capitalism.
khansian t1_j4hh7bb wrote
But I can come up with an infinite number of models that generate extreme inequality. Here’s one:
Flip a coin. Comes up heads, all wealth ends up with DontManuel. Comes up tails, nothing happens. Repeat until all wealth ends up with DontManuel.
The question is whether this model mimics reality in any way. Is there any reason to believe actual economic processes operate in this way or generate inequality in this way?
The problem isn’t even that it’s unrealistic. The problem is that the rules of this Yard Sale Model are so painfully contrived to generate extreme inequality that it doesn’t actually even yield any insight into anything. Of course if you make trade 1) random; 2) not mutually beneficial; and 3) trade is done as a fraction of wealth, then eventually some end up with everything.
Perhaps there’s some analogy here to entrepreneurship in select zero-sum contexts, where there can only be a few winners, past winners are more likely to win again, and most people lose. But then I have no idea why this is called the “Yard Sale” model.
The_Last_Green_leaf t1_j4kuvbt wrote
>like we observe in unregulated capitalism.
where do we observe unregulated capitalism? the only country I can think of that has unregulated capitalism might be Somalia, because the government is near non existent,
there has never been unregulated capitalism, and America is far from unregulated, every industry has million of regulations, down to the most niche things.
i8abug t1_j4jjfig wrote
Honest question as I don't think I understand your comment. Why is it a problem to help companies accomplish goals? Isn't that why we work?
Bubbagumpredditor t1_j4kb0a9 wrote
Maybe I should have said accomplish goals at the expense of employees? Like you bust your ass to help double profits, CEO gets a gold plane and you get 2 slices of pizza.
i8abug t1_j4l0hn6 wrote
Oh I see. So you see gamification as a way of making employees more effective without increasing their real world rewards, which feels unfair. I suppose that is likely the goal of gamification at work in a lot of instances. Kind of sucks that the extra money often doesn't get shared.
asdaaaaaaaa t1_j4goqs9 wrote
I think the issue is when you gamify certain industries/work, people start focusing on the "points" or "score" over the actual job. You can see this problem when companies start tracking certain metrics for performance; employees find ways to game the system and get more points without actually helping the company/business.
DonManuel t1_j4gpq9y wrote
> employees find ways to game the system
That always happened, since the beginning of employment. And it always was an arms competition, a game of cat and mouse.
runthepoint1 t1_j4ijokv wrote
It’s the lack of awareness of the game. They get wrapped up in it and forget reality.
I play basketball aggressively, angrily almost. But when I’m off the court there’s no need for any of that. I am aware of the game I am playing.
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