Re: poly: Showing That You Care

Hal Finney wrote:
: 1. cared more about their social allies, ...
: 2. suffered more crises when they had few allies ...
: 3. were unsure about who would remain a long-time ally, ...
>: ... For example, a person B considering
>: how much to invest in health would weigh both the chance that he would
>: end up with many allies (high status), and the chance he would end up
>: with few allies (low status). By assumption 2, the better he thought
>: his chance of ending with many allies, the more sense it would make to
>: invest in health.
>
>Why does assumption 2 imply this? If he ends up with many allies, he
>will have fewer crises, hence at that time he will be able to invest more
>in health. While if he ends up with few allies, he will be less able at
>that time to invest in health. This would seem to suggest that he should
>invest now to compensate for his later opportunities to invest in health.

Thanks for pointing out my lack of clarity.

I am assuming the crisis events are coming soon enough that investment
decisions must be made now. How many crisis events are coming soon is
correlated with whether you will have many or few lasting allies.
If someone is about to betray you, for example, you will have fewer
allies and there is a crisis you need to be preparing for.

That help?

Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar FAX: 510-643-8614
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 510-643-1884
after 8/99: Assist. Prof. Economics, George Mason Univ.
Received on Tue May 4 10:28:34 1999