LEg GOdt = Play Well

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A Tale of Two Cabbies

Preface & Honor Code: This interactive essay explores common assumptions about human goodness and justice in zero-sum situations. It weaves together two real life cocktail party stories with polls to help you explore your own beliefs. Links include references & entertainment. Please vote before you check results.

Por Favor: The essay is ~3-5 minutes long. If you like it, please share with friends to help us reach our goal of 500+ data points (when we can analyse and interpret the data). If not, please send comments/suggestions for improvement and/or more experiments. We reserve © to this perpetual beta. The link to share is http://bit.ly/6YYajx

Thanks in advance. This is not a test. Enjoy! - Amit & Navin

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Jib and Jab are San Franciscan cabbies. The average fare is $7.30. Most passengers conserve $1 bills for Muni rides, hand the cabbie $10, and wait for change. (Some riders offer two $5 bills).

Jib's policy is to round his fare down and return three $1 bills. He hopes that the passenger will tip enough to compensate for the $0.30 he has handed away. Jib needs that $0.30 to cover his fare, but risks it to boost his tip by appealing to reciprocal altruism.

Jab's policy is to round his fare up and return two $1 bills. He locks in at least $0.70 in tips (and avoids fumbling for change). He also hopes to get more money back as an additional tip.

Human cognitive bias towards "rooting for the underdog" drives many to imagine that Jib's casual generosity will unlock two (or more!) dollar bills returned from his change, as tips.

However, many pragmatic realists think Jab wins over time by short changing his riders. Locking in at least 70 cents of tip insulates his prospects from the generosity (or time-strapped inconsiderateness) of his urban-dweller riders. Some of Jab's riders will part with just one $1 bill (rule following propensity forces conformity with tipping norms) and tip to feel good even after being short changed. Some may walk away (offended by Jab's presumptuous rapacity).

Riders themselves may also have varied responses based on their own expectations of cabbies. Bob is accumulating people's reactions to this question while he continues the experiment. He found that credit cards can alter these behaviors. NYC has seen an uptick in both fares and tips (despite the recession), from installing displays that nudge riders to anchor on a suggested tip amount.

Perhaps both Jib and Jab would both be better off in NYC than in SF.

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When Bob was a child, his mom gave him a cake to share with his little sister, Libby. She suggested a fairness-seeking division policy.

MOM: "Bob one of you gets to slice it. The other one will get to choose the slice. What do you want to do now?"

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Bob asked Sue what she would do if she were in his shoes as a child.

SUE: " If mom stuck around to supervise, I'd cut it as equal as I could, and let Dee (my little sister) pick either slice"

BOB: "What if mom did not stick around to supervise?"

SUE: "Oh, then I'd cut it into unequal parts, and tell little Dee to take the smaller slice. I am after all bigger, and can assert myself to get my way..."

BOB: "So the presence of your mom is essential for you to play fair?"

SUE: "Of course. We all behave better when we know that credible authorities are monitoring our transactions. Absent higher authority, we step in to indulge our own desires as vigorously as we can get away with. Indeed the more certain we are of not being outed, the more we cheat"

So if you are the weaker party in the transaction, should you lead or follow if they get to judge your action (assuming higher authority present)?

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Bob was clever as a kid. He knew that even in the presence of "higher authority", he could use his social skills to get his way. He'd always cut the cake unequal (sometimes massively so, say a 3/4th slice, and a 1/4th slice). Then he'd turn around and offer the larger slice to his sister.

BOB: "I love you so much, I want you to have the bigger slice"

LIBBY: "No Bob, I love you. You can have the larger slice" (feeling warm and fuzzy, and a tad guilty about getting the bigger piece)

BOB: "Thanks! (rush) I still love you (grab), but I now have (bite) my cake, and (munch) I want to eat it (gulp) too...

One wonders whether Libby stopped feeling as good about it after a while. By engaging her altruism before offering her a choice, Bob, always got the bigger slice, without ever having to assert his claim or use aggression.

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But what if Sue was Bob's younger sister? Would she just take the larger slice and run? Would her grabbing of the larger slice depend on if her mom was watching?

What is the role of authority in policing human interaction when players seek not only to exploit plain hierarchy (as Sue did against Dee), but actually craftily leverage "locally mispriced" reciprocal altruism via tactful persuasion?

Sue lives in San Francisco, and eschews driving. She often rides in cabs.

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There is never a "higher authority" (in San Francisco, anyway) at the moment a passenger tips a cabbie, other than

- City ordnance signs in the cab re: fare

- Social custom "nudges" re: tipping {Ref: Thaler & Sunstein}

Tipping could be dictated mostly by "rule follower" propensity. If this were true, then about 60% of the US population (Myers-Briggs “F” feeling preference folks) would be compulsive tippers. However, even the F's in SF maybe less conformist overall (because they are busy conforming with with various seemingly counterculture and outrageously wholesome tribes).

Many San Franciscan Myers-Briggs F's may also be quite happy, allowing Jab at least a dollar over his locked in $0.70, despite his premature tip grab. If you believe all this, for Jib to win, his San Franciscan riders must

- Not only gave him two of the three dollar bills he handed them...

- But also go the distance to give him the third (a few may, they both happy, and numb!).

The jury is out.

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Then again, for those who pause and evaluate before tipping (perhaps less than 40% of all people are this way), the tip depends on

How far their own sense of justice is rankled by

Jab's "Sue-esque (absent mom) assertive change-giving policy"

Versus

How their generosity is engaged by

Jib's "Bob-esque (mom agnostic) charming tip-greasing policy".

Pick your poison.

Thoughts? Questions?

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Tolerance. "They are errant neighbors to be won over, not cretins to be mocked"

"Members of the radical right were emotionally disturbed victims of "status anxiety." - Martin Lipset, Douglas Hofstader, and liberal scholars (c. 1960) expressing shock that anyone could favor Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson

Apparently, subsequent research has shown that Goldwater and Reagan Republicans often were highly educated, socially secure individuals who happened not to share the values of liberal professors and journalists. Why then are Liberals baying now at Southern Whites?

"Blacks and Latinos, it appears, are allowed to hold conventionally conservative social views about gay rights, abortion and (in the case of blacks) immigration without being mocked and denounced by elite white liberals in the pages of the Washington Post and Mother Jones, as long as they vote for the Democratic Party on the basis of other issues. This strategic logic should lead liberals to seek out and welcome the vote of white social conservatives in the South and elsewhere, as long as they vote for Democrats for reasons other than the social issues. Indeed, socially conservative white voters helped to create and to maintain the new Democratic majority in Congress. But many liberals, it would appear, would rather have a smaller Democratic Party than one that includes more white Southerners with typically "black" or "Latino" views about sex and reproduction." - Michael Lind's Salon piece on this new craziness.

Bijou

There was a clean-tech Jat named Dajou

'Oo forged himself a Peugot Noveau
'E filled 'er up with Cheb-E's SoySoju
To drive greenly from Djibouti to Korou
But 'e cannot get 'er to start. Sacre Bleu!