Whelp, another reason to boycott Capcom.

[molotovwars]

Oh, I thought this topic was about boycotting Capcom, but instead we've got pages of two people quibbling over subtleties in language while trying to make a comparison to home loans that even if proved right or wrong will have no bearing on whatever fomented the discussion in the first place. Wonderful.

[Ivo]

Oh, I thought this topic was about boycotting Capcom, but instead we've got pages of two people quibbling over subtleties in language while trying to make a comparison to home loans that even if proved right or wrong will have no bearing on whatever fomented the discussion in the first place. Wonderful.

Indeed, I also love the forums here

(I also disagree it has no bearing and there were more than two people "quibbling" ).

Ivo.

[Droid party]

I think ivo just won the award for the longest forum post in the history of the Internet. That thing was epic and there is only one thing I can say to that, tl;dr.

[AppleQueso]

You don't contribute to the house, you contribute to the person or industry that sells the house.

Fair enough, it was a slight imprecise use of language. You contribute to the person or industry that sells the house, and when you contribute to the person that sells the house, you are directly "undoing", cancelling and transferring the contribution of that person and taking that contribution as your own. But I used "to that house" because THAT house is they key point in the interpretation where the transaction is the relevant portion.

No, he is getting new money from someone else for a separate transaction.

He is getting new money from someone else for a separate transaction, sure. This does not invalidate that that transaction acts as a transfer of the support given, being as it is on the same game (so, separate transaction, but intimately related as it is the same game).

Yes he can, because he spent some amount of time without that money.

He can't, although it is entirely correct that he spent some amount of time without that money - which is why I was careful to add (before you brought this up, I may add) that he could also claim not just X-Y but also further deduct interest on the portion Y. So if you want to consider the amount of time and that opportunity cost (which is perfectly fair), Player A contributes X-Y and the interest of Y, and Player B contributes Y minus the interest of Y. Since very early I mention "interest free loan" when I used simply X-Y and Y. But adjusting the respective amounts like this is more correct (although slightly more complicated). Once again the interpretation is internally consistent and correct.

Saying he retroactively spent less than the full price of the game just because he received money at some later point is like saying he spent it on absolutely nothing just because the game also left his possession at a later time.

He spent the full price of the game, and then he transfers the responsibility (partial or not) for it. Your point of view is extremely inconsistent in corner cases, some of which I already presented. Mine has yet to fail in any limiting cases.
Consider Player A only had the game for very few hours and did not even play it (he isn't even a player) - he just did the errand for someone else and gets the full amount upon delivering the game.
Your interpretation makes it look like the Player that isn't even a player is contributing to the industry You will try to fall back on the "there was an agreement and that is relevant". With my interpretation I don't need to worry about that and whether player A is actually a player or if it was hours or years that he had the game, and describe any situation perfectly by adjusting the amounts (in this case Y=X, Player A contributes X during the few hours, and after the transaction Player B contributes X and Player A contributes X-X=0 - as it should be). So in such a situation I can totally say Player A has contributed nothing towards it (after the transaction).

Wrong. He can balance it out in his budget and make an excuse to his wife "hey, after I sold it, it's as if I paid less for it" but it's just an imaginary exercise for the purpose of budgeting.

Actually that is a pretty good example how it is NOT imaginary and relevant. Of course, if his wife is anything like you, she will unfairly not understand the dude. It is not an excuse, it is the reality of it. It's not *as if* he paid less for it. It is *as if* he just rented it. Which may very well be much more acceptable for their budget if he doesn't intend to replay it and so on.

He still paid full price for the game, and had to do something else (in this case sell the game, but could have been anything) to get more money elsewhere.

While he could certainly get more money from elsewhere, he couldn't correctly justify (in such a situation) that he "paid less" for it or that he "just rented it for less". He could in those situations say (while he kept the game in his collection, I may add) "yes I paid full price for it, but I worked extra time / sold something else that I would have liked to keep" or whatever applies, but those sentences are obviously NOT equivalent to "I paid less for THIS game", they just mean "I got more money from elsewhere". Which is of course unsurprising given that is what he did (in your own words).

Purely incidental. After the first person buys it, it is merely one possession among many. After it goes into the reseller's inventory, it is the same as any among other used copies of the same title.

Agreed, there it is fungible among the same copies of the same game. This is no problem for my transaction interpretation. You only need to care at each transaction. If Player A sells to Gamestop, you stop caring about player A and only care about Gamestop. You already know what Player A contributes after that transaction and Player B can do nothing to alter THAT part. Player B will henceforth only alter Gamestop's contribution after that transaction is done. At each transaction you only care about X_i and X_(i+1). This is exactly why I don't need a time machine and this is exactly why there is no violation of causality. And this is why it is internally consistent.

Player A could sell one copy, Player B could buy a different copy, and nothing in the scenario would change. The transactions involving the individual copy are no more related than separate transactions involving the same dollar bill.

In this example with a middlemen, you can not directly compare with just 2 parties, but 3. Instead of "gamestop" in the middle, you can think of player A, B and C. Player B takes responsibility from Player A, Player C can not affect that. Player C takes responsibility from Player B. It is indeed impossible for C to affect A because they are not in the same transaction. What you are trying to do (intentionally or not) is a strawman to shoot down my transaction centred interpretation by "sneaking in" another transaction and not considering it. As my transaction interpretation crucially uses each transaction to keep consistency, you can't do that (nor have I done it while using my interpretation).

But if I buy land in Louisiana (in this case with a house on it), it is still part of the same land covered by the Louisiana Purchase.

I took out the part with the slaves because it may get touchy.

Then sure, transfer down the responsibility, adjust for interest and inflation. It is just difficult to do it as there have been many parties, but you can iterate all the way. Note that (like in the ABC example) you can not directly affect A, only your buyer. Then your buyer affects his buyer and so on.

First of all, that's not what I said. I said it is relevant that the transaction was directly caused by the agreement. There's a huge difference.

Apologies for my misinterpretation. My point still stands. An agreement that is not upheld is a shake ground and a bad corner case for any agreement interpretation.

For starters, he could only even try to claim to contribute to the developers if the purchase would not have happened without him. Therefore, he caused the developers to receive money. It would be the same as if he stole the first player's money, bought the game with the stolen cash, and then gave the game to the first player still new and unopened. This is more true than it sounds, because the second player's promised money was part of the original transaction, but never materialized. It would be stupid, and he would be a complete asshat, but he could make the claim.

Shaky, I really prefer my interpretation.

Secondly, of course it's absurd, because secondary game sales never happen like that in the first place.

You would be surprised what happens. With my interpretation I can fit anything possible (even if unlikely). Yours struggles. Does that no indicate anything to you? And yet you question the robustness of my interpretation...

The whole idea was to illustrate the absurdity of comparing used game sales to home loans, because the one does not operate at all like the other. Mission accomplished.

Mission accomplished, but not in the way you intended it. My interpretation continues robust.

It is not at all absurd to compare these. In both situations a specific object is acquired for X and owned by a party (Player A) for a period of time and then transfers this to another party (Player B) for Y. If you have issues with the comparison it is because you are not abstracting the concepts.

Again, no. The agreement and the transaction are both important.

For you they are, which is why you get into trouble with consistency.

What is possibly more important is who caused the developers to receive money. Unemployed, underage children contribute to developers, for example, by influencing their parents to purchase games. Player A caused the developers to receive money. Player B did not.

Motivations are well outside the realms of simple economics. Maybe Player A (or B) bought the game with other intentions other than playing it (e.g. gifting it). So what? I don't care in my interpretation. If parents actually gift the game, well, consider the child Player C and the 0 value cases is included in my interpretation anyway.

If you care about intentions, you are only making your ground shakier.

But that doesn't happen in reality, only in an abstract idea space (if at all).

If it is the only abstract interpretation that is rigorously consistent, then it is pretty fair to say it is what happens in reality. Get a *better* way to model it and then you can suggest that it doesn't happen like THAT, it happens like THIS.

From beginning to end, you're considering responsibility in reverse order.

I am merely considering transfers of responsibility and I'm being internally consistent with causality by only having those take place at each transaction, not before. I don't see where you are imagining any reverse ordering.

The employer made the purchase possible, regardless of interest in the product.

Not necessarily, as money is fungible and all, but not relevant either. Of course the transaction is only possible if Player A has X. I don't care how player A has X. I just care that Player B has Y (not why - excuse the pun) and that by giving Player A the Y he takes the game AND that portion of responsibility from Player A.

In fact, they DO have an interest in services provided by employing Player A, who is arguably working for his employer in part due to his interest in buying games.

Quite irrelevant for the transactions. I only care about the transactions. I don't need to worry about all this other fluff that you apparently need to care about (and then my interpretation is the complicated one? ).

Player B did NOT make the purchase possible--he merely took advantage of it after the fact.

I don't claim at any time who makes the transactions possible. What I say is that Player B takes responsibility at the time of his transaction.

When the game is bought used by Player B, it is no longer equivalent to when it was a new game purchased by Player A. Don't believe me?

I believe you, but it doesn't matter at the point of each transaction the game and the amount changed for it is not fungible. Only from a given transaction to another can you not know. See the ABC example above (consider Gamestop B) as I already covered this.

"Rock solid" would imply that you've demonstrated a real way in which Player B's money reaches the publisher or developer, which you have not done.

Money not being fungible outside of each transaction, I don't need to demonstrate this. Money (X of it) reached the publisher. It doesn't have identity. The transfer of responsibility occurs in a given transaction, the only point where it has identity.

But the way you're interpreting it only happens in an idea space as an abstraction of economics--not in reality. Even if you were being internally consistent here, that doesn't make it jibe with reality.

The model is consistent and describes any case you could throw at me so far with straightforward generalisations. The other interpretations get clunkier and you start discussing motivations, what enables this or that and so on.

I'm sure you can, but it doesn't mean that's what's going on in the real world.

It's apparently going on exactly like this in the real world.

The concept you're using--the fungibility of cash money--is meant to balance ledgers, manage budgets, and abstractly describe economies in a simplified way. The closest you can get to the real world with that is "it's the same result as if..."

I imagine that you also think the ledgers only get balanced virtually, that the budgets are only managed virtually, and then what happens in the real world if this only works in the abstract? The abstract concepts work in the real world, that is why people actually use them and not just in universities (so, indeed it is not just academic - and there was even the cute example with the wife of Player A to show it).

"Same as if" is not the same thing as "is". Overlooking that, if you're going to turn real money and real transactions into abstract money and abstract transactions to claim money is essentially changing hands from the used game industry to the new games industry, then you have to consider the goods as they're considered by the market in that same abstract idea space before you try to switch back to describing real concrete things.

Metaphysics distinction, probably.

That causes two HUGE problems for you: 1) In that abstract world of the games market, new and used copies are separate commodities.

No problems

Indeed new and used are different, but it isn't an issue for my transaction centred view as at each transaction the game has an identity and that is all I need. I already gave examples where I myself used the fungibility: a) game stops working within the warranty and is replaced; b) Player B is Gamestop and sells Player C any given used copy regardless of who it belonged to (at which point I don't care if the game has belonged to Player A - he gave his responsibility to Player B, not to C and then I only care about B and C).

Note I didn't even say Player A played the game (well in some examples I did I think). I don't need to worry about that. He can keep it wrapped and new and sell it for a profit and everything still works.

You can no longer consider the game to be the same product after the initial purchase, because it is not treated that way by the market, making the new game meaningless in terms of selling the used game

I don't need to and do not consider it to be the same product. The only identity it needs is it is Player A's game. He can buy 2 and sell one of them, I don't care which one. He can have his one copy replaced by warranty; he can have played it in a friend's house and mistakenly swapped it for his friend's copy. All irrelevant.

2) since the USED game is interchangeable with any other USED copy of the same game, any connection between Player A and Player B is also meaningless in terms of responsibility.

It is only interchangeable outside of any given transaction, so I don't care. In a given transaction the identity is perfectly clear. It is THE copy that is being transferred from A to B. That is all I need to know.

To conclude:
Fair enough, you don't think it works like this in reality, there are many places where abstract concepts describe reality and I'm used to that. I really (another pun!) don't want to go into metaphysics of "What is really reality?", "Is reality the equations themselves that describe it?" or any stuff like that. If the interpretation works that is as far as I want to go.

At this stage I believe I have explained myself as clear as I can and I don't think I misunderstood any particular thing from your side. It seems that you are not convinced (which is certainly your right), even though you have tried and failed to poke any holes in the interpretation I hold. Competing models are clunky and require you to consider many more elements on top of the transactions themselves (and I think that given more and more carefully crafted corner cases you may need to keep patching it up with more and more considerations). Markets are inherently defined by transactions and this is all I need to use.

Finally, I have noticed that we are already repeating ourselves a fair amount so we are probably starting to go in circles, so perhaps we should call it quits with our respective interpretations before one of our single posts is a whole thread page. We will see.

Ivo.[/quote]

holy SHIT this is a long post

[brunoafh]

[Ivo]

This thread is full of epicness!

Ivo.

[dsheinem]

I wish people got this passionate, contemplative, and critical about shit that really mattered in this world

[YoshiEgg25]

holy SHIT this is a long post

Then what on earth made you think it was a good idea to quote the whole thing?

[Erik_Twice]

I wish people got this passionate, contemplative, and critical about shit that really mattered in this world

I think this matters quite a lot =P

[Ivo]

I wish people got this passionate, contemplative, and critical about shit that really mattered in this world

Such as?

(I think internal consistency matters a lot)

Ivo.