Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2002 12:56:23 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Craig Harding <crh@outpost.co.nz> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <3D7CFCE7.DE93FDDB@mindspring.com> References: <200209090350.g893oV125883@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org> <3D7C4A2F.28BD7DE8@mindspring.com> <3D7CF19F.4BACB9EA@outpost.co.nz>
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Craig Harding wrote: > Terry Lambert wrote: > > Are you maybe unaware of what people mean when they say "Schelling > > point"? > > I've been enjoying this thread, but this could be the funniest comment > yet! > > Terry, you say "what people mean" as if anyone on this list might have > heard anyone other than you use the term. :) Which I strongly suspect is > not the case. There are a lot of smart people on this list; at least some of them have exposure to games theory and genetic algorithms. I'd also be very surprised if the people representing "Google" and "Yahoo" and other portal-plays were *not* aware of the idea, since their ability to attract and keep users, whose eyeballs they then sell, are totally dependent upon the consensus decision that *they* are Schelling points. Google and Yahoo, in particular, being search engines, have to be able to arrive at results that tend to match the consensus of what the results should be, at least 51% of the time compared to their competitors. Did you ever wonder why you prefer one search engine over another? It's because it's idea of consensus matches yours better than the alternative search engines do. Why did Google get so big, while Yahoo and Altavista lost ground? Altavista had a lexicographer's idea of consensus, where Yahoo had a common man's consensus (explaining why Altavista was big early in the life of the Internet, and was eclipsed by Yahoo as more and more "yahoos" got on the Internet, and the average of the consensus moved away from Altavista's). When both of them started accepting advertising in the form of modified results, rather than merely banner ads relevent to the query, the move distorted their results away from the consensus, and towards what advertisers wanted the consensus to be, instead. Only consensus doesn't actually work that way: you can't dictate a Schnelling point. The only way to lead a parade is to be the one who starts the parade, or to find a parade, and get out in front of it. Unfortunately for most would-be parade leaders, the mechanics of parade-starting are not generally well understood by most people, least of all, the would-be parade leaders. It's very hard to *buy* a parade. In any case, it's also meta-funny, because word meanings are also Schelling points, and it's meta-meta-funny, because one of Dave's premises is that of Thalience, which requires "otherness", which requires that he holds that his Schnelling points are not our Schnelling points. If he accepts a communal definition, most of his arguments fall apart, and if he doesn't, he can't communicate, so the best he can do is pretend to not accept *certain* communal definitions, and purport to deny a common axiomatic basis. 8-). -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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