Hey y'all - Gus Chiggins here and I'm all mixed up. Yesterday in class we talked about voluntary redistribution for the sake of "empathy" or "altruistic motivation." The discussion led to implications for the size of the α coefficient in an objective function (how much weight to put on somebody else's utility).
Mr. Coppock said alpha is generally postulated as between zero and one. Well dadgummit, that made sense to ole Gus, but then I read this here sports article where fans claim a willingness to take the injuries of their sports heros. Of course they can't really do this (can they?) but it makes for a fun game. Anyhoo, check out this friend of the sportswriter:
...Mike Tollin, a die-hard Philly fan who's a little older than me and has older kids. If the Mets and Phillies were tied with a week to go and Ryan Howard's wrist was broken by a pitch, would Mike do the switcheroo and take the broken wrist? Well, I called him and here was his first response:
"The left one or the right one?"
We talked it out for a few minutes and Mike ultimately decided he would sacrifice the left wrist in any scenario, but he'd sacrifice the right wrist only if he was guaranteed a World Series trip because, "That's my writing hand, my BlackBerry hand and my shaving hand …
Peaches and cucumbers! That guy is hard-core (ole Gus can't decide whether to admire or fear him). But is this really interdependent utility? And if so, does it mean that α is greater than one?
I'm just an old prospector, I can't tell.
