Hacker News Reader

Comment by Hermitian909 | Hacker News Reader

It's true, and it's not great, but I think the flip side of this is that as I get older I find myself increasingly paying for the anti-social behavior of others.

There are lot of nice customer service things that are only possible if people don't abuse them: solid warranty/return programs, high quality phone reps, etc. But you need people who adhere to the social contract, the kind of people who don't, say, buy a $3,000 TV for a single super bowl party and then return it.

I actually desperately want some way to tell many of these companies "I am a responsible human being who respects social contracts" - all solutions I can think of violate my privacy but we'll find out what's worse...

View on HN

> want some way to tell many of these companies "I am a responsible human being who respects social contracts"

Cultural background + class would be the strongest indicator of this behavior. It describes the norms and expectations to which you are accustomed. Unfortunately it's illegal to discriminate based on most signifiers of this trait.

The alternative to shared trust is costly and intrusive enforcement mechanisms.

How about just asking "Have you ever returned any item to a store for any reason except that it is faulty?"

If they say no, and you don't find their name on a few big stores lists of frequent item-returners, then you trust them. Everyone else, you consider shady and don't offer good deals to.

Remember lying to gain a benefit is wire fraud - so anyone who falsely answers this question has committed a crime - and a store is totally allowed to treat a customer they suspect has a committed a crime differently.

> and a store is totally allowed to treat a customer they suspect has a committed a crime differently.

That's not true either. There are vastly different standards of enforcement.

This issue is a lot bigger than returning items at the store. Every social system we have was built with assumptions about how people would behave. For example: the Seniors who are easily scammable are those who grew up around people who didn't scam each other.

Like a social credit score!

The more time goes on, the less opposed to this I am. There are too many bad actors in society who fuck things up for the rest of us.

Behaving is too hard for some people and I'm fine with punishing via a social credit score.

The problem with that is that it assumes both that the people giving the score are good, unbiased actors who agree with your assessment of what is appropriate, and that bad actors will be unable to game the system.

Even in a well-designed system, both of those will be suspect.

> There are too many bad actors in society

Yet you are arguing for giving some of them way more power to fuck things up.

Is respect for social contracts really all that's necessary? I don't see it as adversarial, so much as I see it as "normal _and_..." for many vendors.

For instance, even if I could buy a TV and then return it for free, why not return it and charge a fee? Most people are willing to pay the fee, even if they wouldn't return it, so what's the incentive for any vendor to not charge the fee?

Because they really don't like the TV for some reason/ Or an expensive purchase that should last for years falls apart after 9 months? Leaches who have made many companies cut back on generous return policies with "my ten year old coat is worn out, replace it" are basically turds who make life worse for other people.

ADDED: Furthermore, research has has shown (e.g late pickups at daycare) that when you add a fee to an anti-social behavior it can actually make the behavior more likely because it's now a transactional activity.

> (e.g late pickups at daycare)

I've often wondered how well it would work if you went "right well, if you pick them up 15 minutes late today, you've got to pick them up 15 minutes early tomorrow", or "... drop them off 15 minutes late tomorrow".

It still turns transactional. Maybe the parent has a job that is usually flexible but they have to put out fires every now and then, they'd happily sign up for this deal. Meanwhile it solves none of the daycare's problems and only adds new ones.

> why not return it and charge a fee?

Your suggestion proves my point! With social contracts I don't need to pay this fee, but by getting rid of them I do; I'd be getting charged for other people's anti-social behavior!

Stepping back, social contracts are forms of trust at the societal level. Any economist or business person will tell you that being able trust others dramatically lowers transactional and operational costs. I want to be trusted so that I can take advantage of those lower costs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com