Re: [Gnu-arch-users] OT: Slavery???

[Peter Conrad]

Hi,

I'm beginning to see the misunderstanding. Tom et. al. make a distinction
between "gentlemen's agreements" and "contracts" (aka "enforcable 
agreements"). I don't, because in my reality there really is no difference.
All agreements are enforcable in theory. In practice, some aren't.

On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 03:09:36PM +0300, Samium Gromoff wrote:
> > > 
> > > Peter> This is wrong: most contracts work very well without enforcement, 
> > > and
> > > Peter> most would even work without the possibility of enforcement. That's
> > > Peter> because a contract usually is a win-win situation for the involved
> > > Peter> parties (if it wasn't, why should the losing party agree to the
> > > Peter> contract?) [1].
> > > 
> > >   This is wrong: most contracts involve compromises/trade-offs.
> > > There's always an incentive from both parties to not make them and
> > > sometimes (very often) a party cannot threat with no adherence to the
> > > compromises it made as a means to enforce adherence of the other party
> > > to their compromises.
> > 
> > Read [1]. Even a compromise is a win-win situation. Therefore, even if
> > breaking a contract means that you win more in the short term, not
> > breaking it enables you to win much, much more in the long term.
> 
> Now you deliberately choose one fouth of the possible domain of probable
> outcomes without any support (or so i perceive), which violates the
> occam`s razor principle.

Let me be more explicit, then:

> short term win, long term win
> short term lose, long term win

The point of a contract between parties A and B is to achive a win-win
situation. Usually, this'll mean long term win for both parties, but not
neccessarily so.

> short term win, long term lose <== somehow you choosed that as the only 
> possible

This is the case where A breaks the contract. This means short term lose for
B and short term win for A (the short term win being the incentive for
breaking the contract in the first place).
However, since B will lose trust in A he will probably not engage in future
contracts with A. Since a contract is a win-win, no contract means lose-lose
in the long term.

> short term lose, long term lose

A contract where both parties lose both long term and short term is
pretty unlikely to ever be agreed upon.

> > Look at reality: most contracts are fulfilled without anyone even trying
> > to sneak out of it. That supports my claim.
> 
> So you`re choosing to play on the "people are used to it" thing?

No. Contracts are fulfilled because both parties win.

> I`m almost sure that you both twist the Tom`s view on contract, and fail
> to understand contracts as well.
> 
> Therefore a contract`s nature is an enforcement.

I'm not twisting anyones views. I just don't agree. I may be naive, but
I see contracts or "gentlemen's agreements" as mutual agreements in a
win-win situation. You cannot be forced into a contract, unless you
view your half of the "win-win" as pressure upon you (as in "I was young
and I needed the money." :-). Being forced into a contract with (physical
or other) pressure automatically invalidates it.

Bye,
        Peter
-- 
Peter Conrad                        Tel: +49 6102 / 80 99 072
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