"What must it be like to be a news anchor these days, and have to say 'Governor-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger' with a straight face?"

Probably no more odd than it was for news anchors to say "President-Elect Ronald Reagan" with a straight face. It never seemed odd to me, since I'm not old enough to remember Ronald Reagan as an actor--to me, he was always a politician. But considering how odd "Governer-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger" sounds causes me to reflect on how odd "President Ronald Reagan" must have sounded to those people who did remember him as an actor.

On the "workman's wages" line, maybe that voice in your head is being too harsh. Maybe it's not him trying to seem noble; maybe it's just that he's aware that it'll be hard enough to get a job asking for only workman's wages, and he knows it would be utterly impossible to find anything if he were asking for higher-than-workman's wages.

On the St. Petersburg Paradox, and related topics, I would submit to you that even an infinite amount of money has a finite utility.

On the page you cited (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-stpetersburg/) I find Martin's objections to "An Upper Bound on Utility" somewhat naive.

Specifically, he presumes that if there is an upper bound on utility, then that upper bound must be reached at some finite number of dollars, and any additional dollars beyond that amount give no additional utility.

"Perhaps you find it reasonable to think that, once one had (say) $16,000,000 in the bank, you'd be able to buy anything you could possibly want; but this is not to say that that sum of money provides the maximum permissible utility. We can readily imagine someone with that amount of money - or any amount of money - still short of utility, due to lack of certain goods that money can't buy. What the idea of an upper limit on utility means is that there is some amount of utility which is so high that no additional utility is possible - that nothing additional adds any value at all."

But there is another possibility for a bounded utility which Martin does not address. The upper bound on utility might not be reached at any finite number of dollars; utility might asymptotically approach its upper bound as one's wealth increases. In this model, any additional money--no matter how little additional money, and no matter how much money one already has--provides some increase in utility, and thus addresses Martin's stated objections against a bounded utility. Yet, utility still has a finite upper limit, which allows one to rationally set a finite maximum price one is willing to pay to play the St. Petersburg game.

Edited by author 02-20-2004 02:48 PM
On the publicknowledge.org petition against H.R. 3261: "Public Knowledge" indeed. Sheesh. If they were really about public knowledge, you'd think they'd actually include the text of H.R. 3261. But no, it's just "Bad law! We must oppose it! Write your congressperson, because we tell you to! The law is bad! Just believe it is, because we said so!"

Go to Thomas, type in "H.R. 3261" in the Bill Number box, and read the text for yourself.

I frankly don't see that it's anything like Public Knowledge or Lessig would have us believe. You can't copy entire databases, or major portions of databases, without the permission of whoever created the database. It's not going to prevent anyone from taking a single item or two out of a database. In fact, it specifically exempts "for the primary purpose of news reporting, including news and sports gathering, dissemination, and comment..."

My one qualm is that "quantitatively substantial part" is left undefined, and might be open for abuse. Other than that, it looks like a reasonable law to me.

Don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for Lessig, and I agree with him probably 90+% of the time. But I think he's wrong here.

     A NEW TWIST ON AN OLD JOKE
  The Guru had collected the Inner Circle of his disciples for an urgent revelation. When he had seated himself in his Great Chair and the Disciples had placed themselves in due order at his feet (the Youngest Disciple having duly locked the door) he spoke.
  "My sons, I have obtained a revelation which, I fear, the world is not ready to receive.
  "I was snatched up in the spirit to behold the very face of God.
  "My sons, She is Black."
  All the Disciples fainted dead away at the new, except for the Youngest Disciple, who said:
  "Whew! I always thought He was Jewish!"

Perhaps the woman was simply aware that Manhattan's streets and avenues are not orthogonal to the cardinal directions, and that "uptown" is actually closer to north by northeast than it is to north. (cf. http://tinyurl.com/37bbt).