(no subject)

[timelets]

In the Three Little Pigs tale, the brick house is a non-exclusionary non-rival good, which can be modeled as a distributive category.

BH x (Pig1 + Pig2 + Pig3) -> BHxPig1 + BHxPig2 + BHxPig3.

Comments

[gomberg]

It is very much exclusionary, at least before everybody is in: the door can be locked. But it is, certainly, non-rivalrous: each pig can happily consume the security it provides without taking anything away from the others.

Anyway, formal models of (non-rivalrous and non-excludable) public goods (such as safety) are well-developed. What exactly are you trying to achieve with your own model?

[timelets]

That's right, non-rivalrous! I don't know yet what I'm trying to achieve. What tickles my interest is that before the wolf showed up the non-rivalrous nature of the brick house didn't matter. Moreover, it was an expensive overkill for dealing with natural wear and tear.

[gomberg]

If there is no village downstream from a polluting factory, the factory is not imposing any externality on the villagers. A textbook example from a public finance class.

[timelets]

True. But I have a hunch that there's more to this story than just a textbook externality. Could be completely wrong, though.

[gomberg]

There is, at least one thing: textbook non-convexity. Sometimes it makes sense to remove not the factory, but the village.

[timelets]

This is not how I think about it. Quite the opposite, the wolf is long gone but pigs keep building bigger and bigger brick houses.

[gomberg]

And, perhaps, without any recollection of the wolf whatsoever.

How would religious people play games? A classic question, btw.

[timelets]

Right. The wolf triggers the discovery of a new infinity. And, speaking of religion, the pigs use the discovery to "be fruitful and multiply." Remarkably, they had it before, but nobody cared.

[timelets]

On the second thought, I'm not sure I understand your question about religious people playing games. Can you elaborate?