A friend from Argentina once told me Argentina keeps its best wines for themselves and exports the mediocre stuff, even at the sake of profits.

Similarly, a friend from Turkey once said he couldn’t find good Turkish olives outside of Turkey because “Turks are terrible businessmen and keep the best olives to themselves.”

These are anecdotal and might be untrue but I liked the idea.

At an individual level, it’s irrational to cooperate in a prisoner’s dilemma yet experiments show people cooperate.

Contributing to open source projects may fall into this category.

Have you observed any obvious behavior that goes counter to profit maximization? Any cool examples?

  • IndiBrony@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I’m sure you could write an entire collection of books on the irrationality of Brexit.

    As James O’Brien graciously puts it: “We are the first country in history to have placed economic sanctions upon itself