abut the pledge

Posted Jan 5, 2007 17:04 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I think the idea of that was that they were aping the [[Free State Project]] people: I promise to move to New Hampshire if 5000 other people promise, too.

Not aping it, just using the same generic concept. Another example is the movement in the US to elect the President by popular vote instead of by state vote, by agreement among the states. Each state agrees to give up its vote for President (i.e. to cast it according to the popular vote), but only if nearly all the other states agree as well. Or a stock sale where the deal is off unless a total of N shares are sold.

What makes the "100,000 other people" part important is that not everyone is willing to give up the benefits of using MS software just out of righteousness. But some would be willing to give them up in return for the damage that a 100,000-person boycott would do to MS.

I myself never do something individually just because it would be good if everyone did it. Marginal cost/marginal utility was a powerful lesson for me in economics class.