Eulora : Auctions and Bilbulations

As to the auction part :

The following itemsⁱ will be offered for auction on behalf of S.MG on March the 27th, 2016 starting at 17:00 ART :

• 50 Toil of Bouquinism, q 200, qBV 2`452, TV 122`600 ECu.
• 50 Toil of Gumbo, q 200, qBV 2`452, TV 122`600 ECu.
• 50 Toil of Lapidary, q 200, qBV 2`452, TV 122`600 ECu.
• 50 Toil of McGuyver, q 200, qBV 2`452, TV 122`600 ECu.
• 50 Toil of Tinkering, q 200, qBV 2`452, TV 122`600 ECu.
• 250 Questionable Flagon Designs, q 200, qBV 1`324, TV 331`000 ECu.
• 250 Water of Anamnesia Plans, q 200, qBV 2`450, TV 612`500 ECu.

The total base value of this package comes to 1`556`500 ECu, which will be the minimum bid as per usual.ⁱⁱ

As to the bilbulationⁱⁱⁱ part :

mircea_popescu Of course now the debate of all time : should I use low quality basic tools to make imp tools, thus getting shitty ones and wasting the bps ?^iv
mircea_popescu OR should i use high q basic tools to make imp tools, thus getting good ones and wasting the basic tool durability ?^v
mircea_popescu I'm sure the true value as established by free market mechanisms such as the auction will provide a directly usable input to discern this dilemma /s^vi
DianaComan so I would "waste" the basic tools for imps, but maybe that's just me
mircea_popescu well sure, i can also make a call arbitrarily, but I was looking for you know, a logic.

If you wish to consider this problem / help along with a solution, it will remain open for a while. The specifics are as follows :

1. Each Basic tool is produced out of the bill of materials detailed here




2. Each Improved tool is produced taking 3 Basic tools and adding 5 Base Metal Studs and a 12 further Slag, therefore needing 6 clicks of Bandar Toolkit decay to the Basic tools' 0.




3. The benefit in terms of output quality of a higher input quality is marked, but unfortunately not yet well understood ^vii though there are definite diminishing returns effects visible.^viii This perhaps suggests that a technical optimum point exists unrelated to economical considerations in terms of use-value also.

Let me know!

1. This package is principally of Lapidary interest. [↩]
2. This auction is almost an exact copy of the one that took place on February the 21st. [↩]
3. Bilbul is a Hebrew word with Romanian overtones. [↩]
4. BPs, aka blue prints, are required to craft items. There exists a process to produce them, but it is difficult and expensive. Some of the lower value more common blueprints have already been reportedly produced, such as Slag and Braided Coarse Thread. The more expensive (in terms of base value) and thus putatively rare ones, such as the Improved versions of the mining tools, have not yet been in fact produced, even if it is expected they would be obtained in the same way.

   This means that the currently extant stock of such blueprints is a strategic good, and its utility should be carefully maximized. Because of apparent fungibility in tools, making two hoes of durability 10k each appear equivalent in practice to a single hoe of durability 20k, it then follows that every percentile point discounted on the output production quality is in fact equivalent to a percentile point discount on the blueprint stock count! [↩]

5. If one maximizes the output production quality (and implicitly durability) when making Improved tools, one must use high durability basic tools as raw materials, which necessarily means those same tools won't be used for mining.

   Given that the utility-value of mining tools comes from using them in mining, the problem of whether to sacrifice one type of mining tools to improve production of the other type should probably admit only one correct solution in any particular context. [↩]

6. Obviously, the particular context would not be known to the economic agent in sufficient detail to allow a hard resolution of the above problem (even admitting that the processes involved were sufficiently documented to answer basic questions such as "how many points of Improved tool are a fair trade for this many points of Basic tool ?", which is not the case).

   The Economic vulgate now fashionable proposes that while such knowledge of context is not available to the rational agent individually, it is somehow mystically accessible to the "group of agents", taken together, as if a crowd were both a sufficient substitute of omnisicient divinity and a workable mechanism of intermediation readily provided in a neat, convenient package - just add water in the form of holding an auction or organising a voting booth.

   The sheer nonsense of this view is not only directly apparent theoretically, but also painfully evident in practice, given that auctions don't work worth a crap even in cases where rational agents do in fact obtain reasonably close approximate answers on their own power. That pious fraud and sheer mutual hallucination may provide apparent proof to the contrary should not surprise - the measured charge of the electron also varied over time, historically. Yet there is absolutely no wisdom in the crowd, not of any kind, not to any degree - just as there is nothing else of any value in any crowd ; nor ever was ; nor ever could be. [↩]

7. Datapoints from that same log : Imp c hoe, bp value 6`353, bundle q 103, comes out 24`143 ; imp c hoe, bp value 8`515, bundle q 103, comes out. 27`951. ; imp pickaxe, bp value 10`191, bundle q 104, comes out 30`727 so it would appear the blueprint quality also plays a role. [↩]
8. Quality 279 Solid Branches turned into quality 298 Particularly Promising Branches, which is a slight quality gain. Meanwhile quality 414 grass turned into quality 362 thread, which is a slight loss, and quality 822 grass turned into quality 564 thread, which is a more significant loss. [↩]