Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 November 7

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November 7

Laggard as a free rider

Do different attributions to laggards exist in an environment of a Technology adoption lifecycle or a Free rider problem? This would be useful to know for the translation of a paper (doi:10.1086/668207) and to edit de:Trittbrettfahrerproblem.

(Citation of Michael Tomasello et al. 2012: „So what do humans do about free riders? The answer is of course social selection by means of reputation. Humans have evolved extremely sensitive “cheater detection” mechanisms of a type never observed in chimpanzees or other great apes (no studies have investigated apes' partner choice with respect to free riders) - which lead them not only to shun free riders but sometimes even to punish them (Cosmides, 1989). Because everyone knows this to be the case, individuals are very concerned that others not think them to be laggards, and so they have developed a concern for self-reputation, something also never observed in other great apes.“)

What would be a synonyme for a „laggard with a free rider problem“ in real English? Thanks, --Edward Steintain (talk) 18:25, 7 November 2015 (UTC) Edward Steintain (talk) 18:25, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Laggard is a perfectly good word, and doesn't really need translating. Thesaurus.com gives these synonyms: bum

clock watcher couch potato deadbeat good-for-nothing goof-off idler laggard layabout lazy person lazybones loafer lotus eater lounger malingerer moocher shirker slacker sloth sponger

The question is how politically correct do you want to be. Idler, and free-loader seem to be formal enough without being too offensive. Malingerer is a formal word, but it implies someone who avoids work by faking disability. μηδείς (talk) 20:04, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

The term "laggard" implies someone lagging behind. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:58, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

That's the original sense (etymological fallacy guy, where are you?) and there's also sluggard. Neither word seems really good for an academic paper, since laggard is somewhat obsolescent, and sluggard a bit harsh. I'd reall have to see it in context, but I think freeloader is the most contemporary and least emotionally loaded whill still informative choice. μηδείς (talk) 02:01, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Mapping concepts of the free rider problem onto concepts taken from one or more particular models of the technology adoption lifecycle (e.g., technology acceptance model, unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, diffusion of innovations) is problematic. If one is translating an article, it would help to know the authors' preferred model. "Laggard" is standard vocabulary for most I've seen. One candidate for "laggard with a free rider problem" might be derived from the lazy user model, specifically, a "lazy laggard", whereby a technology laggard seeks to satisfy perceived needs with minimal expenditure - of time, money, and effort. One could just as well be a lazy early adopter, hence the compound term. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 17:28, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

On second thought, given the anthropological context of the article (http://www.jstor.org/stable/info/10.1086/668207), readers would be better served by terminology clearly alluding to conceptual origins in another field, e.g., "free-ridding technology laggard" (or "free-riding late adopter of technology") or some such. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 18:51, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

"Late-adopter" ? Wouldn't those who adopt a new technology later both contribute less to the development of that technology (by paying less, later) but also get less benefit, both because they have not-so-new tech and because they went without it while others benefitted from it ? In that sense they aren't "free riders", in that they pay less and get less, just like if they were buying fewer loaves of bread. That's not the same as stealing bread. StuRat (talk) 19:38, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

If additional people waited for the price to drop then there'd be less money for research and development. Then again, many late adopters can't afford to buy earlier so they're not free-riding at all (unless they're free riding somewhere else) (and everyone who retires 1 year early or even just doesn't work as hard as the biggest workaholic on Earth is freeriding off that guy, right? (or everyone who didn't retire early) Even though that person's probably rewarded with extra money for being workaholic). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 11:51, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

An interesting theoretical question would be what would happen if nobody was an "early adopter", willing to spend huge amounts of money on bug-ridden bleeding edge technology. This might indeed slow down the invention process, as you'd need a massive amount of capital to survive for years until the technology was perfected (and to scale up to full production without any sales). Finding people willing to put up that kind of money on an unproven technology with no hope of returns for years would be rather difficult. On the plus side, we probably wouldn't get the profusion of bad inventions and competing formats (like Betamax) we get in our world. StuRat (talk) 19:39, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

To whom does a United States senator tender his resignation?

In October, 1796, Moses Robinson of Vermont resigned his seat in the United States Senate after five years of his six-year term had elapsed. Robert Mello's book Moses Robinson and the Founding of Vermont says Robinson wanted to concentrate on state rather than federal politics. The following year Robinson lost his bid to become governor of Vermont to Isaac Tichenor. On page 312 of Mello's book, it is stated that Robinson tendered his resignation to Vermont's governor Thomas Chittenden in a face-to-face meeting.

• Was it a standard practice at that time (when U.S. senators were elected by state legislatures) that the person to whom a senator would tender his resignation was the governor of his state?
• What would be the practice today? (I had never thought about this question before reading that statement in Mello's book, but if I had to guess, I might have said the addressee would be the vice-president of the United States in his role as president of the Senate. Probably that would have been my guess either about the present day or about the time when legislatures elected senators.)

Michael Hardy (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

James A. Bayard, Jr. resigned from the Senate during the "Elected by legislatures" days, you could use that to help research the details of how he did it. A much more recent senator to resign was Barack Obama, who resigned from the Senate in November, 2008 shortly after his election to the Presidency. United States Senate career of Barack Obama mentions the event, but does not mention the formalities of how it happened. I'm not sure there is a mandated or standard procedure. Surely it's better than when Bill Belichick tendered his resignation from the New York Jets, by scribbling "I resign as HC of the NYJ" on a sheet of lined paper and tossing it at his boss. --Jayron32 02:06, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

How a senator who has resigned is replaced is up to the state's legislature, per the 17th amendment. According to this website, in every state but Arizona, which holds a special election, the Governor can appoint an interim senator.

There was a controversial case in NJ in 2013 when Democrat Frank Lautenberg died 2013. The Republican Governor Christie could have appointed someone to finish his term in full, which would end in 2015. But this would have meant expected Democratic candidate Corey Booker would then run in the 2013 gubernatorial election against Christie himself. Therefore Christie called for a special election (which he was not required to do) to be held before the gubernatorial election and appointed a placeholder who would not run for the seat. The calculation was that Booker would run for and win the senate seat instead, which he did, meaning Christie would not have to face Booker himself the following month. For this and other reasons, A Monmouth University Poll Conducted from May 1-3 of 500 New Jersey adults found that Chris Christie is exceedingly unpopular in his home state even with Republicans. μηδείς (talk) 02:19, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, all that may be very interesting, but the question was not about how the senator is replaced. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:23, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, I am sure you didn't mean that to be rude, but yes, I expected the OP to read the 17th Amendment. There's never an answer detailed enough that one can't nitpick it. μηδείς (talk) 06:27, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Certainly I did not intend to be rude. But I don't think it's nitpicking to say the question was not about how senators get replaced; it was about the identity of the addressee of the letter of resignation. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:04, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah and in case there is any confusion, reading the text of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not answer the question. Yes it says that the "executive authority" is the one to call elections, and evidentally as per Newyorkbrad's comment below, the resignation letter is address to this executive authority. But there's no guarantee it was going to end up like that solely from reading the text of the amendment. For example, it would be possible for the resignation letter to be sent to the Vice President or someone else in the Senate who would then inform the executive authority. Nil Einne (talk) 17:38, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

The formal resignation letter is addressed to the governor of the state from which the senator serves, because under clause 2 of the Seventeenth Amendment, it is the governor who issues a writ calling a special election to fill the vacancy, and who under some circumstances may make an interim appointment. A duplicate letter is sent to the Vice President of the United States, in his capacity as President of the Senate, as official notification to the Senate itself. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:09, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad : This is interesting, but I wonder if you can cite some authoritative or convinving source? And was this the case both before and after the 17th Amendment? Michael Hardy (talk) 06:26, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

At this link one finds Robinson's letter of resignation in the lower part of page 440 continuing on the top of page 441. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:04, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

And here is Barack Obama's resignation from the Senate, addressed to Governor Rod Blagojevich. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:11, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

---

Precedents Relating to the Privileges of the Senate of the United States (compiled by George P. Furber, clerk to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, and published by the Government Printing Office in 1893), says at page 204:

The right of a Senator to resign his seat is unquestioned. There has, however been some difference of opinion as to the proper method of effecting a resignation. As a rule, the resignations have been made by letters definitively resigning the seat. These letters were addressed to the President of the Senate in most of the earlier instances, though in no case is there any record of the acceptance of such resignation by the Senate. In these cases the letters were read, and the only action of the Senate was a direction to its President to notify the executive of the State from which the resigning Senator came.

As early as 1803, however, a different practice had begun ... [some history omitted] ... It is now the established custom for the Senator resigning to tender his resignation to the executive of the State he represents, and to notify the Senate by letter that he has resigned his seat.

Neutrality^talk 00:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)