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Re:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Amateur Auction Theorist by ikeboy on Friday June 03, 2016 @10:46AM (#11830601)
I gave a scenario where that doesn't work. It's only rational if everyone else does it. If some people won't do it, then by raising the price early you may induce them to bid higher, which is bad for you.
Re:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Amateur Auction Theorist by rasz_pl on Friday June 03, 2016 @11:35AM (#11830910)
Unless you enjoy misery, trolling, and derive satisfaction from forcing other people to make stupid decisions.

Personally I'm more than happy losing a bid if I make someone else suffer winner's curse just because they are blinded by escalation of commitment and a long list of other biases.

One of my favourite speeches touching on the subject: The Psychology of Human Misjudgement - Charlie Munger Full Speech

bit about auctions is at 59:30 https://youtu.be/pqzcCfUglws?t=59m30s text https://buffettmungerwisdom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/mung...

Re:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Amateur Auction Theorist by bluedevil2k on Friday June 03, 2016 @10:51AM (#11830639)
It's not bad if they bid higher than you - you being a rational person would know that you'd be unwilling to pay higher than your only placed bid, so you aren't really "losing" anything
Re:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Amateur Auction Theorist by ikeboy on Friday June 03, 2016 @10:54AM (#11830656)
It's bad if, if you wouldn't have bid so high, you'd have been able to win at the end with a lower bid than your highest.