[yariang]

I would dare say unless you're rational, not necessarily an economist. Most of us are not rational all the time, and the whole point of the question is to show an instance where we are not.

You would be correct if there were not other tickets available; in that case, the ticket truly is unique. But in the example given you could acquire another one. In that case the ticket is not unique and is equivalent to the cost of acquiring another one, which is $10.

[chrischen]

But I believe it is the duty of the ticket vendor to keep track of who bought tickets. In protest, I would not replace a ticket if I lost it, but if I lost $10 it is completely my responsibility. Is this not rational if I believe I can affect change through the action?

[yariang]

That's an entirely different issue than the one I was responding to. In that case, it would be rational if your actions could reasonably affect change, which in this case I don't think they would.

First, I don't see an obvious need for theaters to keep track of who purchased tickets--save the case of online transactions obviously. Granted, the whole example is contrived--but I don't see the utmost need for it.

And, even if they had a moral imperative to do so and didn't, this would mostly affect people--by definition--who purchased a ticket already, and either lost it or want to return it or something of that nature. It is safe to assume few people lose their tickets and of those that do, not all of them protest by not buying another one. Protests are usually only effective if they hurt the company in terms of reputation or money. Since that is unlikely (given the vague probabilities I mentioned and specially because you already paid for one ticket), your protest will most likely be in vain.

We could of course get into a philosophical debate over the worth of such protest, but this is neither the time or place. Protesting the theater record-keeping policies in the way you mention and for the reasons you mention would probably be, in my opinion and with all the information you provided, rationally irrational.

[chrischen]

Um... if I buy another ticket then I help them. So not buying them denies the sale. So it DOES have a measurable effect.

[amireza]

Is it rational to considers unknown possibilities and assigns gain to them and then decide, and if so what would be the numbers?