> How does the saying go, something like “show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome?”

Of course, the issue is time. What timeframe are we measuring the incentives at.

You should pay current employees less iff either 1) time doesn't exist (or you are finding the instantaneous optimal solution) or 2) employees are fungible (institutional knowledge does not exist)

Otherwise, you should be trying harder to keep current employees because you recognize the value of institutional knowledge. You don't have to train current employees. Current employers don't have to get up to speed (which usually take a few months and can take years).

It's not a hard equation

  Costs:

  Existing employee: 
    +cost of raise

  New employee: 
    +salary of existing employee
    + raise
    - onboarding inefficiency * (t_n - t_0)
    - existing employee * (time they train)
    - costs to interview, hire, etc * (time to hire new person)

  > the best way to fix the damage from footguns be by preventing the damage to you in the first place by not being there if/when it goes off?

My argument is that the best strategy is to ,,never fire'' the footgun.

Avhception gives a good visual analogy without using the word footgun[0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44744167

> The incentives actually suggest you should raise wages of current employees more than new ones. Current ones are more valuable.

You should only do this if you have to in order to have better business outcomes. It may be better for the business to not do this, because the current employees will stay even if you don't pay them more, until they don't. So we have to find out what that point they will leave is by not paying some of them more when we otherwise ought to or would otherwise.

> This implies that the footgun will inevitably fire. It also implies you can get out of the line of fire. But you can't get out of the way of a footgun. A footgun is something where you, the gun operator, shoot yourself in the foot.

These are Chekhov's footguns. As you mention in this comment, they do fire, and they will hit whoever is in front of them. They don't only fail when pointed at the feet of the operator. Your wording implies that they will go off in the original comment too. I can't be blamed for the shortcomings of your original metaphorical argument, which I responded to in good faith.

> > That's like trying to fix the damage from the footgun with a footgun.

This implies that the footgun going off is seemingly unavoidable, which leads folks to weird anti-footgun (damage) mitigations, even second footguns. I responded to this phrasing specifically. That's why I argue that the damage of footguns is probabilistic, in that iff footguns usually go off, then on a long enough timeline, they will hit someone somewhere, and you don't want that to be you, so you should jump ship before it seems like it's unavoidable. I don't see how that is a misreading of the concept or your words, because that is consistent with how a lot of job hoppers I know relate to their work and switching jobs. Even when they do their best, the footguns eventually go off on someone at job sites that allow the footguns to begin with, so it is fair to say that they will go off, but it's uncertain who management will blame or find fault with, so they need not "go off on" the person holding the footgun or even the person who loaded it or pulled its trigger. Those are all different roles/jobs, even though they may be done by the same person at times.

> My argument is that the best strategy is to ,,never fire'' the footgun.

Surely then the second best strategy is to not be there if/when it goes off? We can't count on them not being fired, to my view.

After all, these are Chekhov's footguns, remember?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun