From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 25 Jan 1993 21:18:50 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1993Jan20.215456.367@zip.eecs.umich.edu> positron@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jonathan Haas) writes:
>mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>> positron@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jonathan Haas) writes:
>>> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>>>> positron@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jonathan Haas) writes:
>>>>>Except when human beings are left to play a series of prisoner's dilemmas,
>>>>>the most common outcome is nearly always mutual cooperation... without
>>>>>any sort of coercion or government whatsoever. This is without a doubt
>>>>>the lamest justification for an authoritarian society I've heard yet.
>>>>
>>>>If you examine your own statement, one flaw in your argument stands out.
>>>>See the word "series"?  There is no good strategy if you may not interact long.
>>>
>>>But real life *is* a series of prisoner's dilemmas. That changes the
>>>payoff matrix significantly and that's what makes it in an individual's
>>>best interest to cooperate rather than defect. Defecting will pay off
>>>more in the short run, but will make it less likely that others will
>>>cooperate in the long run. It's not necessary to have government intervention
>>>to make people cooperate... they will do it themselves, knowing that
>>>in the long run it is in their best interests.
>>
>>Let me give you two simple examples where a tit-for-tat strategy fails.
>>
>> [examples omitted]
>>
>>Yes, in real life we're always running into prisoner's dilemma games.
>>However, tit-for-tat is not an optimal strategy except under exceedingly
>>stringent conditions.
>
>Did I *once* claim that tit-for-tat was an optimal strategy?

Maybe indirectly.  Let me state my point more clearly.  We KNOW that
tit-for-tat cooperation is not the optimal solution for many series of
prisoner's dilemma games, two of which I presented.  We know from real life
that in cases such as these, cooperation is disadvantageous.  Hope that
"It's not necessary to have government intervention to make people
cooperate... they will do it themselves, knowing that in the long run it
is in their best interests" is naive.

>>One way to solve the prisoner's dilemma is to change the payoffs so that
>>defecting doesn't have a better payoff than cooperating.  That's the purpose
>>of most laws with penalties, be they libertarian or statist.  Another way is
>>to make the conditions meet those stringent requirements (perhaps by
>>restricting entry to and from a small system of players) so that cooperation
>>is the optimal strategy.
>
>I agree that the way to ensure mutual cooperation in a prisoner's dilemma
>is to change the payoffs so that unilateral defection is no advantage. I
>disagree that government coercion is necessary to change those strategies.

Changing the payoffs boils down to modifying the environment.  You're right
that government isn't the only way to do that.

>Let us consider a prisoner's dilemma we encounter every day: cashing checks.
>Why do people not regularly kite checks at the local supermarket? You
>can get away with a whole cartload of groceries for free if you do. It
>seems that the payoff for cooperation (writing a good check) is [value
>of groceries - amount of check] whereas the payoff for unilateral defection
>(writing a bad check) is [value of groceries]. Clearly, defection conveys
>an advantage. Why don't more people defect, then? Because of a few things
>which detract from the defection payoff. One, most people are brought up
>to be honorable. You wouldn't be able to sleep nights, knowing you defrauded
>a shopkeeper.

You're not much in touch with the world if you think that troubles most people.

>But more importantly, you'd never be able to shop at that store again.

So what?  There are enough stores that I would never need to shop at the
same one again if I lead a nomadic life.  Not to mention that it would be
extremely difficult for shopkeepers to keep track of all the people who
stole from them given the calculation below.

>That's a major disadvantage. The payoff for mutual defection
>is really [value of groceries - ability to sleep nights - ability to shop
>at store]. Even considering the case of the man who takes sleeping pills,
>most people would consider the ability to shop at their neighborhood
>grocery store the be worth more than one cartload of groceries. Thus,
>defection has a negative payoff, and most people cooperate. As it happens,
>kiting checks is illegal. But I contend that even if it were not, it would
>happen rarely. (This contention is helped along by the fact that a good
>check kiter is very hard to catch.)

More likely it's due to the care shopkeepers exercise in whose checks they
accept.  You know, like asking for identification.

>(To extend the prisoner's dilemma facet of this example, for the store,
>"cooperation" is honoring your check, whereas "defection" is refusing it.
>For the store, neither option matters much... the relative payoff of
>accepting or rejecting one customer's check is minimal when viewed in
>the context of the store's hundreds of customers. The store's optimal
>strategy is "cooperate with a person until bitten, then always defect.")

Nonsense.  If the store can identify you well enough to refuse your next
check, it can clearly have you prosecuted for fraud.

What planet do you come from that these everyday facts of life are not
apparent to you?

Mike Huben

"Enough of acting the infant who has been told so often how he was found under
a cabbage that in the end he remembers the exact spot in the garden and the
kind of life he led there before joining the family circle."   Samuel Beckett
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian