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Latest post 07-23-2008 6:10 PM by Robert. 8 replies.
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  • 07-21-2008 11:39 AM

    The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

     

  • 07-22-2008 1:29 PM In reply to

    • Jad
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • Joined on 06-03-2007
    • Austin, TX
    • Posts 67
    • Diamond Donator

    Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

    This video irritated me quite a bit.  I feel this urge to find that guy's youtube channel, get a web cam, and counterpost.  What compelled you to post it?

  • 07-22-2008 1:48 PM In reply to

    Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

    Jad:

    This video irritated me quite a bit.  I feel this urge to find that guy's youtube channel, get a web cam, and counterpost.  What compelled you to post it?

     

     Ambiguity Smile

  • 07-22-2008 2:56 PM In reply to

    • Jad
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • Joined on 06-03-2007
    • Austin, TX
    • Posts 67
    • Diamond Donator

    Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

    Smile

    Yes

    I just subjected myself to the mises forum, I must be in a masochistic mood today.  Same feeling: irritation, powerlessness.  So much energy and effort being spent to perpetuate flawed thinking and outright propaganda.  I'm having a hard time figuring out why it's bothering me.

  • 07-22-2008 5:47 PM In reply to

    • Eugene
    • Top 200 Contributor
    • Joined on 08-29-2007
    • American Empire, Southern Mainland
    • Posts 104

    Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

    I don't buy the whole the "Prisoner's Dilemma invalidates voluntary cooperation" schtick.  I immensely respect Helzerman's insight on a lot of issues, but if he was once an anarchist/libertarian who morphed into such a gung-ho statist that he thinks people can only get along at gunpoint, I can't help but wonder what went wrong with his philosophy.

    Specifically re: the PD, it is generally posited in classic one-off scenarios, which then leads some individuals to inductively conclude that the PD is a valid description of so-called rational behavior in all situations.  Real life, however, is not a one-off scenario.

     

    "And the so-called sovereigns, in these different governments, are simply the heads, or chiefs, of different bands of robbers and murderers." -Lysander Spooner

    Site: http://www.lessgovernment.com

    YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/LibertyIsNotGiven

     

  • 07-22-2008 8:32 PM In reply to

    • Lucifer
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    • Joined on 07-20-2008
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    Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

    PD is also alleged to be an accurate description of rational behavior in multiple but finite repeated games where each player knows the number of times it's played. Cooperation is supposed to break down in such situations. I doubt this is truly the case, but real life is characterized by uncertainty and people never know for sure how often they will need to cooperate with each other, so cooperation should not be unexpected, and in fact we see it all around us.

     

  • 07-22-2008 10:52 PM In reply to

    • Eugene
    • Top 200 Contributor
    • Joined on 08-29-2007
    • American Empire, Southern Mainland
    • Posts 104

    Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

    Lucifer:

    PD is also alleged to be an accurate description of rational behavior in multiple but finite repeated games where each player knows the number of times it's played.

     

    Well, that is true.  So one-offs and a finite, known string of one-offs....  Cool

    "And the so-called sovereigns, in these different governments, are simply the heads, or chiefs, of different bands of robbers and murderers." -Lysander Spooner

    Site: http://www.lessgovernment.com

    YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/LibertyIsNotGiven

     

  • 07-23-2008 9:42 AM In reply to

    • Jad
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • Joined on 06-03-2007
    • Austin, TX
    • Posts 67
    • Diamond Donator

    Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

    Eugene:

    Lucifer:

    PD is also alleged to be an accurate description of rational behavior in multiple but finite repeated games where each player knows the number of times it's played.

     

    Well, that is true.  So one-offs and a finite, known string of one-offs....  Cool

    PD is not a description of behavior at all, it is an environment in which two agents act and receive a reward. 

    There's a concept (sorry if you already know this) called "Nash Equilibrium" which  is the result of evaluting the current state and chaging your action if doing so will put you into a better state.  The Nash Equilibrium for PD is both people betraying each other (to reach this conclusion, all you have to do is pick a spot in the PD grid and ask if either player can better their position by changing their action--the only place that they cannot do this is when both defect).

    This has absolutely nothing to do with any decisions made by any person.  It's a mathematical/game-theoretic construct with an interesting property.

    In a string of PD games, the optimal strategy is tit-for-tat.  I cooperate until you defect then I defect once for each time you do.  Then I continue to cooperate.  Robert Axelrod   wrote a number of books/articles on the subject that discuss the advantages of cooperation based on his work in multi-agent decsions making (which touches game theory quite alot).

    In any case, the guy in the video isn't even talking about PD, and PD has not ever, in any way, been contrued to necessitate the state.  There is no "free rider" in PD, it has nothing to do with shared resources (health care or whatever he was talking about).  I think he was butchering the "problem of the common" and calling it PD.

    Okay, so now I did to you guys what I wanted to do to the video guy.  I don't feel any better.

     

  • 07-23-2008 6:10 PM In reply to

    • Robert
    • Top 150 Contributor
    • Joined on 09-20-2007
    • Corpus Christi, Texas
    • Posts 233
    • Gold Donator

    Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma & Ambiguity

    I love how this guy used Saddam Hussein and Kim Jung-il as reasons why we need a state.

    The problem with using the PD to talk about problems innate to human intereaction is that it rests upon one ginormous premise: the prisoners can't communicate.  Of course, in non-constructed social environments this is not the case.  It ignores the building of relationships and reputations, which strips it of any relavance to real social situations.
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