Re: Honor Systems
[ QUOTE ]
People have been bred for tens of thousands of years to behave this way, because social life is essentially like a long iterated prisoner's dilemma. The correct strategy is Tit for Tat, or basically, always cooperate unless someone screws you over. Even if you rationally believe that cheating somebody it +EV, you have to ask, "+EV over what time frame?" Cheating as a general strategy is almost always -EV in the long run. Evolution cares about the long run, even if human beings, constrained by time preference, care more about the short run. Human beings generally do not cheat for the same reasons that squirrells gather and bury food months before the winter; in general it's good for them in the long run, even if they can't articulate why.
Humans evolved in small groups where antisocial behavior was easily spotted and the consequences of it were dire (death or expulsion, either one of which vastly reduces the likelihood of passing your antisocial genes on to the next generation). Just as people have bred dogs to be friendly and companionable, so too have they bred themselves to the same end. In effect humans, via evolution, have domesticated themselves.
[/ QUOTE ]
I really liked this explanation.
Plus, it gave me the mental image of the psychiatrist from the Sopranos trying to get a squirrel to examine his deep-seated compulsion to bury nuts.
|