The Big Point About The Prisoners Dilemma

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
I have no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps you didn't realize I was talking about the fact that all bodybuilders would be better off if Big Brother forced them to stop taking them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe- or perhaps they are willing to trade their future health for more interest in the sport, more sponsorship, and larger prize pools. Or perhaps a lack of restrictions would lead to a better understanding of and improvements to steroids make them safer and more effective.

[FortunaMaximus]

Would they really? At which point does it become counterproductive for individual freedoms to be stifled for the better of the system?

And who, then, acts in oversight over Big Brother? Is the entity, then, exempt from criticism? Because if it steps into the situation, it assumes culpability for allowing the situation to happen in the first place.

If the aim is to assure that indivuals in a supervised system are better off, at least start by not introducing elements that are negative to their development in the first place. Otherwise Big Brother is maintaining the status quo for its own selfish purposes.

[David Sklansky]

Even if those dubious comments were true, all you would be showing is that I didn't pick a good example of the point.

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
Even if those dubious comments were true, all you would be showing is that I didn't pick a good example of the point.

[/ QUOTE ]

The point isn't that those particular reasons could be the ones that make your argument moot, its that any could, and the only way to find out is to allow people thier own choices so that the pros and cons can be weighed as well as possible. Whatever cases come up its hard to predict the full ramifacations of government intervention. Perhaps people are more wiling to accept the FDAs word that certain things are healthy and unhealthy and will do less research for themselves because of the false sense of security. No matter how smart you are it is very difficult to accurately predict long term implications of actions and that, as so many others have said, is a major flaw in central planning.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Why would a group of rational people HOPE for a big brother?, if they realise they would all be better off if the big brother existed then shouldn't they cooperate and act as if he did?"

chez

I'm talking about multiple players. Think steroids.

[/ QUOTE ]
You still haven't address the point is that if they would all be better if none of them took steroids then they should cooperate and act as if the big brother was forcing their hand.

Practiacly that wouldn't work but you aren't concerned with practical issues in this thread. What's the theoretical point I am missing?

chez

[Darryl_P]

Chez,

DS' point is directed at ACers who say that Big Brother always makes things worse.

He points to examples of PD type situations in which people acting individually will have incentives to act in ways that yield worse aggregate results than if there were a Big Brother forcing them all to act a certain way.

Without Big Brother, all athletes will eventually use steroids. With a BB that can somehow force them all not to use steroids, they won't. Nevermind the practicalities, ie. it's impossible to effectively enforce steroid rules etc. The point is that, IN THEORY, everyone's better off with a Big Brother in SOME situations.

If true, this point is a lethal blow to AC theory.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Chez,

DS' point is directed at ACers who say that Big Brother always makes things worse.

He points to examples of PD type situations in which people acting individually will have incentives to act in ways that yield worse aggregate results than if there were a Big Brother forcing them all to act a certain way.

Without Big Brother, all athletes will eventually use steroids. With a BB that can somehow force them all not to use steroids, they won't. Nevermind the practicalities, ie. it's impossible to effectively enforce steroid rules etc. The point is that, IN THEORY, everyone's better off with a Big Brother in SOME situations.

If true, this point is a lethal blow to AC theory.

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
it's impossible to effectively enforce steroid rules etc.

[/ QUOTE ]
yes, that's the point. If everyone HOPES the big brother exists then they should cooperate even without an enforcement measure because they recognise they will all be better off. This is a good example of why trust based cooperation is so much better than enforced methods.

My question is whether capitalism and trust based cooperation are theoreticaly inconsistant.

chez

[Darryl_P]

[ QUOTE ]
yes, that's the point. If everyone HOPES the big brother exists then they should cooperate even without an enforcement measure because they recognise they will all be better off. This is a good example of why trust based cooperation is so much better than enforced methods.

My question is whether capitalism and trust based cooperation are theoreticaly inconsistant.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose you raise a good point...if you can assume away one practical issue (impossibility of enforcement) then why can't you do the same with another (impossibility of co-operating without coercion).

The incentive to use steroids exists because some athletes are not intelligent enough to understand the whole proposition.

To determine whether something is theoretically correct or not, I suppose it's correct to assume perfect logical abilities for the participants. In this case DS' example didn't assume that, since perfect logic would lead to them all co-operating.

Good point.

What say you, DS?


On your question, my instinctual response is that they are inconsistent, because the attitude of "this is mine, that is yours" no longer works at the very highest levels of co-operation. At those levels, we don't own anything, not the land we live on, not our bodies, and not the physical stuff around us. Basically for capitalism to be correct, you need a certain level of mistrust. That level is most certainly present in today's world, but I don't see any reason why that always has to be the case.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
On your question, my instinctual response is that they are inconsistent, because the attitude of "this is mine, that is yours" no longer works at the very highest levels of co-operation. At those levels, we don't own anything, not the land we live on, not our bodies, and not the physical stuff around us. Basically for capitalism to be correct, you need a certain level of mistrust. That level is most certainly present in today's world, but I don't see any reason why that always has to be the case.

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably because macrostrategies have simpler and broader applications and there are only so many of them. And philosophical and ideological differences aside, there are very few of those strategies that are actually correct. The mistrust keeps monolithic multinational corporates in a positive détente. Because they all want to do two things in the end: Improve the state of affairs, and do so profitably.

And they can do harm to each other if they did otherwise, and the ripple effect would lead to disastrous scenarios.

And the turnover in capital and investment markets all but guarantees that individual ownerships of a specific multinational is in perpetual flux, yet the overall strategies would not change too much because significant blocks of the corporation are in stable touchstones.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
On your question, my instinctual response is that they are inconsistent, because the attitude of "this is mine, that is yours" no longer works at the very highest levels of co-operation. At those levels, we don't own anything, not the land we live on, not our bodies, and not the physical stuff around us. Basically for capitalism to be correct, you need a certain level of mistrust. That level is most certainly present in today's world, but I don't see any reason why that always has to be the case.

[/ QUOTE ]
maybe, seems too complicated to be obvious but I don't think mistrust is required for capitalism.

Edit: more to the point: could trust based cooperation resolve all PD problems that could be resolved by a big brother. If so then PD is not a theoretical objection to AC but a practical one.

chez