Prisoner's Dilemna

Many of you may be aware of the Prisoner's Dilemna. For those who don't know it Wikipedia has a great article to introduce you to it. I won't try and describe it in detail, mostly because I'm pretty sure I'll get some detail of it wrong. But the ultimate element of it is that the entire scenario depends upon trust or lack of trust. Two individuals make choices to aid or not aid the other without knowing what the other does. The result varies based on their trust. Both win if they trust the other, but one wins more if he doesn't trust and the other one does trust. Neither wins if they both don't trust the other.

The real interesting part of the Dilemna is when there is feedback based on the results of each test of trust, and what you as an individual or group should do given that feedback. Given that you were not aided the last time, do you aid the person again? Since they aided you do you aid them? How do you react to betrayal? Is there long term memory of those betrayals?

So why am I thinking about this? Well, how you react to negative behavior comes down to an exercise in the Prisoner's Dilemna. Do you punish or forgive? Do you try to work with a negative person hoping to change their behavior or turn your back and walk away.

This gets into another topic I want to talk about at a later date about the interesting problem of when to keep trying versus walking away. But that is for another date.

Right now I see people talking about, particularly on the international stage, unfair practices and lots of 'big talk'. And the more I hear that, the more I see leaders suggesting the United States should act like a bully, the more I think back to how I would respond if I wasn't in the United States. And to tell you the truth it wouldn't be pretty.

You see, at the end of the day the Prisoner's Dilemna requires ultimately that there be trust for there to be an optimal result for 'society'. This is something that I think people tend to forget, that just because it isn't the best result for them that it isn't the best result overall or the fairest. So how do you go about engendering trust? Ultimately I think it comes down to teaching people what happens when you break trust. And you make it hurt as much as possible. Some would consider this to be an escalation when if you just talked it through you could deescalate things. That might be true if you believe your partner on the other side just misunderstands things or ultimately is willing to be a partner.

This isn't true, in my opinion, with the current government of the united states. The current president in particular has an approach that reminds me of the bully. Of the classic player of the Prisoner's Dilemna who will never trust others and betrays them every chance they get. Why? How can that work? Because if you have a large enough set of participants you can just keep betraying somebody until nobody is willing to work with you, but the time it takes for that to occur means you either have a new participant, or you convince somebody that you have changed. It is a classic behavior in business and one which creates some of the worst companies. Not worst in terms of profits, as they are often profitable, but worst in terms of the human damage those companies create.

That has been Donald Trump's behavior and it becomes even more insidious where instead of having a trust betrayed costing you money(though he has cost many people significant amounts of money) instead it is simply that you get a smaller benefit and more of them go to your partner. Where being unwilling to work with them at all gets both of you nothing. These conditions, which is essentially what world trade ultimately boils down to, create the ability for the bully to continually try and take an ever larger slice of the mutual pie, or they threaten you with the fact that neither of you will get any pie, but that's fine by them. Dare them. Do it. Just walk away. You'll see.

Just using the words leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's the kind of behavior that frankly infuriates me because it ultimately boils down to the fact that fair doesn't play into the minds of certain people. And for those people, the only answer I see is, No. Don't give in. Walk away. Take the pain and then make sure everybody knows of the behavior. It seems petty, in a way. I know for me it is my matcher(see the TED talk by Adam Grant on the subject to know more) tendency that makes me feel more comfortable with it. At the end of the day I want the bully to be put in his place. I want the person who is selfish to find out he can't get something. I want to see the person who is mean to others, left out in the cold.

It is an elegant solution, treat others as they treat you. Give scorn to the scornful, hate to the hateful.. Yet it isn't as easy as that. People learn to cooperate, they learn to fix their mistakes. How can you provide them that feedback in a way that isn't permanent. We subconsciously do something like that, when we think of the reputation of individuals or groups. We are looking at whether we believe them to be trustworthy, can I work with them or do I simply walk away. Frankly most of us use such short cuts and they are one of the reasons why polarization exists in nearly every domain. It is nearly impossible to avoid 'sides' in any discussion to avoid the emotional aspects of it. And sadly what one may see as cooperating another may see as betrayal. Or if the outcomes are not what we expected perhaps it is because the public support wasn't followed through by other private support.

I am torn on this entire topic to be honest with you. On the one hand I believe that we have a group of bullies currently operating at the leadership levels within various organizations, the US Government in part being only the tip of a cultural iceberg. And there is a part of me that says to simply walk away and not deal with them at all. Frankly if I was many of the United States' allies that would be one of the best options. Yet organizations are not individuals and there are some that can be reasoned with and trusted. How do you face the prisoners dilemma when you have many parties not simply one and you don't know exactly who you are dealing with. You could go back to the choosing not to play at all. Frankly think about who it is you are dealing with directly. If they can't be trusted then, don't deal with them. Demand somebody you can trust and keep doing that. If those you trust can't be empowered than don't deal. Let them follow through and accept some short term pain. That isn't to say everything should be over the barrel of a gun but look to some common agreements on principle, on what does it mean. Not what you are doing but why.

Argue over what should be free trade, not over the fact that you want free trade. Argue over the causes of immigration not over the fact that it should exist. And if you can't, if you can't agree then be prepared to walk away and say, "I won't deal with you. I won't support you. No matter how much it hurts me to say that." And be prepared to continue on. Words we might all wish to live a little more by, including myself.

Heinlein's Double Star

There are times when you read or hear the works of another and at that moment you can't help but look in awe. Like watching the majesty of the sunrise over the ocean, the view of a mountain, or the sight of the stars in a clear, cloudless night. Some ideas resonate with us through the ages and bear retelling no matter how poor the storyteller. And perhaps it is the fact that we no longer are willing to be the storyteller ourselves but rather hear another's words recorded as they are through out the ages in the technologies we have.

So it is as I read Heinlein's novel, Double Star. The story is one of an actor who ends up taking on the role of playing double to a famous man. A linchpin in the political world. A man who stands with  moral certitude and with an unclouded vision of what humanity could be. Unfortunately one who is also brought low by his enemies and this actor comes to know him but also to ultimately be him.

Yet in the actor's eyes and ears we can see this mirror of the other man and his views are given out to us. Views that humanity does not like change, but will adapt to it. Views that if humanity is to go to the stars, it must accept the 'other' as equal. That we must not accept slavery in any form, must not forget the value of freedom in exchange for other elements.

In this day and age the words resonate so with me. It must be a bit of the times for I find that truth all about me. That idea that the other, the alien, the machine, the muslim, whoever it is should be feared. But in fearing them, in choosing to treat them differently we give up our right to freedom, our certainty in our own ability to strive and succeed. In giving in on that we give up on ourselves.

Not only in Heinlein's novel do we hear the value of trusting the other, in making them our equal but all in our history and our fiction. Captain Picard gives voice to the same words, speaking about Data, "And the decision you reach here today will determine how will we regard this creation of our genius. It will reveal the kind of people we are, what he is destined to be.... It could significantly redefine the boundaries of personal liberty and freedom, expanding them for some, savagely curtailing them for others..." Is that not ultimately the decision we face today as we talk of immigration, as we talk of "The United States First"? I don't know whether or not we would be safer if we kept the others out, but I do know that I believe that every one of us would be less free as a result of that. We would be trading on our freedom and giving it up. Not simply some freedoms but everything our founders stood for, the very freedoms of choice.

I do not believe that we can separate the decisions of choice from the actions that people take. But I can stand up for the actions that I believe in, and that is to give people choices, to give all people choices. The American Dream shouldn't be one only for those lucky enough to be born in America. It has stood for a dream that all people were created equal. Not only those born here. That all people deserved a chance for happiness.

We should take a page from fiction and remember that and think to ourselves what will future people make of our decisions. Perhaps we have already made some bad ones in trading 'liberty for security'. I'm not so sure of that but I do know that refusing the poor, the unwanted, the abused, and possibly even the criminal will be trading our liberty away. Liberty isn't about being observed or not, it is about being able to make decisions to make choices. And when we take choices away from others and the consequences of those choices as well we reduce all of our liberty.

If you haven't read it, read Heinlein's Double Star, and perhaps take some time to watch some Star Trek:TNG. I know it reminded me of things I believed in, and gave a voice to that inner truth that equality does truly mean equal with all.