X-Message-Number: 27020
References: <>
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Game Theory, Terrorism and Cryonics.
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 21:28:14 +1000

Thomas Donaldson writes,

> For Peter Merel:
> Being nice to people is a very good idea. However it suffers from
> one big problem: sometimes those you are nice to respond by being
> cruel to you. This has even be tried in special psychological games.
> Those who are always nice get clobbered. Those who are always
> unkind get clobbered. The best strategy apparently is the start
> out nice, but if the other party responds oppositely, you stop
> being nice to that party yourself. Such a strategy is actually
> more rational than being always nice.

Game theoretically, sure. But game theory assumes mindlessly rational  
players. Gandhi's successful revolution provides ample disproof of  
the proposition that humans are capable of mindless rationalism. And  
thank goodness for that.

To make this clearer, consider the game theoretic dollar auction. You  
go into a bar and auction a one dollar bill. Except, you say, both  
the highest and second highest bidders must pay you for the bill. The  
auction starts at 5 cents.

Bidding steadily rises until it nears the dollar. Then one bidder  
actually bids a dollar. The high bidder isn't triumphant but at least  
he's breaking even. The second highest bidder, however, is about to  
be out 95 cents for nothing. Rationally he bids $1.05 - then he'll be  
out just 5 cents.

Mindless rationalism would have the bidding continue forever. Happily  
humans are not rational. Bidding usually stops at around about the $5  
mark. At that point, irrationally, a round of parking-lot-therapy  
ensues.

Now instead of money imagine the currency is human life. This is the  
great game. We kill, they kill, both for what's ours and what's  
right. With every death the stake rises.

It's happened many times. And always, at some point, mindful  
irrationalism - represented most succinctly by FDR's 4 Freedoms,  
comes to the fore. We lay down our arms, embrace each other as  
brothers, go home and help each other rebuild.

At the end of WW2 all nations pledged each other to FDR's ideals for  
the United Nations. This was not about being nice. It was about  
making room in your life and the life of your community for peace and  
understanding. These are not rational goals; they come from our best  
instincts. And without them we are doomed.

Including we cryonicists: we rely on the good will of our friends in  
the future. But if we play the great game, we decrease the chance  
that such friends will come to be. So whether you consider yourself a  
rationalist or an irrationalist, as a cryonicist you must rise above  
Billy Seidel's plea against terror. You must irrationally stop acting  
from fear and start acting from common good.

And you must do this yourself before you can inspire it in others.

As to the TV, it is itself a great agency for the promotion of  
terror. Sitting and watching eternal repetitions of recorded  
injustice, powerless and thoughtless, we can never forgive. We are  
instead trained into grinding passivism and despair. If you want to  
stop terror, you must start with your own home and your own mind.  
Turn it off.

What to do with your spare time then? Well, I can't tell you, but for  
myself I run a teahouse. I try to share technological optimism and  
mindful irrationalism with the folk who come and take tea with me.  
Provided, of course, they're open to such talk. Otherwise they can  
just enjoy the view.

Peter Merel.

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