On Efficacy: A compromise ala Nash equilibria

On "Treat others as you wish to be treated"

Bagwell wrote:

"Two basic questions:
1. Why don't more people abide by it?
2. Do you believe that those who presently do not abide by it will be persuaded to start because others are either saying it, or perhaps doing it to some degree? "

Great questions and these are my thoughts:

1. It's a simple idea that is against our nature. To survive we are programmed with behavior to try and do better than our fellow man. It's a gene thing I believe. I think that it's time we rose above our natural impulses in this area.

2. Yes. No-one used the world wide web 15 years ago - now look at us. But to use anything, people will need to see a benefit from the use of it. The benefit of it is linked to a) one's personal happiness and b) the happiness of the group. It shouldn't be such a difficult sell.

"I just don't see how it'll ever be effective. Not in a world where evil exists and seeks to exploit every opportunity to prey on the kind and gentle"

This assumes that evil is something that exists as a "thing" - like a human being occupied by an "evil" demon. This is certainly how life appears to be, but we cannot predict "evil" behavior with any great accuracy - this means we don't have a good theory of evil or even understand what it is.

If the majority abide by "Treat others as you wish to be treated" then it might work like this:
If one "evil" person does not abide then he doesn't get very far, because those around him refuse to be led into "evil" behavior. Osama dreams of 9/11 but can get no-one to fly the planes. Saddam dreams of a dictator state but can get no-one to enforce his crushing abuse of the populace. Bush wants to stay in Iraq but all the soldiers go home etc etc .

I think "Treat others as you wish to be treated" will only ever be effective if it is taught to us when we are very young. There was a time when only three people in the world understood General Relativity, a much harder and well developed concept, and now many do; "Treat others ..." shouldn't be so hard for folks to understand. But if people say "it won't work" then they won't experiment with it and it will never happen.

People seem much more comfortable with "Do unto others ..." which any game theorist will tell you is a loser (I've seen the "A Beautiful Mind" John Nash film :-)

If a game has a unique Nash equilibrium and is played among completely rational players, then the players will choose the strategies that form the equilibrium.

The future of humanity is a race between education and disaster.