me: >> I tell my students that if prisoners have a "culture of resistance" in >> opposition to "the Man," then the Prisoner's Dilemma leads to cooperation >> between the inmates (rather than individualistic defection).... <<
Shane: > If an *individual* prisoner has a "culture of resistance" he will under no > circumstances *believe* anything the cops tell him. < That was part of my point. (BTW, smart cops can fool even those who embrace the culture of resistance. Just as nobody fits the NCE image of self-centered greed completely, there isn't perfect "fellow feeling" among prisoners.) > Then there is and can be no "dilemma" and he will refuse to answer any > questions (except, perhaps, under torture) until he can lawyer up. That is > why the theory fails. < Elsewhere, I've noted that the positive contribution of game theory is its way of describing some social situations, not its vision of humanity and such silly constructions as Nash equilibrium. It's the vision of humanity -- that everyone embraces self-centered greed -- that leads the theory to fail. > The issue of "cooperation" is a pure red herring--the situation prescribed by > the theory is one in which the prisoners are isolated from each other (as is > universally the case in the real world) so that any cooperation among them is > rigorously excluded.< The standard theory assumes that prisoners are totally isolated and therefore can't cooperate (because they are self-centered and greedy). But my point -- the role of the culture of resistance -- was that the prisoners can cooperate _even if_ they are totally separated. -- Jim Devine / "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
