How to Create a Cooperative and Mutually Beneficial Environment, Even When Dealing With People Who are Uncooperative and Sneaky

I've said this before, but I don't like social justice mobbing. Or boycotts. Or the rest of the coercions -- rather than persuasions -- that are currently the default method of political "argumentation" in this country in Current Year.

But: The way to stop this regime is to inflict the same tactics on our enemies (and yes, I think "enemies" is an apt term at this point) until they stop using those tactics against us.

I have proof for this proposition. It's called Science.

There is a famous study -- look it up -- about how to push noncooperative opponents into behaving cooperatively, how to force them to start acting in a fair way instead of a self-serving, aggressive, hostile way.

The study involved a small variation of the famous Prisoner's Dilemma game.

I won't describe that game -- read it on Wikipedia if you like -- but I'll describe the rules of the variation that interests me.

The variation was designed to see if any particular tactic was useful in forcing a change of behavior of a noncooperative, hostile opponent, making him into a cooperative, helpful ally.

I'm going to repeat this a few times, until the Cucks get it:

The variation was designed to see if any particular tactic was useful in forcing a change of behavior of a noncooperative, hostile opponent, making him into a cooperative, helpful ally.

The variation was not designed to see Who Can Make the Liberals Cry. The game was constructed for the purpose of figuring out what tactic, if any, would foster inter-player cooperation instead of inter-player strife.

The game works like this:

First of all, there's real money involved, to make sure that people have an actual tangible investment in the outcome of the game. The money -- which the players keep, if they win it -- is there to make sure people aren't just doing the "nice, cooperative" thing because it is literally zero cost to do so.

The money is there to make sure that there is a cost associated with losing and a benefit -- a real one-- associated with winning.

Each round of the game, two five dollar bills are placed on the table between the two players. (Or a like amount of money which is nontrivial, and yet won't bankrupt the researchers conducting the tests.)

Each player has two moves they can make: "SHARE" or "STEAL."

They choose a move and keep it hidden until they both reveal it simultaneously.

Here's how the money gets divided:

If both players SHARE, then both take $5 from the pot. They split the pot evenly. Fairly.

If one player SHARES and the other player STEALS, the player who STEALS gets both $5 bills -- $10 -- and the sap who SHARED gets zip.

If both players STEAL, their noncooperation means that they both lose. Both $5 bills are forfeited and kept by the researchers.

So, let's take a look at the trivial situation first, the situation in which both players are inherently cooperative and always pick SHARE as their move.

In the course of, say, twenty rounds, both pick "SHARE" again and again, and both keep pocketing $5 each.

This is cooperative play -- and this is the best scenario for both players taken together, as it pulls the most money into the players' combined hands and out of the hands of the researchers.

But that situation is, as I say, trivial -- if all men were angels, we should not have any need of government at all, as the saying goes.

What happens when one player starts playing STEAL and swiping the pot from a cooperatively-inclined player who has been playing SHARE?

What does the cooperatively-inclined player do to encourage his noncooperative opponent to begin playing cooperatively -- playing SHARE, and thus taking the most money (for both players) from the researchers -- if the noncooperative player wants to keep taking advantage of the cooperative one and STEALing the money?

Should he keep playing SHARE?

Should he keep showing what a Great Guy he is?

Should he keep showing he's Not Like Those Other Conservatives and so is willing to play the doormat sap for the liberal?

Remember, this study is meant to see if there is any tactic that can be used to shift a situation of noncooperation and hostility to cooperation and amity.

You will not be surprised to hear that if the sap keeps playing SHARE, his aggressive, advantage-taking opposite player will keep playing STEAL and take all the money, at his expense.

So, is there a way to force the noncooperative, advantage-taking player to cooperate and play fairly and share equally?

Yes there is, and studies have consistently shown this.

The tactic is not to keep showing what an Ostentatious Christian Commentator you are by playing the fool for the opponent.

The tactic is called Tit For Tat. Simple, really: You start playing STEAL, over and over again, to show you are willing to blow the game up and make both you and your opponent poorer for it.

At least -- until your opponent gets the message and starts showing the SHARE play. Until he backs down from his aggressive, unfair advantage taking and begins signalling that he would now like to SHARE the future pots.

At which point, you can begin cooperating, and playing SHARE.

And if he cheats again, by playing STEAL, you once again bully him by playing STEAL yourself over and over again until he shows he's willing to cooperate again by showing SHARE several rounds in a row.

This simple system -- obvious to any child as the only strategy that makes any sense -- has been shown to not only benefit the player employing it, but also, the two players taken together, because, over time, the Tit for Tat strategy results in more cooperation and more money going into the players' hands from the researcher.

Let me repeat: Tit For Tat does not just benefit the person playing this strategy. It also benefits both players as a group (well, a group of two people) because it results in cooperation and fair play.

And let me also repeat: Playing the sap over and over again to a STEALing player and always showing #MuhPrinciples and #MuhSacredConservativeBeliefs by playing SHARE with a player who has repeatedly shown his intention to steal you blind is simply a way to reward the STEALing player, and convince him that he should always STEAL, because look, after 20 rounds, he's walking out of there with $200.

Tit for Tat may sound cynical and nihilistic, but social scientists and game theorists have demonstrated its actual end result is enhanced cooperation, fairer play, and greater amity.

So for the last time:

The cucks screaming that we must permit every depredation of our rights by progressive mobs and may never act in our own self interest to impose some Tit For Tat retaliation/cooperation-encouragement should just shut the fuck up already and read a goddamn scientific paper instead of yammering about how we must always behave like Saints while permitting our opponents to rob us blind.

The left enjoys its social justice muggings, and why shouldn't it? It pays no price for these muggings, and it actually profits from them. It scares corporations into firing people; it scares corporations into using their billions of dollars of capital and advertising budget to propagate the left's memes.

The game, as it's currently being played by Conservatism, Inc., is literally all upside for the left. It's all wins. It's all cash in pocket. It's all silencing their foes, without any fear of being silenced in return.

Why would they stop playing this way? Why abandon a strategy that is almost nothing but pure win?

What do the Frenches of the world suggest we do about this? That we just let David French write more of his fey, moist columns that have done fuck-all to improve the situation so far?

That we keep advertising what Perfect Saps we are in an effort to make the left tolerate us to allow us some rights?

Or do we play Tit for Tat until the left learns that this is no longer a game they play pain-free, but that the same pain they inflict on others is now fair game to be inflicted on them as well?

If you say "Keep playing the sap and writing Strongly Worded letters" -- well, they've run this game thousands of times and scientists have found that's a terrific way to exit the game with $15 while your opponent leaves it with $170.

Think of those cash amounts instead as the rights in practice you are still permitted to possess, and you can see how serious this is.

And if that's your idea of a fair system -- well, that's what makes you a cuck.

How many more decades of failure shall we give this tactic before the Smugly Righteous even permit themselves an inch of imagination in their minds to ponder the possibility that another tactic may be worth attempting?

Note: In 2015, a new tactic was deployed called "Coercion." I haven't seen this tactic described, but based on its name, I'd guess it's something like just STEALing most of the time but then randomly showing "SHARE" every 3-5 rounds, to convince the opponent that if he wants any money at all, he must just always play "SHARE" and take what you'll give him.

That's just a guess, though.

Supposedly this tactic is undefeatable by any other tactic (including itself? Wouldn't Coercion counter Coercion).

Just a note. I'm not sure if this matters overall, because if the left is playing Coercion against us -- and it feels like they are -- then we'd be fools not to blow the game up by deploying Counter-Coercion in response, or just blowing the game up out of spite, until they change their tactic.

posted by Ace of Spades at 05:28 PM

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