I wrote this in the course of writing "Evil" Parts IV and V. It's probably of little interest to most and that's fine. I wrote it, so I'm posting it.

GAME THEORY AND COLLECTIVISM

I know that most won't read this, but I hope you will at least read this first short paragraph. Look at the machine you read this on, then look at your immediate environment then consider the technologically complex world around you. If you've done that, I then ask you to consider a single person: Thomas Edison. What in the room surrounding you was made possible by this one man's accomplishments? Think about that enough and you don't have to read further.

What is Game Theory?

Game Theory is a field of inquiry where one seeks to understand everyday one-on-one interactions by contextualizing them in the form of a game. It is also used for very complex interactions in studying economic trends and natural selection, but I won't get into those here.

Why is Game Theory relevant to this discussion?

Because when one gets into some of the academic justifications for forms of coerced collectivism, like anti-smoking, game theory is sure to come up.

If you read this post, pay close attention and still simply don't get it, don't worry about it. The forest is more important than the trees here. Rather than making this sound more intimidating than it really is, let me first give you examples that you are sure to recognize with ease.

Imagine you are in a diner with a friend. You're both sitting at the table, talking about this and that, but five minutes before, you were telling your friend that there's a well-known writer living in your town and he always wears a ridiculous looking hat. In the moment, though, your friend is deep into telling you about bringing his cat to the vet. Your friend is so busy telling his vet story, that he doesn't notice that someone, wearing a really dumb looking hat, has walked past your table, and sat down in the booth behind him. You reach out, touching your friend's arm to interrupt his fascinating vet story, and he says "WHAT?!" You put a finger to your lips, indicating he should be quiet. The writer in the funny hat is sitting behind him, just three feet away. You try to whisper between clenched teeth, "The guy I was telling you about..." "WHAT?! WHAT GUY?!" your friend says. You shush him again and try again, whispering just a bit louder "The writer I was telling you about with the funny hat..." Your friend nearly jumps up and spins around "WHAT?! WHAT GUY?! OH, THAT WRITER GUY WITH THE HAT? WHAT? HE'S HERE? OH, HEY, HOW YOU DOIN' WRITER GUY? NICE HAT!"

In this embarassing scenario you've invited your friend to cooperate. Your friend, without context, is oblivious of your intentions, so he doesn't cooperate. Depite your efforts, he doesn't have the necessary information to participate. So, since you brought the whole thing up in the first place, you are now responsible for you and your friend looking like idiots.

In short, when you tried to invite your friend to cooperate, he simply followed the course of his own impulses, and you both got screwed.

You see similar "game" situations everyday when you drive to and from work. You put your signal on, saying "let me into that lane". Meanwhile, the cars in the lane you want to move into are either oblivious of your signal, or see it and put their needs ahead of yours. By putting your signal on, you are asking for cooperation. You may get in eventually, but for some time the other drivers are either oblivious of your invitation because they are self-involved, or they may see your signal, but decide that their interests of getting where they're going outweigh your desire to get into the lane ahead of them. You might even miss your exit. If you're like me, you curse and swear at these moments. Such is life.

Now, let's look at an actual Game Theory scenario that's a bit more complicated. It's called "The Prisoners Dilemma" and it is probably the best known example of Game Theory.

Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 5 year sentence. If both stay silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only one year in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a three-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act? (In the image I've embedded, the prisoners are called "Mario" and "Luigi")



You'll notice that the best scenario in "The Prisoners Dilemma" is the bottom right scenario, where no one goes free, but each supposedly "gives the least"; a one year sentence. The rest of the scenarios stink, and even the best scenario stinks.

You shouldn't be surprised that this little scenario is held close to the heart of Neo-Communists and they will often cite it as a rationale for collectivism. They fail to notice, though, that this is a scenario comprised completely of negative outcomes, where one must choose the lesser of all evils. It is, after all, a "prisoners" dilemma.

There is a less negative spin to the prisoners dilemma, though, and you may have seen it. It is in the film "A Beautiful Mind".

There is a scene where John Nash (played by Russel Crowe) is sitting in a bar with his fellow students when a stunning knock-out of a blonde walks through the door with her three, simply attractive, brunette friends. Immediately, all of Nash's crowd starts to conspire about how to get the blonde, when Nash suddenly realizes something.

If everyone competes for the blonde, a prize that they're not likely to get, mostly due to their own interference with each other, everyone is likely to go home alone.

But if they all decide to cooperate and lower their expectations, and go after the more abundant and perfectly okay brunettes, all of them will go home with a reasonable consolation prize; a brunette. (This is the film's scenario, ladies, not mine.)

Upon realizing this, Nash announces to his friends that Adam Smith was wrong and runs out of the bar to finally write his game theory thesis.

I should tell you that I don't know what the real John Nash's ideas were, as opposed to what is portrayed in the film. I read the book "A Beautiful Mind" a long time ago and and I was somewhat disinterested at the time, but I can tell you that the film is so far from the real story of John Nash that it wouldn't surprise me if they took similar liberties in the film with Nash's theories. (In other words, this is not a condemnation of Nash's ideas, only the portrayal in the film). Anyway, the scenario above seems to be what is portrayed in the film. Here is the scene in question. If you're not able to view it, my description above should suffice, I think.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7544461171032061767

Game Theory is really very interesting and I'm not trying to denegrate the field of inquiry by giving these particular scenarios. However, I think it's valuable to notice the obvious in these game theory scenarios, and I think they're the two you are most likely to hear of otherwise. They contextualize everything in terms of minimal loss. In "The Prisoner's Dilemma", no one goes free without really putting the screws to their friend. In the "A Beautiful Mind" scenario, you'll notice that it is a foregone conclusion that no one gets the blonde.

These scenarios dictate that either all benefit equally if they cooperate, but all lose completely if they follow their own interests rather than the interests of all involved; like a collective. If I were to draw out more complex scenarios according to the same parameters, involving many, many more boxes, and many, many more participants, we would find that cooperation is always better than self-interest because, well, self-interest doesn't exist in these scenarios; it's a sure loser. In these scenarios, the only rational solution is to pursue the greatest good for all involved, without hope for personal gain, and the gains will be equally distributed among all who play.

If you've read this post carefully, without skimming, you now hold the basic ideas, the intellectual underpinnings of Neo-Communism in the palm of your hand from these simple examples. Either everyone gains equally, or no one gains at all. If one breaks the rules and gains, the losses to others are unconscionable. If no one cooperates, everyone loses.

"The Prisoner's Dilemma" isn't real, it's a model. As for "A Beautiful Mind", as we all know, someone always gets the beautiful blonde, and why shouldn't they? Should the beautiful blondes of the world go lonely?

Neo-Communism deals in these ideas of minimizing loss. Capitalism and individual freedom deal in the ideas of compeitition and maximizing gains. The latter is what drives society and humanity forward.

The collectivist view of minimizing loss, though, will always be more readily accepted amongst a willing and fearful public.

Right now, a computer sits below my desk. It cost about $1000.00 and I bought it about a year and a half ago. In other words, because of the dynamic progress of technology, it's nearly an old hunk of junk.

If I took all of the cords off of this computer, put it in a time machine, and sent it to the world's leading computer scientist of 50 years ago, he probably wouldn't even know what it was. In fact, I'll contend that he could spend the rest of his life in isolation studying it and trying to figure it out. After those 50 years of study, he'd probably emerge from his cave and cry to the world "Eureka!" with something less than a Commodore 64 in his hands and find himself being stared at strangely by people carrying cell phones and Ipods.

Cooperative collectivism is static and demands the least to give equality to the worst case scenario. Individual freedom is dynamic and results in exponential growth and carries along the worst case scenario in its wake. This is the "unseen" or "invisible" benefit of individual economic freedom. Static, collectivist systems are solely concerned with conditions that already exist. Individual, dynamic systems create new and better scenarios that can't be predicted simply because they lie in the future, and no one can tell what the future holds. If a society doesn't fear the future and creates a system that invests in the future as a course of its very nature, that society prospers. Other societies continually make the "safe bet" and lag behind, because this equation seems counterintuitive and even "dumb".

For the very same reasons that societies consistently make this mistake, individual people make the same mistake, and view the idea of emphasizing individual freedom over mass collectivism as "dumb". Their views are historically wrong, but they still insist on them, and always have. This is because they are correct in an "on paper", academic sense. Depsite this, and to the great frustration of adherents of such views, the unpredictable system of individual economic freedom always wins. Why? Because the collectivist view seems to show little faith in the potential of individual human achievement.

You may not get "the blonde". In fact, you probably won't. However, in your attempts you'll gain more and more information about how to get her from observing the success and failures of others and risk, trial, and error. In this way, as long as someone is willing to even to make a minor move to the blonde, they learn and gain information. This does leave many out; those who are either incapable or unwilling to take part in the contest. However, a select few get all of the blondes they want and they begin to create lower support systems.

A competitive system is, if nothing else, a learning system. A non-competitive, static, collective system creates little room for individual, dynamic growth. It maintains the status quo until it dies on the vine and lags behind.

Go for the blonde.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WinstonSmith,

This didn't post correctly the first time, so I've modified it. Thanks. W.S.