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That doesn't nail it down though. This just reshuffles the terminology so that we're talking about individuals taking self-interested actions. Then we can ask o

That doesn't nail it down though. This just reshuffles the terminology so that we're talking about individuals taking self-interested actions. Then we can ask of this "madness": Why do we live in a society where individuals have so little common interest with the collective good? The language of rational self-interested actors does not predict the structure of society, it just gives you a convenient way of talking about that structure at the level of individual humans. In particular, it does not explain why people perceive their self interest the way they do and it does not explain how those perceptions change. It does not explain how people come to find common interest with others and does not explain how someone's notion of self and notion of society commingle and interact. These things are the definitions that let you talk about rational behavior in the first place. This is by no means a defect of the concept. A microscope is not defective just because it is not a telescope, but it is still just a microscope. If you magnify a festering wound enough, it ceases to look so gruesome.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
'mikeash nailed it down perfectly, albeit very succinctly. It's not reshuffling the terminology, it's a common phenomena - that a group of actors making decisions in their self-interest end up creating a situation that is bad for everyone and that nobody wanted in the first place, but that they can't get out of anymore. For instance, in a little simplified example, each farmer would prefer to not abuse antibiotics because they deeply care about their health and maybe even about the future of mankind. But in a competitive environment, the first farmer to use more antibiotics will gain advantage over the others, so some other farmers - maybe afraid of losing the money to feed their children - will start using more antibiotics too to stay competitive (and those who refuse on ideological grounds will simply get outcompeted). Soon, everybody is abusing antibiotics even though no one wanted it (maybe the first defector was greedy, or maybe he really needed the money). The end result is the same (competitive advantage gained by antibiotics cancels out when everyone is using them), everyone is collectively worse, and no one can break the cycle. That's why we need external actors, like governments, to enforce some coordination. But real-life governments too often fail at that. I linked to a powerful microscope in a parallel subthread.
- danharaj 11y ago
  I did not make my point clear. The question is still: Why is the self interest of each farmer so at odds with the common interest of all farmers/all humanity? The competitive environment you mention is the large scale structure of society itself. Those external actors you mention are the very forces that define the environment and define the context in which a farmer determines their self interest. These structures do not arise from the aggregate of individuals working independently, but from the coherent actions of ensembles of actors. The very notion of 'self' is ill-defined and subject to change as social forces construct the way people perceive the relationship between their bodies and the rest of the world. There is no state of nature.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    The answer to your question is simple: indiscriminate antibiotic use is something where the good results are entirely for the person making the choice, while the bad results are spread out across all humanity. It's essentially a big and complicated version of a simple game: if you press this button, you will get $10, but everybody else on the planet will lose $0.00001. Do you press the button? The rational choice is to say yes. The benefit to you far outweighs your cost. It even far outweighs the combined costs to all the people you know. In short, externalities make people choose bad things in a rational way. It has pretty much nothing to do with how society is structured. If you want to change it, then you need to figure out a way to make the costs to the individual outweigh the benefits to the individual.
    - danharaj 11y ago
      The games that we participate in are themselves defined by human actions. Do we rationally choose the games we play? Which of my preferences are compatible with your preferences? How do we compare utility between two individuals? Since we live in the same universe and have to deal with some of the consequences of each others' actions, there's some natural correlation between our utilities, but we live in civilizations which have far more social structure built on top of this basic structure, and these social structures inform and structure our possible preferences and the relations between them. In fact, these social structures can have preferences and play their own games! The United States government, for example, is an entity whose preferences and actions are embodied in the coherence of its constituent individuals, and its structure informs the games and preferences of its individuals in a feedback loop we like to call bureaucracy. Does the large-scale behavior of the US government explain the choices of its constituents, or vice versa? Clearly the answer is neither and both: They are two ways of looking at the same dynamical structure. In one view, things can look perfectly rational. In the other view, things can look stark raving mad. I don't think either point of view is distinguished as canonical.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

'mikeash nailed it down perfectly, albeit very succinctly. It's not reshuffling the terminology, it's a common phenomena - that a group of actors making decisions in their self-interest end up creating a situation that is bad for everyone and that nobody wanted in the first place, but that they can't get out of anymore. For instance, in a little simplified example, each farmer would prefer to not abuse antibiotics because they deeply care about their health and maybe even about the future of mankind. But in a competitive environment, the first farmer to use more antibiotics will gain advantage over the others, so some other farmers - maybe afraid of losing the money to feed their children - will start using more antibiotics too to stay competitive (and those who refuse on ideological grounds will simply get outcompeted). Soon, everybody is abusing antibiotics even though no one wanted it (maybe the first defector was greedy, or maybe he really needed the money). The end result is the same (competitive advantage gained by antibiotics cancels out when everyone is using them), everyone is collectively worse, and no one can break the cycle. That's why we need external actors, like governments, to enforce some coordination. But real-life governments too often fail at that. I linked to a powerful microscope in a parallel subthread.

danharaj 11y ago
I did not make my point clear. The question is still: Why is the self interest of each farmer so at odds with the common interest of all farmers/all humanity? The competitive environment you mention is the large scale structure of society itself. Those external actors you mention are the very forces that define the environment and define the context in which a farmer determines their self interest. These structures do not arise from the aggregate of individuals working independently, but from the coherent actions of ensembles of actors. The very notion of 'self' is ill-defined and subject to change as social forces construct the way people perceive the relationship between their bodies and the rest of the world. There is no state of nature.
- mikeash 11y ago
  The answer to your question is simple: indiscriminate antibiotic use is something where the good results are entirely for the person making the choice, while the bad results are spread out across all humanity. It's essentially a big and complicated version of a simple game: if you press this button, you will get $10, but everybody else on the planet will lose $0.00001. Do you press the button? The rational choice is to say yes. The benefit to you far outweighs your cost. It even far outweighs the combined costs to all the people you know. In short, externalities make people choose bad things in a rational way. It has pretty much nothing to do with how society is structured. If you want to change it, then you need to figure out a way to make the costs to the individual outweigh the benefits to the individual.
  - danharaj 11y ago
    The games that we participate in are themselves defined by human actions. Do we rationally choose the games we play? Which of my preferences are compatible with your preferences? How do we compare utility between two individuals? Since we live in the same universe and have to deal with some of the consequences of each others' actions, there's some natural correlation between our utilities, but we live in civilizations which have far more social structure built on top of this basic structure, and these social structures inform and structure our possible preferences and the relations between them. In fact, these social structures can have preferences and play their own games! The United States government, for example, is an entity whose preferences and actions are embodied in the coherence of its constituent individuals, and its structure informs the games and preferences of its individuals in a feedback loop we like to call bureaucracy. Does the large-scale behavior of the US government explain the choices of its constituents, or vice versa? Clearly the answer is neither and both: They are two ways of looking at the same dynamical structure. In one view, things can look perfectly rational. In the other view, things can look stark raving mad. I don't think either point of view is distinguished as canonical.