4 ms·

You know how to feel about it. But you rightly recognize that there is a prisoners dilemma when it comes to moral behavior. Your stomach is tempting you to de

You know how to feel about it. But you rightly recognize that there is a prisoners dilemma when it comes to moral behavior. Your stomach is tempting you to defect. Your heart is telling you not to. And your head is wondering how the game could be structured to favor your heart over your stomach.

ci5er 10y ago
That's really good. I'd normally just up-vote and move on, but I've gotta ask: Is that original or did that come from somewhere? If the latter -- I'd appreciate a reference because I'd like to read more.
- carsongross 10y ago
  I was thinking of the C.S. Lewis quote from The Abolition of Man: "The head rules the belly through the chest."
  - ci5er 10y ago
    Thank you. Makes sense. I'm more of a G.K. Chesterton man myself, but maybe I'll come around! :-)
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
kafkaesq 10y ago
Your stomach is tempting you to defect. Your heart is telling you not to. And then, thankfully, your brain chimes in, and reminds you that while short-term PD-like scenarios seem to reward defection, in iterative scenarios -- more comparable to PD-like situations we encounter in real life -- it is cooperation (or at least, not fucking your neighbor over for the sake of short-term gain) that is very strongly incentivized.
- carsongross 10y ago
  In the long run we're all at the next startup.
- crdb 10y ago
  I wish some of my clients understood that. One just ruined all the goodwill they built up with me over the past year (which got them countless free hours, crunch time at short notice, etc.) by stiffing my company of about a grand - literally a few hours' work - on some badly structured justification, the real reason being he felt his colleague was not negotiating hard enough with me and he "showed him". Now I'm going to stick to the contract hours and probably prioritise other work over theirs; I also changed the payment terms to be upfront to avoid stiffing, and if they want extra hours, guess what, their sticker price went up from their discounted price for longstanding cooperative clients to "market rate". I guess the thousand bucks is visible and the value they lost isn't, so he probably thinks he was very successful. It bewilders me that someone can be in business for years and not understand that cooperation is a better strategy, but there are a lot out there. I've found the short term cost of cooperating with defectors worth it in the long run, though.
  - vosper 10y ago
    It sucks about the goodwill being lost, and I'm sure it feels bad to have been stiffed by your client, but it sounds like you're going to make more money out of him now than before. And at the same time he thinks he's had a victory. In some ways this a win-win. Take your team out for a nice dinner on the extra profit and don't feel too bad about it :)
  - dnautics 10y ago
    Isn't what you're doing the ipd equivalent of "retaliate"?
    - crdb 10y ago
      I guess so. Retaliation is the best strategy in iterative PD, no? (I'm rusty on this stuff). Nash equilibrium in a regular PD would be DD, but it assumes that the other side will defect. I think from experience that the payoff grid is different in business in that instead of CC resulting in a lower payoff for C than for D in CD, it's a much higher payoff; and the D in CD is not getting much more than in DD (maybe 20% more).

ci5er 10y ago

That's really good. I'd normally just up-vote and move on, but I've gotta ask: Is that original or did that come from somewhere? If the latter -- I'd appreciate a reference because I'd like to read more.

carsongross 10y ago
I was thinking of the C.S. Lewis quote from The Abolition of Man: "The head rules the belly through the chest."
- ci5er 10y ago
  Thank you. Makes sense. I'm more of a G.K. Chesterton man myself, but maybe I'll come around! :-)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

kafkaesq 10y ago

Your stomach is tempting you to defect. Your heart is telling you not to. And then, thankfully, your brain chimes in, and reminds you that while short-term PD-like scenarios seem to reward defection, in iterative scenarios -- more comparable to PD-like situations we encounter in real life -- it is cooperation (or at least, not fucking your neighbor over for the sake of short-term gain) that is very strongly incentivized.

carsongross 10y ago
In the long run we're all at the next startup.
crdb 10y ago
I wish some of my clients understood that. One just ruined all the goodwill they built up with me over the past year (which got them countless free hours, crunch time at short notice, etc.) by stiffing my company of about a grand - literally a few hours' work - on some badly structured justification, the real reason being he felt his colleague was not negotiating hard enough with me and he "showed him". Now I'm going to stick to the contract hours and probably prioritise other work over theirs; I also changed the payment terms to be upfront to avoid stiffing, and if they want extra hours, guess what, their sticker price went up from their discounted price for longstanding cooperative clients to "market rate". I guess the thousand bucks is visible and the value they lost isn't, so he probably thinks he was very successful. It bewilders me that someone can be in business for years and not understand that cooperation is a better strategy, but there are a lot out there. I've found the short term cost of cooperating with defectors worth it in the long run, though.
- vosper 10y ago
  It sucks about the goodwill being lost, and I'm sure it feels bad to have been stiffed by your client, but it sounds like you're going to make more money out of him now than before. And at the same time he thinks he's had a victory. In some ways this a win-win. Take your team out for a nice dinner on the extra profit and don't feel too bad about it :)
- dnautics 10y ago
  Isn't what you're doing the ipd equivalent of "retaliate"?
  - crdb 10y ago
    I guess so. Retaliation is the best strategy in iterative PD, no? (I'm rusty on this stuff). Nash equilibrium in a regular PD would be DD, but it assumes that the other side will defect. I think from experience that the payoff grid is different in business in that instead of CC resulting in a lower payoff for C than for D in CD, it's a much higher payoff; and the D in CD is not getting much more than in DD (maybe 20% more).