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Study presumes belief in the prescription and defection would only occur for selfish purpose. I don't really see how this would work at all when you are talkin

Study presumes belief in the prescription and defection would only occur for selfish purpose. I don't really see how this would work at all when you are talking to someone who rejects the premise that the solution is a good one. If you are a central planner I guess you will consider anyone who disagrees a defector. The game theory premise regarding vaccination assumes herd immunity is achievable, is that even true? The game theory premise for global warming is whether or not someone "will take climate action". Seemingly its presumed that the climate action is well defined and will work and we are beyond that question and its just a matter of action. Is that even true?

jfengel 4y ago
The study does seem to be solving a non-problem. In the case of vaccines, non-vaccinators do get a "free ride" from those who do. Even without herd immunity, vaccines at least slow down the rate of spread, freeing up resources to help those who do get ill. In the case of the climate, there could be a free ride for climate denialists, who benefit from actions that others take. But individual action on the climate is mostly meaningless, and even international action without the major CO2 producers is insufficient, so the free ride is minimal. The real issue is not the game-theoretic decision to aim for a free ride, but the paranoid belief that both conditions are part of some sort of global hoax. The information to make a rational decision on both is readily available, but has been deliberately polluted with so much misinformation that anybody inclined ideologically to disbelieve finds enough support. Assuming, that is, they are willing to believe in a vast conspiracy of scientists. In the case of COVID especially, they are assisted by the free-ride they are getting: the disease has far fewer consequences than without the vaccines, and so they don't suffer as much as they might. That enables them to believe that there was in fact no problem to vaccinate against, which would seem like an absurd cognitive dissonance given how many people are dead, but the costs of cognitive dissonance are small enough that they could ignore them entirely in this paper.

jfengel 4y ago

The study does seem to be solving a non-problem. In the case of vaccines, non-vaccinators do get a "free ride" from those who do. Even without herd immunity, vaccines at least slow down the rate of spread, freeing up resources to help those who do get ill. In the case of the climate, there could be a free ride for climate denialists, who benefit from actions that others take. But individual action on the climate is mostly meaningless, and even international action without the major CO2 producers is insufficient, so the free ride is minimal. The real issue is not the game-theoretic decision to aim for a free ride, but the paranoid belief that both conditions are part of some sort of global hoax. The information to make a rational decision on both is readily available, but has been deliberately polluted with so much misinformation that anybody inclined ideologically to disbelieve finds enough support. Assuming, that is, they are willing to believe in a vast conspiracy of scientists. In the case of COVID especially, they are assisted by the free-ride they are getting: the disease has far fewer consequences than without the vaccines, and so they don't suffer as much as they might. That enables them to believe that there was in fact no problem to vaccinate against, which would seem like an absurd cognitive dissonance given how many people are dead, but the costs of cognitive dissonance are small enough that they could ignore them entirely in this paper.