4 ms·

This is one of my favorite things on the internet, but it focuses on the positive side of the story which is that groups of people cooperating can defeat a bunc

This is one of my favorite things on the internet, but it focuses on the positive side of the story which is that groups of people cooperating can defeat a bunch of people who cheat each other. That's a pleasant message. Unfortunately, I think the corollary is much more important. What this clearly shows is that on an extremely fundamental level, getting cheated or cooperating with people who act in bad faith is what creates the cheating. If you tolerate bad faith, you ask for more bad faith behavior. If you believe in personal agency and personal responsibility and don't believe in magical thinking, then it shows on a very mathematical level that your own weakness, the ability for someone to take advantage of you without consequences, is what creates defection rather than cooperation. The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good.

xp84 1y ago
I feel like your comment sums up many life lessons. It's also the reason I stopped believing in extreme leftism as I matured. I think as young idealists we think "Surely if we just gave the government a lot more tax money, they'd solve the problems we all say we care about" and "Surely if you just give freely to whomever says they're in need, they won't cheat the system!" Later I started to see the patterns where government spends most of the money lining the pockets of the well-connected, and then on the micro level how many people take advantage of any method of unjust enrichment, given the chance, and you start to desire much more accountability from all parties. And yes, things like, say, exhaustive income verification to qualify for benefits definitely hurts those who are playing by the rules the whole time. It's the cost of having trashy individuals in society who exploit everyone relentlessly.
- ericrosedev 1y ago
  It looks like Copykitten is the sweet spot to me, with a focus on keeping miscommunication to a minimum. I wonder where, between 0% and 1%, there is a noticeable deviation, because I find the idea of the Copykitten more nuanced than the copycat, but the copycat always wins somewhere between 0 and 1.
- gitremote 1y ago
  > I feel like your comment sums up many life lessons. It's also the reason I stopped believing in extreme leftism as I matured. I think as young idealists we think "Surely if we just gave the government a lot more tax money, they'd solve the problems we all say we care about" and "Surely if you just give freely to whomever says they're in need, they won't cheat the system!" As an older leftist, what you describe looks more like the liberal (centrist) view. Actual leftists think the current system is broken. Cops are not acting in good faith using tax payer money, so we should defund the police departments to some degree and divert those funds to social programs to help the vulnerable. Politicians and Congress people (including Democrats) in office are not acting in good faith and should be barred from trading individual stocks to prevent insider trading.
  - xp84 1y ago
    > Politicians and Congress people (including Democrats) in office are not acting in good faith and should be barred from trading individual stocks to prevent insider trading. No objection from me there. > defund the police departments to some degree and divert those funds to social programs I will just say that I have zero faith that the "social programs" will do much besides serving as jobs programs for people with degrees that would otherwise not be useful to society. Meanwhile, less cops and less support for the idea of policing leads to more of the exact same opportunistic bad behavior that I was talking about. There's a statewide experiment on this topic that's been going on for years, called California.
    - gitremote 1y ago
      > I will just say that I have zero faith that the "social programs" will do much besides serving as jobs programs for people with degrees that would otherwise not be useful to society. You're imagining it wrong. Critics argue that police officers and departments are tasked with an overly broad range of responsibilities, leading to an over-reliance on law enforcement to address complex social issues such as homelessness, mental health crises, and substance abuse. To address this, some activists advocate for the "unbundling" of services, a model in which specialized response teams take over many responsibilities traditionally assigned to police. These teams could include social workers, emergency medical technicians, conflict resolution specialists, restorative justice teams, and other community-based professionals. Police officers may be particularly badly suited for some community issues, such as mental health crises. One in four people who are killed by the police have severe mental illness. Some activists argue that mental health professionals may be more appropriate responders in non-emergency situations involving mental health crises. They also suggest that diverting funds to mental health treatment and support could lead to improved outcomes. A 2020 paper by researchers at the RAND Corporation argues that the police are often given too many roles in society and asked to solve issues that they are not properly trained for and that would be better suited for professionals such as mental health, homelessness, drug abuse, and school related violence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police
- dinfinity 1y ago
  > Later I started to see the patterns where government spends most of the money lining the pockets of the well-connected It is definitely not most of the money in developed countries. Being cynical is fine, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Governments do enormously important and valuable things with most of the money. Just take a look at where money is spent in the budgets of developed countries.
Terr_ 1y ago
> getting cheated or cooperating with people who act in bad faith is what creates the cheating That reminds me of some game-theory stuff, a relatively simple "tit-for-tat with forgiveness" approach does pretty well. It matches a lot of our intuition too: Be nice, punish betrayal, but not too disproportionately. Not the thing I was thinking of, but found this fun little interactive presentation that goes into some other factors/approaches: https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/
- MIC132 1y ago
  You linked the same thing as the actual post.
  - divan 1y ago
    "Tell me you read only comments on HN without telling me you read only comments on HN" )
    - Terr_ 1y ago
      1. Skip "animated cartoon..." on mobile 2. Later with desktop from "threads" page see lone comment and try to value-add edit 3. Unlock new remember-that-time-when-you 3AM brain shame
AdieuToLogic 1y ago
> This is one of my favorite things on the internet, but it focuses on the positive side of the story which is that groups of people cooperating can defeat a bunch of people who cheat each other. That's a pleasant message. This is also a reasonable definition of a functional democratic society. > If you believe in personal agency and personal responsibility and don't believe in magical thinking ... No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.[0] > The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good. Or perhaps a different lesson is that if you want a better world to exist, choose to live it. Sometimes there will be those which do not share this vision and actively work against your choice. The question then becomes: Do you allow bad actors to determine who you are or is who you are orthogonal to what bad actors do? Note that "power" has no relevance to the answer of this question. 0 - https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_donne_101197 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_donne_101197
- vacuity 1y ago
  > Or perhaps a different lesson is that if you want a better world to exist, choose to live it. Sometimes there will be those which do not share this vision and actively work against your choice. So you need the power to abide by your choices and not others'. I think the colloquial understanding of "power" is somewhat different than I want to convey. Power is potential, the ability to affect or effect, control[0]. Violence can be powerful, because a dead foe can't hurt you. Nonviolence can be powerful, because a dissuaded foe can't hurt you. Who you are determines what you do. What you do reflects who you are. The path you are walking on, whether to your design or not, requires power to prevent straying. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/power https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/power
  - AdieuToLogic 1y ago
    > Power is potential, the ability to affect or effect, control[0]. Violence can be powerful, because a dead foe can't hurt you. Nonviolence can be powerful, because a dissuaded foe can't hurt you. I was going more for the "be the change you want" perspective than what perceived power can accomplish. Ultimately, power is an illusion and consumes rather than enables. > Who you are determines what you do. Technically this is correct. However, it ignores choice and the value of personal growth found in honest introspection. > What you do reflects who you are. Very true. And if one chooses to do something different than what would have been done as an earlier version of oneself, does that not reflect growth? > The path you are walking on, whether to your design or not, requires power to prevent straying. Choice is not power, even though it is powerful, unless the assumed one of the multitude of definitions cited is the first: The ability to do or undergo something. Which is incongruent with the implication of what I originally quoted: The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good. So which is it?
irjustin 1y ago
> The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good. This particular lesson we've seen play out time and time again at a state level. Europe, USA, Singapore and even China. The best thing that happened was corruption was either kept out or effectively eliminated. When leaders are bad actors, it's pretty obvious, but an explicit example is the Philippines in the 50's-60's and how its economic powerhouse was squandered away. Today, Vietnam is in the process of cleaning house and showing dividends while Indonesia really could really do amazing stuff if it go its act together.
Nopoint2 1y ago
I admire your bravery, but, do you understand that you risk losing everything in much of the western world for posting such heretical thoughts?
lmz 1y ago
"Si vis pacem, para bellum".
thrance 1y ago
OR, you can organize. The most power-hungry among us often exhibit sociopathic behaviours, and those disproportionately occupy leadership positions. Most good things in our world (democracy, healthcare, welfare) came from building consensus, and weren't gifted by powerful individuals who rose to the top in an effort to bring fire to the masses. To the contrary, when they get their way, welfare and healthcare are cut to give tax breaks to the powerful, and democracies fall to concentrate power more effectively in the hands of the few. I reject this simplistic Nietzschean analysis of the world. I reject the will to power and the Übermensch. Good societies are built on large groups of people cooperating, not individuals becoming powerful to do good.
alickz 1y ago
>If you tolerate bad faith, you ask for more bad faith behavior. Yet some bad faith behavior comes from misunderstanding, so to be completely intolerant of perceived bad faith behavior would be the same as entering into the endless "tit-for-tat" cheating loop mentioned on the site "I'm intolerant of your (perceived) bad faith (because you're intolerant of my (perceived) bad faith)" Works when perceptions aren't muddied, but that is rarely the case >The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good. I agree broadly, but that logic is also the cause of a lot of cheating "I cheat because they cheat" "I need nuclear weapons because they have nuclear weapons" Tit-for-tat is a great strategy, but it's not a _dominant_ strategy I think that's the most important point the website makes
- Gravityloss 1y ago
  In sports it doesn't work with the individual, either tit-for-tat or just succumbing to bad behavior. Instead there are central organizations created by the players and teams together, and they agree on rules and establish referees and processes so on.
frollogaston 1y ago
The board game "Diplomacy" teaches lessons like this, also how fairness works even between unequal powers.
martin82 1y ago
You have perfectly described the downfall of western democracies, who are oh so tolerable. Even Plato described this already in The Republic.
marci 1y ago
Becoming powerful might be the easy part https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs (The Rules for Rulers / CGP Grey)
- hayst4ck 1y ago
  That's one of my other favorite things on the internet. The discussion of it is very high quality, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvD7zVN2jo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvD7zVN2jo Getting into a position of power requiring submission to the power hierarchy that grants power is a very keen insight. It means you are subject to all the corruptive forces everyone in those positions of power are also subject to. People will let you into positions of power if you wear their chains. "Then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good" is almost directly from CGP Grey's own analysis/those two videos. Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy is another way of looking at it: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html The man in the Arena speech tickles these topics and is unfortunately now more relevant than ever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic

xp84 1y ago

I feel like your comment sums up many life lessons. It's also the reason I stopped believing in extreme leftism as I matured. I think as young idealists we think "Surely if we just gave the government a lot more tax money, they'd solve the problems we all say we care about" and "Surely if you just give freely to whomever says they're in need, they won't cheat the system!" Later I started to see the patterns where government spends most of the money lining the pockets of the well-connected, and then on the micro level how many people take advantage of any method of unjust enrichment, given the chance, and you start to desire much more accountability from all parties. And yes, things like, say, exhaustive income verification to qualify for benefits definitely hurts those who are playing by the rules the whole time. It's the cost of having trashy individuals in society who exploit everyone relentlessly.

ericrosedev 1y ago
It looks like Copykitten is the sweet spot to me, with a focus on keeping miscommunication to a minimum. I wonder where, between 0% and 1%, there is a noticeable deviation, because I find the idea of the Copykitten more nuanced than the copycat, but the copycat always wins somewhere between 0 and 1.
gitremote 1y ago
> I feel like your comment sums up many life lessons. It's also the reason I stopped believing in extreme leftism as I matured. I think as young idealists we think "Surely if we just gave the government a lot more tax money, they'd solve the problems we all say we care about" and "Surely if you just give freely to whomever says they're in need, they won't cheat the system!" As an older leftist, what you describe looks more like the liberal (centrist) view. Actual leftists think the current system is broken. Cops are not acting in good faith using tax payer money, so we should defund the police departments to some degree and divert those funds to social programs to help the vulnerable. Politicians and Congress people (including Democrats) in office are not acting in good faith and should be barred from trading individual stocks to prevent insider trading.
- xp84 1y ago
  > Politicians and Congress people (including Democrats) in office are not acting in good faith and should be barred from trading individual stocks to prevent insider trading. No objection from me there. > defund the police departments to some degree and divert those funds to social programs I will just say that I have zero faith that the "social programs" will do much besides serving as jobs programs for people with degrees that would otherwise not be useful to society. Meanwhile, less cops and less support for the idea of policing leads to more of the exact same opportunistic bad behavior that I was talking about. There's a statewide experiment on this topic that's been going on for years, called California.
  - gitremote 1y ago
    > I will just say that I have zero faith that the "social programs" will do much besides serving as jobs programs for people with degrees that would otherwise not be useful to society. You're imagining it wrong. Critics argue that police officers and departments are tasked with an overly broad range of responsibilities, leading to an over-reliance on law enforcement to address complex social issues such as homelessness, mental health crises, and substance abuse. To address this, some activists advocate for the "unbundling" of services, a model in which specialized response teams take over many responsibilities traditionally assigned to police. These teams could include social workers, emergency medical technicians, conflict resolution specialists, restorative justice teams, and other community-based professionals. Police officers may be particularly badly suited for some community issues, such as mental health crises. One in four people who are killed by the police have severe mental illness. Some activists argue that mental health professionals may be more appropriate responders in non-emergency situations involving mental health crises. They also suggest that diverting funds to mental health treatment and support could lead to improved outcomes. A 2020 paper by researchers at the RAND Corporation argues that the police are often given too many roles in society and asked to solve issues that they are not properly trained for and that would be better suited for professionals such as mental health, homelessness, drug abuse, and school related violence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police
dinfinity 1y ago
> Later I started to see the patterns where government spends most of the money lining the pockets of the well-connected It is definitely not most of the money in developed countries. Being cynical is fine, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Governments do enormously important and valuable things with most of the money. Just take a look at where money is spent in the budgets of developed countries.

Terr_ 1y ago

> getting cheated or cooperating with people who act in bad faith is what creates the cheating That reminds me of some game-theory stuff, a relatively simple "tit-for-tat with forgiveness" approach does pretty well. It matches a lot of our intuition too: Be nice, punish betrayal, but not too disproportionately. Not the thing I was thinking of, but found this fun little interactive presentation that goes into some other factors/approaches: https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/

MIC132 1y ago
You linked the same thing as the actual post.
- divan 1y ago
  "Tell me you read only comments on HN without telling me you read only comments on HN" )
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    1. Skip "animated cartoon..." on mobile 2. Later with desktop from "threads" page see lone comment and try to value-add edit 3. Unlock new remember-that-time-when-you 3AM brain shame

AdieuToLogic 1y ago

> This is one of my favorite things on the internet, but it focuses on the positive side of the story which is that groups of people cooperating can defeat a bunch of people who cheat each other. That's a pleasant message. This is also a reasonable definition of a functional democratic society. > If you believe in personal agency and personal responsibility and don't believe in magical thinking ... No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.[0] > The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good. Or perhaps a different lesson is that if you want a better world to exist, choose to live it. Sometimes there will be those which do not share this vision and actively work against your choice. The question then becomes: Do you allow bad actors to determine who you are or is who you are orthogonal to what bad actors do? Note that "power" has no relevance to the answer of this question. 0 - https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_donne_101197 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_donne_101197

vacuity 1y ago
> Or perhaps a different lesson is that if you want a better world to exist, choose to live it. Sometimes there will be those which do not share this vision and actively work against your choice. So you need the power to abide by your choices and not others'. I think the colloquial understanding of "power" is somewhat different than I want to convey. Power is potential, the ability to affect or effect, control[0]. Violence can be powerful, because a dead foe can't hurt you. Nonviolence can be powerful, because a dissuaded foe can't hurt you. Who you are determines what you do. What you do reflects who you are. The path you are walking on, whether to your design or not, requires power to prevent straying. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/power https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/power
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago
  > Power is potential, the ability to affect or effect, control[0]. Violence can be powerful, because a dead foe can't hurt you. Nonviolence can be powerful, because a dissuaded foe can't hurt you. I was going more for the "be the change you want" perspective than what perceived power can accomplish. Ultimately, power is an illusion and consumes rather than enables. > Who you are determines what you do. Technically this is correct. However, it ignores choice and the value of personal growth found in honest introspection. > What you do reflects who you are. Very true. And if one chooses to do something different than what would have been done as an earlier version of oneself, does that not reflect growth? > The path you are walking on, whether to your design or not, requires power to prevent straying. Choice is not power, even though it is powerful, unless the assumed one of the multitude of definitions cited is the first: The ability to do or undergo something. Which is incongruent with the implication of what I originally quoted: The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good. So which is it?

irjustin 1y ago

> The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good. This particular lesson we've seen play out time and time again at a state level. Europe, USA, Singapore and even China. The best thing that happened was corruption was either kept out or effectively eliminated. When leaders are bad actors, it's pretty obvious, but an explicit example is the Philippines in the 50's-60's and how its economic powerhouse was squandered away. Today, Vietnam is in the process of cleaning house and showing dividends while Indonesia really could really do amazing stuff if it go its act together.

Nopoint2 1y ago

I admire your bravery, but, do you understand that you risk losing everything in much of the western world for posting such heretical thoughts?

lmz 1y ago

"Si vis pacem, para bellum".

thrance 1y ago

OR, you can organize. The most power-hungry among us often exhibit sociopathic behaviours, and those disproportionately occupy leadership positions. Most good things in our world (democracy, healthcare, welfare) came from building consensus, and weren't gifted by powerful individuals who rose to the top in an effort to bring fire to the masses. To the contrary, when they get their way, welfare and healthcare are cut to give tax breaks to the powerful, and democracies fall to concentrate power more effectively in the hands of the few. I reject this simplistic Nietzschean analysis of the world. I reject the will to power and the Übermensch. Good societies are built on large groups of people cooperating, not individuals becoming powerful to do good.

alickz 1y ago

>If you tolerate bad faith, you ask for more bad faith behavior. Yet some bad faith behavior comes from misunderstanding, so to be completely intolerant of perceived bad faith behavior would be the same as entering into the endless "tit-for-tat" cheating loop mentioned on the site "I'm intolerant of your (perceived) bad faith (because you're intolerant of my (perceived) bad faith)" Works when perceptions aren't muddied, but that is rarely the case >The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good. I agree broadly, but that logic is also the cause of a lot of cheating "I cheat because they cheat" "I need nuclear weapons because they have nuclear weapons" Tit-for-tat is a great strategy, but it's not a _dominant_ strategy I think that's the most important point the website makes

Gravityloss 1y ago
In sports it doesn't work with the individual, either tit-for-tat or just succumbing to bad behavior. Instead there are central organizations created by the players and teams together, and they agree on rules and establish referees and processes so on.

frollogaston 1y ago

The board game "Diplomacy" teaches lessons like this, also how fairness works even between unequal powers.

martin82 1y ago

You have perfectly described the downfall of western democracies, who are oh so tolerable. Even Plato described this already in The Republic.

marci 1y ago

Becoming powerful might be the easy part https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs (The Rules for Rulers / CGP Grey)

hayst4ck 1y ago
That's one of my other favorite things on the internet. The discussion of it is very high quality, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvD7zVN2jo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILvD7zVN2jo Getting into a position of power requiring submission to the power hierarchy that grants power is a very keen insight. It means you are subject to all the corruptive forces everyone in those positions of power are also subject to. People will let you into positions of power if you wear their chains. "Then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good" is almost directly from CGP Grey's own analysis/those two videos. Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy is another way of looking at it: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html The man in the Arena speech tickles these topics and is unfortunately now more relevant than ever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic