12 ms·

This is somewhat a variant of the cooperate situation in the prisoners dilemma. I find it interesting to dress it up in religion, because the optimal situation

This is somewhat a variant of the cooperate situation in the prisoners dilemma. I find it interesting to dress it up in religion, because the optimal situation is to defect, and if everyone knows the game, you get a worse outcome. Religion can cause people to be selfless and you get a better outcome for most people. I've always thought to teach people religion, but defect yourself. In a modern secular world, teach everyone ascetic stoicism. Myself, follow some sort of Machiavellian/Nietzsche/hedonism.

lo_zamoyski 9mo ago
So you're a liar and degenerate psychopath.
vacuity 9mo ago
The optimal decision in the Prisoner's Dilemma is to defect, but in the iterated version, where multiple Dilemmas occur and people remember previous results, Tit-For-Tat is optimal. The real world is even less reminiscent of the Dilemma, so it's not at all clear that the Dilemma's conclusion applies. (Tit-For-Tat: Prefer cooperating, but if the other person defected on the previous turn, defect on the current turn.)
- dragonwriter 9mo ago
  > The optimal decision in the Prisoner's Dilemma is to defect, but in the iterated version, where multiple Dilemmas occur and people remember previous results, Tit-For-Tat is optimal. That’s not true. There is no optimal strategy in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in the sense that defection is optimal in the single-round version; Tit-for-Tat performs well in certain conditions in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, and less well in others (dependent particularly on the strategies played on the other side); in single-round, defection always produces a better outcome than defection independently of the choice made against it.
  - vacuity 9mo ago
    Perhaps I am wrong about Tit-for-Tat. It's been a while since I checked my source. In any case, my point (not to say that you deny it) is not to take any result in an idealized game too literally, and that consistent defection is bad.
AIorNot 9mo ago
Ignoring myth and belief differences The purpose of the article and the story above was simple - you and I are the same ultimately The golden rule is just that- when we recognize ourselves in others we act to minimize pain in others as we would to ourselves Imagine the world as a one person play with each role played by the same person but in different costumes: you
- exe34 9mo ago
  I found it very hard to apply the golden rule as someone who was abused as a child. I don't care how I'm treated, so I can treat you in any way, however cruel. By accident I discovered that if instead of imagining how you would feel if I did this bad thing to you, I imagined how the one person I loved would feel. Suddenly I had a working version of empathy, which I use to this day. I don't treat others as I would want to be treated - I treat them as I would want them to treat my loved one.
  - thisislife2 9mo ago
    Felt bad hearing about your childhood but am really glad you found a way to get past it to start trusting people again. It must have been a difficult process for you but I am glad you shared your worldview with us - I find it more "selfless" than the golden rule.
  - vacuity 9mo ago
    I do not know your circumstances, but see what you think of this: I have a nascent theory about human feelings, which goes that the basic feelings we experience are usually perceived through extensive filtering by our personal, social, cultural, etc., beliefs/experiences. The convincing conscious perception of a feeling may be misinterpreted to an extent. Anger is an emotion that can often become misdirected. Supposedly, sexual arousal can be interpreted in translation from fear[0]. Someone who is suicidal may consider suicide seriously, but feel an urge to live in the process of suicide. Circumstance may make certain feelings clear, but by examining removed from circumstance, the person had the capacity for both feelings. There is some "essence" to the person that those feelings, brought on by circumstance, only scratch the surface of. Observing a narrow range of circumstances and assuming it is the essence is a mistake. I think that more or less every person, in their essence, understands human decency. It may be that some people truly don't have the capacity to appreciate it (thought: aliens?), but usually, I think the real culprit is learned behavior through various factors, and innate cognitive biases. I don't mean to say that it is easy to change people, because the opposite is generally true, but I think it is worth thinking about. That said, if there was someone who truly needed to, say, murder the way we need to eat, I say that they would do no wrong by murdering, but that we would do no wrong by apprehending them. I wish to get to people at their essences, not their accidents. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
krackers 9mo ago
It's not zero sum though? You lose nothing by feeding your neighbor. In the real most things aren't quite zero sum either.

lo_zamoyski 9mo ago

So you're a liar and degenerate psychopath.

vacuity 9mo ago

The optimal decision in the Prisoner's Dilemma is to defect, but in the iterated version, where multiple Dilemmas occur and people remember previous results, Tit-For-Tat is optimal. The real world is even less reminiscent of the Dilemma, so it's not at all clear that the Dilemma's conclusion applies. (Tit-For-Tat: Prefer cooperating, but if the other person defected on the previous turn, defect on the current turn.)

dragonwriter 9mo ago
> The optimal decision in the Prisoner's Dilemma is to defect, but in the iterated version, where multiple Dilemmas occur and people remember previous results, Tit-For-Tat is optimal. That’s not true. There is no optimal strategy in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in the sense that defection is optimal in the single-round version; Tit-for-Tat performs well in certain conditions in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, and less well in others (dependent particularly on the strategies played on the other side); in single-round, defection always produces a better outcome than defection independently of the choice made against it.
- vacuity 9mo ago
  Perhaps I am wrong about Tit-for-Tat. It's been a while since I checked my source. In any case, my point (not to say that you deny it) is not to take any result in an idealized game too literally, and that consistent defection is bad.

AIorNot 9mo ago

Ignoring myth and belief differences The purpose of the article and the story above was simple - you and I are the same ultimately The golden rule is just that- when we recognize ourselves in others we act to minimize pain in others as we would to ourselves Imagine the world as a one person play with each role played by the same person but in different costumes: you

exe34 9mo ago
I found it very hard to apply the golden rule as someone who was abused as a child. I don't care how I'm treated, so I can treat you in any way, however cruel. By accident I discovered that if instead of imagining how you would feel if I did this bad thing to you, I imagined how the one person I loved would feel. Suddenly I had a working version of empathy, which I use to this day. I don't treat others as I would want to be treated - I treat them as I would want them to treat my loved one.
- thisislife2 9mo ago
  Felt bad hearing about your childhood but am really glad you found a way to get past it to start trusting people again. It must have been a difficult process for you but I am glad you shared your worldview with us - I find it more "selfless" than the golden rule.
- vacuity 9mo ago
  I do not know your circumstances, but see what you think of this: I have a nascent theory about human feelings, which goes that the basic feelings we experience are usually perceived through extensive filtering by our personal, social, cultural, etc., beliefs/experiences. The convincing conscious perception of a feeling may be misinterpreted to an extent. Anger is an emotion that can often become misdirected. Supposedly, sexual arousal can be interpreted in translation from fear[0]. Someone who is suicidal may consider suicide seriously, but feel an urge to live in the process of suicide. Circumstance may make certain feelings clear, but by examining removed from circumstance, the person had the capacity for both feelings. There is some "essence" to the person that those feelings, brought on by circumstance, only scratch the surface of. Observing a narrow range of circumstances and assuming it is the essence is a mistake. I think that more or less every person, in their essence, understands human decency. It may be that some people truly don't have the capacity to appreciate it (thought: aliens?), but usually, I think the real culprit is learned behavior through various factors, and innate cognitive biases. I don't mean to say that it is easy to change people, because the opposite is generally true, but I think it is worth thinking about. That said, if there was someone who truly needed to, say, murder the way we need to eat, I say that they would do no wrong by murdering, but that we would do no wrong by apprehending them. I wish to get to people at their essences, not their accidents. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

krackers 9mo ago

It's not zero sum though? You lose nothing by feeding your neighbor. In the real most things aren't quite zero sum either.