4 ms·
Perhaps red is selfish, but blue is most certainly foolish.
by owenpalmer 5mo ago
Perhaps red is selfish, but blue is most certainly foolish.
- swed420 5mo agoOr blue doesn't want to live in the world where only selfish/cynical people remain.
- card_zero 5mo agoConfusingly, though, as you are of course a nice person, if you vote red you'd demonstrate that some red voters are nice, and then the choice is less severe. Then voting red is like "I embrace humanity, warts and all", while voting blue is like "I cannot tolerate sharing the planet with anyone even slightly impure".
- swed420 5mo agoIt has some conflicting circular dependencies in assumptions which is why the thought experiment is kind of dumb overall.
- selfhoster1312 5mo agoI would personally assert it's foolish to pretend a species can survive without empathy and mutual aid. That's certainly not how humanity (or most, if not all, species) developed so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolut...
- rayiner 5mo ago"Empathy" isn't a binary in this context. You can exercise empathy and aid your community by making sure everyone you know votes red. That's the kind of cooperation that humans have evolved with. What you're talking about is undifferentiated, universal empathy, where someone would be willing to risk the lives of those close to them for a greater chance to help those who are outside their immediate reach to persuade. I suspect if you played this game, lots of tight-knit, high-cooperation groups would undertake coordinated campaigns to ensure the survival of their members by ensuring everyone votes red.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- selfhoster1312 5mo agoWell that's exactly how empathy plays out in real life. It's not an abstract feeling. People often put their lives at stake for others, which is something game theorists can't really appreciate.