On 20 June 2014 20:27, David Boxall <lin...@boxall.name> wrote:
> I rather like the concept of #mutuallyassuredhumiliation. > There is a basic conflict in a social species between self-interest and group-interest. A cooperative group can achieve a vastly higher level of biological success than a solitary organism. Humans are creatively cooperative to a degree not seen elsewhere in the living world*. It has allowed us to take over the planet. However, the benefits of cooperation accrue to all members of the group where as the costs - time, effort, risks - apply to the individuals who work on the group tasks. This poses a basic problem. The "ideal" strategy for the individual is to appear to cooperate but to actually "defect" and work for themselves while reaping the benefits of group action. However, if everyone does this the group fails, so some serious mechanisms are required to prevent the defectors from ruining the party. Those mechanisms must have co-evolved along with cooperation. They would be the capacity for morality, watchfulness for defectors, and the sufficient desire to punish defectors even when executing the punishment creates a significant cost. A further clever innovation is the evolved capacity for shame. This unpleasant emotion, which has actually been found to activate the pain centres of the brain, allows defectors to be controlled without most of the the risk associated of physical punishments, and even to put the individual in charge of monitoring themselves. A lot of game theory and observational work done has been done on this problem. From game theory analysis, cooperation appears to a quite fragile state, easily disrupted by defectors. This result holds across a wide variety of simulations. It requires a significant effort to maintain but is also at risk from overzealous sanctions against defectors. Since we are all prone to errors, both in our own behaviour and in misjudging others, the optimal strategy is to be forgiving to a point but to be resolute about applying sanctions to repeat transgressors. In practice, the whole thing is rather fraught. These mechanisms evolved when we lived in small groups. The intuitions they provide struggle to cope with modern complex society and are open to exploitation by shock jocks, politicians, and various axe grinders, among others. Formal systems, like the law, have to deal with individuals who range from highly cooperative saints, to the great group of more-or-less cooperative but occasionally cheating group, to the small percentage of unshameable sociopaths who seem to be in jail or in various positions of power, sometimes in an alternating fashion. Where does the "right" to be forgotten fit into this picture? Reputation is an important mechanism for maintaining cooperation. It can sound unforgiving but requiring people to care for their reputations appears to me to be something to not drop lightly. Indeed, the growing libertarian world view where the individual has primacy, unencumbered by responsibility back to society, seems to me to pose a basic threat to cooperative aka civil society. Jim * If you're interested, I would recommend the book SuperCooperators by Nowak and Highfield. It changed a few of my ideas. _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
