Rob wrote:
>But no doubt many can be turned by
>trauma, and, of course, by the type of rhetoric David feeds us here - which
>leaves them nothing beyond 'With Me Or Against Me' in the self-fulfilling
>prophecy that attends militantly monotheistic final-reckoning-mongering.
I was recently reading William Poundstone's book, THE PRISONERS' DILEMMA, a
very useful (if partial) history of game theory. At the end, he discusses
the "dollar auction," a game in which people bid to buy a dollar bill.
According to the rules, the highest bidder gets the dollar (paying his or
her bid), while the next-highest has to pay her or his bid. It turns out
that this "auction" turns into a disaster, where both players end up paying
20 dollars or even more for one dollar. It depends on what kind of budget
constraints the players face. In any event the individual human rationality
of the "players" leads to collective disaster, as in Prisoner's Dilemma games.
The analogy is to an arms race. The US and USSR dramatically hurt their
respective economies by over-bidding in the global dollar auction (with the
latter hitting the budget constraint first). Similarly, we may be seeing
the development of a full-scale dollar auction between the US/NATO and the
shadowy terrorists. Maybe it's been developing for decades. The
WTC/Pentagon bombings might be seen as an especially dramatic, but
relatively low-cost, effort to end the game, but of course, it didn't do
that. (Sorry if this is cold: but we have to follow Herman Kahn's lead and
"think the unthinkable.") Instead, the US/NATO seems to making an even
bigger bid.
Of course, the analogy doesn't work exactly (they never do). The costs
aren't paid by the players, so the budget limits don't bind as quickly. The
US military-industrial complex (along with the smash civil liberties crowd,
etc.) _benefits_ from a continuation of the "game." The terrorists (whoever
they are) don't suffer much. Meanwhile the mass of powerless folks, both in
the US and the Middle East, are the sufferers -- too often dying in the
process.
The advice that Poundstone gives is to avoid playing the "game" in the
first place. But maybe an especially dramatic but relatively low-cost peace
initiative could stop it once it's started. It's unlikely to happen given
the nature of the leadership on the two "sides." "With Me Or Against Me"
rhetoric of course simply makes things worse.
BTW, I find it strange (but strangely predictable) that self-styled
libertarians jump on the smash-the-civil-liberties band-wagon so quickly,
shifting from "we all should be given a choice" to "we all should follow
orders."
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
