Commentary:

Trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma with fools playing a zero-sum game

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
   -Herbert Spencer

It is likely you have, but perhaps you do not know the origin of the terminology.

It arises out of game theory, which is the study of human interactions through the use of what the mathematicians like to call formalized incentive structures but what the rest of us would call games.

A zero-sum game is one where the gains from winning exactly offset the losses in losing. In other words, there is no net gain or loss, the sum is zero. The vast majority of sports are zero-sum games, where there is a winner and a loser. Generally, the team with the most wins advances towards the championship. Poker is another zero-sum game, where if played long enough, the winner walks away with all the cash, and the other players have completely lost the stake they brought to the game.

People in Western cultures generally think of life in terms of zero-sums: I win, you lose.

Given that prevalent mode of thought, it is unfortunate for us that the world does not operate according to the principles of a zero-sum game. More often than not, situations arise where there is a win-lose, lose-win, or win-win scenario possible.

With surprising frequency, real life follows the Prisoner's Dilemma. From the classic description of the Dilemma:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and having separated both prisoners, visit each of them and offer the same deal: if one confesses and the other remains silent, the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence and the confessor goes free. If both stay silent, the police can only give both prisoners 6 months for a minor charge. If both confess, they receive a 2 year sentence each.

Now, take a moment and think. For a society such as that in the United States, can anyone who is rational enough to comprehend that they themselves do not hold all the answers truly say that total destruction of those who think differently is a Good Thing?

Expend the brief time needed to fully comprehend the implications.

While you think, consider this example of a non-zero-sum situation, from the Wikipedia article on the Prisoner's Dilemma, a timely illustration given the recent announcement by 6-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong:

Another interesting example concerns a well-known concept in cycling races, for instance in the Tour de France. Consider two cyclists halfway in a race, with the peloton (larger group) at great distance. The two cyclists often work together (mutual cooperation) by sharing the tough load of the front position, where there is no shelter from the wind. If neither of the cyclists makes an effort to stay ahead, the peloton will soon catch up (mutual defection). An often-seen scenario is one cyclist doing the hard work alone (cooperating), keeping the two ahead of the peloton. In the end, this will likely lead to a victory for the second cyclist (defecting) who has an easy ride in the first rider's slipstream.

In political science, for instance, the PD (Prisoner's Dilemma) scenario is often used to illustrate the problem of two states engaged in an arms race. Both will reason that they have two options, either to increase military expenditure or to make an agreement to reduce weapons. Neither state can be certain that the other one will keep to such an agreement; therefore, they both incline towards military expansion. The irony is that both states seem to act rationally, but the result is completely irrational.

Defecting, if the other party cooperates, gains the defector a clear victory with no price paid by the victor, but the cooperator loses much.

Mutual defection costs both parties more than the sum of the prices paid by each party if both cooperate.

Mutual cooperation results in the least total cost.

In a society, can one say that a large loss by any significant fraction of the society actually ADDS to the benefit of society as a WHOLE, if one wishes to adhere to a fundamental morality and avoid the "final solution" path that was shown to be so despicable?

Think about this for a moment.

Now, think about the recent history of the United States, as recent as the Reagan era or the first President Bush, or even the early Clinton era, where liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, actually cooperated and negotiated compromises to fashion laws, recognizing there is a larger responsibility than having one wing or the other gain complete and total victory, destroying the other wing.

Next, think about the current events in the United States.

Think about the tactics used by President George W. Bush, where he says he wants to cooperate, but in the end settles for nothing less than his original positions.

Think about the tactics used by the majority Republican Party in the conference committees meant to resolve differences in bills passed in the two houses of Congress that exclude any ideas from the minority party, the Democratic Party.

Then, read and think upon this:

The old aphorism, "Is this any way to run a railroad?" seems to apply here.

BOTH parties, BOTH wings, have reverted to zero-sum tactics in a non-zero-sum game.

We are all trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma with fools playing a zero-sum game.

As I have said repeatedly, we ALL have to live together, or balkanize and become as weak as the nation-states in that tragic region.

Which do you prefer, living together in an admittedly uneasy compromise, or the aptly acronymed MAD of Mutual Assured Destruction?

More importantly, which do you feel is the true heritage given to us by our Founders, who created the concept of a bicameral legislature in a compromise between the concerns of large states versus small states?

Who did YOU vote for in the last election?

Did they use the rhetoric of the zero-sum-game?

Are they now acting exactly as their rhetoric promised?

Are you satisfied with that result?

Who is ultimately responsible?

In the United States, for now, YOU, the voter are responsible.

Recalling the words of the most intelligent of the Founders when asked after the Constitutional Convention whether the American people had a republic or a monarchy, the reply:

A republic if you can keep it.
   -Benjamin Franklin

Keeping it requires a moral courage to not react according to the gut, and the tenacity to wade through the bullshit to find the RIGHT people to represent us.

Are you willing to show that moral courage and tenacity?