A common refrain in the lefty blogosphere is that you have to support the candidate with a D after their name, even if they repeatedly betray your causes and ideals, because the Republicans are worse. They’ll repeal all the ‘great’ legislation the Democrats have passed over the past two years, and continue all the terrible policies the Democrats have unfortunately continued – policies which are also, conveniently, the Republicans’ fault.

However, game theory teaches us something quite different – that cooperation without the threat of retaliation for betrayal is a sucker’s game.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma

To see why, let’s back up a bit. First, what’s Game Theory? From Wikipedia:

Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that is used in the social sciences, most notably in economics, as well as in biology (particularly evolutionary biology and ecology), engineering, political science, international relations, computer science, and philosophy. Game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, or games, in which an individual’s success in making choices depends on the choices of others.

In essence, it’s roleplaying as science. To try and understand what the best strategies are when dealing with other actors, you set up a mock version, either on a computer or for kicks in real life, and play out the various strategems, measuring which is more successful and what the pitfalls are. The results can often be surprising.

One of the most famous experiments in game theory is the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’. Again, from Wikipedia:

The prisoner’s dilemma is a fundamental problem in game theory that demonstrates why two people might not cooperate even if it is in both their best interests to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs and gave it the “prisoner’s dilemma” name (Poundstone, 1992).

A classic example of the prisoner’s dilemma (PD) is presented as follows:
Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated the prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies for the prosecution against the other (defects) and the other remains silent (cooperates), the defector goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

Obviously, the prisoners would be better off if they cooperated – 1 year’s combined jail time is a lot better than 10, which is the result if either betrays the other, or both do. However, it’s not *rational* to cooperate – no matter which choice your opponent makes, betraying them increases your benefit. If they cooperate, you stab them in the back and walk free. If they stab you, you protect yourself by backstabbing them.

A pretty bleak assessment of human nature, eh? The problem here is accountability, or rather, the lack thereof. Remember the setup: the police make sure neither prisoner can confer with the other until after the decision has been made, and you only get to make it once.

If accountability is added, however, things turn can turn out very differently.

The Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, aka Politics

If you set up a game where the players have to run through that same scenario multiple times, with memory of what happened before, things turn out differently, and different strategies succeed. If you defect every time, your opponent is free to, and indeed only rational to follow your example. Likewise, however, if you cooperate every time, your opponent can see an easy mark and take advantage.

Wikipedia again:

Retaliating
However, Axelrod contended, the successful strategy must not be a blind optimist. It must sometimes retaliate. An example of a non-retaliating strategy is Always Cooperate. This is a very bad choice, as “nasty” strategies will ruthlessly exploit such players.

Herein lies the fundamental flaw in always voting Dem just because Republicans are worse, and we have decades of math to back it up. If you always cooperate, your opponent will face enormous temptation, arguably selection pressure, to defect and betray you. It’s only a matter of time, and what’s more, they face absolutely no penalty for doing so – you’ll just cooperate again the next round.

If, on the other hand, you are willing to retaliate, a more successful strategy can be devised.

Tit for Tat
As it turns out, cooperating all the time and defecting all the time are both proven losers, given repeat performances. So what works?

It turns out, a combination of the two. I’ll let Carl Sagan explain this one (from his essay ‘The Rules of the Game’, collected in Billions and Billions):

The most effective strategy in many such tournaments is called “Tit-for-Tat.” It’s very simple: You start out cooperating, and in each subsequent round simply do what your opponent did last time. You punish defections, but once your partner cooperates, you’re willing to let bygones be bygones. At first, it seems to garner only mediocre success. But as time goes on the other strategies defeat themselves, from too much kindness or cruelty, and this middle way pulls ahead. Except for always being nice on the first move, Tit-for-Tat is identical to the Brazen Rule. It promptly (in the very next game) rewards cooperation and punishes defection, and has the great virtue that it makes your strategy absolutely clear to your opponent. (Strategic ambiguity can be lethal.)

The problem for Progressives is that we’re being told to, and have in the past often utilized an Always Cooperate strategy.. and our partners in elected office learned that long ago, and are exploiting it.

On gay rights, on immigration, on financial reform, on restoring the rule of law, on putting torturers on trial, on unions and the free choice act, on escalating unwinnable wars, on fighting the legalization of marijuana, on just about any and almost every single Progressive issue you can name the current Democratic party has defected. Why?

Because it’s a winning strategy to defect if you know your opponent will always cooperate; in fact, it’s the absolute best strategy to employ.

The Way Ahead

The only way we can expect to stop the exploitation is to show our would-be-defectors in the Democratic Party that we’ve woken up, once and for all, and are willing to retaliate when defected from. Yes, if we do so, we’ll lose in this round of our iterated game. We might, in fact, lose very badly indeed.

The alternative, however, is clear, from both game theory and common sense: the exploitation will *never* stop. Never. Let’s be very clear; the current dilemma Progressives face with their estranged counterparts does not stem from a lack of understanding; the party understands us all too well. It isn’t the result of Dems failing to learn from past mistakes; on the contrary, they’ve learned exceptionally well from ours.

It’s time to teach a new lesson.

There’s really no other way to interpret this:

Obama said he was proud the country had rallied around the idea that we can’t be divided because of religion or ethnicity – and hopes that is something that can continue.

“We are all Americans, we stand together,” Obama said. “I think it is absolutely important now for majority of Americans to hang onto that thing that is best in us: a belief in religious tolerance. We have to make sure we don’t start turning on each other.”

“We are one nation under God. We may call that God different names, but we are one nation.”

He really, really doesn’t want to know the names I’ve called his God. I’ll make a point of coming up with a few more later this morning, right before I blaspheme and break some commandments.

(Maybe coveting, that one’s easy. I could make an idol to worship for a day before I toss it in the trash, which is the natural home for religious materials in my home anyway. I did find some modeling clay in the storage room this afternoon… maybe make a calf statue, slap some gold paint on it, go all Old Testament for a lark.)

Reading this tripe was a fine way to cap off a lousy week of listening to people bleat about what a terrible tragedy it would be if someone burned a book, ostensibly because it might make someone else mad at our troops somewhere. Glenn Greenwald’s done yeoman’s work on that particular load of nonsense; suffice it to say, I think he’s right that the the Islamic world maybe, just *maybe* is angrier at us for slaughtering their family members by the tens of thousands than they’ll get for an impromptu paperback BBQ in Florida.

Still, I guess it was time for the periodic pro-religious unity propaganda, to put us silly non-believers back in our place.

As PZ Myers said:

Tolerance is a good idea. But Obama has just divided the nation, forgetting all of his previous brief, superficial mentions of non-believers, into those who are part of his one nation under God, and the rest of us, who are…what? Not part of the nation?

Thanks for reminding me where I stand in the glorious American experiment, Obama. I’m so glad we elected a Constitutional ‘scholar’… albeit one who apparently never read the First Amendment.

I’m so glad I keep tequila in the house.

And just to be absolutely clear; I am an American and part of this nation, but I am under no one’s god. Not now, not ever.

Ok, here’s an argument I am sick to damn death of hearing: Sure, HCR may have been a mess with huge bailouts and bribes given to the mass-murdering insurance companies, Big Pharma, Hospital chains and the like, but hey, it’s serious progress, because it makes healthcare a ‘right’ in America for the first time.

Christ people. Health care is now a right. I know, I know. We didn’t get to punish insurance companies and tell off the Republicans while we did it. I give up.

Wrong. Astoundingly, absolutely, ridiculously stupid and wrong.

Under the new HCR scheme, you don’t have a ‘right’ to healthcare. You don’t even have a ‘right’ to health insurance. What you have is a mandate to PURCHASE or otherwise acquire insurance, and maybe, if you’re poor enough, the government will pick it up for you or put you on Medicaid instead. Otherwise you’ll get inadequate subsidies, and if you still can’t pay, the Feds will have the IRS take a fine out of your tax return.

See the difference? I know it’s subtle. /snark

A right is something that is guaranteed to you, that your fellow citizens have to respect and your government is obligated to protect. In no way, under no conceivable logic, does this healthcare bill give you a ‘right’ to health care. At best, it protects you from being completely denied for insurance under certain criteria. That’s ok; the insurance companies can just raise the premiums to whatever they want with no meaningful oversight on rates, and if you don’t like it, tough luck. If you can’t afford the copays after the sky high premiums? Tough luck. If they deny your care after you pay their extortionate rates? You can appeal, and appeal, and appeal, and if you’re still alive when and if they get overturned, you might get your care.

Good luck with that.