The Crypto Winter

[Sunder]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Jim Choate wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Thomas Lyon Gideon wrote:
> 
> > The point about emergent behavior is excellently made.  A corollary that
> > occurs to me is that one of the prime motivators in the emergent quality of
> > human society may well be the pursuit of non-zero sum games.
> 
> Of course people want to take advantage of others. This realization is
> what is behind the CACL objection to 'government' (which after all is an
> emergent behaviour - ponder that one for a moment and your thrill may fall
> away quickly). Their failure is recognizing that the 'government' is
> itself an emergent behaviour (albeit an intentional one now - one can't
> really speak to how they first came about, it very well could have been
> very ant-like with respect to large family groups).

Um, I'm not sure I can follow Choatatian Prime logic here.  Where did
Thomas's posting state that "of course people want to take advantage of
others?"  Then again, it doesn't matter at all.

If your assumption is that all people take advantage of each other, then
it's still "Freedom for me, and Freedom for you" rewritten as "I'm free to
take advantage of you, you're free to take advantage of me."

No, government isn't an emergent behavior of individuals.  It's based on
leaders and followers in certain percentages.  There can be no leaders if
no one is willing to follow them.  But of course this isn't the
case.  Therefore there is some measure of consent on the part of the
followers, whether it was in the form of guns pointed at their heads, or
free choice.  However, once you read up on ants, you'll find, there is no
ant government at all.

I also fail to follow your Choatian-Prime logic that connects "of course
people want to take advantage of each other" to the emergence of
governments.

> 
> > This assumption is based on my reading of Robert Wright's _Non Zero_.  
> > I think Sunder hits this on the head as well when he goes off about how 
> > self interest does not necessarily harm others, that as humans we are not
> > typically bound by win-lose scenarios.  Rather some behavior may result in
> > poor or no gains on a societal scale and others may result in increased
> > benefits for all.
> 
> Actually it isn't a well made point at all. To compare programmed
> behaviour and biological caste systems to a bunch of humans with
> self-referential views is the worst case of begging the question. He's
> certainly made a hypothesis, no evidence has been forthcoming for it and
> there is a very large body that would argue against it.

What proof do you have that ants don't have self referential views, or
that humans don't have biological hard wired behaviors?  I in fact did not
make a hypothetis comparing humans to ants, I instead provided an example
where a central authority is not needed.  

The hypothesis is that individuals may act in their own self interest, and
still derrive benefits for the group by doing so.  There was no direct
comparison of ants and humans, and I in fact stated that you shouldn't
even attempt to do so.

> In addition, emergent behavior may or may not actually help the individual
> components of the population. 

It's very simple.  This is where evolution in action comes in.  If the
emergent behavior is harmful to the individuals, they will cease to
contribute to it, or cease to exist.  Therefore the rest of the following
paragraph is moot.

> Remember the concept of 'evolution'. To get
> the ants and bees we have now required a bunch of ants and bees which
> didn't survive because their programming didn't work. 


> It's also worth
> noting that the understanding we have of emergent systems are for
> reletively simple systems. 

Absolutely true.  However that does not in any way take away from my
original point.  Individuals acting in self interest in large groups can
benefit most of the group members, and possibly even outsiders.  You've
yet to come up with a logical counterpoint against this.

> Something that can't be said about any group of
> humans irrespective of size. 

But it can, and is very obvious that humans are social - that is that they
interact with other humans for mutual benefit, and that through this
interaction most members of said society will benefit.  Where hermits
living solitarily in caves will toil, societies that work together will
benefit one another - and do so without the need to enslave their members.

> This 'evolution' argument could actually be
> used against CACL theories because governments didn't always exist, at
> some point they emerged.

Evolution isn't emergence.  They're two distinct theories. They can work
together, just as you can have apples and orages in a fruit salad.  But
they're not the same thing.  However, governments started to exist as soon
as weapons did.
 
> Sunders comparison is fundamentaly flawed, the only thing he hit on the
> head was himself.

Confusing yourself with others again?  Must suck to be you.

> > In this light, seemingly altruistic behavior can be re-interpreted as
> > banking favors against future need.  One of Wright's better examples is the
> > practice in certain tribal societies of giving away excess food.  Usually
> > the food wouldn't keep long, anyway, and by helping a neighbor out today
> > help is usually secured against future need when a neighbor may be the one
> > with the excess.
> 
> Altruistism is cloaked self-interest. The only reason one helps another is
> because at some level it helps themselves (you can talk about % of genes
> passed to next generations, getting laid after the prom, or you can talk
> about helping another buy a car and getting rides as a result - makes no
> diff).

Absolutely correct.  See, you are agreeing with the theory.  Since
altrusim is self interest, everyone is free to help each other to their
own benefit.  I help you with something, you later return the favor with
something else.  Thus is born a contract.  I do X, in exchange you do Y.

Tim helps me with something, you help Tim with something, I help you with
something even out the debt, and thus the sum grows to be bigger than it's
parts, but all of the parts benefit.  I had a contract with Tim, you had a
contract with Tim, we can aggregate them.

So I say, "I'm looking out for my interests, you're free to do the same"
so does Tim, and so does Jim.  As a "society" all its members benefit.  
Say Joe comes along and begs for food.  We may help him get some food, but
we'd want something in return later on, thus another contract.  It's still
"Freedom for me and freedom for you."

Say Jeff comes along and puts a gun to our heads and demands all our
food.  At this point, it's "Freedom for Jeff, none for us."


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