Extortionate strategies in the Prisoner’s Dilemma don’t create value as well as nice strategies do, nor do they do as well against one another as nice strategies do; but they beat nice strategies individually.
Some sorts of oppression seem to follow the pattern of extortionate strategies — “I will take advantage of you, and will make it so that you are better off if you let me do so, than if you fight back.”
(Real-world examples are probably unhelpful here; I expect that everyone can think of one or two.)
What if the problem is “I want to oppress you, but I know individually being nicer would get me more of what I want, so instead I’m going to recruit allies that will help me oppress you because I think that will get me even more of what I want.”
Extortionate strategies in the Prisoner’s Dilemma don’t create value as well as nice strategies do, nor do they do as well against one another as nice strategies do; but they beat nice strategies individually.
Some sorts of oppression seem to follow the pattern of extortionate strategies — “I will take advantage of you, and will make it so that you are better off if you let me do so, than if you fight back.”
(Real-world examples are probably unhelpful here; I expect that everyone can think of one or two.)
What if the problem is “I want to oppress you, but I know individually being nicer would get me more of what I want, so instead I’m going to recruit allies that will help me oppress you because I think that will get me even more of what I want.”