There are complex rules about what are you allowed to say where. Saying something as a joke a in romantic comedy may increase your revenues; saying the same thing in academy can get you fired. I should have added the proper disclaimers.
The same message can be at the same time in the same country both popular and forbidden, both mainstream and ostracized, both “of course everybody knows this” and “you must be an evil mutant if you even think about this”.
In their private lives many people find a win-win solution. Also, many don’t. Even without the explicit game theory people gradually gain some insight that (1) with some people pressing the “cooperate” button brings you horrible outcomes, but (2) pressing the “defect” button almost always brings bad long-term outcome; therefore the key to long-term happiness is pressing the “cooperate” button with a person who is able and willing to respond properly.
But even then there is the nagging feeling that your outcome could have been better if you just were allowed to press “defect” while the other person would for some reason press their “cooperate” button. And there are often friendly people telling you that this is exactly what you deserve, and that you should be true to thyself and never compromise for other than the greatest value in your payoff matrix.
Of course the problem is that the buttons are not labelled “cooperate” and “defect” on both sides; that would make the whole situation much easier. Instead, my “cooperate” button comes with a label “Sacrifice”, and the “defect” button comes with a label “Freedom”. I don’t clearly see what is written on your buttons, but considering the effect they have on me, I simply call your “cooperate” button the good button, and your “defect” button the bad button. Therefore it seems obvious to me that you have a moral obligation to push the good button, while I have a moral right to push the freedom button. And I don’t understand why do you always have to discuss this obviously superior solution.
This is what being in a Prisoners’ Dilemma with unacknowledged different values feels like from inside.
My point was that some sort of gender essentialism (“men and women necessarily have different values”) and heteronormativity (“the ideal outcome for every man and every woman is a Cooperate/Cooperate pairing with a member of the opposite sex”) are so mainstream as to be almost entirely uncontroversial until rather recently.
In many contexts, anyone who complains about them, or considers that the world could be otherwise, is dismissed as a loser incapable of dealing with reality. (Whether male or female; one word for a female loser is “ugly”, while one word for a male loser is “immature” and another is “whipped”.)
However, to stick with your Prisoner’s Dilemma theme: Part of the point of the feminist idea of “patriarchy” is that the deal that women get out of the traditional arrangement is not a nice strategy like tit-for-tat. The strategy that patriarchy teaches men to follow in their relations with women is more like an extortionate strategy, where the expected penalties for non-cooperation are much greater for women. (“Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them.”)
One thing I wonder about genetic essentialism on sexual behavior is how many generations it would take for moral changes at the social level to be driven into the genome. Here’s a nasty, nasty thought-experiment: Suppose there is (or can be) genetic variation in the tendency of men to rape women. In a society where rape victims are made to bear their assailants’ children, “rape genes” could be quite favored by evolution. In a society where rape victims reliably get abortions, and rapists are castrated or executed, “rape genes” would be extinguished — and a mutation that made rape less likely would be favored.
How’s that? Can I get some of those taboo points? :)
However, to stick with your Prisoner’s Dilemma theme: Part of the point of the feminist idea of “patriarchy” is that the deal that women get out of the traditional arrangement is not a nice strategy like tit-for-tat. The strategy that patriarchy teaches men to follow in their relations with women is more like an extortionate strategy, where the expected penalties for non-cooperation are much greater for women. (“Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them.”)
Men are also afraid of being killed by men. US statistics here for which sex has more to fear from men. “The battle of the sexes” is not a two player game; I think analogies to the prisoner’s dilemma are misleading.
One thing I wonder about genetic essentialism on sexual behavior is how many generations it would take for moral changes at the social level to be driven into the genome. Here’s a nasty, nasty thought-experiment: Suppose there is (or can be) genetic variation in the tendency of men to rape women. In a society where rape victims are made to bear their assailants’ children, “rape genes” could be quite favored by evolution. In a society where rape victims reliably get abortions, and rapists are castrated or executed, “rape genes” would be extinguished — and a mutation that made rape less likely would be favored.
If you replace “rape” by more general antisocial behavior, there is some discussion about whether this has been happening in Pinker’s “Angels.”
There are complex rules about what are you allowed to say where. Saying something as a joke a in romantic comedy may increase your revenues; saying the same thing in academy can get you fired. I should have added the proper disclaimers.
The same message can be at the same time in the same country both popular and forbidden, both mainstream and ostracized, both “of course everybody knows this” and “you must be an evil mutant if you even think about this”.
In their private lives many people find a win-win solution. Also, many don’t. Even without the explicit game theory people gradually gain some insight that (1) with some people pressing the “cooperate” button brings you horrible outcomes, but (2) pressing the “defect” button almost always brings bad long-term outcome; therefore the key to long-term happiness is pressing the “cooperate” button with a person who is able and willing to respond properly.
But even then there is the nagging feeling that your outcome could have been better if you just were allowed to press “defect” while the other person would for some reason press their “cooperate” button. And there are often friendly people telling you that this is exactly what you deserve, and that you should be true to thyself and never compromise for other than the greatest value in your payoff matrix.
Of course the problem is that the buttons are not labelled “cooperate” and “defect” on both sides; that would make the whole situation much easier. Instead, my “cooperate” button comes with a label “Sacrifice”, and the “defect” button comes with a label “Freedom”. I don’t clearly see what is written on your buttons, but considering the effect they have on me, I simply call your “cooperate” button the good button, and your “defect” button the bad button. Therefore it seems obvious to me that you have a moral obligation to push the good button, while I have a moral right to push the freedom button. And I don’t understand why do you always have to discuss this obviously superior solution.
This is what being in a Prisoners’ Dilemma with unacknowledged different values feels like from inside.
My point was that some sort of gender essentialism (“men and women necessarily have different values”) and heteronormativity (“the ideal outcome for every man and every woman is a Cooperate/Cooperate pairing with a member of the opposite sex”) are so mainstream as to be almost entirely uncontroversial until rather recently.
In many contexts, anyone who complains about them, or considers that the world could be otherwise, is dismissed as a loser incapable of dealing with reality. (Whether male or female; one word for a female loser is “ugly”, while one word for a male loser is “immature” and another is “whipped”.)
However, to stick with your Prisoner’s Dilemma theme: Part of the point of the feminist idea of “patriarchy” is that the deal that women get out of the traditional arrangement is not a nice strategy like tit-for-tat. The strategy that patriarchy teaches men to follow in their relations with women is more like an extortionate strategy, where the expected penalties for non-cooperation are much greater for women. (“Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them.”)
One thing I wonder about genetic essentialism on sexual behavior is how many generations it would take for moral changes at the social level to be driven into the genome. Here’s a nasty, nasty thought-experiment: Suppose there is (or can be) genetic variation in the tendency of men to rape women. In a society where rape victims are made to bear their assailants’ children, “rape genes” could be quite favored by evolution. In a society where rape victims reliably get abortions, and rapists are castrated or executed, “rape genes” would be extinguished — and a mutation that made rape less likely would be favored.
How’s that? Can I get some of those taboo points? :)
Men are also afraid of being killed by men. US statistics here for which sex has more to fear from men. “The battle of the sexes” is not a two player game; I think analogies to the prisoner’s dilemma are misleading.
If you replace “rape” by more general antisocial behavior, there is some discussion about whether this has been happening in Pinker’s “Angels.”