The game theory matches my understanding pretty well. The example I’ve always had in mind (don’t remember if I read it somewhere or came up with it myself) is, suppose we live in a city where the roads are such that whenever two people come across each other, one of them has to step aside to let the other pass. It’s easy to see how an unfair equilibrium could develop where some arbitrary characteristic is used to determine who has to step aside. For example maybe whoever is taller gets to pass.
I read the last part of the book (through my university’s ebook library) where the author advocates using social justice activism to try to change the equilibrium. But she unfortunately doesn’t seem to acknowledge that in general there may be no way to obtain a fair equilibrium or no way to obtain an equilibrium that is both fair and efficient. (How would you do that in my example, without going outside the game entirely to do something like redistributing income to compensate for the unfairness, which I also don’t see discussed in the book?) So I have to push back a little bit on your assessment:
A lesser scholar, flinching from this terrible truth, might have seen fit to fudge their results, to select their modeling assumptions to present a softer narrative, something that would make better propaganda for the Blue Team …
no way to obtain a fair equilibrium or no way to obtain an equilibrium that is both fair and efficient. (How would you do that in my example, without going outside the game entirely
Taller person steps aside on even-numbered days, shorter person steps aside on odd-numbered days?? (If the “calendar cost” of remembering what day it is, is sufficiently small. But it might not be small if stepping-aside is mostly governed by ingrained habit.)
I had these same thoughts. As you say, it depends on the cost of remembering what day it is, and for the purpose of making my point, we can just assume that it’s not that small.
The game theory matches my understanding pretty well. The example I’ve always had in mind (don’t remember if I read it somewhere or came up with it myself) is, suppose we live in a city where the roads are such that whenever two people come across each other, one of them has to step aside to let the other pass. It’s easy to see how an unfair equilibrium could develop where some arbitrary characteristic is used to determine who has to step aside. For example maybe whoever is taller gets to pass.
I read the last part of the book (through my university’s ebook library) where the author advocates using social justice activism to try to change the equilibrium. But she unfortunately doesn’t seem to acknowledge that in general there may be no way to obtain a fair equilibrium or no way to obtain an equilibrium that is both fair and efficient. (How would you do that in my example, without going outside the game entirely to do something like redistributing income to compensate for the unfairness, which I also don’t see discussed in the book?) So I have to push back a little bit on your assessment:
Taller person steps aside on even-numbered days, shorter person steps aside on odd-numbered days?? (If the “calendar cost” of remembering what day it is, is sufficiently small. But it might not be small if stepping-aside is mostly governed by ingrained habit.)
I had these same thoughts. As you say, it depends on the cost of remembering what day it is, and for the purpose of making my point, we can just assume that it’s not that small.