First, as always I find interesting thoughts here. Thanks for effort and post. Now I’ll “defect” by saying I really should give more time to read this more closely and completely before commenting! ;-)
However, I did want to make a few comments/observations.
I’m not sure the PD approach applies—but that might be colored by my dislike of the metaphor in many situations. Everyone seems to forget about the third player in the game here: The Jailer who setup the pay off matrix and that the socially optimal result is that both confess (defect on their other). That’s not really the setting for the idea of common knowledge and it’s value in social setting (regardless of size but wonder if that shouldn’t be also explored here. Is that common knowledge between two people regarding their desire for sex the same category as that of common knowledge as manifest in things like custom and culture?)
I’m not sure I agree that the free-rider problem is actually a version of PD either. However, rather than splitting hairs on that I’ll simply ask if you have considered the converse problem—that of forced carrying: making the person contribute/go along even though they don’t personally derive any benefit and in fact the cost to them may even outweigh the external benefit to other in aggregate from that forced contribution. Not sure how to plug that into the question of common knowledge here. I do see how complete information would allow the free-rider to be distinguished from the force-carrier. But that seems a bit tangental to your post.
It also seems that the phenomea of voting cycles and agenda setting might fit into your analysis somewhere. Common knowledge may address one (agenda setting) to some extent but voting cycles and the underlying driver of multi-peaked preferences will remain. In that context I’m not sure common knowledge helps solve the problems, at least from a statbility stand point. In such a setting it seems we want a form of instability, especially if those multi-peaked preferences are not stable over time.
First, as always I find interesting thoughts here. Thanks for effort and post. Now I’ll “defect” by saying I really should give more time to read this more closely and completely before commenting! ;-)
However, I did want to make a few comments/observations.
I’m not sure the PD approach applies—but that might be colored by my dislike of the metaphor in many situations. Everyone seems to forget about the third player in the game here: The Jailer who setup the pay off matrix and that the socially optimal result is that both confess (defect on their other). That’s not really the setting for the idea of common knowledge and it’s value in social setting (regardless of size but wonder if that shouldn’t be also explored here. Is that common knowledge between two people regarding their desire for sex the same category as that of common knowledge as manifest in things like custom and culture?)
I’m not sure I agree that the free-rider problem is actually a version of PD either. However, rather than splitting hairs on that I’ll simply ask if you have considered the converse problem—that of forced carrying: making the person contribute/go along even though they don’t personally derive any benefit and in fact the cost to them may even outweigh the external benefit to other in aggregate from that forced contribution. Not sure how to plug that into the question of common knowledge here. I do see how complete information would allow the free-rider to be distinguished from the force-carrier. But that seems a bit tangental to your post.
It also seems that the phenomea of voting cycles and agenda setting might fit into your analysis somewhere. Common knowledge may address one (agenda setting) to some extent but voting cycles and the underlying driver of multi-peaked preferences will remain. In that context I’m not sure common knowledge helps solve the problems, at least from a statbility stand point. In such a setting it seems we want a form of instability, especially if those multi-peaked preferences are not stable over time.