Thanks for this—I think there’s a related concept that would benefit from a similar analysis, which is “trust”. In my mind, trust is the primary output of honesty, and it is trust which enables cooperation without perfect alignment. Both concepts can be modeled as (implicit) contracts, but I think it’s more precise to think of them as agents predicting each other, and WANTING to be predictable, in the shared games of mutual option selection (for both fixed and variable-sum interactions).
Thanks for this—I think there’s a related concept that would benefit from a similar analysis, which is “trust”. In my mind, trust is the primary output of honesty, and it is trust which enables cooperation without perfect alignment. Both concepts can be modeled as (implicit) contracts, but I think it’s more precise to think of them as agents predicting each other, and WANTING to be predictable, in the shared games of mutual option selection (for both fixed and variable-sum interactions).