From memory of The Evolution of Cooperation—the soldiers didn’t refuse to fire their artillery. They aimed to miss.
Artillery truces drove the generals crazy, and they tried various solutions that I don’t remember. None of the solutions worked until they discovered by accident that frequently rotating the artillery crews meant that histories of trust couldn’t be developed.
Perhaps the generals could be viewed as building cooperation at their own level to maintain the killing.
The standard prisoner’s dilemma assumes a symmetrical grid, with both prisoners getting the same punishments under the same circumstances. I don’t know whether unequal power (access to rewards, risk and severity of punishment) has been explored.
This isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma. But the term ‘defection’ is not specific to the prisoner’s dilemma.
I don’t know whether unequal power (access to rewards, risk and severity of punishment) has been explored.
They have. Both with actual Prisoner’s Dilemmas with non-equivalent payoffs and in various other games which take similar forms. In the former case the guy with the lower payoff tends to defect more to try to get ‘equality’. But that is in a situation in which the subjects consider themselves of equal status (probably volunteer undergrads).
When two executives are each trying to get their organizations to defect first in a standard prisoner’s dilemma when the organizations both have impulses towards cooperation, the identical strategies among the executives do not constitute “cooperation” between them.
I agree each has motivations to see that their orders are followed regardless of what is good for the organizations, but this is not cooperation because both would have their organizations defect regardless of whether the other organization was inclined to cooperate or defect.
Cooperation between generals on two sides might look something like the Battle of Tannenberg, where each Russian general may have wanted the Germans to beat the other general before beating the Germans himself. That would be manifested as lack of conflict, such as the Russian First Army waiting for the German Eighth Army to beat the Russian Second Army before joining the battle.
Cooperation to induce fighting might be each HQ broadcasting vulnerable locations for the other artillerists to shoot at, or similar. I don’t know of any such cases, but then again, I wouldn’t necessarily know of them.
A lull in artillery fire would generally support one side or the other. I don’t think that generals’ interests systematically differed from those of their sides in such a way as to make it in both sides’ generals’ interests for their to be artillery fire rather than no artillery fire.
I think it is more likely that each was mistakenly overconfident that they could win with their strategy and tactics. WWI is replete with examples of generals’ overconfidence and I think that is a much better explanation of why each would prefer his orders followed than wanting to “maintain the killing”/”supposed to be fighting”, which seems like suggesting they are innately evil.
There are many examples of officers thinking the war would be best conducted under their offensive strategy when all were wrong and a defensive strategy would have been better.
They want their orders to be followed?
This is a very good point.
I still don’t see any sign of cooperation among generals across sides. I think it is more likely that each correctly thought the truces bad for morale, and the Central Powers were concerned their troops would cease to have the morale for offensive operations while the Entente was concerned that their troops would cease to have the morale necessary to fight at all. This would leave some wrong about who the truces favored.
From memory of The Evolution of Cooperation—the soldiers didn’t refuse to fire their artillery. They aimed to miss.
Artillery truces drove the generals crazy, and they tried various solutions that I don’t remember. None of the solutions worked until they discovered by accident that frequently rotating the artillery crews meant that histories of trust couldn’t be developed.
Perhaps the generals could be viewed as building cooperation at their own level to maintain the killing.
And as defectors against the soldiers. That sounds about right. If only soldiers were better at coordinating against their commanding officers!
The standard prisoner’s dilemma assumes a symmetrical grid, with both prisoners getting the same punishments under the same circumstances. I don’t know whether unequal power (access to rewards, risk and severity of punishment) has been explored.
This isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma. But the term ‘defection’ is not specific to the prisoner’s dilemma.
They have. Both with actual Prisoner’s Dilemmas with non-equivalent payoffs and in various other games which take similar forms. In the former case the guy with the lower payoff tends to defect more to try to get ‘equality’. But that is in a situation in which the subjects consider themselves of equal status (probably volunteer undergrads).
What would they be thinking? What would their goals be, and why?
Promotion and social esteem? The paths of glory lead but to the grave—for thems as do the actual fighting.
When two executives are each trying to get their organizations to defect first in a standard prisoner’s dilemma when the organizations both have impulses towards cooperation, the identical strategies among the executives do not constitute “cooperation” between them.
I agree each has motivations to see that their orders are followed regardless of what is good for the organizations, but this is not cooperation because both would have their organizations defect regardless of whether the other organization was inclined to cooperate or defect.
Cooperation between generals on two sides might look something like the Battle of Tannenberg, where each Russian general may have wanted the Germans to beat the other general before beating the Germans himself. That would be manifested as lack of conflict, such as the Russian First Army waiting for the German Eighth Army to beat the Russian Second Army before joining the battle.
Cooperation to induce fighting might be each HQ broadcasting vulnerable locations for the other artillerists to shoot at, or similar. I don’t know of any such cases, but then again, I wouldn’t necessarily know of them.
They want their side to win?
They’re caught up in being generals, so they think there’s supposed to be fighting?
They want their orders to be followed?
A lull in artillery fire would generally support one side or the other. I don’t think that generals’ interests systematically differed from those of their sides in such a way as to make it in both sides’ generals’ interests for their to be artillery fire rather than no artillery fire.
I think it is more likely that each was mistakenly overconfident that they could win with their strategy and tactics. WWI is replete with examples of generals’ overconfidence and I think that is a much better explanation of why each would prefer his orders followed than wanting to “maintain the killing”/”supposed to be fighting”, which seems like suggesting they are innately evil.
There are many examples of officers thinking the war would be best conducted under their offensive strategy when all were wrong and a defensive strategy would have been better.
This is a very good point.
I still don’t see any sign of cooperation among generals across sides. I think it is more likely that each correctly thought the truces bad for morale, and the Central Powers were concerned their troops would cease to have the morale for offensive operations while the Entente was concerned that their troops would cease to have the morale necessary to fight at all. This would leave some wrong about who the truces favored.