Incidentally, you can blockquote paragraphs by putting > in front of them, and you can find other help by clicking the “Show Help” button to the bottom right of the text box. (I have no clue why it’s all the way over there; it makes it way less visible.)
There’s actually a pretty good counter-argument to this, namely the fact that capital is vastly easier to destroy than it is to create, and that, thusly, an area which avoids conflict has an enormous advantage over one that doesn’t because it maintains more of its capital.
But, the more conflict avoidant the agents in an area, the more there is to gain from being an agent that seeks conflict.
The more conflict avoidant the agents in an area, the more there is to gain from being an agent that seeks conflict.
This is only true if the conflict avoidance is innate and is not instead a form of reciprocal altruism.
Reciprocal altruism is an ESS where pure altruism is not because you cannot take advantage of it in this way; if you become belligerent, then everyone else turns on you and you lose. Thus, it is never to your advantage to become belligerent.
Agreed. The word ‘avoid’ and the group selection-y argument made me think it was a good idea to raise that objection and make sure we were discussing reciprocal pacifists, not pure pacifists.
Incidentally, you can blockquote paragraphs by putting > in front of them, and you can find other help by clicking the “Show Help” button to the bottom right of the text box. (I have no clue why it’s all the way over there; it makes it way less visible.)
But, the more conflict avoidant the agents in an area, the more there is to gain from being an agent that seeks conflict.
This is only true if the conflict avoidance is innate and is not instead a form of reciprocal altruism.
Reciprocal altruism is an ESS where pure altruism is not because you cannot take advantage of it in this way; if you become belligerent, then everyone else turns on you and you lose. Thus, it is never to your advantage to become belligerent.
Agreed. The word ‘avoid’ and the group selection-y argument made me think it was a good idea to raise that objection and make sure we were discussing reciprocal pacifists, not pure pacifists.