0. This just seems like a standard coordination problem that I would expect most rationalists to be familiar with. Is there some reason you needed an entirely new analogy? I would not have predicted that out of ~12 reasonably dedicated rationalists, more than 1 would not have this idea as a Thing That Exists In One’s Mind.
My impression is that while I might expect a median economist to have heard of a stag hunt, I don’t expect that of a median rationalist (where I do expect a median rationalist to have heard of the prisoner’s dilemma). Talking about choosing cooperate vs. defect triggers a different sort of social reasoning / mental movements than talking about choosing stag vs. rabbit.
(In particular, I remember several discussions about house culture early on, where a norm of “always cooperate” was proposed and got some pushback, when “choose stag” would have likely made more sense / gone over better.)
Something the book goes into, that SSC’s review does not, is a bit of military history and strategy, pioneered by a German named Moltke.
I don’t think auftragstaktik would’ve helped with the specific problems underlying 6. I think that was something more like—a major benefit of having a commander is to specialize cognitive labor and lower coordination costs (since everyone just needs to know the plan, not feel like they have justified the plan to their satisfaction), and instead we had more standard discussion and consensus forming that led to us not specializing cognitive labor or lowering coordination costs, and not having practiced following orders for when it was important to follow orders. (Mission-type tactics still relies on people following orders!)
As I pointed out in my recent post, in econ the prisoner’s dilemma is not a coordination problem, and it seems useful to conceptually separate those two decision matrices.
As I pointed out in my recent post, in econ the prisoner’s dilemma is not a coordination problem, and it seems useful to conceptually separate those two decision matrices.
Sure; did you read me as claiming that it was was?
I also note that the Stag Hunt is importantly different from the Coordination Game in that only one of the good outcomes requires coordination—if you choose Rabbit, you get the lower payoff regardless of what I do.
My impression is that while I might expect a median economist to have heard of a stag hunt, I don’t expect that of a median rationalist (where I do expect a median rationalist to have heard of the prisoner’s dilemma). Talking about choosing cooperate vs. defect triggers a different sort of social reasoning / mental movements than talking about choosing stag vs. rabbit.
(In particular, I remember several discussions about house culture early on, where a norm of “always cooperate” was proposed and got some pushback, when “choose stag” would have likely made more sense / gone over better.)
I don’t think auftragstaktik would’ve helped with the specific problems underlying 6. I think that was something more like—a major benefit of having a commander is to specialize cognitive labor and lower coordination costs (since everyone just needs to know the plan, not feel like they have justified the plan to their satisfaction), and instead we had more standard discussion and consensus forming that led to us not specializing cognitive labor or lowering coordination costs, and not having practiced following orders for when it was important to follow orders. (Mission-type tactics still relies on people following orders!)
As I pointed out in my recent post, in econ the prisoner’s dilemma is not a coordination problem, and it seems useful to conceptually separate those two decision matrices.
Sure; did you read me as claiming that it was was?
I also note that the Stag Hunt is importantly different from the Coordination Game in that only one of the good outcomes requires coordination—if you choose Rabbit, you get the lower payoff regardless of what I do.