I think there’s a decent chance this post inspires someone to develop methods for honing a highly neglected facet of collective rationality. The methods might not end up being a game. Games are exercises but most practical learning exercises aren’t as intuitively engaging or strategically deep as a game. I think the article holds value regardless just for having pointed out that there is this important, neglected skill.
Despite LW’s interest in practical rationality and community thereof, I don’t think there’s been any discussion of this social skill of acknowledging difference, and efficiently converging towards ideal compromises. Past discussion of negotiation has often settled for roughschelling equilibria, arbitrary, often ossified resolutions. People will and should go to war against (excessively) arbitrary equilibria (and in the information age, they should start to expect more agile, intentional coordination processes). After Unifying Bargaining I’d say we know, now, that we can probably do a bit better than arbitrary.
For instance, in the case of abram’s example of national borders: The borders of a territory need not be arbitrary historical features, under higher negotiation efficiencies, the borders correspond directly to our shared understanding of who can defend which areas and how willing they are to do it. Under even higher negotiation efficiencies, borders become an anachronism at their fringes and the uses of land are negotiated dynamically depending on who needs to do what and when.
To most laypeople, today, the notion of a “perfect and correct compromise” will feel like an oxymoron or a social impossibility. At this point, I think I know a perfect compromise when I see it, and I don’t think that sense requires an abnormal cultivation of character. I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone who seemed to be impossible to look in the eye and negotiate with, given a reasonable amount of time, and support. Humans, and especially human organisations have leaky, transparent cognitions, so I believe that it’s possible in general for a human to tell whether another human is acting according to what they see as a fair, good faith compromise, and I believe all it would take to normalise and awaken that in the wider world is a mutual common knowledge of what the dance looks like and how to get better at it.
I think there’s a decent chance this post inspires someone to develop methods for honing a highly neglected facet of collective rationality. The methods might not end up being a game. Games are exercises but most practical learning exercises aren’t as intuitively engaging or strategically deep as a game. I think the article holds value regardless just for having pointed out that there is this important, neglected skill.
Despite LW’s interest in practical rationality and community thereof, I don’t think there’s been any discussion of this social skill of acknowledging difference, and efficiently converging towards ideal compromises. Past discussion of negotiation has often settled for rough schelling equilibria, arbitrary, often ossified resolutions. People will and should go to war against (excessively) arbitrary equilibria (and in the information age, they should start to expect more agile, intentional coordination processes). After Unifying Bargaining I’d say we know, now, that we can probably do a bit better than arbitrary.
For instance, in the case of abram’s example of national borders: The borders of a territory need not be arbitrary historical features, under higher negotiation efficiencies, the borders correspond directly to our shared understanding of who can defend which areas and how willing they are to do it. Under even higher negotiation efficiencies, borders become an anachronism at their fringes and the uses of land are negotiated dynamically depending on who needs to do what and when.
To most laypeople, today, the notion of a “perfect and correct compromise” will feel like an oxymoron or a social impossibility. At this point, I think I know a perfect compromise when I see it, and I don’t think that sense requires an abnormal cultivation of character. I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone who seemed to be impossible to look in the eye and negotiate with, given a reasonable amount of time, and support. Humans, and especially human organisations have leaky, transparent cognitions, so I believe that it’s possible in general for a human to tell whether another human is acting according to what they see as a fair, good faith compromise, and I believe all it would take to normalise and awaken that in the wider world is a mutual common knowledge of what the dance looks like and how to get better at it.