B: (immediately punches A back, roughly equally hard)
A: Hey! You don’t get to hit me back. That’s the rules.
B: I understand. However, I was actually playing Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. And so were you, by the way. Furthermore, I wasn’t aware that we were playing Slug Bug, so my prior has to be that you were actually just demonstrating or testing your physical dominance over me.
A: We’re friends! We’ve known each other for forty years! You’re godfather to my children! I’m married to your sister! Why would I be demonstrating physical dominance over you?
B: I guess this is one of those better-safe-than-sorry situations. I actually do trust you to lay down your life for mine, but I don’t trust you to perfectly and continuously control your human status impulses. You stepped over a line, I checked you on it. Now we can proceed with neither of us wondering if that punch had any hidden implications to our relationship. By the way, now that you’ve announced we’re playing Slug Bug, I’m game for it.
A: But I wasn’t playing this “status-regulation-prisoner’s-dilemma” that you’re describing, I was playing Slug Bug. Under my rules, I should just punch you a second time!
B: Do what you must. Be aware that I will just punch you back, again.
A: You’re so insecure! I bodily carried you through a minefield and on a separate occasion threw myself onto a grenade to save you.
B: I consider the fact that you obviously love and cherish me to be completely separate from the issue of instinctive dominance and status behavior. Put it this way: if you expect the dynamics our relationship, and its base of sacred trust, to permit you to punch me for no apparent reason, then you must symmetrically expect our relationship to permit me applying a very mild, exactly proportionate corrective measure. In fact, I’m far more concerned that you’re surprised and angry that I punched you back, than I was concerned that you punched me in the first place. Your concern implies that you did assume an asymmetry in our positions. I’ll put it even more clearly: You can’t punch somebody, expect them not to make a big deal of it, and then proceed to make a big deal of it when they punch you, regardless of what game you think you’re playing in your own mind.
A: (punches B) Slug bug! You weren’t paying attention.
A: (punches B) Slug bug!
B: (immediately punches A back, roughly equally hard)
A: Hey! You don’t get to hit me back. That’s the rules.
B: I understand. However, I was actually playing Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. And so were you, by the way. Furthermore, I wasn’t aware that we were playing Slug Bug, so my prior has to be that you were actually just demonstrating or testing your physical dominance over me.
A: We’re friends! We’ve known each other for forty years! You’re godfather to my children! I’m married to your sister! Why would I be demonstrating physical dominance over you?
B: I guess this is one of those better-safe-than-sorry situations. I actually do trust you to lay down your life for mine, but I don’t trust you to perfectly and continuously control your human status impulses. You stepped over a line, I checked you on it. Now we can proceed with neither of us wondering if that punch had any hidden implications to our relationship. By the way, now that you’ve announced we’re playing Slug Bug, I’m game for it.
A: But I wasn’t playing this “status-regulation-prisoner’s-dilemma” that you’re describing, I was playing Slug Bug. Under my rules, I should just punch you a second time!
B: Do what you must. Be aware that I will just punch you back, again.
A: You’re so insecure! I bodily carried you through a minefield and on a separate occasion threw myself onto a grenade to save you.
B: I consider the fact that you obviously love and cherish me to be completely separate from the issue of instinctive dominance and status behavior. Put it this way: if you expect the dynamics our relationship, and its base of sacred trust, to permit you to punch me for no apparent reason, then you must symmetrically expect our relationship to permit me applying a very mild, exactly proportionate corrective measure. In fact, I’m far more concerned that you’re surprised and angry that I punched you back, than I was concerned that you punched me in the first place. Your concern implies that you did assume an asymmetry in our positions. I’ll put it even more clearly: You can’t punch somebody, expect them not to make a big deal of it, and then proceed to make a big deal of it when they punch you, regardless of what game you think you’re playing in your own mind.
A: (punches B) Slug bug! You weren’t paying attention.
B: Dammit.