In particular, I felt the need to emphasize the idea that Stag Hunts frame coordination problems as going against incentive gradients and as being maximally fragile and punishing, by default.
In my experience, the main thing that happens when people learn about Stag Hunts is that they realize that it’s a better fit for a lot of situations than the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and this is generally an improvement. (Like Duncan, I wish we had used this frame at the start of Dragon Army.)
Yes, not every coordination problem is a stag hunt, and it may be a bad baseline or push in the wrong direction. It isn’t the right model for starting a meetup, where (as you say) one person showing up alone is not much worse than hunting rabbit, and organic growth can get you to better and better situations. I think it’s an underappreciated move to take things that look like stag hunts and turn them into things that are more robust to absence or have a smoother growth curve.
All that said, it still seems worth pointing out that in the absence of communication, in many cases the right thing to assume is that you should hunt rabbit.
In my experience, the main thing that happens when people learn about Stag Hunts is that they realize that it’s a better fit for a lot of situations than the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and this is generally an improvement. (Like Duncan, I wish we had used this frame at the start of Dragon Army.)
Yes, not every coordination problem is a stag hunt, and it may be a bad baseline or push in the wrong direction. It isn’t the right model for starting a meetup, where (as you say) one person showing up alone is not much worse than hunting rabbit, and organic growth can get you to better and better situations. I think it’s an underappreciated move to take things that look like stag hunts and turn them into things that are more robust to absence or have a smoother growth curve.
All that said, it still seems worth pointing out that in the absence of communication, in many cases the right thing to assume is that you should hunt rabbit.