strange bedfellows of ideas, that old cliche. Blindness, that other....

[Darah Kehnemuyi]

 Ian, agreed "Jesus strategy" (slur?) needed to be explained.  I'll try to be quick.  In the Prisoner's Dilemma game two prisoners can either "cooperate" or "defect" with each other.  If they work together they are better off cooperating with each other, however, they also have an incentive to not cooperate and work together, and thereby receive a much smaller prison sentence.  This "theory" is often used to explain economic behavior and applies in all kinds of situations, eg, two polluting and competing power plants; should they put in costly pollution controls or not ?  What if only one does ?  What if they both do so ?In Axelrod's game strategy computer runs, multiple serial games of the prisoner's dilemma, get played one after another into the thousands... Cooperate or defect?  The point is to determine the strategy that fares best over the longterm with many serial iterations.The "Jesus strategy" description (slur?) is a strategy that says one should always "cooperate" no matter what the other side does.  This strategy does not fare well in the longterm with multiple serial iterations of the game.

ON THE OTHER HAND:  there are social studies showing that groups made up of cooperating members survive longer than individuals.
Not sure how this would help Maxine.
Apologies for the lecture...Cheers,                                               D.
            On Friday, April 1, 2022, 01:19:33 PM EDT, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 Well, as a non-Christian, I don't mind challenging the assertion that "The Jesus strategy failed as a survival mechanism." I'm not sure the strategy you refer to, but it's my impression that the ``love thy neighbor as thyself" strategy has never been tried much. Got to be able to love thyself before it can be. Meanwhile, war, drought, famine, distraction, disaster, greed, fear of death, etc. stand as the alternative survival strategy. Also not working so well.
On Fri, Apr 1, 2022 at 8:07 AM Darah Kehnemuyi via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

 That must have been interesting.  The Neo-Nazi insults the PeaceActivist. Peace Activist smiles and offers to shake hands.  Neo-Nazi punches Peace Activist in the face ??Game Theory: Robert Axelrod's millions of computer iterations of the basic Prisoner's Dilemma with different game strategies proposed by many, many players.  The Jesus strategy failed as a survival mechanism.  Most successful strategy for continued survival was tit-for-tat.   Many experienced people say this is in fact the normal strategy used for international relations and conflict.
    On Friday, April 1, 2022, 10:57:48 AM EDT, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:  

 https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/1509666122664230913?s=20&t=uGe35LTZqGuTU0YPqOSPGw
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