DaveInNYC comments on Raising the Sanity Waterline - Less Wrong

112 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 March 2009 04:28AM

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Comment author: DaveInNYC 23 January 2010 11:20:14PM -1 points [-]

I'm not sure what the content of "making your opponent behave (ir)rationally" is >supposed to be. It's certainly not an uncontroversial tidbit of received wisdom that the >rational thing to do in the Prisoner's Dilemma is to defect, which is what you seem to >imply.

Exactly, if I was able to make him act irrationally, he would not defect, whereas I would. And if the definition of rationality is that it makes you win, then it can be perfectly rational to have others act irrationally (i.e. believe wrong things).

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 23 January 2010 11:25:30PM *  3 points [-]

If you both cooperate, instead of you both defecting, you'd both be better off, which is a more rational (more winning) outcome. Thus, making "cooperation" a synonym for "irrational" will irk people around here. (Of course if you defect and the other player cooperates, you'd have the best possible payoff.)