gwern comments on Eight Short Studies On Excuses - Less Wrong

210 Post author: Yvain 20 April 2010 11:01PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (224)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: cousin_it 21 April 2010 09:25:17AM *  30 points [-]

What Thomas Schelling would do. Partly tongue-in-cheek.

The Clumsy Game-Player: agree to the deal, then perform an identical "finger slip" several turns later.

The Lazy Student, The Grieving Student, The Sports Fan: make the deadline for reports a curve instead of a cliff. Each day of delay costs some percentage of the grade.

The Murderous Husband: if you really don't want these things to happen, make the wife partially responsible for the murder in such cases, by law. (Or the lover, if the husband chooses to murder the wife.)

The Bellicose Dictator: publicly threaten sanctions unless the invading army withdraws immediately. Do this before any negotiations.

The Peyote-Popping Native, The Well-Disguised Atheist: when the native first comes to you, offer to balance out the permission to smoke peyote with some sanction against the Native American church. Then the atheists won't bother asking for a free lunch.

Comment author: gwern 23 April 2010 12:14:56AM 0 points [-]

The Bellicose Dictator

Hm, I don't see how this one works. Isn't a threat of sanctions and invasion the standing order of the day?

Comment author: cousin_it 23 April 2010 12:19:15AM *  1 point [-]

Nope. In the story Ban Ki-moon phones the dictator first, before publicly announcing sanctions. This is a mistake.

Comment author: gwern 23 April 2010 01:39:43AM 0 points [-]

Yes, but I mean doesn't the real world UN have standing orders about invasions? I thought the UN charter mandated defense of its members.

Comment author: wubbles 03 December 2014 05:45:48AM 0 points [-]

The few examples of UN lead responses to invasions that worked typically involved great powers backstopping the response. UN members are reluctant to expend blood and treasure without getting something in return. I think the only time it worked as intended was the Korean war, and that's because Stalin was sitting out for a bit.