FormallyknownasRoko comments on Unpacking the Concept of "Blackmail" - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 10 December 2010 12:53AM

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Comment author: FormallyknownasRoko 10 December 2010 11:55:46PM *  3 points [-]

Suppose that Blackmail is

merely an affective category, a class of situations activating a certain psychological adaptation

-- then we should ask what features of the ancestral environment caused us to evolve it. We might understand it better in that case.

I suspect that the ancestral environment came with a very strong notion of a default outcome for a given human, in the absence of there being any particular negotiation, and also came with a clear notion of negative interaction (stabbing, hitting, kicking) versus positive interaction (giving fish, teaching how to hunt better, etc).

Comment author: cousin_it 12 December 2010 05:49:28PM *  0 points [-]

Uh, spending effort on hurting people is negative-sum and most likely lose-lose, while teaching someone to hunt is positive-sum lose-win. Or maybe you see some deeper mystery here that I'm not seeing?

Comment author: FormallyknownasRoko 12 December 2010 05:51:58PM 1 point [-]

The problem with "lose-lose" is that it relies upon there being a "defualt outcome given no interaction". Vladimir is trying to taboo this concept, at least in general. So I am going to focus on a relevant special case, namely specific interactions available in the ancestral environment.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 13 December 2010 08:48:53PM 0 points [-]

Uh, spending effort on hurting people is negative-sum and most likely lose-lose

What ancestral environment are you thinking of?