wedrifid comments on Avoid inflationary use of terms - Less Wrong

74 Post author: lsparrish 30 May 2012 08:31PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 06 June 2012 12:05:18PM 0 points [-]

So here you and I might disagree; maybe I would abstract the concept further than you would. I presume you're not limiting "Prisoner's Dilemma" to actual prisoners, because that seems tremendously silly. So how far would you limit it?

Approximately the same. I wouldn't use Prisoner's Dilemma to describe a Tragedy of the Commons myself but would be unlikely to correct it. In some such cases I'd prefer to just use "Newcomblike", which takes the abstraction a step further (removing the strict necessity for symmetry) but is also overtly an abstraction.

But are there really people who go around applying the term "Prisoner's Dilemma" to things like Stag Hunts or zero-sum games?

Yes.

Comment author: pnrjulius 07 June 2012 02:21:44AM 1 point [-]

If people are applying "Prisoner's Dilemma" to zero-sum games, I can see why you'd be annoyed. It clearly shows that they don't know anything about game theory.