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MrMind comments on Open thread, Aug. 10 - Aug. 16, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Uhm, I wonder if they are aware that prisoner's dilemma is defeated through pre-commitment. They are weeding out small dealers strengthening the big ones.
I think the police is mostly playing a PR game and/or amusing themselves. The idea of ratting on a competitor is simple enough to occur to drug dealers "naturally" :-)
Also note that this is not quite a PD where defecting gives you a low-risk slightly positive outcome. Becoming a police informer is... frowned upon on the street and is actually a high-risk move, usually taken to avoid a really bad outcome.
I would expect that it is slightly more than a PR stunt; it seems to me that most of the people who will use this 'service' are disgruntled citizens with no direct connection to the drug trade. Anyone who wants to accuse someone of trading in drugs now has an easy, anonymous, officially sanctioned way to do so, and clear instruction as to what information is most useful -- without having to ask!
I suspect that framing it as "drug dealers backstabbing drug dealers" is just a publicly acceptable way to introduce a snitching program that would otherwise be frowned upon by many.
"If you see something, tell us" kind of thing? Maybe, that makes some sense.
I wonder how good that police department is at dealing with false positives X-/
I'm always curious: since it's just one who downvoted, care to explain why? So I may improve...
Pre-commitment needs to be credible, verifiable and enforceable. If you're playing chicken, pre-commitment means throwing the steering-wheel out of the window, not just saying "I will never ever swerve, pinky-swear."
What is the relevant pre-commitment mechanism here, and how does it operate?
If anything, I would say large dealers are more vulnerable.
Affiliation to a powerful criminal organization, that can kill you if you rattle or can bail you out if you cooperate.
Basically, the suckers at the bottom get caught while those who deals for the Mob face less competition.
In the most powerful flavor of Italian Mafia affiliates call themselves "man of honor".