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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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I can only describe this sentiment as a serious game theory L for red tribe.

Life is more than game theory, despite nerds' obsession with trying to reduce everything to game theory.

One of my favorite blog posts:

Since I did, in fact, study game theory, I constructed a payoff matrix in my head before the game had started. I noted that I have little chance of acquiring the gummy bears, and also little desire to do so. My real matrix was as follows: [Spoiler redacted]

I would generally describe the attempts to frame this angry mob behavior as a productive and rational game theory strategy as "a serious game theory L for red tribe", yeah.

There are equilibria that are better for the collective out there but we probably do need tit-for-tat to get to them.

If woke cancellation tactics were already forms of disproportionate retribution against random unknown people, how is adopting the same tactic on the right going to result in a better equilibrium?

First of all, it doesn't end up hurting that many people directly, since only a small minority are going to get cancelled in the first place, and that makes it hard for people to take it seriously enough to do something about it. But second of all, I'm not actually sure there is much that can be done about it, short of passing laws that protect the jobs of randos, and making those laws have teeth. Like, plenty of my progressive friends IRL hate cancel culture and wokescolds as much as any right winger, but they don't have any power to stop the decentralized mobs calling for firings.

How does tit-for-tat even work with a large, decentralized collective anyways?

If woke cancellation tactics were already forms of disproportionate retribution against random unknown people, how is adopting the same tactic on the right going to result in a better equilibrium?

It decreases the overall acceptability of disproportionate retribution among people on the other side. It's the same reason why woke cancellation is a threat in the first place: it affects few people directly, but it intimidates a lot more.

The rules of the online game currently are pretty poor, but it's not like they are actually immutable. And are the 'game theory stakes' even that high in the Twitterverse? Personally, I think no.

Would you sell your soul for a nickel? That's Twitter.