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Tit-for-tat with forgiving is a better strategy than switching to defect bot.
It is, in a vacuum, but grudger strategies seem to be replicated in societies across the world while forgiveness ones tend to be the product of highly advanced societies with high social trust. Hothouse flowers, in other words.
It probably says something about the decay of social institutions when grudging feels better than forgiving.
I mean, grudging always feels better than forgiving. That's why we have to be taught and encouraged to forgive.
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No it isn't. The correct response to DefectBot is to defect forever. Tit for Tat with possible forgiveness is a strategy that can interrupt mis-inputs ruining communication between otherwise-cooperative people. If you cooperate three times in a row and your enemy defects three times in a row, then they've proven who they are and you can mark them down as "Always Defect" and not a good agent allied with you that had a technical glitch.
Or, to take this out of the game layer, strike 1 was the initial campaign, strike 2 was the weak-ass 'wait for this to blow over' and not immediately and publicly firing the execs in question, and strike 3 was not immediately and clearly expressing how they had screwed up in language comprehensible to their core audience. It was revealed that Bud Lite's makers are fundamentally opposed to the values of its mean consumer; this is the result, and should be the result.
Even tit-for-tat without forgiving is better than that. You wait for the other to play cooperate and cooperate next turn. The goal is to reach a C-C equilibrium, not a D-D one. Otherwise you really do trap your opponent in the defectbot role forever, even when he wants out.
They play cooperate for at least one round.
In less abstract terms: They give you a credible, costly signal that they're no longer interested in defecting against you. You can argue that camo-cans and country music ads are neither credible nor costly enough, but announcing that you will from now on be a defect bot against them no matter what is not a sound strategy.
A couple of good counterpoints have been raised in this thread:
Beat up the biggest meanie in prison: This is the first right-wing protest that has legs. The right needs to prove that they can sink an opponent.
Pour encourager les autres: The right needs to send a signal to other players that they are not to be screwed with. This is more valuable than cooperation with Bud.
Don't sell yourself short: The right can't give in right away because that sends the signal that defecting against them is a mistake that can easily be corrected.
But then again, forgiveness can be advantageous. Take the Heckler&Koch example. Their social media manager went on a "as a woman" tirade, was subsequently relieved of her duties and HK announced that they don't "do identity politics". The right quickly backed off and celebrated the move. That's what I mean by rewarding backpedalling.
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DefectBot never co-operates; you cannot reach a C-C equilibrium because DefectBot always defects. Every time you co-operate with DefectBot, you lose more. So the correct response to defectbot is always Defect.
That only holds if you're sure that the other player is actually an always-defector. Otherwise your strategy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In any case, tit-for-that against an actual defect bot does result in always defecting yourself. But it also contains the possibility to convert what you thought was a defectbot into a cooperating partner.
I'm saying that ...D-D-C-?
should be responded with
...D-D-D-C, not ...D-D-D-D
I always liked D until the other party has picked C one more time than they picked D while you were still picking C.
I think the point is from my perspective ABInbev hasn't picked C once, they're still picking D but using more diplomatic language.
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