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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30623 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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No, both are stable, by definition. At the margin, it's actually red which is unstable. 49.99... % red is unstable, while 50% blue is stable.

You are misusing what it means for something to be stable. A strategy is stable iff moving away from it is bad for the person who moved away from it. 100% red is stable because in such a society choosing blue is straight up suicide. 90% probability red 10% probability blue is unstable because 91% probability red and 9% probability blue is a superior strategy for yourself.

100% blue is not stable, it is only metastable since for an individual going from 100% blue to 99% blue and 1% red does not change there expectation. Indeed any blue %age above 50% is metastable, but metastability is not the same as stability (in a metastable system you get random drift, which will eventually "fall off the cliff" towards a stable equilibrium if one exists). The only stable equilibrium in this world is 100% red.

A strategy is stable iff moving away from it is bad for the person who moved away from it.

No, it's stable iff moving away from it doesn't benefit the person who moved away from it.

90% probability red 10% probability blue is unstable because 91% probability red and 9% probability blue is a superior strategy for yourself.

If you actually knew those probabilities, then 90%-10% would be stable by definition, because moving away from that (defecting to red) would not benefit you. Of course, we don't know the probabilities ahead of time, but you're the one that brought up this hypothetical.

100% blue is not stable, it is only metastable since for an individual going from 100% blue to 99% blue and 1% red does not change there expectation. Indeed any blue %age above 50% is metastable, but metastability is not the same as stability (in a metastable system you get random drift, which will eventually "fall off the cliff" towards a stable equilibrium if one exists). The only stable equilibrium in this world is 100% red.

I don't agree with your definition of stability. Even using it, though, some people value others' lives more than their own. There is no law that choosing red is positive EV for an individual. I'd argue 100% blue is more stable than 100% red, absent cooperation, because more people are prosocial and asocial than are antisocial.

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