Prisoner dilemma

I’m not a fan of game theory. The classic prisoner’s dilemma is a metaphor ultimately based in a religiously rooted conception of the isolation of individuals that Anglo-Saxon individualists extend to all of society. The prisoner’s dilemma is about whether two prisoners should rat each other out or proclaim their mutual innocence to go free.

The Christian concept of hypocrisy is as much responsible as anything else for the false separation of the individual from society in analysis. Overused, the concept of hypocrisy criticizes any individual who wants a social existence that she does not already live as a lifestyle.

If we put a Catholic priest in a jail cell, but his freedom means that 1000 other Catholic priests go into jail, we see right away what the problem is with the prisoner’s dilemma. The essence of the individual is broken down to a simple question of material freedom. Yet the Catholic priest’s life goal is to save souls and he may have his goal set back if a thousand priests go to jail when he goes free.

Trading a lynching for a career as I have been asked leaves out the thousands of females who will receive the message, “maybe if I lynch my boyfriend, some day there’ll be other scandals and he’ll end up in a powerful position.”

Blinded by anti-social individualism, those of criminal mentality see only an exchange between two people. However, the truth is that lynching is the past. Attempting to frame lynching as a prisoner’s dilemma question cuts off its social connections.

If prisoner’s dilemma theory is true, then individualism will never end lynching. There will be an incentive to cooperate with even the boldest liars. That’s what we see in practice and it is what we see in history that Liberalism tolerates lynching.

Lynching can only end through solidarity and the action of people in similar conditions.

Currently the Democrats can create change without encouraging lynching and careerism. If they believe they have an alternative they are mistaken; although it won’t be the first time by any means.

On a different note, but a special and particular recommendation for this moment — Bill Ayers moderated by natural means and became a dues-paying Democrat if he wasn’t his whole life. What is going on with me is an attack on my integrity, a form of psy-war that reduces my political output contrary to the First Amendment. If the government could mature and place Bill Ayers, Bob Avakian, Oglesby, Davidson etc. in high posts, the incentive to lynch would be cut back. This would be especially the case with Bill Ayers because the public already knows who he is. It would not be so much a reward for lynching that elected Obama as the public’s acceptance of something it already sort of knows.

Already I have been told by indirect means that action has been taken to redress specific parts of my life that amounted to lynching. I have heard of scholarships and jobs for Asian-Amerikans. Amerikans already have pragmatic (unprincipled) flexibility to redress individual circumstances. My recommendation about Bill Ayers cuts to the whole incentive structure in a principled way and would reduce lynching. The restorative actions people have taken to make things up to Asian-Amerikans cannot reduce the example and incentive to lynch. For that, pro-active measures have to be taken such as putting Bill Ayers in the government.

One of the reasons for third party infiltration gambits aiming at guys like me is that people figure that in 20 years people moderate too much compared with their youth and so infiltrators have to start with a super-radical to end up with anything different 20 years later. What it means is that for 20 years secret services and white supremacist organizations muck with a persyn’s life before the real reason becomes clear. If Obama just appointed Ayers, Avakian, Klonsky, Davidson etc. to high posts, the world would get the message that the old tactics are not necessary for the Democratic Party.

Tags: Democratic Party, game theory, lynching, prisoner's dilemma