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Not quite. That's usually the case with a lot of these cooperation dilemmas but this one has the feature that everyone choosing red is just as optimal as everyone choosing blue
Most people have never heard of Nash equilibrium, let alone understand what a stable Nash equilibrium is. Most people who choose red are just trying to act selfishly and most people choosing blue are just trying to act altruistically, which means it's crazy to argue that one action is correct or incorrect using game theory -- the vast majority of actors are not rational!
"Everyone just choose red" is not a tenable solution in the real world.
Why are people making this into a moral judgement? If the poll asked me "Would you kill this adorable fluffy little kitten with the big eyes to save your own life?" - well I'm not answering that one. But it's not that kind of fucking Sophie's Choice, it's "pick red or blue in a game that has no consequences for the real world".
Sincerely, the more smarmy justifications I'm reading from the blues, the less I like them as people because all the worst finger-wagging Nanny Is Watching instincts are coming out in them. It's not enough to argue that it's the optimal strategy to pick blue if you assume some people out of the group will pick blue; no, it has to be made into "reds are selfish, blues are altruistic, kiss my upright and high-minded ass and tell me how fantastic I am".
How dare those people believe that picking the option that keeps 100% of participants alive is superior! Nannies! Smarms!
Have you ever entertained a thought that not everything others do is for your approval?
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For what it’s worth, my main point was that “it’s okay for me to take the red pill because everyone doing that is optimal” is completely inapplicable to the real world, and hence an obvious rationalization. Not that one side was evil or good, just that this particular defense is balderdash.
I realize that it’s kind of hard to say that without coming off as insulting to red pillers. I’d think you would be more sympathetic though, since you did the mirror image and accused all blue pillers of virtue signaling.
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Just because people don’t understand game theory terms doesn’t mean game theory cannot explain actions.
No but it means "It's okay that I took the redpill because it's the game theoretic optimal solution (and so everyone else will do it too)" is totally divorced from reality.
The question is does game theory model accurately model human behavior. If yes, then regardless of whether people know what a Nash equilibrium is, it will still exist. If no, then it won’t.
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Why?
Good point.
I'd still pick red though.
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"Everyone just choose blue" isn't a tenable solution in the real world either. In point of fact, the real world doesn't have a lot of "tenable solutions" of any sort. Mostly people eat shit.
Which is why you don't need everyone to choose blue, just over half the people, which is a much more tenable solution.
It's more tenable than getting everyone to choose red, but maximizing the number of blues is much higher-risk than maximizing the number of reds. If people commit to writing the blues off, you get very close to everyone choosing red, as the apparent upside of blue drops like a rock. People committing to maximizing blue introduces serious tail-risk of calamity.
Likely minimal losses versus unlikely but very large ones. Which is worse?
Perhaps this is harsh, but there's also the fact that if we're talking about adults the people who would pick blue in the first place would likely be a tiny subset of people (suicidal people, mentally retarded people, etc) whose QALYs are realistically fairly limited. I'd say "Maybe we could just not try to pull off some incredible coordination feat which might turn out horrible for marginal gains" is fairly reasonable.
I think of it more as "we benefit also from cautionary examples". Whoever picks blue has volunteered to demonstrate why picking red is the correct choice.
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Going with the spousal example, it's not equally optimal for both to choose red and both to choose blue. Both choosing blue is superior to both choosing red, because the very act of both choosing blue is indicative of stronger bonds and itself reenforces them.
Alternately, it's a competition in who can be the bigger martyr: "Darling, I chose blue because I want you to live, even if I know you would choose red and leave me to die, I love you that much".
Competing over who makes the bigger sacrifice and who is the more self-sacrificing and who is ahead in the list of favours done is not a strong and happy bond. I'd rather someone who said "I picked red because I trust you're not an idiot and would pick red, too".
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You're really reaching to add things to the situation that aren't present in the initial scenario
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Why? I expect my wife to choose red and I think she'd be very upset if I was dead. Is choosing blue supposed to be an act that indicates that I simply couldn't live without her or something? When it's only two people, it really does feel a lot like the blender version of things where I would say that we should just both skip the door leading to the blender and that it's pretty obvious.
In the purely altruistic 1v1 version of the game it's literally just about finding the Schelling point. Though, even then, if both players are rational, red is still the obvious Schelling point since the downside is less if the other person chooses differently. Red is strongly dominant if someone is agnostic about the other person's choice.
You can be rational and value someone else's life higher than your own.
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Not quite. It's not that the act of choosing blue signals a belief that the value of your life is zero without her. More like, the act of choosing blue indicates that you believe she might choose blue, either inherently or because she believes you might choose blue. If there's any risk at all that one person or the other would either choose blue or believe the other person would choose blue, that forces the other person to readjust their estimation of the other person's likelihood of choosing blue upwards, which forces the other person to readjust upwards, etc. Eventually that becomes a substantial risk, and if you place a nonzero value on the relationship and believe the other person places a nonzero value on the relationship, you choose blue in a leap of faith. Recognition of that uncertainty and the risk made in the leap of faith is what builds personal character and the relationship.
Said leap of faith being "I thought you'd choose blue because you're too stupid to work out why that is a bad idea, and you chose blue because you thought the same about me". Yeah, nice relationship where both parties only have contempt for the choices of the other!
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