IteratedPrisonersDilemma/Talk

NathanielThurston -- Sat Sep 19 04:23:28 2009

In order for the nature of the real-life version of IteratedPrisonersDilemma to change for large communities, two things are necessary. First, as Erik points out, you need to be able to see how others played others, before you played them. But this freedom is of limited use to those who are less-than-maximally-equipped with analytical horsepower. For the game to really change, you also need to see analyses of prior matches.

One might think that this would put everyone at the mercy at those who are best at rational analysis, but happily this is a faulty conclusion. I remember hearing about a chess match between a famous grandmaster and a large collaborative group of lesser players -- and the match was very close. Communities can think together, on this or any other subject, if they allow information to flow freely.