Tolerance III

 

The Rules of the Road

But that's how it goes,
You live and you learn,
The rules of the road.

So what are the rules?

Playing a game means following the rules of that game. There is a branch of study about playing games, Game Theory. It studies, subject to the rules, the best strategy for playing a game. Game Theory has demonstrated that there are different strategies for playing a game with only two‑players, than there is for a game with three-or-more players, (and that does NOT mean that there are not three‑players in most games. There is often an umpire to call balls and strikes, even if that umpire is merely the two players being honorable, and there is probably a league of potential opponents, making all of those games more than two-players). But the rules should only ensure that bad behavior is not rewarded if it is caught, not that there is no bad behavior.

There is a board game called Lie, Cheat and Steal. It is a variation of the Prisoner's Dilemma. The object is to win even if that means lying, cheating, or stealing. The payout matrix for Player One on each move, the rules, where the payout matrix for Player Two is the oposite of this, effectively is:

Player One (rows)/Player Two	Not Lie, Cheat, or Steal	Lie, Cheat or Steal
Not Lie, Cheat or Steal	1	-2
Lie, Cheat or Steal	2	0

But there is a problem for society if this behavior is rewarded. If players Lie or Cheat, then transactions may not take place. If Stealing is allowed, then there is no incentive to ever produce anything because it may be stolen from you. To allow transactions to continue and to encourage production, society would prefer it if the payout matrix for Player One was:

Player One (rows)/Player Two	Not Lie, Cheat, or steal	Lie, Cheat or Steal
Not Lie, Cheat or Steal	1	0
Lie, Cheat or Steal	0	0

The payout matrix would be the same if the a constant were subtracted from every cell, for example, 

	Not Lie, Cheat, or steal	Lie, Cheat or Steal
Not Lie, Cheat or Steal	0	-1
Lie, Cheat or Steal	-1	-1

And that is why society has laws and trials. Those laws are not intended to PREVENT lying, cheating, or stealing. They are intended to NOT REWARD lying, cheating, stealing or other bad behavior, if and when it is caught. The penalties should be large enough such that being caught has to be considered when each player makes their choice.

IOW, dominance, winning at all costs, might be good for one player, but that win is not necessarily good for society. What is good for society, is tolerance, allowing, but not encouraging, any choice, i.e. making each game at least a three-player game. Any law which restricts choice even if that choice is to lie, cheat or steal, is bad, even if it is well intentioned.  But laws can be enacted to prevent rewarding bad choices.