Joe Doakes, once but no longer of Como Park, emails:<\/p>\n
\n\nSuppose you are playing a game and your opponent cheats. You point it out and he denies it. You insist you saw him cheat and he admits doing the act but claims that wasn’t cheating.\u00a0 When you show him the rule book, he asserts those rules don’t apply to him. You insist he follow the rules and he declares you are a fascist so he’s justified in murdering you to win the game.<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\nWhat should you do?<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\nIf you refuse to play, he will win by default.<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\nIf you continue to play by the rules, he will win by cheating.<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\n\u00a0Somehow you must convince him to play by the rules. Game Theory suggests the best way to do that is tit-for-tat. When he cheats, you cheat and offer to quit cheating when he quits cheating. When he cheats harder, you cheat harder and repeat the offer.<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\n\u00a0Yes, that means stooping to his level. It means betraying your principles because cheating is not who you are.\u00a0 Game theory is not about morals, it is about tactics. It is not about salvation, it is about winning.<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\n\u00a0Eventually one of two things will happen:\u00a0 he will quit cheating and the game will be played by the rules; or the game will end,\u00a0 probably in violence.<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\n\u00a0The theory applies to the simplest games and to the most complex. Life is the most complex game of all. Conservatives have been playing by the rules but the Left is cheating.\u00a0<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\nWhat should we do?\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\nJoe Doakes<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI suppose “amicable-if-possible divorce” isn’t an option?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes, once but no longer of Como Park, emails: Suppose you are playing a game and your opponent cheats. You point it out and he denies it. You insist you saw him cheat and he admits doing the act but claims that wasn’t cheating.\u00a0 When you show him the rule book, he asserts those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-civil-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89919,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89918\/revisions\/89919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}