234 replies to this topic

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

OnionAhaiReborn, on 04 April 2012 - 07:28 PM, said:

Ok. There are a couple of points here that are muddling the issue up a bit. I think the most important is the point that I am not attempting to talk only about the hawk/dove model. I purposely broadened the discussion to what my experience has been with game theory/rational choice models more broadly, and the underlying assumptions used to justify these things. My experience has been that humans are assumed to be solely rationally self-interested actors in these models, and that we predict their actions based on their self interest. LLL has held to this position, that even if actors are only choosing their perceived maximum utility, and even if their self-interest is immaterial, they are still always seeking what they believe to be their self-interest. And I do think that holding that position stretches self-interest out to something exceedingly diffuse.

Now, in the case of the hawk/dove model. You're right, the purpose of the model is to say that a society of all doves (non aggressors) will always be at risk of having a hawk arrive/evolve/aggressive strategy arise to the detriment of others. And you don't hold the view that humans are always self-interested actors. Ok. I still don't see the usefulness of this insight. It tells me that someone, although not necessarily everyone, will act in their own interest rather than the interest of the group. What am I going to do with this insight? Well, it's still going to tell me that I need to change incentives in order to stop that someone from acting in their own interest to the detriment of the group. But there is still nothing about this model that tells me in a useful way why that someone is defecting. (Especially when you've removed even the diffuse attempt rational choice theorists usually use to explain behavior- utility maximization). You're saying some people will maximize group utility, and others will maximize their own utility at the expense of the group. Now we really have no idea why people are doing what they're doing. And I will still say that unless we are coming to an understanding of why, we're not providing any useful information about how we ought to change the incentives of the game being played in order to produce an outcome we consider more desirable. If you don't know what collection of incentives and costs are leading some to choose selfish strategies while others choose strategies that benefit the group, how can we hope to change the behavior of the self-interested?



Assumptions are asserting 'It is known' and then drawing conclusions off of those assumptions. But no, I would not say 'morality is good and therefore people should be moral'. For the purposes of human behavior, my assumption is that there is such a thing as morality that is defined by common human experience, that it is observable as a tendency to build societies that seek less harm and greater good for the greatest numbers, and that this moral concept is an important factor in driving behavior.



You're saying that individuals who weren't interested in the right things would not survive, not that individuals who were incapable of discerning their self interest would not survive. One can conceivably know that their self interest does not lead to survival and reproduction and it would still be self interest.

In any case, you're right that we could surmise that based on the assumptions. That's still not proving that the assumptions were correct in the first place.



'How' doesn't mean what you are taking it to mean in this context. I'm saying how in the sense of what methods they use to bring them utility, as in more utility from eating a cookie over eating a cupcake. I'm not saying how in the sense of what methods they would use to get the cookie.



But of course it matters that we understand how people decide subjectively what things they value. If we don't know what things a potential rule-breaker values, we won't know what punishments will serve as the best deterrents to keep them from breaking our rules (even if our rules are arbitrary).

that's true. but you could just use death, bodily harm and imprisonment. People who are alive have demonstrated a prior aversion to death.

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 04 April 2012 - 09:42 PM.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

butterbumps!, on 04 April 2012 - 07:16 PM, said:

With all due respect, LLL, I still do not understand precisely what you're trying to say regarding game theory.

I'm going to try to respond in such a way that better articulates which parts of your arguments I do not follow.   Firstly, cheating is something that only happens when there are legitimate rules, even if everyone does not fully accept them.   If I interpret the rules in Scrabble to use short banal words for maximum benefit to myself, I am still operating within the rules, even if my companions think I'm being "cheap."   However, if I were to sneak new letter tiles or the like, that would be cheating, because that is in direct violation of the rules. In your hawk-dove model, there are no such things as rules, and that is your whole point.  You keep referring to "cheating" and the like which makes no sense, and is only confusing me further, because you keep telling us to suspend our belief in laws/ rules/ morals.  If you're looking at an example in which laws play no role, then there is no such thing as cheating (kind of like why the lion is neither good nor evil for killing antelope, and why there's no such thing as "virgins" in the animal kingdom).

Replace the words Hawk and Dove with dishonorable and honorable.

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I think you need to disaggregate the pieces of your argument, as contradictory parts keep becoming colluded by imprecise terminology and arguments that do not logically follow.  I'm really not trying to give you a hard time, I am just so confused by what you're trying to say.   I get the fact that you use these kinds of models as a lens through which you analyze real life situations.   What I've been trying to ask is for you to show us how to use these models. You keep referring back to the model as though it is self-evident that it applies to more complex situations.  I am asking for you to show me how to interpret behaviors using this model, because I am legitimately not sure how, as it is not self-evident, and because you persist in using terminology like stealing, cheating, etc that have legal/ moral connotations.  If you want to use this model, you have to use aggression/ non aggression exclusively, so that there is a consistent framework to form logical arguments around.




I do not see how this is not what I said- that it is a binary model in which aggression/ non-aggression is the sole factor to evaluate.   I recognized that the roles shift.
But what I still don't understand about the model specifically is this:
Let's assume that everyone is a dove.   You say that this is unsustainable because there will inevitably be hawks from outside the particular community of doves who will threaten the doves.   Thus every community needs hawks around in case of an external invasion.  Am I understanding this correctly?  

no.  The hawks won't invade. They'll just join the community and compete.  And they will win every conflict because because by definition the doves will not fight back.even if there are no hawks anywhere else in the world, eventually a gene will mutate and one of the doves will give birth to a hawk. and hawk will have more resources than any dove and proliferate overtime due to greater access to resources.  In any community consisting solely of doves there will always be incredible internal pressure on doves to mutate into hawks and tremendous external pressure from hawks who want to move into communities consisting of only dove.  It is as house of cards. even if you build it is always on the verge of collapse

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Now, what if there is no external threat- since we're using such a highly circumscribed model, why can't we assume that all communities are entirely made up of doves.  What then?   Is that still unsustainable?

But, for a second, I'll go with your hypothetical.  Let's say that Westeros is entirely full of doves.  Winter comes, and it turns out the Others are a big threat to human life (so they're hawks).  So, when confronted by these hawks, the doves stand up to this aggression by themselves becoming hawks in order to diffuse the threat.   The Others are defeated, Westeros goes back to peace, and let's assume the doves go back to being doves, since they are no longer threatened.   So what?   What does this tell us?   Frankly, those you call "doves" in the story tend to know how to stand up for themselves.  What does this analysis really yield?

[butterbumps!]

Lord Littlefinger, on 04 April 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

none of those things are part of the model, and is precisely what I have been saying.  My point is that Westeros doesn't have any of those things.  And that if you want to prevent people from acting like Tywin and Littlefinger then you have an independent system to impose the costs of negative externalities upon them. Otherwise someone is going to do what Tywin and Littlefinger do.

Lord Littlefinger, on 04 April 2012 - 09:42 PM, said:

Replace the words Hawk and Dove with dishonorable and honorable.

I'm still not sure what you're trying to say.   Do you actually believe that there is no morality/ law/ systematic imperatives on behavior in Westeros?   It seems that rather than abstracting Westeros to the simplicity of the model you gave, you actually believe that Westeros is a 1-1 of the model.  Further, if you suggest replacing hawk and dove with terms like honorable/ dishonorable, you're actually imposing a sense of morality to the model that you've been adamantly arguing against.  Honor is a loaded term, such that you can't argue in those terms in order for your model to work.

I'm still not sure what you're trying to show.  Yes, of course if there are no incentives, be they material or psychological such as shame, there will always be people who will take on roles that are aggressive or behave in a way that are rivalrous and exclusionary.  

@OAR (and anyone else interested)- since it's clear we're all kind of itchy to discuss Westerosi moral imperatives, I was thinking maybe we should start a thread.

[Clarkrock7]

This has been a very interesting discussion, which has seemingly circled all the way around to the point that nothing has really been accomplished, but the mental journey was worthwhile in its own right.

My initial take from the OP was something to the effect that it is pointless to deride certain characters as being 'bad' because we can expect that with the 'game' that is westeros, there will necessarily be people filling those particular roles.  Back to don't hate the player.....

The basketball example I found to be useful in this way.  Assume there is a player who will always play as rough as he can without fouling out.  Another player always plays at the same level of roughness.  If you want to quantify it, say player a can play from 1-10 on a scale of roughness and Player b always plays at a 5.  With certain referees player a will be viewed as a saint and with others as a devil relative to player b.  But discussing him from either viewpoint is meaningless, it is simply a function of the parameters in effect at that particular time.

What I find interesting about the route of the discussion is that westeros was stable until a series of 'bad'/irrational decisions were made.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

butterbumps!, on 04 April 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

I'm still not sure what you're trying to say.   Do you actually believe that there is no morality/ law/ systematic imperatives on behavior in Westeros?

there is law. but it is capriciously enforced. such that it is irrelevant. if you are strong enough to get away with breaking it then you can and will. generally this only applies to the lords but extends to those under their protection, like Bronn or Shagga. There is an honor code but know agrees what constitutes and many people ignore as they please, like Tywin.  There is not independent systemic imperative on behavior it is excreted through the lords and the lords can basically enforce it or ignore it as they please.  

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  It seems that rather than abstracting Westeros to the simplicity of the model you gave, you actually believe that Westeros is a 1-1 of the model.  

no i don't. there are many more strategies available to people in Westeros.  ITs simply and abstraction to show that someone will always ignore the honor code in order to achieve adancement  

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Further, if you suggest replacing hawk and dove with terms like honorable/ dishonorable, you're actually imposing a sense of morality

no. they're just words to me. honorable represents Ned's strategy.  Dishonorable presents Tywins.  I just thought it might clarify what I would trying to communicate.  

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to the model that you've been adamantly arguing against.  Honor is a loaded term, such that you can't argue in those terms in order for your model to work.

I'm still not sure what you're trying to show.  Yes, of course if there are no incentives, be they material or psychological such as shame, there will always be people who will take on roles that are aggressive or behave in a way that are rivalrous and exclusionary.  

ok. but shame is an internal feeling. no one else can make you feel shame. to the extent that a system relies on shame to enforce its rules, people who do not feel shame will arise and then proliferate by ignoring the rules.  

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@OAR (and anyone else interested)- since it's clear we're all kind of itchy to discuss Westerosi moral imperatives, I was thinking maybe we should start a thread.

Literally just replace the words. The model is an approximation of the world, be it westeros or our own.

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To apply this idea to aggression, consider one of Maynard Smith's simplest hypothetical cases. Suppose that there are only two sorts of fighting strategy in a population of a particular species, named Dishonorable Agent and Honorable Agent. (The names refer to conventional human usage and have no connection with the habits of the Agents from whom the names are derived: Honorable Agents are in fact rather aggressive Agents.) Any individual of our hypothetical population is classified as a Dishonorable Agent or a Honorable Agents. Dishonorable Agents always fight as hard and as unrestrainedly as they can, retreating only when seriously injured. Honorable Agents merely threaten in a dignified conventional way, never hurting anybody. If a Dishonorable Agent fights a Honorable Agents the Honorable Agent quickly runs away, and so does not get hurt. If a Dishonorable Agent fights a Dishonorable Agent they go on until one of them is seriously injured or dead. If a Honorable Agent meets a Honorable Agent nobody gets hurt; they go on posturing at each other for a long time until one of them tires or decides not to bother any more, and therefore backs down. For the time being, we assume that there is no way in which an individual can tell, in advance, whether a particular rival is a Dishonorable Agent or a Honorable Agent. He only discovers this by fighting him, and he has no memory of past fights with particular individuals to guide him.

Now as a purely arbitrary convention we allot contestants 'points'. Say 50 points for a win, 0 for losing, -100 for being seriously injured, and -10 for wasting time over a long contest. These points can be thought of as being directly convertible into the currency of gene survival. An individual who scores high points, who has a high average 'pay-off, is an individual who leaves many genes behind him in the gene pool. Within broad limits the actual numerical values do not matter for the analysis, but they help us to think about the problem.

The important thing is that we are not interested in whether Dishonorable Agents will tend to beat Honorable Agents when they fight them. We already know the answer to that: Dishonorable Agents will always win. We want to know whether either Dishonorable Agent or Honorable Agent is an evolutionarily stable strategy. If one of them is an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (EES) and the other is not, we must expect that the one which is the ESS will evolve. It is theoretically possible for there to be two ESSs. This would be true if, whatever the majority strategy of the population happened to be, whether Dishonorable Agent or Honorable Agent, the best strategy for any given individual was to follow suit. In this case the population would tend to stick at whichever one of its two stable states it happened to reach first. However, as we shall now see, neither of these two strategies, Dishonorable Agent or Honorable Agent, would in fact be evolutionarily stable on its own, and we should therefore not expect either of them to evolve. To show this we must calculate average pay-offs.

Suppose we have a population consisting entirely of Honorable Agents.

Whenever they fight, nobody gets hurt. The contests consist of prolonged ritual tournaments, staring matches perhaps, which end only when one rival backs down. The winner then scores 50 points for gaining the resource in dispute, but he pays a penalty of -10 for wasting time over a long staring match, so scores 40 in all. The loser also is penalized -10 points for wasting time. On average, any one individual Honorable Agent can expect to win half his contests and lose half. Therefore his average pay-off per contest is the average of +40 and -10, which is +15. Therefore, every individual Honorable Agent in a population of Honorable Agents seems to be doing quite nicely.

But now suppose a mutant Dishonorable Agent arises in the population. Since he is the only Dishonorable Agent around, every fight he has is against a Honorable Agent. Dishonorable Agents always beat Honorable Agents, so he scores +50 every fight, and this is his average pay-off. He enjoys an enormous advantage over the Honorable Agents, whose net pay-off is only +15. Dishonorable Agent genes will rapidly spread through the population as a result. But now each Dishonorable Agent can no longer count on every rival he meets being a Honorable Agent. To take an extreme example, if the Dishonorable Agent gene spread so successfully that the entire population came to consist of Dishonorable Agents, all fights would now be Dishonorable Agent fights. Things are now very different. When Dishonorable Agent meets Dishonorable Agent, one of them is seriously injured, scoring -100, while the winner scores +50. Each Dishonorable Agent in a population of Dishonorable Agents can expect to win half his fights and lose half his fights. His average expected pay-off per fight is therefore half-way between +50 and -100, which is -25. Now consider a single Honorable Agent in a population of Dishonorable Agents. To be sure, he loses all his fights, but on the other hand he never gets hurt. His average pay-off is 0 in a population of Dishonorable Agents, whereas the average pay-off for a Dishonorable Agent in a population of Dishonorable Agents is -25. Honorable Agent genes will therefore tend to spread through the population.

The way I have told the story it looks as if there will be a continuous oscillation in the population. Dishonorable Agent genes will sweep to ascendancy; then, as a consequence of the Dishonorable Agent majority, Honorable Agent genes will gain an advantage and increase in numbers until once again Dishonorable Agent genes start to prosper, and so on. However, it need not be an oscillation like this. There is a stable ratio of Dishonorable Agents to Honorable Agents. For the particular arbitrary points system we are using, the stable ratio, if you work it out, turns out to be 5/12 Honorable Agents to 7/12 Dishonorable Agents. When this stable ratio is reached, the average pay-off for Dishonorable Agents is exactly equal to the average pay-off for Honorable Agents. Therefore selection does not favour either one of them over the other. If the number of Dishonorable Agents in the population started to drift upwards so that the ratio was no longer 7/12, Honorable Agents would start to gain an extra advantage, and the ratio would swing back to the stable state. Just as we shall find the stable sex ratio to be 50:50, so the stable Dishonorable Agent to Honorable Agent ratio in this hypothetical example is 7:5. In either case, if there are oscillations about the stable point, they need not be very large ones.

Superficially, this sounds a little like group selection, but it is really nothing of the kind. It sounds like group selection because it enables us to think of a population as having a stable equilibrium to which it tends to return when disturbed. But the ESS is a much more subtle concept than group selection. It has nothing to do with some groups being more successful than others. This can be nicely illustrated using the arbitrary points system of our hypothetical example. The average pay-off to an individual in a stable population consisting of 7/12 Dishonorable Agents and 5/12 Honorable Agents, turns out to be 6 1/4. This is true whether the individual is a Dishonorable Agent or a Honorable Agent. Now 6 1/4 is much less than the average pay-off for a Honorable Agent in a population of Honorable Agents (15). If only everybody would agree to be a Honorable Agent, every single individual would benefit. By simple group selection, any group in which all individuals mutually agree to be Honorable Agents would be far more successful than a rival group sitting at the ESS ratio. (As a matter of fact, a conspiracy of nothing but Honorable Agents is not quite the most successful possible group. In a group consisting of 1/6 Dishonorable Agents and 5/6 Honorable Agents, the average pay-off per contest is 16 2/3. This is the most successful possible conspiracy, but for present purposes we can ignore it. A simpler all-Honorable Agent conspiracy, with its average pay-off for each individual of 15, is far better for every single individual than the ESS would be.) Group selection theory would therefore predict a tendency to evolve towards an all-Honorable Agent conspiracy, since a group that contained a 7/12 proportion of Dishonorable Agents would be less successful. But the trouble with conspiracies, even those that are to everybody's advantage in the long run, is that they are open to abuse. It is true that everybody does better in an all-Honorable Agent group than he would in an ESS group. But unfortunately, in conspiracies of Honorable Agents, a single Dishonorable Agent does so extremely well that nothing could stop the evolution of Dishonorable Agents. The conspiracy is therefore bound to be broken by treachery from within. An ESS is stable, not because it is particularly good for the individuals participating in it, but simply because it is immune to treachery from within.

It is possible for humans to enter into pacts or conspiracies that are to every individual's advantage, even if these are not stable in the ESS sense. But this is only possible because every individual uses his conscious foresight, and is able to see that it is in his own long-term interests to obey the rules of the pact. Even in human pacts there is a constant danger that individuals will stand to gain so much in the short term by breaking the pact that the temptation to do so will be overwhelming.

Perhaps the best example of this is price-fixing. It is in the long-term interests of all individual garage owners to standardize the price of petrol at some artificially high value. Price rings, based on conscious estimation of long-term best interests, can survive for quite long periods. Every so often, however, an individual gives in to the temptation to make a quick killing by cutting his prices. Immediately, his neighbours follow suit, and a wave of price cutting spreads over the country. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the conscious foresight of the garage owners then reasserts itself, and they enter into a new price-fixing pact. So, even in man, a species with the gift of conscious foresight, pacts or conspiracies based on long-term best interests teeter constantly on the brink of collapse due to treachery from within. In wild animals, controlled by the struggling genes, it is even more difficult to see ways in which group benefit or conspiracy strategies could possibly evolve. We must expect to find evolutionarily stable strategies everywhere.

In our hypothetical example we made the simple assumption that any one individual was either a Dishonorable Agent or a Honorable Agent. We ended up with an evolutionarily stable ratio of Dishonorable Agents to Honorable Agents. In practice, what this means is that a stable ratio of Dishonorable Agent genes to Honorable Agent genes would be achieved in the gene pool. The genetic technical term for this state is stable polymorphism. As far as the maths are concerned, an exactly equivalent ESS can be achieved without polymorphism as follows. If every individual is capable of behaving either like a Dishonorable Agent or like a Honorable Agent in each particular contest an ESS can be achieved in which all individuals have the same probability of behaving like a Dishonorable Agent, namely 7/12 in our particular example. In practice this would mean that each individual enters each contest having made a random decision whether to behave on this occasion like a Dishonorable Agent or like a Honorable Agent; random, but with a 7:5 bias in favour of Dishonorable Agent. It is very important that the decisions, although biased towards Dishonorable Agent, should be random in the sense that a rival has no way of guessing how his opponent is going to behave in any particular contest. It is no good, for instance, playing Dishonorable Agent seven fights in a row, then Honorable Agent five fights in a row and so on. If any individual adopted such a simple sequence, his rivals would quickly catch on and take advantage. The way to take advantage of a simple sequence strategist is to play Dishonorable Agent against him only when you know he is going to play Honorable Agent.

The Dishonorable Agent and Honorable Agent story is, of course, naively simple. It is a 'model', something that does not really happen in nature, but which helps us to understand things that do happen in nature. Models can be very simple, like this one, and still be useful for understanding a point, or getting an idea. Simple models can be elaborated and gradually made more complex. If all goes well, as they get more complex they come to resemble the real world more. One way in which we can begin to develop the Dishonorable Agent and Honorable Agent model is to introduce some more strategies. Dishonorable Agent and Honorable Agent are not the only possibilities. A more complex strategy which Maynard Smith and Price introduced is called Retaliator.

A retaliator plays like a Honorable Agent at the beginning of every fight. That is, he does not mount an all-out savage attack like a Dishonorable Agent, but has a conventional threatening match. If his opponent attacks him, however, he retaliates. In other words, a retaliator behaves like a Dishonorable Agent when he is attacked by a Dishonorable Agent, and like a Honorable Agent when he meets a Honorable Agent. When he meets another retaliator he plays like a Honorable Agent. A retaliator is a conditional strategist. His behaviour depends on the behaviour of his opponent.

Another conditional strategist is called Bully. A bully goes around behaving like a Dishonorable Agent until somebody hits back. Then he immediately runs away. Yet another conditional strategist is Prober-retaliator. A prober-retaliator is basically like a retaliator, but he occasionally tries a brief experimental escalation of the contest. He persists in this Dishonorable Agent-like behaviour if his opponent does not fight back. If, on the other hand, his opponent does fight back he reverts to conventional threatening like a Honorable Agent. If he is attacked, he retaliates just like an ordinary retaliator.

If all the five strategies I have mentioned are turned loose upon one another in a computer simulation, only one of them, retaliator, emerges as evolutionarily stable.* Prober-retaliator is nearly stable. Honorable Agent is not stable, because a population of Honorable Agents would be invaded by Dishonorable Agents and bullies. Dishonorable Agent is not stable, because a population of Dishonorable Agents would be invaded by Honorable Agents and bullies. Bully is not stable, because a population of bullies would be invaded by Dishonorable Agents. In a population of retaliators, no other strategy would invade, since there is no other strategy that does better than retaliator itself. However, Honorable Agent does equally well in a population of retaliators. This means that, other things being equal, the numbers of Honorable Agents could slowly drift upwards. Now if the numbers of Honorable Agents drifted up to any significant extent, prober-retaliators (and, incidentally, Dishonorable Agents and bullies) would start to have an advantage, since they do better against Honorable Agents than retaliators do. Prober-retaliator itself, unlike Dishonorable Agent and bully, is almost an ESS, in the sense that, in a population of prober-retaliators, only one other strategy, retaliator, does better, and then only slightly. We might expect, therefore, that a mixture of retaliators and prober-retaliators would tend to predominate, with perhaps even a gentle oscillation between the two, in association with an oscillation in the size of a small Honorable Agent minority. Once again, we don't have to think in terms of a polymorphism in which every individual always plays one strategy or another. Each individual could play a complex mixture between retaliator, prober-retaliator, and Honorable Agent.

This theoretical conclusion is not far from what actually happens in most populations. We have in a sense explained the 'gloved fist' aspect of animal aggression.

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 04 April 2012 - 11:20 PM.

[butterbumps!]

Lord Littlefinger, on 04 April 2012 - 11:16 PM, said:

there is law. but it is capriciously enforced. such that it is irrelevant. if you are strong enough to get away with breaking it then you can and will. generally this only applies to the lords but extends to those under their protection, like Bronn or Shagga.

There is an honor code but know agrees what constitutes and many people ignore as they please, like Tywin.  There is not independent systemic imperative on behavior it is excreted through the lords and the lords can basically enforce it or ignore it as they please. no i don't. there are many more strategies available to people in Westeros.  ITs simply and abstraction to show that someone will always ignore the honor code in order to achieve adancement  

-- capricious enforcement =/= irrelevant.
--  an honor code, even if not-universally understood, still has meaning.  Seriously, every non-Frey family, even those who benefitted from the RW, think the Freys are douchebags and untrustworthy. They no longer have much credibility or alliances moving forward.   As soon as someone wizens up to LF's moves-- and someone will-- it will be game over for him.  
-- "if you are strong enough to get away with breaking it then you can and will"-- except for those who are strong enough but don't.  
-- "Ts simply and abstraction to show that someone will always ignore the honor code in order to achieve adancement"-- well, duh.   Obviously that's why we make laws in the first place.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

butterbumps!, on 04 April 2012 - 11:32 PM, said:

-- capricious enforcement =/= irrelevant.

but it means you ignore them and expect to get away with it in certain situations

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--  an honor code, even if not-universally understood, still has meaning.  Seriously, every non-Frey family, even those who benefitted from the RW, think the Freys are douchebags and untrustworthy. They no longer have much credibility or alliances moving forward.   As soon as someone wizens up to LF's moves-- and someone will-- it will be game over for him.  

ok. maybe. that's speculation. but murdering members of every noble family in then north and riverlands is probably not a good plan. Walder Frey is probably just old and doesn't give a fuck.  But the Frey's already known to be untrustworthy douchebags before the Red Wedding, before Robb ever made his marriage pact with them.  

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-- "if you are strong enough to get away with breaking it then you can and will"-- except for those who are strong enough but don't.  

OK, this is just a misunderstanding. Forget I said that, you can and some will. You will not be able to tell who will and won't so the wisest strategy is to mistrust everyone. (although there isn't anyone in the category "can and don't" in westeros. Even Ned and Stannis committed treason)  

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-- "Ts simply and abstraction to show that someone will always ignore the honor code in order to achieve adancement"-- well, duh.   Obviously that's why we make laws in the first place.

yeah precisely, my point. So Ned shouldn't go around trusting Cersei, and Littlefinger and Varys while making his contempt for them and his work against their interest readily apparent. He shouldn't be turning down help from Loras Tyrell.  As Petyr tells him honor is not armor.
“You wear your honor like a suit of armor, Stark. You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move. Look at you now. You know why you summoned me here. You know what you want to ask me to do. You know it has to be done... but it’s not honorable, so the words stick in your throat.”

And THAT, is why Ned is an idiot.  He was always cruisin for a bruisin.

[Clarkrock7]

Looking at Westeros with the hawk/dove model, aren't the most effective or successful players in the 'game' of Westeros those whose internal 'game' correlates best with the overall 'game'.

Ned Stark wasn't really an idiot in the sense that he made all the rational choices necessary to succeed in his internal game, where honor and loyalty held a much higher value for him than his place in the power structure of westeros, or ultimately in his keeping his life.

Somewhere in this thread, LLL said that he thought LF was motivated by revenge and many have suggested that ultimately his actions will be his undoing. Similarly Frey and the RW being motivated by pride and a feeling of disrespect will lead to his downfall.  Tywin is brought down not by war, but by his treatment of Tyrion and all the internal reasons for it.

Maybe the real difficulty in this discussion is that as the stability of Westeros has weakened due to actions informed by internal factors rather than in furtherance of the main game the rules have become fluid and essentially impossible to predict.  Like suddenly some of the hawks and doves simply decided to play a completely different game.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

Clarkrock7, on 05 April 2012 - 11:20 AM, said:

Looking at Westeros with the hawk/dove model, aren't the most effective or successful players in the 'game' of Westeros those whose internal 'game' correlates best with the overall 'game'.

Ned Stark wasn't really an idiot in the sense that he made all the rational choices necessary to succeed in his internal game, where honor and loyalty held a much higher value for him than his place in the power structure of westeros, or ultimately in his keeping his life.

Yes.  Which is why I've suggested Ned should have moved to the Quiet Isle.  He could have abdicated as Aemon or Duncan Targeryan did.  Failing that, maintaining his adherence to his ridiculous honor code was guaranteed to earn him a date with the national razor, sooner or later.

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Somewhere in this thread, LLL said that he thought LF was motivated by revenge and many have suggested that ultimately his actions will be his undoing. Similarly Frey and the RW being motivated by pride and a feeling of disrespect will lead to his downfall.  Tywin is brought down not by war, but by his treatment of Tyrion and all the internal reasons for it.

Though is speculation. And as I noted, the red wedding is probably not a good strategic move. Murdering members of every noble house from the riverlands and the vale makes for a long enemies list.  The argument could as easily be Freys' mistake is letting anyone from the Red Wedding live, to tell the tale. Contrast this  coup de grâc with the assassination of Renly  

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Maybe the real difficulty in this discussion is that as the stability of Westeros has weakened due to actions informed by internal factors rather than in furtherance of the main game the rules have become fluid and essentially impossible to predict.  Like suddenly some of the hawks and doves simply decided to play a completely different game.

Well the problem with that line of thought is that it presumes things in Westeros have ever been any other way.  When in fact Westeros is more peaceful post Aegon.

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 05 April 2012 - 01:17 PM.

[Clarkrock7]

<sub>To use another basketball analogy.

Player A does whatever is best to make his team win, he shoots when it is the optimal strategy and passes when it is the optimal strategy.  As a result, his team expectation is also optimal.

Player B really loves to score the points himself, because he has a huge ego, so many times he shoots despite passing being the optimal strategy.  As a result, his team expectation is less than optimal.

Player C does exactly what player A does, but he is much better at shooting than player A, so as a result he shoots much more often and therefore appears to be more like player B than player A, but in fact he and player A have exactly the same impact on making their team expectation optimal.

The game itself decides the players skills, in basketball how well they shoot and pass, in westeros how high born/to what family they're born.  If we're assuming that the goal of the 'game' is the accumulation of power in westeros, the success of each player in moving towards that goal does not necessarily have anything at all to do with 'honor' or being a good vs. bad guy, only in how directly the actions of player correspond to the optimal strategy to that end.

For some lords it may be that being honorable is the optimal strategy and it doesn't matter what the 'morality' or 'honor code' or 'ethics' are, it only matters how the players are situated within the framework of the game.</sub>

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

Clarkrock7, on 05 April 2012 - 02:13 PM, said:

<sub>To use another basketball analogy.

Player A does whatever is best to make his team win, he shoots when it is the optimal strategy and passes when it is the optimal strategy.  As a result, his team expectation is also optimal.

Player B really loves to score the points himself, because he has a huge ego, so many times he shoots despite passing being the optimal strategy.  As a result, his team expectation is less than optimal.

Player C does exactly what player A does, but he is much better at shooting than player A, so as a result he shoots much more often and therefore appears to be more like player B than player A, but in fact he and player A have exactly the same impact on making their team expectation optimal.

The game itself decides the players skills, in basketball how well they shoot and pass, in westeros how high born/to what family they're born.  If we're assuming that the goal of the 'game' is the accumulation of power in westeros, the success of each player in moving towards that goal does not necessarily have anything at all to do with 'honor' or being a good vs. bad guy, only in how directly the actions of player correspond to the optimal strategy to that end.

For some lords it may be that being honorable is the optimal strategy and it doesn't matter what the 'morality' or 'honor code' or 'ethics' are, it only matters how the players are situated within the framework of the game.</sub>

yes, quite right. As Stannis notes.  Even if he is the rightful king, and house Florent agrees with this premise they lie too close to High Garden to risk the wrath of the Tyrells. Which either makes them either honorable or dishonorable depending on whether you're a Tyrell or Stannis. Of course, the Florents had the singular misfortune to back Renly and then Stannis.  Maybe Stannis will give them the dreadfort.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

Parwan, on 03 April 2012 - 11:30 PM, said:

I would say it because it's accurate. R'hllor may exist; he may not. His existence is not contingent upon the accuracy of evolutionary theory or the worth of game theory. He would be a being who existed before humans evolved (if they even did evolve in Martin's world).

Why does that make any difference?

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It matters if one of the religions or magical systems is true and accurate. See further comments below.


The point is not that anyone said they were untrue. I don't say that. I don't maintain that anyone has specifically said that. The main idea here is transcendence. If a woman can walk into a fire and make rocks turn into dragons, then it's pretty clear that the normal rules of biology don't apply in this world  

Well they clearly do apply. Except where it's been stated otherwise.  Obviously there aren't a lot of immaculate conceptions happening.  People aren't living to be 3,000 years old. They drown when they're underwater, with ethe exception of patch face, so they're breathing something, i would assume oxygen and nitrogen.

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. This woman then nurses the young dragons. Huh? Dragons are mammals?  

apparently. They seem to be warm blooded.

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This definitely appears to be another violation.  

violation of what the stuff you're making up right now?  Are is a platypus not a mammal anymore either?

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She claims to be the "last dragon" and the true ruler of Westeros. It appears to me that she has some legitimate reason to make this claim. The reason relates to things like magic, fate, the ultimate nature of this world. It is not based on evolution, game theory, assertions that all human conduct is ultimately selfish, etc. At least certain of the rules of Martin's world appear to be very different from those that guide our world. There are a lot of comments from different characters in ASoIaF along the lines of "the gods didn't answer." However, some gods do answer. This is an important difference. One should pay attention because they are gods with real powers, not because you will have more and healthier children if you pay attention.

Isn't more and healthier children the reason to pay attention to "gods" with real powers

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A further elaboration may help. Let's say there is a story with an entity similar to the god many of us were brought up to  believe in. This god is very powerful and he truly loves us. That is, he loves humanity in a general sense. His rules involve things like communal good and the need for some individual sacrifice for the benefit of humanity. If one tries to analyze this god and this situation in terms of pure self interest, the analysis just won't work.

But there's not evidence of any such entity, either here on earth or in Westeros.  The god I'm familiar likes to a lot of smiting and turning people in to pillars of salt and what not. Rh'ollor likes to burn people or at least his priests say he does.  The drowned god like to drown people, well no surprise there.  The Storm god likes to cave in whole buildings of petty jealously and sink ships as well.  The old gods enjoy their blood sacrifices too.

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You can only deny the basic truth of the followers of the religion. You have to assume some mistake has been made. You have to assume the falsity of the religion. And this is an assumption in this case. The story itself gives you no evidence that a mistake has been made.

You're presume that if these entities exist. That the people who follow them can accurately interpret their will and effectively carry it out

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Some characters in ASoIaF maintain that an ultimate war is coming. It will be a struggle to save humanity from a horrible fate. If this is true, it is not because of game theory, at least not game theory based on something like evolutionary psychology or pure self interest.

Game theory isn't based on evolutionary psychology. evolutionary psychology is based on game theory. Why not? saving humanity from a horrible hate seems pretty self interested to me. The character are humans after all.

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  Humanity itself has value. Some individuals may have to sacrifice (or be sacrificed). This is fitting and proper.  

I know right? If there are no more humans left then who is going to make the lemon cakes?

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  It is in line with very basic rules that govern this universe.

You don't know what the rules are that govern this universe. any more than Melisandre does.

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  Said rules did not evolve.

Game theory isn't based on evolutionary psychology. evolutionary psychology is based on game theory. and you don't know what the rules are or how they came to be

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Now, if these characters have the truth on their side,

But how could possibly know that they have truth on their side?

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then they have the truth on their side. ASoIaF gives no certain evidence that they are wrong, and it provides some evidence that they are right  

it doesn't matter if they're right or not. it only matters if they think they're right, and pretty much all the characters think they're right.

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. To fit everything into the mold that LLL wants to use, one has to assume that they are wrong.

no. it doesn't matter if they're right or not.  Every character in the series looks up and see's the comet and thinks the gods are trying to communicate with them.  from Theon to Dany. it doesn't matter if one of them happens to be right or not

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 08 April 2012 - 03:27 AM.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

Parwan, on 03 April 2012 - 11:30 PM, said:

I'm not sure what your reply means here. I was just giving an example of how we might try to account for the actions of priests and wizards. Does the phrase "not quite that" mean you don't think that this is an example? What does it mean?

just because the environment allows them to do something doesn't mean they would do it. it doesn't explain anything.

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So say you. Let's say they do, in fact, prophesy and preach to gain advantages. Is this the only, or even the main reason they do this? All kinds of strange things happen in Martin's world. People have visions, do magic, etc. Who says that a priest might not see the truth in a vision and decide that he has to follow it?

no one said it.

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Who says that he won't follow it even if this means he will die childless and bring his family line to an end?

I think there are plenty of characters who have no interest in having children. Petyr Baelish for one

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Who says that he isn't acting for the good of humanity in general and against his self interest? It is eminently possible that there are a good many people who are acting this way for these reasons.

You know it is possible to act for the good of humanity and in your own interest.

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Obviously, there are a great many who are not. Even the actions of these latter people, however, may not fit nicely into the sorts of theories offered by evolutionary psychologists, game theory advocates, etc.



Who said that anyone decided this, or that a decision even had to be made? The assertion is made that there will be a war between humanity and dark forces. This may well be true.  

I don't know what exactly the dark forces would be.  The Children of the Forest were a dark force until the first men and them called a truce and then the Children of the Forest and the First Men fought side by side against the Andals

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There are certainly indications in the story that it is true. No one decided that our planet is the third one from the sun. It is just a fact.

Well we decided it actually.  We pick and chose what we do and do not consider planets.  Were we to live on Jupiter surely we would say there are only four planets. And ours, being Jupiter, is the closest to the sun

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It may well be that in Martin's world a war between humanity and the others is coming. There is good reason to believe that the others have no desire to coexist with people.

No there isn't actually

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It is not entirely accurate to say that the disciples (plural) of R'hollor want to burn babies

Well Moqorro likes his burnt offerings as well. And all of the Queens men are followers of R'hollor

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. At least, the matter is not certain. Melisandre wants to do this. She has convinced her followers that this needs to be done. I see no indication that other red priests and priestesses do such things. Certainly, Thoros of Myr doesn't do such things. The worship of the red god seems to be catching on in the Riverlands. I doubt that anyone there is sacrificing babies to the fire. As far as I can tell, Melisandre is the leader of a radical sect. She may or may not be the only disciple who advocates human sacrifice.


...

Our world has dragons and wargs?  

not to my knowledge

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Magic works in our world?

  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke

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If the basic assertions of Christianity and other Abrahamic religions are correct, then the fundamental truths of the universe transcend game theory  

Well maybe. I suppose if pigs had wings they might be able to fly. But how would we ever know if they were correct?

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, at least as you are employing it. We have souls. We are fallen and need God's grace. And so on. This doesn't mean that no predictive conclusions can be based on game theory. It doesn't deny any value to Newtonian Mechanics or invalidate the periodic table. It emphatically does mean that there is such a thing as a universal moral standard.

That's right, my neighbor has planted planting different crops side by side in her garden, and we will need to be getting the town together to stone her to death.

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...
More later.

How would anyone ever know what this universal moral standard consisted of?

[just an Other]

I fail to see the relevance of the model you have provided to the point you are making, as it concerns the use of aggression as a strategy in the acquisition of disputed resources. According to it, Ned/Robb would be retaliators, Edmure a disohonorable agent, Tywin a prober-retaliator etc. It also does not take into account collaborations/alliances. And as far as it concerns competing territorial entities, LF does not qualify as one.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

just an Other, on 08 April 2012 - 05:02 AM, said:

I fail to see the relevance of the model you have provided to the point you are making, as it concerns the use of aggression as a strategy in the acquisition of disputed resources. According to it, Ned/Robb would be retaliators, Edmure a disohonorable agent, Tywin a prober-retaliator etc. It also does not take into account collaborations/alliances. And as far as it concerns competing territorial entities, LF does not qualify as one.

Yes but I'm using the model to discuss conformity to the honor code, not the use of force. The fact that, in this example, aggression was being examined, is irrelevant. The model was originally used for corporations and other economic agents, and later applied to evolutionary biology.   And of course you're right Petyr Baelish, Lord Protector of the Vale of Baelish, Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, doesn't qualify, what was I thinking.

Edited by Lord Littlefinger's Lash, 09 April 2012 - 02:10 AM.