4/26/2018 Nash Equilibria and Schelling Points

LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN

Nash Equilibria and

Schelling Points

43

Scott Alexander (/users/yvain)

012 A Nash equilibrium is an outcome in which neither player is willing to unilaterally

ents change her strategy, and they are often applied to games in which both players move
simultaneously and where decision trees are less useful.

Suppose my girlfriend and I have both lost our cell phones and cannot contact each
other. Both of us would really like to spend more time at home with each other
(utility 3). But both of us also have a slight preference in favor of working late and
earning some overtime (utility 2). If I go home and my girlfriend's there and I can
spend time with her, great. If I stay at work and make some money, that would be
pretty okay too. But if I go home and my girlfriend's not there and I have to sit
around alone all night, that would be the worst possible outcome (utility 1).
Meanwhile, my girlfriend has the same set of preferences: she wants to spend time
with me, she'd be okay with working late, but she doesn't want to sit at home alone.

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LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN

is “game” has two Nash equilibria. If we both go home, neither of us regrets it: we
can spend time with each other and we've both got our highest utility. If we both
stay at work, again, neither of us regrets it: since my girlfriend is at work, I am glad I
stayed at work instead of going home, and since I am at work, my girlfriend is glad
she stayed at work instead of going home. Although we both may wish that we had
both gone home, neither of us speci cally regrets our own choice, given our
knowledge of how the other acted.

When all players in a game are reasonable, the (apparently) rational choice will be to
go for a Nash equilibrium (why would you want to make a choice you'll regret when
you know what the other player chose?) And since John Nash (remember that movie
A Beautiful Mind?) proved that every game has at least one, all games between well-
informed rationalists (who are not also being superrational in a sense to be
discussed later) should end in one of these.

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What if the game seems speci cally designed to thwart Nash equilibria? Suppose
LESSWRONGLW
you (/) an enemy country's heartland. You can attack one
are a general invading of two
LOGIN

targets, East City or West City (you declared war on them because you were
o ended by their uncreative toponyms). e enemy general only has enough troops
to defend one of the two cities. If you attack an undefended city, you can capture it
easily, but if you attack the city with the enemy army, they will successfully ght you
o .

Here there is no Nash equilibrium without introducing randomness. If both you and
your enemy choose to go to East City, you will regret your choice - you should have
gone to West and taken it undefended. If you go to East and he goes to West, he will
regret his choice - he should have gone East and stopped you in your tracks. Reverse
the names, and the same is true of the branches where you go to West City. So every
option has someone regretting their choice, and there is no simple Nash
equilibrium. What do you do?

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Here the answer should be obvious: it doesn't matter. Flip a coin. If you ip a coin,
LESSWRONGLW
and your opponent ips(/) a coin, neither of you will regret your choice. Here
we seeLOGIN
a
"mixed Nash equilibrium", an equilibrium reached with the help of randomness.

We can formalize this further. Suppose you are attacking a di erent country with
two new potential targets: Metropolis and Podunk. Metropolis is a rich and
strategically important city (utility: 10); Podunk is an out of the way hamlet barely
worth the trouble of capturing it (utility: 1).

A so-called rst-level player thinks: “Well, Metropolis is a better prize, so I might as

well attack that one. at way, if I win I get 10 utility instead of 1”

A second-level player thinks: “Obviously Metropolis is a better prize, so my enemy

expects me to attack that one. So if I attack Podunk, he'll never see it coming and I
can take the city undefended.”

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A third-level player thinks: “Obviously Metropolis is a better prize, so anyone clever

LESSWRONGLW
would (/) as obvious as attack there. ey'd attack Podunk
never do something instead.
LOGIN

But my opponent knows that, so, seeking to stay one step ahead of me, he has
defended Podunk. He will never expect me to attack Metropolis, because that would
be too obvious. erefore, the city will actually be undefended, so I should take
Metropolis.”

And so on ad in nitum, until you become hopelessly confused and have no choice
but to spend years developing a resistance to iocane powder.

But surprisingly, there is a single best solution to this problem, even if you are
playing against an opponent who, like Professor Quirrell, plays “one level higher
than you.”

When the two cities were equally valuable, we solved our problem by ipping a coin.
at won't be the best choice this time. Suppose we ipped a coin and attacked
Metropolis when we got heads, and Podunk when we got tails. Since my opponent
can predict my strategy, he would defend Metropolis every time; I am equally likely
to attack Podunk and Metropolis, but taking Metropolis would cost them much
more utility. My total expected utility from ipping the coin is 0.5: half the time I
successfully take Podunk and gain 1 utility, and half the time I am defeated at
Metropolis and gain 0.And this is not a Nash equilibrium: if I had known my
opponent's strategy was to defend Metropolis every time, I would have skipped the
coin ip and gone straight for Podunk.

So how can I nd a Nash equilibrium? In a Nash equilibrium, I don't regret my

strategy when I learn my opponent's action. If I can come up with a strategy that
pays exactly the same utility whether my opponent defends Podunk or Metropolis, it
will have this useful property. We'll start by supposing I am ipping a biased coin
that lands on Metropolis x percent of the time, and therefore on Podunk (1-x)
percent of the time. To be truly indi erent which city my opponent defends, 10x
(the utility my strategy earns when my opponent leaves Metropolis undefended)
should equal 1(1-x) (the utility my strategy earns when my opponent leaves Podunk
undefended). Some quick algebra nds that 10x = 1(1-x) is satis ed by x = 1/11. So I
should attack Metropolis 1/11 of the time and Podunk 10/11 of the time.

My opponent, going through a similar process, comes up with the suspiciously

similar result that he should defend Metropolis 10/11 of the time, and Podunk 1/11
of the time.
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If we both pursue our chosen strategies, I gain an average 0.9090... utility each
LESSWRONGLW
round, (/)my previous record of 0.5, and my opponent suspiciously
soundly beating  LOGIN
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax_theorem#Minimax_theorem) loses an
average -.9090 utility. It turns out there is no other strategy I can use to consistently
do better than this when my opponent is playing optimally, and that even if I knew
my opponent's strategy I would not be able to come up with a better strategy to beat
it. It also turns out that there is no other strategy my opponent can use to
consistently do better than this if I am playing optimally, and that my opponent,
upon learning my strategy, doesn't regret his strategy either.

In e Art of Strategy (http://www.amazon.com/ e-Art-Strategy- eorists-

Business/dp/0393062430), Dixit and Nalebu cite a real-life application of the same
principle in, of all things, penalty kicks in soccer. A right-footed kicker has a better
chance of success if he kicks to the right, but a smart goalie can predict that and will
defend to the right; a player expecting this can accept a less spectacular kick to the
left if he thinks the left will be undefended, but a very smart goalie can predict this
too, and so on. Economist Ignacio Palacios-Huerta laboriously analyzed the success
rates of various kickers and goalies on the eld, and found
(https://www.lesswrong.com/Ignacio%20Palacios-Huerta) that they actually
pursued a mixed strategy generally within 2% of the game theoretic ideal, proving
that people are pretty good at doing these kinds of calculations unconsciously.

So every game really does have at least one Nash equilibrium, even if it's only a
mixed strategy. But some games can have many, many more. Recall the situation
between me and my girlfriend:

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LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN

ere are two Nash equilibria: both of us working late, and both of us going home. If
there were only one equilibrium, and we were both con dent in each other's
rationality, we could choose that one and there would be no further problem. But in
fact this game does present a problem: intuitively it seems like we might still make a
mistake and end up in di erent places.

Here we might be tempted to just leave it to chance; after all, there's a 50%
probability we'll both end up choosing the same activity. But other games might
have thousands or millions of possible equilibria and so will require a more re ned
approach.

Art of Strategy describes a game show in which two strangers were separately taken
to random places in New York and promised a prize if they could successfully meet
up; they had no communication with one another and no clues about how such a
meeting was to take place. Here there are a nearly in nite number of possible
choices: they could both meet at the corner of First Street and First Avenue at 1 PM,

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they could both meet at First Street and Second Avenue at 1:05 PM, etc. Since
LESSWRONGLW
neither (/) their actions (if I went to First and First at 1 and
party would regret found LOGIN
you there, I would be thrilled) these are all Nash equilibria.

Despite this mind-boggling array of possibilities, in fact all six episodes of this
particular game ended with the two contestants meeting successfully after only a
few days. e most popular meeting site was the Empire State Building at noon.

How did they do it? e world-famous Empire State Building is what game theorists
call focal: it stands out as a natural and obvious target for coordination. Likewise
noon, classically considered the very middle of the day, is a focal point in time. ese
focal points, also called Schelling points after theorist omas Schelling who
discovered them, provide an obvious target for coordination attempts.

What makes a Schelling point? e most important factor is that it be special. e

Empire State Building, depending on when the show took place, may have been the
tallest building in New York; noon is the only time that ts the criteria of “exactly in
the middle of the day”, except maybe midnight when people would be expected to be
too sleepy to meet up properly.

Of course, specialness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. David Friedman
writes:

Two people are separately confronted with the list of numbers [2, 5, 9, 25, 69,
73, 82, 96, 100, 126, 150 ] and o ered a reward if they independently choose the
same number. If the two are mathematicians, it is likely that they will both
choose 2—the only even prime. Non-mathematicians are likely to choose 100—
a number which seems, to the mathematicians, no more unique than the other
two exact squares. Illiterates might agree on 69, because of its peculiar
symmetry—as would, for a di erent reason, those whose interest in numbers is
more prurient than mathematical.

A recent open thread comment

(https://www.lesswrong.com/lw/d3h/open_thread_june_1630_2012/6v8u) pointed
out that you can justify anything with “for decision-theoretic reasons” or “due to
meta-level concerns”. I humbly propose adding “as a Schelling point” to this list,
except that the list is tongue-in-cheek and Schelling points really do explain almost
everything - stock markets (http://blog.rivast.com/?p=4808), national borders
(http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6632/Goemans_-

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_CISAC_Research_Seminar_Background_Paper_-_New_Borders.pdf ), marriages
LESSWRONGLW (/)
(http://faculty.lebow.drexel.edu/mccainr/top/eco/game/vow/marriage.html),  private
LOGIN

property (http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Property/Property.html),
religions, fashion (http://www.ccoyne.com/ les/Focal_PDF.PDF), political parties,
peace treaties, social networks, software platforms
(http://www.tinmarine.com/2012/02/schelling-points.html) and languages all
involve or are based upon Schelling points. In fact, whenever something has
“symbolic value” a Schelling point is likely to be involved in some way. I hope to
expand on this point a bit more later.

Sequential games can include one more method of choosing between Nash
equilibria: the idea of a subgame-perfect equilibrium
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subgame_perfect_equilibrium), a special kind of Nash
equlibrium that remains a Nash equilibrium for every subgame of the original game.
In more intuitive terms, this equilibrium means that even in a long multiple-move
game no one at any point makes a decision that goes against their best interests
(remember the example from the last post, where we crossed out the branches in
which Clinton made implausible choices that failed to maximize his utility?) Some
games have multiple Nash equilibria but only one subgame-perfect one; we'll
examine this idea further when we get to the iterated prisoners' dilemma and
ultimatum game.

In conclusion, every game has at least one Nash equilibrium, a point at which
neither player regrets her strategy even when she knows the other player's strategy.
Some equilibria are simple choices, others involve plans to make choices randomly
according to certain criteria. Purely rational players will always end up at a Nash
equilibrium, but many games will have multiple possible equilibria. If players are
trying to coordinate, they may land at a Schelling point, an equilibria which stands
out as special in some way.

43

Scott Alexander (/users/yvain)

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76 comments, sorted by magical algorithm Highligh ng new comments since today at 10:55 am
LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN
Modera on Guidelines 

[-] Kawoomba (/users/kawoomba) 16 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#uJsuD4uTn7bMA73RA)


The actual equilibria can seem truly mind boggling at first glance. Consider this famous example
(h p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_game):
There are 5 ra onal pirates, A, B, C, D and E. They find 100 gold coins. They must decide how to distribute them.
The pirates have a strict order of seniority: A is superior to B, who is superior to C, who is superior to D, who is superior
to E.
The pirate world's rules of distrubu on are thus: that the most senior pirate should propose a distribu on of coins. The
pirates, including the proposer, then vote on whether to accept this distribu on. If the proposed alloca on is approved
by a majority or a e vote, it happens. If not, the proposer is thrown overboard from the pirate ship and dies, and the
next most senior pirate makes a new proposal to begin the system again.
Pirates base their decisions on three factors.
1) Each pirate wants to survive.
2) Given survival, each pirate wants to maximize the number of gold coins he receives.
3) Each pirate would prefer to throw another overboard, if all other results would otherwise be equal.
The pirates do not trust each other, and will neither make nor honor any promises between pirates apart from the main
proposal.
It might be expected intui vely that Pirate A will have to allocate li le if any to himself for fear of being voted off so
that there are fewer pirates to share between. However, this is quite far from the theore cal result.
Which is ...
...
...
A: 98 coins
B: 0 coins
C: 1 coin
D: 0 coins
E: 1 coin
Proof is in the ar cle linked. Amazing, isn't it? :-)
16 points 

Eliezer_Yudkowsky (/users/eliezer_yudkowsky) 14 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#dZqaBydZWTpPENvFJ)


It's amazing, the results people come up with when they don't use TDT (or some other formalism that doesn't defect
in the Prisoner's Dilemma - though so far as I know, the concept of the Blackmail Equa on is unique to TDT.)
(Because the base case of the pirate scenario is, essen ally, the Ul matum game, where the only reason the other
person offers you $1 instead of $5 is that they model you as accep ng a $1 offer, which is a very stupid answer to
compute if it results in you ge ng only $1 - only someone who two-boxed on Newcomb's Problem would
contemplate such a thing.)
14 points 
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[-] cousin_it (/users/cousin_it) 9 points 

LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#JjeSENm7Hi9kPYNLH)

At some point you proposed to solve the problem of blackmail by responding to offers but not to threats. Do you
have a more precise version of that proposal? What logical facts about you and your opponent indicate that the
situa on is an offer or a threat? I had problems trying to figure that out.
9 points 

[-] Michaelos (/users/michaelos) 8 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#YoHgYQALetXPEMqMk)


I have a possible idea for this, but I think I need help working out more the rules for the logical scenario as well.
All I have are examples (and It's not like examples of a threat are that tricky to imagine.)
Person A makes situa ons that involve some form of request (an offer, a a series of offers, a threat, etc.). Person B
may either Accept, Decline, or Revoke Person A's requests. Revoking a request blocks requests from occurring at
all, at a cost.
Person A might say "Give me 1 dollar and I'll give you a Frozen Pizza." And Person B might "Accept" if Frozen Pizza
grants more u lity than a dollar would.
Person A might say "Give me 100 dollars and I'll give you a Frozen Pizza." Person B would "Decline" the offer, since
Frozen Pizza probably wouldn't be worth more than 100 dollars, but he probably wouldn't bother to revoke it.
Maybe Person A's next situa on will be more reasonable.
Or Person A might say "Give me 500 dollars or I'll kill you." And Person B will pick "Revoke" because he doesn't
want that situa on to occur at all. The fact that there is a choice between death or minus 500 dollars is not a good
situa on. He might also revoke future situa ons from that person.
Alternate examples: If you're trying to convince someone to go out on a date, they might say "Yes", "No", or "Get
away from me, you creep!"
If you are trying to enter a password to a computer system, they might allow access (correct password), deny
access (incorrect password), or deny access and lock access a empts for some period (mul ple incorrect
passwords)
Or if you're at a recep onist desk:
A: "I plan on going to the bathroom, Can you tell me where it is?"
B: "Yes."
A: "I plan on going to a date tonight, Would you like to go out with me to dinner?"
B: "No."
A: "I plan on taking your money, can you give me the key to the safe this instant?"
B: "Security!"
The difference appears to be that if it is a threat (or a fraud) you not only want to decline the offer, you want to
decline future offers even if they look reasonable because the evidence from the first offer was that bad. Ergo, if
someone says:
A: "I plan on taking your money, can you give me the key to the safe this instant?"
B: "Security!"
A: "I plan on going to the bathroom, Can you tell me where it is?"
B: (won't say yes at this point because of the earlier threat) "SECURITY!"
Whereas for instance, in the recep on scenario the date isn't a threat, so:

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A: "I plan on going to a date tonight, Would you like to go out with me to dinner?"
B:LESSWRONGLW
"No." (/)  LOGIN

A: "I plan on going to the bathroom, Can you tell me where it is?"
B: "Yes."
I feel like this expresses threats or frauds to clearly me, but I'm not sure if it would be clear to someone else. Did it
help? Are there any holes I need to fix?
8 points 

[-] Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 9 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#XYZRwtadjAuRauKuv)


The doctor walks in, face ashen. "I'm sorry- it's likely we'll lose her or the baby. She's unconscious now, and so
the choice falls to you: should we try to save her or the child?"
The husband calmly replies, "Revoke!"
In non-story format: how do you formalize the difference between someone telling you bad news and someone
causing you to be in a worse situa on? How do you formalize the difference between accidental harm and
inten onal harm? How do you determine the value for having a par cular resistance to blackmail, such that you
can dis nguish between blackmail you should and shouldn't give in to?
9 points 

Michaelos (/users/michaelos) 2 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#a6zdMP4jjgNE4caz4)


The doctor walks in, face ashen. "I'm sorry- it's likely we'll lose her or the baby. She's
unconscious now, and so the choice falls to you: should we try to save her or the child?" The
husband calmly replies, "Revoke!"

An eloquent way of poin ng out what I was missing. Thank you!

In non-story format: How do you formalize the difference between someone telling you bad
informa on and someone causing you to be in a worse situa on?

I will try to think on this more. The only thing that's occurred to me so far is that if that it seems like if you
have a formaliza on, it may not be a good idea to announce your formaliza on. Someone who knows your
formaliza on might be able to exploit it by customizing their imposed worse situa on to look like simply
telling you bad informa on, their inten onal harm to look like accidental harm, or their blackmail to extort
the maximum amount of money out of you, if they had an explicit set of formal rules about where those
boundaries were.
And for instance, it seems like a person would prefer it someone else blackmailed that person less than they
could theore cally get away with because they were being cau ous, rather than having every blackmailer
immediately blackmail at maximum effec ve blackmail. (at that point, since the threshold can change)
Again, I really do appreciate you helping me focus my thoughts on this.
2 points 

[-] army1987 (/users/army1987) 1 point 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#PXxLsQ66dRAW38ekR)


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How do you determine the value for having a par cular resistance to blackmail, such that you
LESSWRONGLW (/)
can dis nguish between blackmail you should and shouldn't give in to?  LOGIN

The doctor has no obvious reason to prefer you to want to save your wife or your child. On the other hand,
the mugger would very much prefer you to hand him your wallet than to accept to be killed, and so he's
deliberately making the la er possibility as unpleasant to you as possible to make you choose the former; but
if you had precommi ed to not choosing the former (e.g. by leaving your wallet at home) and he had known
it, he wouldn't have approached you in the first place.
IOW this is the decision tree:

mug give in
------------------------------------------------ (+50,-50)
| |
| | don't give in
| ---------------------- (-1,-1e6)
| don't mug
---------------------------------------------- (0, 0)

where the mugger makes the first choice, you make the second choices, and the numbers in parentheses are
the pay-offs for the mugger and for you respec vely. If you precommit not to choose the top branch, the
mugger will take the bo om branch. (How do I stop mul ple spaces from being collapsed into one?
1 point 

[-] TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#KfvLPMbwF9F4eCwTm)


If I have a choice of whether or not to perform an ac on A, and I believe that performing A will harm agent X
and will not in and of itself benefit me, and I credibly commit to performing A unless X provides me with some
addi onal value V, I would consider myself to be threatening X with A unless they provide V. Whether that is a
threat of blackmail or some other kind of threat doesn't seem like a terribly interes ng ques on.
Edit: my earlier thoughts on extor on/blackmail, specifically, here
(h p://lesswrong.com/lw/39a/unpacking_the_concept_of_blackmail/3431).
0 points 

[-] Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 3 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#vgYzSC2F88QXaxGtz)


will not in and of itself benefit me

Did you ever see Shawshank Redemp on? One of the Warden's tricks is not just to take construc on
projects with convict labor, but to bid on any construc on project (with the ability to undercut any
compe tor because his labor is already paid for) unless the other contractors paid him to stay away from
that job.
My thought, as hinted at by my last ques on, is that refusing or accep ng any par cular blackmail request
depends on the immediate and reputa onal costs of refusing or accep ng. A flat "we will not accept any
blackmail requests" is emo onally sa sfying to deliver, but can't be the right strategy for all situa ons.
(When the hugger mugger demands "hug me or I'll shoot!", well, I'll give him a hug.) A "we will not accept
any blackmail requests that cost more than X" seems like the next best step, but as pointed out here

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(h p://lesswrong.com/lw/dc7/nash_equilibria_and_schelling_points/6xau) that runs the risk of people just

demanding X every me.
LESSWRONGLW (/) Another refinement might be to publish a "acceptance func on"- you'll accept a
 LOGIN
(sufficiently credible and damaging) blackmail request for x with probability f(x), which is a decreasing
(probably sigmoidal) func on.
But the reputa onal costs of accep ng or rejec ng vary heavily based on the variety of threat, what you
believe about poten al threateners, whose opinions you care about, and so on. Things get very complex
very fast.
3 points 

[-] TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 1 point 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#RNdz6P7HXyCzWYLKF)


If I am able to outbid all compe tors for any job, but cannot do all jobs, and I let it be known that I won't
bid on jobs if bribed accordingly, I would not consider myself to be threatening all the other contractors,
or blackmailing them. In effect this is a form of rent-seeking.
The acceptance-func on approach you describe, where the severity and credibility of the threat ma er,
makes sense to me.
1 point 

[-] Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#jfmR3yBHs493XTRe3)


Blackmail seems to me to be a narrow variety of rent-seeking, and reasons for categorically opposing
blackmail seem like reasons for categorically opposing rent-seeking. But I might be using too broad a
category for 'rent-seeking.'
0 points 

[-] TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 2 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#ddyn3kuxCAYcey88H)


reasons for categorically opposing blackmail seem like reasons for categorically
opposing rent-seeking

Well, I agree, but only because in general the reasons for categorically opposing something that would
otherwise seem ra onal to cooperate with are similar. That is, the strategy of being seen to credibly
commit to a policy of never rewarding X, even when rewarding X would leave me be er off, is useful
whenever such a strategy reduces others' incen ve to X and where I prefer that people not X at me. It
works just as well where X=rent-seeking as where X=giving me presents as where X=threatening me.
Can you expand on your model if rent-seeking?
2 points 

[-] Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#ZLrvssvHfXqaJZ9ua)


Can you expand on your model if rent-seeking?

Yes but I'm not sure how valuable it is to. Basically, it boils down to 'non-produc ve means of
acquiring wealth,' but it's not clear if, say, pe y the should be included. (Generally, defini onal
choices like that there are made based on iden ty implica ons, rather than economic ones.) The
general sen ment of things "I prefer that people not X at me" captures the essence be er, perhaps.

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There are benefits to insis ng on a narrower defini on: perhaps something like legal non-produc ve
means of acquiring
LESSWRONGLW (/) wealth, but part of the issue is that rent-seeking o en operates by manipula ng
the defini on of 'legal.'
LOGIN

0 points 

[-] raptortech97 (/users/raptortech97) 1 point 

2y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#XZCvrPdbT7doGW R)


So if all pirates implement TDT, what happens?

1 point 

Pentashagon (/users/pentashagon) -1 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#wGHR3GHNcXN22gktw)


I'll guess that in your analysis, given the base case of D and E's game being a e vote on a (D=100, E=0) split, results
in a (C=0, D=0, E=100) split for three pirates since E can blackmail C into giving up all the coins in exchange for
staying alive? D may vote arbitrarily on a (C=0, D=100, E=0) split, so C must consider E to have the deciding vote.
If so, that means four pirates would yield (B=0, C=100, D=0, E=0) or (B=0, C=0, D=100, E=0) in a e. E expects 100
coins in the three-pirate game and so wouldn't be a safe choice of blackmailer, but C and D expect zero coins in a
three-pirate game so B could choose between them arbitrarily. B can't give fewer than 100 coins to either C or D
because they will punish that behavior with a deciding vote for death, and B knows this. It's poten ally unintui ve
for C because C's expected value in a three-pirate game is 0 but if C commits to vo ng against B for anything less
than 100 coins, and B knows this, then B is forced to give either 0 or 100 coins to C. The remaining coins must go to
D.
In the case of five pirates C and D except more than zero coins on average if A dies because B may choose arbitrarily
between C or D as blackmailer. B and E expect zero coins from the four-pirate game. A must maximize the chance
that two or more pirates will vote for A's split. C and D have an expected value of 50 coins from the four-pirate
game if they assume B will choose randomly, and so a (A=0, B=0, C=50, D=50, E=0) split is no be er than B's
expected offer for C and D and any fewer than 50 coins for C or D will certainly make them vote against A. I think A
should offer (A=0, B=n, C=0, D=0, E=100-n) where n is mutually acceptable to B and E.
Because B and E have no rela ve advantage in a four-pirate game (both expect zero coins) they don't have leverage
against each other in the five-pirate game. If B had a non-zero probability of being killed in a four-pirate game then
A should offer E more coins than B at a ra o corresponding to that risk. As it is, I think B and E would accept a fair
split of n=50, but I may be overlooking some poten al for E to blackmail B.
-1 points 

[-] Brilliand (/users/brilliand) 0 points 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#yuveFKFtLYa2YpuzE)


In every case of the pirates game, the decision-maker assigns one coin to every pirate an even number of steps
away from himself, and the rest of the coins to himself (with more gold than pirates, anyway; things can get weird
with large numbers of pirates). See the Wikipedia ar cle Kawoomba linked to for an explana on of why.
0 points 

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[-] MarkusRamikin (/users/markusramikin) 6 points 

6y LESSWRONGLW (/)
(/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#eE22y52GXLSNME3qy)  LOGIN

There are 5 ra onal pirates, A, B, C, D and E

I see 1 ra onal pirate and 4 u er morons who have paid so much a en on to math that they forgot to actually win. I
mean, if they were "less ra onal", they'd be inclined to get outraged over the unfairness, and throw A overboard,
right? And A would expect it, so he'd give them a be er deal. "Ra onal" is not "walking away with less money".
It's s ll an interes ng example and thank you for pos ng it.
6 points 

[-] Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 10 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#BdEwS9LLaAocmWfWT)


I see 1 ra onal pirate and 4 u er morons who have paid so much a en on to math that they forgot
to actually win.

Remember, this isn't any old pirate crew. This is a crew with a par cular set of rules that gives different pirates
different powers. There's no "hang the rules!" here, and since it's an ar ficial problem there's an ar ficial solu on.
D has the power to walk away with all of the gold, and A, B, and C dead. He has no incen ve to agree to anything
less, because if enough votes fail he'll be in the best possible posi on. This determines E's default result, which is
what he makes decisions based off of. Building out the game tree helps here.
10 points 

[-] Pentashagon (/users/pentashagon) 1 point 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#6YHTSFGbaNjXyWN37)


If B, C, D, and E throw A overboard then C, D, and E are in a posi on to throw B overboard and any argument B, C, D,
and E can come up with for throwing A overboard is just as strong an argument as C, D, and E can come up with for
throwing B overboard. In fact, with fewer pirates an even split would be even more advantageous to C, D, and E. So
B will always vote for A's split out of self-preserva on. If C throws A overboard he will end up in the same situa on
as B was originally; needing to support the highest ranking pirate to avoid being the next one up for going
overboard. Since the second in command will always vote for the first in command out of self preserva on he or
she will accept a split with zero coins for themselves. Therefore A only has to offer C 1 coin to get C's vote. A, B, and
C's majority rules.
In real life I imagine the pirate who is best at up-to-5-way fights is le with 100 coins. If the other pirates were truly
ra onal then they would never have boarded a pirate ship with a pirate who is be er at an up-to-5-way fight than
them.
1 point 

[-] beberly37 (/users/beberly37) 1 point 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#uHXAS7EL4a85iAnC4)


If the other pirates were truly ra onal then they would never have boarded a pirate ship with a
pirate who is be er at an up-to-5-way fight than them.

When someone asks me how I would get out of a par cularly s cky situa on, I o en fight the urge to glibly
respond, by not ge ng it to said situa on.
I digress, if the other pirates were truly ra onal then they would never let anyone know how good they were at
an up-to-X-way fight.
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1 point 
LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN
Pentashagon (/users/pentashagon) 0 points 
[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#tQg3wmhFL4wPYmRkX)

By extension, should truly ra onal en es never let anyone know how ra onal they are?
0 points 

[-] wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#PMQNzCEHWbD u89g)


By extension, should truly ra onal en es never let anyone know how ra onal they are?

No, they should some mes not let people know that. Some mes it is an advantage - either by allowing
coopera on that would not otherwise have been possible or demonstra ng superior power and so allow
op ons for dominance.
0 points 

[-] wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 1 point 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#sDzS4GtcdxyXyS95y)


In real life I imagine the pirate who is best at up-to-5-way fights is le with 100 coins.

I doubt it. Humans almost never just have an all in winner takes all fight. The most charisma c pirate will end up
with the greatest share, while the others end up with lesser shares depending on what it takes for the leader to
maintain alliances. (Es mated and observed physical prowess is one component of said charisma in the
circumstance).
1 point 

[-] Kawoomba (/users/kawoomba) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#CB3iYguZRYog8YWGM)


I see 1 ra onal pirate and 4 u er morons who have paid so much a en on to math that they forgot
to actually win. I mean, if they were "less ra onal", they'd be inclined to get outraged over the
unfairness, and throw A overboard, right? And A would expect it, so he'd give them a be er deal.
"Ra onal" is not "walking away with less money".

Well if they chose to decline A's proposal for whatever reason, that would put C and E in a worse posi on than if
they didn't.
Outrage over being treated unfairly doesn't come into one me prisoner's dilemmata. Each pirate wants to survive
with the maximum amount of gold, and C and E would get nothing if they didn't vote for A's proposal.
Hence, if C and E were outraged as you suggest, and voted against A's proposal, they would walk away with even
less. One gold coin buys you infinitely more blackjack and hookers than zero gold coins.
0 points 

[-] MarkusRamikin (/users/markusramikin) 10 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#5mtvx5KhKoFurmii7)


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If C and E - and I'd say all 4 of them really, at least regarding a 98 0 1 0 1 solu on - were inclined to be outraged as
I suggest, and A knew this, they
LESSWRONGLW (/) would walk away with more money. For me, that trumps any possible math and
logic you could put forward.
 LOGIN

And just in case A is stupid:

"But look, C and E, this is the op mal solu on, if you don't listen to me you'll get less gold!"
"Nice try, smartass. Overboard you go."
B watched on, star ng to sweat...
EDIT: Ooops, I no ce that I missed the fact that B doesn't need to sweat since he just needs D. S ll, my main point
isn't about B, but A.
Also I wanna make it 100% clear: I don't claim that the proof is incorrect, given all the assump ons of the
problem, including the ones about how the agents work. I'm just not impressed with the agents, with their ability
to achieve their goals. Leave A unchanged and toss in 4 reasonably bright real humans as B C D E, at least some of
them will leave with more money.
10 points 

othercriteria (/users/othercriteria) 4 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#Z672E6wAy32kMzDLc)


...because it's very hot in Pirate Island's shark-infested Pirate Bay, not out of any fear or distress at an outcome
that put her in a be er posi on than she had occupied before.
Whereas A had to build an outright majority to get his plan approved, B just had to convince one other pirate. D
was the natural choice, both from a strict logico-mathema cal view, and because D had just watched C and E
team up to throw their former captain overboard. It wasn't that they were against betraying their superiors for
a slice of the treasure, it was that the slice wasn't big enough! D wasn't very bright--B knew from sharing a
schooner with him these last few months--but team CE had been so obliging as to slice a big branch off D's
decision tree. What was le was a stump. D could take her offer of 1 coin, or be le to the mercy of the
outrageously blood-thirsty team CE.
C and E watched on, dreaming of all the wonderful things they could do with their 0 coins.
[I think the "ra onality = winning" story holds here (in the case where A's proposal passes, not in this weird
counterfactual cul-de-sac) but in a more subtle way. The 98 0 1 0 1 solu on basically gives a value of the ranks,
i.e., how much a pirate should be willing to pay to get into that rank at the me treasure will be divided. From
this perspec ve, being A is highly valuable, and A should have been willing to pay, say, 43 coins for his ship, 2
coins for powder, 7 coins for wages to B, C, D, E, etc., to make it into that posi on. C, on the other hand, might
turn down a promo on to second-in-command over B, unless it's paired with a wage hike of one 1 coin; B would
be surprisingly happy to be given such a demo on, if her pay remained unchanged. All the pirates can win even
in a 98 0 1 0 1 solu on, if they knew such a treasure would be found and planned accordingly.]
4 points 

[-] FluffyC (/users/fluffyc) 2 points 

5y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#YeM4fuLDuRPxetxKi)


It seems to me that the extent to which B C D E will be able to get more money is to some extent dependent on
their ability to plausibly precommit to rejec ng an "unfair" deal... and possibly their ability to plausibly
precommit to accep ng a "fair" one.
Emphasis on "plausibly" and "PIRATES."

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At minimum, if they can plausibly precommit to things, I'd expect at the very least CDE to precommit to tossing
A B overboard no ma er (/)
LESSWRONGLW what is offered and spli ng the pot three ways. There are quite possibly be erLOGIN
commitments to make even than this.

2 points 

[-] Kawoomba (/users/kawoomba) 2 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#MeFz596oY8iHun8rc)


Heh, if I can't convince you with "any possible math and logic", let me try with this great video
(h p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ougCMz7Nk) (also that one (h p://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=P_rIsQxByNg)) that shows the consequences of "reasoning via outrage".
2 points 

[-] MarkusRamikin (/users/markusramikin) 3 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#5f2bSebT75MvHjQsQ)


Watched the first one. It was very different from the scenario we're discussing. No one's life was at stake. Also
the shares were unequal from the start, so there was no fair scenario being denied, to get outraged about.
I'm not in favor of "reasoning via outrage" in general. I'm simply in favor of possessing a (known) inclina on to
turn down overly skewed deals (like humans generally have, usefully I might add); if I have it, and your life is at
stake, you'd have to be suicidal to propose a 98 0 1 0 1 if I'm one of the people whose vote you need.
What makes it different from the video example is that, in the pirate example, if I turn down the deal the
proponent loses far, far more than I do. Not just 98 coins to my 1, but their life, which should be many orders
of magnitude more precious. So there's clearly room for a more fair deal. The woman in that case wasn't like
my proposed E or C, she was like a significantly stupider version of A, wan ng an unfairly good deal in a
situa on when there was no reason for her to believe her commitment could reliably prevail over the other
players' ability to do the same.
3 points 

wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 3 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#BjSYFz6AwHqcTBSWo)


Watched the first one. It was very different from the scenario we're discussing. No one's life
was at stake. Also the shares were unequal from the start, so there was no fair scenario being
denied, to get outraged about.

A sugges on to randomize was made and denied. They fail at thinking. Especially Jo, who kept trying to
convince herself and others that she didn't care about money. Sour grapes---really pathe c.
3 points 

sixes_and_sevens (/users/sixes_and_sevens) 3 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#FmMuHDN5DD8QG4Nwj)


Whenever I come across highly counterintui ve claims along these lines, I code them up and see how they
perform over many itera ons.
This is a lot trickier to do in this case compared to, say, the Monty Hall problem, but if you restricted it just
to cases in which Pirate A retained 98 of the coins, you could demonstrate whether the [98, 0, 1, 0, 1]
distribu on was stable or not.
3 points 

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[-] sixes_and_sevens (/users/sixes_and_sevens) 1 point


LESSWRONGLW (/) 
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#Cz7ahCPB8hdtsxct5) LOGIN


Also, I'd suggest thinking about this in a slightly different way to the way you're thinking about it. The only
pirate in the scenario who doesn't have to worry about dying is pirate E, who can make any demands he
likes from pirate D. What distribu on would he suggest?
Edit: Rereading the wording of the scenario, pirate E can't make any demands he likes from pirate D, and
pirate D himself also doesn't need to worry about dying.
1 point 

wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 2 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#phptwYqBRTD89s4cQ)


Heh, if I can't convince you with "any possible math and logic", let me try with this great video
(also that one) that shows the consequences of "reasoning via outrage".

That shows one aspect of the consequences of reasoning via outrage. It doesn't indicate that the strategy
itself is bad. In a similar way the consequences of randomizing and defending Podunk 1/11 mes is that 1/11
mes (against a good player) you will end up on youtube losing Metropolis.
2 points 

Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 1 point 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#xreiXnhPDbXZYSNCf)


let me try with this great video

Whoever came up with that game show is a genius.

1 point 

[-] Decius (/users/decius) 1 point 

5y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#Dxtuss2CGTGJc8kmu)


"I will stand firm on A un l A becomes worth less than C is now, then I will accept B or C. You get more by
accep ng B or C now than you get by trying to get more."
One ra onal course of ac on is to mutually commit to a random split, and follow through. What's the
ra onal course of ac on to respond to someone who makes that threat and is believed to follow through on
it? If it is known that the other two par cipants are ra onal, why isn't making a threat of that nature
ra onal?
1 point 

wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 3 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#nBXPENe4tgtv9pknw)


Proof is in the ar cle linked.

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With the caveat that this 'proof' relies on the same assump ons that 'prove' that the ra onal prisoners defect in the
one shot prisoners dilemma - which
LESSWRONGLW (/) they don't unless they have insufficient (or inaccurate) informa on aboutLOGINeach

other. At a stretch we could force the "do not trust each other" premise to include "the pirates have terrible maps of
each other" but that's not a realis c interpreta on of the sentence. Really there is the addi onal implicit assump on
"Oh, and all these pirates are agents that implement Causal Decision Theory".

Amazing, isn't it? :-)

It gets even more interes ng when there are more than 200 pirates (and s ll only 100 coins).
3 points 

[-] drnickbone (/users/drnickbone) 11 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#hPaY2XZCR8oMMPKPr)


This “game” has two Nash equilibria. If we both go home, neither of us regrets it: we can spend me
with each other and we've both got our highest u lity. If we both stay at work, again, neither of us
regrets it: since my girlfriend is at work, I am glad I stayed at work instead of going home, and since I am
at work, my girlfriend is glad she stayed at work instead of going home.

Looking at the problem, I believe there is a third equilibrium, a mixed one. Both you and your girlfriend toss a coin, and
choose to go home with probability one half, or stay at work with probability one half. This gives you both an expected
u lity of 2. If you are playing that strategy, then it doesn't ma er to your girlfriend whether she stays at work (definite
u lity of 2) or goes home (50% probability of 1, 50% probability of 3), so she can't do be er than tossing a coin.
Incidentally, this is expected from Wilson's oddness theorem (1971) - almost all finite games have an odd number of
equilibria.
11 points 

Maelin (/users/maelin) 8 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#5T94aDZLcpMWYAEA4)


This is a minor quibble, but while reading I got stuck at this point:

And since John Nash (remember that movie A Beau ful Mind?) proved that every game has at least one,

followed by a descrip on of a game that didn't seem to have a Nash equilibrium and confirming text "Here there is no
pure Nash equilibrium." and "So every op on has someone regre ng their choice, and there is no simple Nash
equilibrium. What do you do?"
I kept re-reading this sec on, trying to work out how to reconcile these statements since it seemed like you have just
offered an irrefutable counterexample to John Nash's theorem. It could use a bit of clarifica on (maybe something like
"This game does have a Nash equilibrium, but one that is a li le more subtle" or something similar.
Other than that I'm finding this sequence excellent so far.
8 points 

shokwave (/users/shokwave) 5 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#3Rj3ZpDdx8YzeKKFJ)


There is no pure equilibrium, but there is a mixed equilibrium.

A pure strategy is a single move played ad infinitum.

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A mixed strategy is a set of moves, with each turn's move randomly selected from this set.
LESSWRONGLW
A pure equilibrium is one where(/)  LOGIN
every player follows a pure strategy, and a mixd equilibrium is one where at least
some players follow a mixed strategy.
Both pure equilibriums and mixed equilibriums are Nash equilibriums. Nash's proof that every game has an
equilibrium rests on his previous work where he and von Neumann invented the concept of a mixed equilibrium and
proving that it sa sfies the criteria.
So this game has no pure equilibrium, but it does have a mixed one. Yvain goes on to describe how you calculate and
determine that mixed equilibrium, and shows that it is the a acker playing Podunk 1/11th the me, and Metropolis
10/11th the me.
EDIT: The post explains this at the end:

Some equilibria are simple choices, others involve plans to make choices randomly according to certain
criteria.

Yvain: I would strongly recommend including a quick explana on of mixed and pure strategies, and defining
equilibriums as either mixed or pure, as a clarifica on. At the least, move this line up to near the top. Excellent post
and excellent sequence.
5 points 

[-] Sco Alexander (/users/yvain) 1 point 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#vP7KjPBGmjagDaBqk)


Good point. I've clarified pure vs. mixed equilibria above.

1 point 

Maelin (/users/maelin) 0 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#TnnPqzXwJpFdJqm6c)


Here the answer should be obvious: it doesn't ma er. Flip a coin. If you flip a coin, and your
opponent flips a coin, neither of you will regret your choice. Here we see a "mixed Nash equilibrium",
an equilibrium reached with the help of randomness.

Hmm, I'm s ll not finding this clear. If I flip a coin and it comes up heads so I a ack East City, and my opponent flips
a coin and it comes up to defend East City, so I get zero u lity and my opponent gets 1, wouldn't I regret not
choosing to just a ack West City instead? Or not choosing to allocate 'heads' to West City instead of East?
Is there a subtlety by what we mean by 'regret' here that I'm missing?
0 points 

[-] TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 4 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#DwQiDfovG9cwCNZpL)


I usually understand "regret" in the context of game theory to mean that I would choose to do something
different in the same situa on (which also means having the same informa on).
That's different from "regret" in the normal English sense, which roughly speaking means I have unpleasant
feelings about a decision or state of affairs.
For example, in the normal sense I can regret things that weren't choices in the first place (e.g., I can regret having
been born), regret decisions I would make the same way with the same informa on (I regret having bet on A
rather than B), and regret decisions I would make the same way even knowing the outcome (I regret that I had to
shoot that mugger, but I would do it again if I had to). In the game-theory sense none of those things are regret.

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There are be er English words for what's being discussed here -- "reject" comes to mind -- but "regret" is
conven onal. I generally think
LESSWRONGLW (/) of it as jargon.  LOGIN
4 points 

[-] Magnap (/users/magnap) 0 points 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#XmEBHNbaTf6e2qT6L)


Sorry to bring up such an old thread, but I have a ques on related to this. Consider a situa on in which you
have to make a choice between a number of ac ons, then you receive some addi onal informa on regarding
the consequences of these ac ons. In this case there are two ways of regre ng your decision, one of which
would not occur for a perfectly ra onal agent. The first one is "wishing you could have gone back in me with
the informa on and chosen differently". The other one (which a perfectly ra onal agent wouldn't experience) is
"wishing you could go back in me, even without the informa on, and choose differently", that is, discovering
a erwards (e.g. by addi onal thinking or sudden insight) that your decision was the wrong one even with the
informa on you had at the me, and that if you were put in the same situa on again (with the same knowledge
you had at the beginning), you should act differently.
Does English have a way to dis nguish these two forms of regret (one stemming from lack of informa on, the
other from insufficent considera on)? If not, does some other language have words for this we could
conveniently borrow? It might be an important difference to bear in mind when considering and discussing
akrasia.
0 points 

TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 1 point 

[-]
3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#txc3hfgH4BM6BDGBj)


So, I consider the "go back in me" aspect of this unnecessarily confusing... the important part from my
perspec ve is what events my meline contains, not where I am on that meline. For example, suppose I'm
offered a choice between two iden cal boxes, one of which contains a million dollars. I choose box A, which is
empty. What I want at that point is not to go back in me, but simply to have chosen the box which contained
the money... if a moment later the judges go "Oh, sorry, our mistake... box A had the money a er all, you
win!" I will no longer regret choosing A. If a moment a er that they say "Oh, terribly sorry, we were right the
first me... you lose" I will once more regret having chosen A (as well as being irritated with the judges for
jerking me around, but that's a separate ma er). No me-travel required.
All of that said, the dis nc on you raise here (between regre ng an improperly made decision whose
consequences were undesirable, vs. regre ng a properly made decision whose consequences were
undesirable) applies either way. And as you say, a ra onal agent ought to do the former, but not the la er.
(There's also in principle a third condi on, which is regre ng an improperly made decision whose
consequences were desirable. That is, suppose the judges rigged the game by providing me with evidence for
"A contains the money," when in fact B contains the money. Suppose further that I completely failed to no ce
that evidence, flipped a coin, and chose B. I don't regret winning the money, but I might s ll look back on my
decision and regret that my decision procedure was so flawed. In prac ce I can't really imagine having this
reac on, though a ra onal system ought to.)
(And of course, for completeness, we can consider regre ng a properly made decision whose consequences
were desirable. That said, I have nothing interes ng to say about this case.)
All of which is completely tangen al to your lexical ques on.
I can't think of a pair of verbs that communicate the dis nc on in any language I know. In prac ce, I would
communicate it as "regret the process whereby I made the decision" vs "regret the results of the decision I
made," or something of that sort.
1 point 

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[-] Magnap (/users/magnap) 1 point


LESSWRONGLW (/) 
3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#4ABC4kQsKHbKk7CR6) LOGIN


So, I consider the "go back in me" aspect of this unnecessarily confusing... the important
part from my perspec ve is what events my meline contains, not where I am on that
meline.

Indeed, that is my mistake. I am not always the best at choosing metaphors or expressing myself cleanly.

regre ng an improperly made decision whose consequences were undesirable, vs. regre ng
a properly made decision whose consequences were undesirable

That is a very nice way of expressing what I meant. I will be using this from now on to explain what I mean.
Thank you.
Your comment helped me to understand what I myself meant much be er than before. Thank you for that.
1 point 

[-] TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 1 point 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#dkuaq9KQfqFTp6aj5)


(smiles) I want you to know that I read your comment at a me when I was despairing of my ability to
effec vely express myself at all, and it really improved my mood. Thank you.
1 point 

[-] Quill_McGee (/users/quill_mcgee) 0 points 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#TMm7gBHvHPP2XWJc7)


In my opinion, one should always regret choices with bad outcomes and never regret choices with good
outcomes. For Lo It Is Wri en ""If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is fu le to protest that you acted
with propriety."" As well It Is Wri en "If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid." More explicitly, if you don't
regret bad outcomes just because you 'did the right thing,' you will never no ce a flaw in your concep on of
'the right thing.' This results in a lot of unavoidable regret, and so might not be a good algorithm in prac ce,
but at least in principle it seems to be be er.
0 points 

[-] Epictetus (/users/epictetus) 2 points 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#mY6L4PQG3qcrdoKJj)


In my opinion, one should always regret choices with bad outcomes and never regret
choices with good outcomes.

Take care to avoid hindsight bias. Outcomes are not always direct consequences of choices. There's usually
a chance element to any major decision. The smart bet that works 99.99% of the me can s ll fail. It
doesn't mean you made the wrong decision.
2 points 

[-] TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 2 points 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#4k3ivmYkh8AkinzD4)


It not only results in unavoidable regret, it some mes results in regre ng the correct choice.

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Given a choice between "$5000 if I roll a 6, $0 if I roll between 1 and 5" and "$5000 if I roll between 1 and
5, $0 if I roll a 6," the
LESSWRONGLW (/)correct choice is the la er. If I regret my choice simply because the die cameLOGIN
up 6, I

run the risk of not no cing that my concep on of "the right thing" was correct, and making the wrong
choice next me around.
2 points 

[-] Kindly (/users/kindly) 1 point 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#DPgN5sCWx DAgqX7)


I'm not sure that regre ng correct choices is a terrible downside, depending on how you think of regret
and its effects.
If regret is just "feeling bad", then you should just not feel bad for no reason. So don't regret anything.
Yeah.
If regret is "feeling bad as nega ve reinforcement", then regre ng things that are mistakes in hindsight
(as opposed to correct choices that turned out bad) teaches you not to make such mistakes. Regre ng
all choices that led to bad outcomes hopefully will also teach this, if you correctly iden fy mistakes in
hindsight, but this is a noisier (and slower) strategy.
If regret is "feeling bad, which makes you reconsider your strategy", then you should regret everything
that leads to a bad outcome, whether or not you think you made a mistake, because that is the only kind
of strategy that can lead you to iden fy new kinds of mistakes you might be making.
1 point 

[-] TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 3 points 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#ekPfyLsD3GpCgRQ2t)


If we don't actually have a common understanding of what "regret" refers to, it's probably best to stop
using the term altogether.
If I'm always less likely to implement a given decision procedure D because implemen ng D in the past
had a bad outcome, and always more likely to implement D because doing so had a good outcome
(which is what I understand Quill_McGee to be endorsing, above), I run the risk of being less likely to
implement a correct procedure as the result of a chance event.
There are more op mal approaches.
I endorse re-evalua ng strategies in light of surprising outcomes.(It's not necessarily a bad thing to do
in the absence of surprising outcomes, but there's usually something be er to do with our me.) A
bad outcome isn't necessarily surprising -- if I call "heads" and the coin lands tails, that's bad, but
unsurprising. If it happens twice, that's bad and a li le surprising. If it happens ten mes, that's bad
and very surprising.
3 points 

[-] Quill_McGee (/users/quill_mcgee) 0 points 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#GM6jWfg65QQfSG2bH)


I was thinking of the "feeling bad and reconsider" meaning. That is, you don't want regret to occur, so
if you are systema cally regre ng your ac ons it might be me to try something new. Now, perhaps
you were ac ng op mally already and when you changed you got even /more/ regret, but in that case
you just switch back.
0 points 

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[-] Kindly (/users/kindly) 1 point


LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN
3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#xHoyBbFLD5trHtRBc)


That's true, but I think I agree with TheOtherDave that the things that should make you start
reconsidering your strategy are not bad outcomes but surprising outcomes.
In many cases, of course, bad outcomes should be surprising. But not always: some mes you choose
op ons you expect to lose, because the payoff is sufficiently high. Plus, of course, you should
reconsider your strategy when it succeeds for reasons you did not expect: if I make a bad move in
chess, and my opponent does not no ce, I s ll need to work on not making such a move again.
I also worry that relying on regret to change your strategy is vulnerable to loss aversion and similar
bugs in human reasoning. Be ng and losing $100 feels much more bad than be ng and winning
$100 feels good, to the extent that we can compare them. If you let your regret of the outcome
decide your strategy, then you end up teaching yourself to use this buggy feeling when you make
decisions.
1 point 

[-] TheOtherDave (/users/theotherdave) 0 points 

3y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#8y6qeLQavfyYyiCib)


Right. And your point about reconsidering strategy on surprising good outcomes is an important
one. (My go-to example of this is usually the stranger who keeps losing bets on games of skill, but
is surprisingly willing to keep be ng larger and larger sums on the game anyway.)
0 points 

[-] Sco Alexander (/users/yvain) 3 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#mmP82jqNikuTKW7tF)


Here we're not thinking of your strategy as "A ack East City because the coin told me." We're thinking of your
strategy as "flip a coin". The same is true of your opponent: his strategy is not "Defend East City" but "flip a coin
to decide where to defend"
Suppose this scenario happened, and we offered you a do-over. You know what your opponent's strategy is going
to be (flip a coin). You know your opponent is a mind-reader and will know what your strategy will be. Here your
best strategy is s ll to flip a coin again and hope for be er luck than last me.
3 points 

[-] Maelin (/users/maelin) 1 point 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#Z6neCqJdiEgQpGc85)


Okay, I think I get it. You're both mind-readers, and you can't go ahead un l both you and the opponent have
commi ed to your respec ve plans; if one of you changes your mind about the plan the other gets the
opportunity to change their mind in response. But the actual coin toss occurs as part-of-the-move, not part-of-
the-plan, so while you might be sad about how the coin toss plan actually pans out, there won't be any other
strategy (e.g. 'A ack West') that you'd prefer to have adopted, given that the opponent would have been able
to change their strategy (to e.g. 'Defend West') in response, if you had.
...I think. Wait, why wouldn't you regret staying at work then, if you know that by changing your mind your
girlfriend would have a chance to change her mind, thus ge ng you the be er outcome..?
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1 point 
LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN
Sco Alexander (/users/yvain) 1 point 
[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#maAdeyioaQqzESeQf)


I explained it poorly in my comment above. The mind-reading analogy is useful, but it's just an analogy.
Otherwise the solu on would be "Use your amazing psionic powers to level both enemy ci es without leaving
your room".
If I had to extend the analogy, it might be something like this: we take a pair of strategies and run two checks
on it. The first check is "If your opponent's choice was fixed, and you alone had mind-reading powers, would
you change your choice, knowing your opponent's?". The second check, performed in a different reality
unbeknownst to you, is "If your choice was fixed, and your opponent alone had mind-reading powers, would
she change her choice, knowing yours?" If the answer to both checks is "no", then you're at Nash equilibrium.
You don't get to use your mind-reading powers for two-way communica on.
You can do something like what you described - if you and your girlfriend realize you're playing the game
above and both share the same payoff matrix, then (go home, go home) is the obvious Schelling point
because it's a just plain be er op on, and if you have good models of each others' minds you can get there.
But both that and (stay, stay) are Nash equilibria.
1 point 

Ezekiel (/users/ezekiel) 0 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#4aLwtWAKAaXSD6eWz)


No simple Nash equilibrium. Both players adop ng the mixed (coin-flipping) strategy is the Nash equilibrium in this
case. Remember: a Nash equilibrium isn't a specific choice-per-player, but a specific strategy-per-player.
0 points 

Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 2 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#F2pRdmM4YmojK88Fr)


Remember

If this is actually an introductory post to game theory, is this really the right approach?
2 points 

[-] wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#3KrsLrgh2P8M84zY7)


If this is actually an introductory post to game theory, is this really the right approach?

If the post contains the informa on in ques on (it does) then there doesn't seem to be a problem using
'remember' as a pseudo-reference from the comments sec on to the post itself.
0 points 

Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 3 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#ykqK7gTtuLuyRZjeZ)


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The words "pure," "simple," and "mixed" are not meaningful to newcomers, and so Yvain's post, which assumes
that readers know the meanings
LESSWRONGLW (/) of those terms with regards to game theory, is not introducing the topicLOGIN
as
smoothly as it could. That's what I got out of Maelin's post.

3 points 

[-] Ezekiel (/users/ezekiel) 3 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#eR6X4po2tD7cdoX7t)


I've never heard the word "simple" used in game-theore c context either. It just seemed that word was be er
suited to describe a [do x] strategy than a [do x with probability p and y with probability (1-p)] strategy.
If the word "remember" is bothering you, I've found people tend to be more recep ve to explana ons if you
pretend you're reminding them of something they knew already. And the defini on of a Nash equilibrium was
in the main post.
3 points 

Vaniver (/users/vaniver) 0 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#ESAMJzdCMyrCoKrqt)


If the word "remember" is bothering you, I've found people tend to be more recep ve to
explana ons if you pretend you're reminding them of something they knew already.

Agreed. Your original response was fine as an explana on to Maelin; I singled out 'remember' in an a empt
to imply the content of my second post (to Yvain), but did so in a fashion that was probably too obscure.
0 points 

[-] Sniffnoy (/users/sniffnoy) 7 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#htoJEgea4dn2XXMyY)


Two people are separately confronted with the list of numbers [2, 5, 9, 25, 69, 73, 82, 96, 100, 126, 150 ]
and offered a reward if they independently choose the same number. If the two are mathema cians, it is
likely that they will both choose 2—the only even prime. Non-mathema cians are likely to choose 100—
a number which seems, to the mathema cians, no more unique than the other two exact squares.
Illiterates might agree on 69, because of its peculiar symmetry—as would, for a different reason, those
whose interest in numbers is more prurient than mathema cal.

This is a trivial point, but as a student of mathema cs, I feel compelled to point out that while I think he is correct that
most mathema cians would choose 2, his reasoning for why is wrong. Mathema cians would pick 2 because there is a
conven on in mathema cs of, when you have to make an arbitrary choice (but want to specify it anyway), pick the
smallest (if this makes sense in context).
7 points 

[-] wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 5 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#R4PrnN49hAqLXRoFi)


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Two people are separately confronted with the list of numbers [2, 5, 9, 25, 69, 73, 82, 96, 100, 126, 150 ]
LESSWRONGLW (/)independently choose the same number. If the two are mathema
and offered a reward if they cians, it isLOGIN
likely that they will both choose 2—the only even prime. Non-mathema cians are likely to choose 100—
a number which seems, to the mathema cians, no more unique than the other two exact squares.
Illiterates might agree on 69, because of its peculiar symmetry—as would, for a different reason, those
whose interest in numbers is more prurient than mathema cal.

I'm a programmer and it seemed like the obvious choice was "2". It is right there are the start of the list! Was there
some indica on that the individuals were given different (ie. shuffled) lists? If they were shuffled or, say, provided as a
heap of cards with numbers on them it may be slightly more credible "eye of the beholder" scenario.
5 points 

army1987 (/users/army1987) 0 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#g3aNhfQM22xuEFFyK)
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I would have chosen 2 if playing with a copy of myself, but 100 if playing with a randomly chosen person from my
culture I hadn't met before.
0 points 

wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 2 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#sonABGA5zRN8ZSpAf)
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I would have chosen 2 if playing with a copy of myself, but 100 if playing with a randomly chosen
person from my culture I hadn't met before.

I'd have chosen 73 if I was playing with a copy of myself. Just because all else being equal I'd prefer to mess with the
researcher.
2 points 

[-] Anatoly_Vorobey (/users/anatoly_vorobey) 0 points 

5y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#STyr2FPdEFRg6RBq8)
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I'm not very sure, but I think I'd have chosen 73 as the only nontrivial prime. It stands out in the list because as I
go over it it's the only one I wonder about.
0 points 

[-] army1987 (/users/army1987) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#ddeGvwC58y52jkKQg)
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I'd have chosen 73 if I was playing with a copy of myself. Just because all else being equal I'd prefer
to mess with the researcher.

Before reading the last sentence I thought of this (h p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyFr279K9TE).

0 points 

[-] wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#3sQuojRx9FDS3jZ44)
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Before reading the last sentence I thought of this.

Wow. My face ously mastubatory clone and I evidently coordinate well with Asperger's caricatures as well!

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0 points 
LESSWRONGLW (/)  LOGIN

shokwave (/users/shokwave) 1 point 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#uXp7swQFqkQxXDfa7)
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Excellent post, excellent sequence. Advanced game theory is definitely something ra onalists should have in their
toolbox, since so much real-world decision-making involves other peoples' decisions.

Here there are a nearly infinite number of possible choices ... these are all Nash equilibria. Despite this
mind-boggling array of possibili es, in fact all six episodes of this par cular game ended with the two
contestants mee ng successfully a er only a few days.

An interes ng analysis when you have "nearly infinite" Nash equilibria, is the metagame of selec ng which equilibrium
to play. Do you plan on exploring this in the sequence?

Of course, specialness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

I strongly urge readers to explore this! What should you do if you suspect the other player beholds 'specialness' in a
different way to you? Does your plan of ac on change if you suspect the other player also suspects a difference in
beholding?
1 point 

[-] wedrifid (/users/wedrifid) -2 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#2gcmLMu4K8iRjZ7J3)
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I strongly urge readers to explore this! What should you do if you suspect the other player beholds
'specialness' in a different way to you?

Choose a different person to date. Seriously---I suggest that at least part of what we do when da ng and to a lesser
extent non-roman c rela onship forma on is iden fy and select people who have vaguely compa ble intui ons
about where the shelling points are in relevant game theore c scenarios.
-2 points 

[-] shokwave (/users/shokwave) 1 point 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#FKGkeFEK88o9nauh6)
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It is, I wager, the origin of the phrase, "They just get me, you know?"
1 point 

HamletHenna (/users/hamlethenna) 0 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#v86o2nye83LG9vLxB)
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Nice post, thanks for wri ng it up. It was interes ng and very easy to read because principles were all first mo vated by
problems.
That said, I s ll feel confused. Let me try to re-frame your post in a decision theory se ng: We have to make a decision,
so the infinite regress of dependencies from ra onal players modelling each other, which doesn't generally se le to a
fixed set of ac ons for all players who model each other naively (as shown by the penny matching example), has to be

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truncated some how. To do that, the game theory people decided that they'd build a new game where instead of
ra onalLESSWRONGLW
players picking ac ons, ra(/)onal players choose among strategies which return irra onal players who take

constant ac ons. These strategies make use of "biased dice", which are facts whose values the ra onal players are
LOGIN

ignorant of, at least un l they've selected their strategies. Each player gets their own dice of whatever biases they want,
and all the dice are independent of each other. By introducing the dice, a ra onal player makes themself and all the
other players par ally uncertain about what constant ac on player they will select. This common enforced ignorance
(or poten al ignorance, since the ra onal players can submit pure strategies and skip the dice all together) can have
some interes ng proper es: there will always be (for games with whatever reasonable condi ons) at least one so called
Nash equilibrium, which is a set of strategies returned by the ra onal players for which no player would unilaterally
modify their decision upon learning the decisions of the others (though this and the Schelling point thing sound like an
inconsistent bag of features from people who aren't sure whether the agents' decisions do or don't depend on each
other).
That's as much as I got. I don't understand the condi ons for a Nash equilibrium to be op mal for everybody, i.e.
something the ra onal agents would actually all want to do instead of something that just has nice proper es. You say
that "purely ra onal players will always end up at a Nash equilibrium", but I don't think your post quite established that
and I don't think it can be completely true, because of things like the self-PD. Is that what the SI's open problems of
"blackmail-free equilibrium among meless strategists" and "fair division by con nuous / mul party agents" are about
maybe? That would be cool.
Also, and probably related to not having clear condi ons for an op mal equilibrium, the meta-game of submi ng
strategies doesn't really look like it solves the infinite regress: if we find ourselves in a Nash equilibrium and agents'
decisions are independent, then great, we don't have to model anything because the par cular blend of u li es and
enforced common ignorance means no strategy change is expected to help, but ge ng everyone into an equilibrium
ra onally (instead of hoping everyone likes the same flavor of Schelling's Heuris c Soup) s ll looks hard.
If Nash equilibrium is about indifference of unilateral strategy changes for independent decisions, are there ever
situa ons where a player can switch to a strategy with equal expected u lity, pu ng the strategy set in disequilibrium,
so that other players could change their strategies, with all players improving or keeping their expected u lity constant,
pu ng the strategy set in a different equilibrium (or into a strategy set where everyone is be er off, like mutual
coopera on in PD)? That is, are there nego a on paths out of equilibria whose steps make no one worse off? If so, it'd
then be nice to find a general selfish scheme by which players will limit themselves to those paths. This sounds like a big
fun problem.
0 points 

Sco Alexander (/users/yvain) 3 points 

[-]
6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#XhxQESTjtRbkzZuc3)
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That's as much as I got. I don't understand the condi ons for a Nash equilibrium to be op mal for
everybody, i.e. something the ra onal agents would actually all want to do instead of something that
just has nice proper es. You say that "purely ra onal players will always end up at a Nash equilibrium",
but I don't think your post quite established that and I don't think it can be completely true, because of
things like the self-PD. Is that what the SI's open problems of "blackmail-free equilibrium among
meless strategists" and "fair division by con nuous / mul party agents" are about maybe? That would
be cool.

"Op mal for everybody" is a very un-game-theore c outlook. Game theorists think more in terms of "op mal for me,
and screw the other guy". If everyone involved is totally selfish, and they expect other players to be pre y good at
figuring out their strategy, and they don't have some freaky way of correla ng their decisions with those of other
agents like TDT, then they'll aim for a Nash equilibrium (though if there are mul ple Nash equilibria, they might not
hit the same one).

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This fails either when agents aren't totally selfish (if, like you, they're looking for what's op mal for everyone, which is
a veryLESSWRONGLW
different problem), or if they're
(/) using an advanced decision theory to correlate their decisions, which isLOGINharder

for normal people than it is for people playing against clones of themselves or superintelligences that can output
their programs. I'll discuss this more later.

Also, and probably related to not having clear condi ons for an op mal equilibrium, the meta-game of
submi ng strategies doesn't really look like it solves the infinite regress: if we find ourselves in a Nash
equilibrium and agents' decisions are independent, then great, we don't have to model anything
because the par cular blend of u li es and enforced common ignorance means no strategy change is
expected to help, but ge ng everyone into an equilibrium ra onally (instead of hoping everyone likes
the same flavor of Schelling's Heuris c Soup) s ll looks hard.

Agreed.
3 points 

[-] shokwave (/users/shokwave) 0 points 

6y (/posts/yJfBzcDL9fBHJfZ6P/nash-equilibria-and-schelling-points#pj76zX9TFztEaMtJy)
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This fails either when agents aren't totally selfish (if, like you, they're looking for what's op mal for
everyone, which is a very different problem)

It's not very different - you just need to alter the agents' u lity func ons slightly, to value the other player gaining
u lity as well.
E.g. take the standard Prisoner's Dilemma: 5 for me, 0 for you if I can betray you, 3 each if we cooperate, 1 each if
we defect. The equilibrium is defect / defect. Now let's make our agents' u lity func on look altruis c - each agent
gets a reward, and then gets to add the opponent's reward as well (no loops, just add at the end.) Now our payoff is
5+0 for me, 0+5 for you if I betray you, 3+3 each if we cooperate, and 1+1 each if we defect.
A purely self-interested agent with that u lity func on has the equilibrium at cooperate / cooperate.
More generally, the math in games involved selfish players goes through if you represent their altruism in their own
u lity func on, so they can act s ll simply pick the highest number 'selfishly' .
0 points 

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