Truth Nuggets 1#

Our intellectual pursuits play out a bit like a series of game theory transactions - much like the hawk-dove game, which refers to a scenario in which there is a competition for a shared resource and the agents can either contest or back down. Hawks tend to contest well against doves but with mixed results against other hawks - so, in equilibrium, there are just enough hawks in the population whereby the gains from hawk-dove conflicts are offset by the losses from hawk-hawk conflicts (this extends more broadly in the animal kingdom with what's called the Lotka-Volterra competition model).

Similarly, in economic terms, good discussions and high quality analytical scrutiny should help people see the intellectual costs and benefits of their beliefs, when played out against competing agents. That is why I am always going on about the qualities of rigorous truthseeking, because without it, agents find it ever more difficult to determine whether they are playing a healthy game or not. Players who try to dominate with power, distortion and dishonesty instead of competence are likely to give themselves a false sense of security about the quality of their arguments, which is why it's important that highly competent people are involved in the discussions.

Think of hawks and doves applied here. If there is a dominant hawk who adopts an aggressive strategy with no competition, the strategy pays - and it keeps becoming a profitable strategy for more and more hawks, until the point at which an aggressive strategy comes with the cost of being defeated by a stronger opponent. In equilibrium, there will be just enough aggressors so that the gain from encounters with doves who back down just balances the loss from encountering another hawk who doesn't.

Whatever the debating landscape - theism vs. atheism, capitalism vs. socialism, etc - it is healthier when competence become the dominant quality over unearned power, where both sides would begin to see more clearly the intellectual costs and benefits of their beliefs, and how those costs were brought to bear on the reputation and credibility of the group