[MD] Tit for Tat

[Case]

I am pretty sure this relates to the MoQ and its inability to settle
arguments about specific courses of action. I am very sure it applies to
evolution, economics and how systems of thought change but I'm not sure
exactly how. I am just throwing it out here. If it just lays there like the
present my dog left for me this morning. well it won't be the first time I
soiled the rug and no one noticed.

The Prisioner's Dilemma is a kind of thought experiment in Game Theory. It
has been widely studied by researchers in several disciplines including
mathematics, economics, biology and psychology. 

You can get a detailed explanation at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma but it works something like
this.

Here is the condensed version:

"Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have
insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both
prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: 

-If one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other
remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives
the full 10-year sentence.

-If both stay silent, the police can sentence both prisoners to only six
months in jail for a minor charge.

-If each betrays the other, each will receive a two-year sentence. 

Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to
remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the
other prisoner will make. So the question this dilemma poses is: What will
happen? How will the prisoners act? "

If people play this game over and over, various strategies can be seen to
evolve for maximizing one's score. You can always seek your own benefit and
screw the other guy. Or you can always try to cooperate. Or you could try
various patterns of seeking individual or collective benefit.

What has been learned is that the more effective strategy is "Tit or Tat" Is
your partner tries to screw you, screw him next time, if he cooperates,
cooperate. It has been suggested that what this looks like a purely
mathematic purely deterministic incarnation of the Golden Rule.

One of the suppositions of Moral Relativism is that since different cultures
have different rules then the rules must be arbitrary. But the assumption
only works if we say that all moral rules are arbitrary and that there are
not rules common to all cultures. But is this the case? Are there NO rules
that all or at least most cultures have in common? Perhaps specific
practices like covering or uncovering the body; or burying versus burning or
even eating of the dead are arbitrary incarnations of deeper underlying
universals.

Tit for Tat is not exactly the same as the Golden Rule but it is darn close.
Here is a site that lists 21 different cultural versions of the Golden Rule.
I am just throwing in a couple of me favorites.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm


Christianity:
"And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." 

Buddhism:   
"...a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict
that upon another?"  

Islam: 
"None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes
for himself."

Judaism:   
"...thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

Taoism:
The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people
as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for
Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the
unfaithful: for Virtue is faithful."

The most ancient formulation appears to be almost 4,000 years old from the
Egyptian Tale of the Eloquent Peasant.

"This is an ordinance: Act for the man who acts, to cause him to act. This
is thanking him for what he does."