Epistemic Status: Simple point, supported by anecdotes and a straightforward model, not yet validated in any rigorous sense I know of, but IMO worth a quick reflection to see if it might be helpful to you.
A curious thing I've noticed: among the friends whose inner monologues I get to hear, the most self-sacrificing ones are frequently worried they are being too selfish, the loudest ones are constantly afraid they are not being heard, the most introverted ones are regularly terrified that they're claiming more than their share of the conversation, the most assertive ones are always suspicious they are being taken advantage of, and so on. It's not just that people are sometimes miscalibrated about themselves- it's as if the loudest alarm in their heads, the one...
Epistemic Status: Common knowledge, just not to me
The Evolution of Trust is a deceptively friendly little interactive game. Near the end, there’s a “sandbox” evolutionary game theory simulator. It’s pretty flexible. You can do quick experiments in it without writing code. I highly recommend playing around.
One of the things that surprised me was a strategy the game calls Simpleton, also known in the literature as Pavlov. In certain conditions, it works pretty well — even better than tit-for-tat or tit-for-tat with forgiveness.
Let’s set the framework first. You have a Prisoner’s dilemma type game.
This game is iterated — you’re...
...does it still feel alien? When I read it I immediately pattern matched it to the following:
I've noticed in myself that the loudest alarms are indeed sometimes false (after an alarm goes off and I react wrongly). But that's not always the case. In many cases I am able to correctly self-assess an alarm. For example, the alarm might be (based on the social signals) that I feel I'm on the verge of losing my job. I pause, accurately assess the reality and take action to keep my job (because I was in real danger of losing it).
But it could go the other way too. I start getting negative social signals, but when I really sit down and think about it, I ... (read more)