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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Universal defection among rational self-interested agents produces a state analogous to Hobbes' war of all against all.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Hobbes' war of all against all is defined by mortal insecurity and absence of property, not merely suboptimal equilibrium outcomes.
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    • 2.Universal defection in iterated PD games still presupposes stable rules, payoff structures, and identifiable agents—conditions Hobbes denies in the state of nature.
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    • 3.Equating Nash equilibria with Hobbesian anarchy conflates game-theoretic mutual disadvantage with the pre-political absence of enforceable norms entirely.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Gauthier and Binmore both argue that rational agents behind uncertainty about their strategic position would contract toward cooperation, not lock into defection.
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    • 2.If rationality itself generates cooperative solutions under idealized bargaining conditions, universal defection reflects a failure of modeling assumptions, not rationality as such.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.A population imitating the most successful strategy converges on 'All Defect'.
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    • 2.'All Defect' as a universal equilibrium mirrors Hobbes' description of the state of nature as a war of all against all.
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