Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Game theoretic paradoxes

Arrow's Impossibility Theorem
Liberal Paradox

Intuitively, I don't find these two paradoxes especially surprising: we know from the Prisoner's Dilemma that local game-theoretic decision procedures don't necessarily lead to global Pareto optimality. Which is to say, I suspect, any social system must employ higher-level, abstract elements such as constitutions, contracts, and "altruism" or friendliness (where individuals' preferences substantially and directly positively value other individuals' well-being). Furthermore, since there are no deterministic solutions at any level, these abstract elements must evolve rather than being imposed analytically.

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