From: hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 14:36:26 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Responding to Pre-dawn Unannounced Ninja Raids
In-Reply-To: <199607221917.PAA12611@jekyll.piermont.com>
Message-ID: <9607221944.AA00931@Etna.ai.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>Memory is the only way that things like iterated prisoner's dilemmas
>become interesting.

Having spent the weekend with Alker I'm hardly going to argue.

>There is a reason humans do things like agressively defending their
>children with their lives if need be. There is a reason humans resort
>to violence when their place in the gene pool is threatened.

That is one effect, but not the only effect. Depending upon what 
the conditions you set up arround the problem you can change
the outcome. What are the risks of fighting for example? Evolution
does not uniformly favour hawks, in terms of numbers the doves 
win.


>Some of this stuff is plumb obvious to anyone with half a brain,
>Phill.

Ah yes, and since iterated prisoner's dilema games are as
computationaly complex as the Mandelbrot set (the generator of the
Mandelbrot is in fact simpler), presumably you can calculate the
Mandelbrot set in half your brain Perry?

If it was "plumb obvious" it wouldn't take MIT profs to work
it out Perry. The world is far more complex than your simplistic
notions make out. Just because you can identify ONE effect does
not mean that you have identified ALL effects or even that you
have identified the dominant one. 


Your analyses are almost always junk because you only analyse one
side of the argument and deny that there is another side. You are
great at preaching to the choir Perry, problem is that you don't
convert anyone who isn't already converted.


		Phill