Paul Watzlawick writes of something he calls "Semantic Punctuation", an example of which can be seen in magic tricks where the trick consists of forcing an audience member to select a specific card while under the impression they are selecting at random. For the magician the trick is punctuated so as to include forcing the card. For the audience the punctuation excludes the selection and the trick begins at some later time.
While watching the video "Best of Cooperation Lectures" I was caught by the term "social dilemma", a circumstance where what is rational for individuals isn't best for the group. My initial interest in cooperation studies actually comes from a quibble I have with standard approaches to the Prisoners' Dilemma in which the choices of confessing or not are labeled with the semantically charged and behaviorally influencing terms "defect" or "cooperate". Now I have a new quibble: The notion that what is rational for an individual is not best for the group can only be defended if the semantic punctuation is such as to define the group as the two hoodlums rather than the larger social body which includes the liquor store owner, the DA, the guards, &c. Widen the net and confessing is both the rational choice for the individual and the rational choice for the group.
I lean heavily on two notions when thinking about the Prisoners' Dilemma. First is the notion of concurrent games. Any one act will have a payoff value in any number of concurrent games (as in the punchline of this old joke: http://xrl.us/bmhr2). Second, we need to distinguish between determinate and indeterminate alternatives. Only the former are choices. In the Prisoners' Dilemma each player has two choices, confess or not. Each of those yields an indeterminate pair of alternatives over which a player has no control or ability to predict, as attempts at prediction yield an infinite series. For me the moral of the Prisoners' Dilemma is that we need to be able to make this distinction between determinate and indeterminate alternatives.
(I also take exception with Axlerod's changing of the scenario to include iteration but still calling his games "Prisoners Dilemmas". While in no way disparaging the value of his work, this is sloppy nomenclature. Introduce iteration and it is not the same game.)
Back to semantic punctuation. Ronald Coase's theories similarly stand or fall based on this, for it is a matter of semantic punctuation whether the market and the government are external to each other. So too with any issue of "Commons". Viewed through one lens TotC is a strong argument for privatization, as it would seem only private interests will be motivated to protect and conserve and even increase resources. And to the extent that "commons" means "not mine" then perhaps such an argument should prevail. But if the semantic punctuation is such that the commons is mine because it is ours and because I am part of us then my interest in protecting and conserving and building the commons is no less than that of a single private interest.
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