Perhaps the reason you are having trouble coming up with a satisfactory characterization of blackmail is that you want a definition with the consequence that it is rational to resist blackmail and therefore not rational to engage in blackmail.
Pleasant though this might be, I fear the universe is not so accomodating.
Elsewhere VN asks how to unpack the notion of a status-quo, and tries to characterize blackmail as a threat which forces the recipient to accept less utility than she would have received in the status quo. I don’t see any reason in game theory why such threats should be treated any differently than other threats. But it is easy enough to define the ‘status-quo’.
The status quo is the solution to a modified game—modified in such a way that the time between moves increases toward infinity and the current significance of those future moves (be they retaliations or compensations) is discounted toward zero. A player who lives in the present and doesn’t respond to delayed gratification or delayed punishment is pretty much immune to threats (and to promises).
Perhaps the reason you are having trouble coming up with a satisfactory characterization of blackmail is that you want a definition with the consequence that it is rational to resist blackmail and therefore not rational to engage in blackmail.
Pleasant though this might be, I fear the universe is not so accomodating.
Elsewhere VN asks how to unpack the notion of a status-quo, and tries to characterize blackmail as a threat which forces the recipient to accept less utility than she would have received in the status quo. I don’t see any reason in game theory why such threats should be treated any differently than other threats. But it is easy enough to define the ‘status-quo’.
The status quo is the solution to a modified game—modified in such a way that the time between moves increases toward infinity and the current significance of those future moves (be they retaliations or compensations) is discounted toward zero. A player who lives in the present and doesn’t respond to delayed gratification or delayed punishment is pretty much immune to threats (and to promises).