I agree, this class of problems is enormous, and has a hand in practically all mismanagement and misdirection of human effort. The problem is so aggravating, though, because humans seem not to expect it to happen. Why do these feel like “problems”, when the underlying behavior is exactly what we’d expect given our knowledge of stable strategy?
In the case of human endeavor, I suspect this is a problem because we do not try hard enough to defend against it. We seem surprised and indignant when systems that purport to do good are “gamed.” If more people were more aware that this was the consequence of strategic agents, they might watch harder for signs of destructive strategy, and more carefully design the systems that they build and manage against such strategy.
(Hmm. I notice that I’m posing a purportedly-fully-general strategy to a fully-general problem, without evidence or examples. And I’m claiming that better global understanding is a solution, when it is probably just applause lights to my imagined audience. And I still think that what I’m saying is right! Wow. You should probably ignore this comment’s content, but I’ll still leave it here, as a counterexample.)
Also because our ancestral environment didn’t have large enough selection pools for the social and economic examples to arise- we could blame any failures in the tribe on particular people, and so we think of such things as vice rather than obvious selection bias.
To add some credence to your recommendations: since actually understanding the logic of stable strategies, I feel much less frustrated by the examples cited by Bakkot than I used to when I assumed they were the result of evil. I also view them as problems to be solved, not enemies to scorn. This really truly seems like an improved disposition being caused by understanding.
Thought to be fair, my actions have been changed much less than my dispositions have. Such understanding has, at most, impacted my behaviours which I associate with far-mode: how I vote, argue and make life decisions. My leisure activities, smoking habits, purchasing habits haven’t changed.
I agree, this class of problems is enormous, and has a hand in practically all mismanagement and misdirection of human effort. The problem is so aggravating, though, because humans seem not to expect it to happen. Why do these feel like “problems”, when the underlying behavior is exactly what we’d expect given our knowledge of stable strategy?
In the case of human endeavor, I suspect this is a problem because we do not try hard enough to defend against it. We seem surprised and indignant when systems that purport to do good are “gamed.” If more people were more aware that this was the consequence of strategic agents, they might watch harder for signs of destructive strategy, and more carefully design the systems that they build and manage against such strategy.
(Hmm. I notice that I’m posing a purportedly-fully-general strategy to a fully-general problem, without evidence or examples. And I’m claiming that better global understanding is a solution, when it is probably just applause lights to my imagined audience. And I still think that what I’m saying is right! Wow. You should probably ignore this comment’s content, but I’ll still leave it here, as a counterexample.)
Also because our ancestral environment didn’t have large enough selection pools for the social and economic examples to arise- we could blame any failures in the tribe on particular people, and so we think of such things as vice rather than obvious selection bias.
To add some credence to your recommendations: since actually understanding the logic of stable strategies, I feel much less frustrated by the examples cited by Bakkot than I used to when I assumed they were the result of evil. I also view them as problems to be solved, not enemies to scorn. This really truly seems like an improved disposition being caused by understanding.
Thought to be fair, my actions have been changed much less than my dispositions have. Such understanding has, at most, impacted my behaviours which I associate with far-mode: how I vote, argue and make life decisions. My leisure activities, smoking habits, purchasing habits haven’t changed.