PAN. Methods of method-selection indeed! Bill recognizes the sound of hokum.
“So tonight we have a sampler for you—short discussions of a number of aspects of life upon which Zetetic ideas offer different perspectives. We’ll lead off with a little experiment—something that you can all participate in. We shall explore the meaning of rational thought, irrational thought, and superrational thought: we shall play the game of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.”
PAN. Men enter, wearing badges with the insignia of the Institute, and escort groups of people away from the lecture hall. Dr. Hammond walks over to Bill. “Let me show you the way,” he offers. His eyes follow Bill’s face like a biologist who has just spotted a delightfully rare but disgusting insect. “That’s a beautiful button on your collar there. I’ve never seen one quite like it.”
He knows about the flatcam!
“When the games are over, would you be interested in a copy of our videotape? It would probably be easier to edit.”
CUT. Bill opens his mouth, then closes it. He shrugs, “fll roll my own if you don’t mind.”
Hammond tilts his head. “Suit yourself.”
He escorts Bill to a small, antiseptic cubicle, chatting constantly, probing occasionally into Bill’s viewpoint. The cubicle contains a beige computer terminal, a chair, nothing else. Bill stops at the doorway. There is something odd here—he inhales sharply.
Is there a scent of pine trees here, ever so subtle? He looks hard at Hammond. “Is my reaction to this room a part of the test?” he asks.
Hammond chuckles. “No. Mr. Hardie, this isn’t a test. We aren’t interested in your reactions in any direct way. Our purpose here is to give you an experience , so you can see how theories apply to action, and so you can see firsthand the importance of superrational thinking. We think it’s particularly important to introduce superrational thinking to people such as yourself.”
FOCUS. Bill does not ask what Hammond means when he speaks of people “such as himself.”
Hammond waves Bill into the single chair next to the terminal. He explains the rules. “Here’s the situation. Every person from the class is sitting in a cubicle like this one. Now, we’re going to pair you up with one of these people, and together you are going to be the Prisoners.”
“Are you going to lock me in?”
Hammond shakes his head. “Of course not. But you are on your honor not to enter another person’s room. Not that it matters; you won’t have time to hunt for them all over the Institute anyway.”
“I see.” Bill feels too warm, though the room is comfortable.
“As prisoners, the two of you have been put in separate rooms for interrogation. You have two choices: you can confess to the crime, or you can deny involvement.”
“Why would I want to confess?”
“Because when you confess, you turn state’s evidence against the other guy. It’s a betrayal as well as a confession. Then you get off with a quick parole, and the other guy goes up the river.
“Of course, the other guy might decide to betray you as well. Indeed, the worst thing that can happen to you is that your partner confesses—betraying you—while you sit here denying involvement.”
“Then why should I ever do anything but betray the other guy?”
“Because the only way either of you can get out scot free is if you both deny involvement. Denying involvement is a collaboration—a conspiracy as well as a denial. So your best outcome is if you both conspire—but your worst outcome is if you conspire while the other guy betrays.”
“So you’re stuck with trusting this guy in another room whom you can’t trust.”
“Yes, it’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it?”
Bill glares. “Why is this game part of the Sampler?”
Hammond shrugs. “The results of the Prisoner’s Dilemma apply to many real-life situations. We’ll discuss some of the applications after we’ve analyzed the results of the game. The game might seem silly now, but remember that even obvious ideas need to be exercised before you can truly own them. You can’t get more out of this seminar than you’re willing to put in.”
“But I can get a lot less than I put in.”
“True enough. Life is generally like that—you must put something in to get something out.”
Bill growls, “Okay.”
“Good. You’ll play this game with ten randomly selected people from the class. Then you’ll play with them all again. We’ll play ten rounds with each player and then discuss the results. For every game, all you have to do is punch either the Conspire button or the Betray button.” Hammond shoots him a quizzical look. “So how are you going to play?”
Bill thinks about it for a long moment. “The only rational thing to do is to betray the other guy,” he states with confidence. “You just can’t take a chance on some random human being.”
“I see your point.” Hammond’s smile again makes him feel like a bug under a microscope. “We’ll keep score by adding up the years in jail you accumulate. Good luck.” The door swished softly behind him.
Bill looks at the terminal, annoyed by this pointless game that dooms all the players to lo^e. Surely, everyone here is as rational as he is; if so, there will be an endless series of betrayals.
The terminal comes to life, telling him he is matched with partner number one, and that they have never played together before. Bill stabs the Betray button.
In less than a minute Bill realizes that not everyone is rational. Several people offer to Conspire in that first round, and they take terrible punishments as Bill betrays them. Bill himself gets off lightly. In the second round, he finds that the terminal gives him a description of his history with his opponent. He stabs the Betray button with a moment’s regret—and realizes that when he thinks of the other player as an opponent , he is creating a fundamental statement about his relationship.
Seeing himself paired with a player who had given him a valuable Conspiracy the last time, Bill generously offers a Conspiracy in return—but the bastard Betrays, leaving Bill holding the bag. After a few more plays, Bill realizes that these people don’t trust him worth a damn. He admits—with considerable reluctance—that he has given them cause for suspicion. In self-defense, he reverts to a constant stream of Betrayals.
On the third round, the handful of people to whom he has offered Conspiracies in the second round come back with Conspiracies for him. Of course, he has given up any acts of mercy, zapping all players with Betrayals.
Meanwhile, two of the players have doggedly continued to give him Conspiracies. It matters not that he Betrays them again and again. On the fourth round he reciprocates, and they remain as solid partners till the last round of the game. He gives up on the ones with whom he seesaws back and forth from Betrayals to Conspiracies, and switches to permanent Betrayals. They do the same.
At the end of ten rounds, he has accumulated over a century in jail.
Hammond pokes his head in. “How’d you do?” he asks.
FOCUS. Bill shrugs. “As well as anybody, I guess.”
Back in the discussion room, Hammond disproves that assessment. Several people do substantially better than Bill. Hammond points out key features of the “winners.”
The winners had three distinctive characteristics: They were optimistic , offering to Conspire with untested partners. They were just, never letting a Betrayal go without response. And they were predictable in their responses, so their partners knew what they would do at all times. With sudden insight, Bill realizes that these people were the ones with whom he had seesawed early in the game; his stubborn Betrayals constituted a major part of their losses. Of course he had shared their losses, since they soon responded with Betrayals of their own.
“All in all, we have a very rational group here,” Hammond says with airy cheer. “Fortunately, I think we can improve on that.”
He continues. “I always feel sorry for people encountering the Prisoners Dilemma for the first time. The Prisoner’s Dilemma hurts b
ecause there is no formula for success. Intuitively, we suspect that the right answer is to Conspire, thus working together with the other prisoner for mutual gain. And if we could talk with the other prisoner, if we could communicate, we could make a good arrangement. But looking at the situation without that ability to communicate, we conclude that we must protect ourselves. The merely rational mind inevitably derives a losing formula.”
Hammond leans forward and whispers, as if conspiring with the members of the class in a secret fight with a vicious universe. “But if you can step beyond rationality to superrationality, then you can derive a winning formula. The formula only works if your partners are superrational, too—but at least it’s a winning formula sometimes. It’s better than what happened to all of you in the Dilemma you just faced.” Hammond points at Bill. “What’s the sum of four plus three?”
SNAP. Bill looks up, startled. “Seven,” he answers without hesitation.
“If another person in a different room were asked the same question, would he give the same answer?”
Bill mutters. “Of course.”
“So the two of you would be able to make that agreement without communicating?”
“Sure,” Bill snaps. “There’s a formula/or calculating the right answer.”
“And everybody knows the formula.” Hammond looks around the class. Some look puzzled; others look expectant.
Hammond continues. “Suppose some of the people didn’t know the formula. Then you couldn’t guarantee that you and the other person would get the same answer, could you?” A shiver seems to sweep the room as many people shake their heads.
“Okay, now suppose there were a formula for deciding what to do in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. No matter who you were, if you applied the formula, you would get the right answer, right? And if you knew that your partner knew the formula, you wouldn’t have to worry about the outcome: you could both crank the formula and come out with the right answer.”
Hammond raises his arm and points to every person in the class. “So the very assumption that there is a formula tells us what the formula must be, does it not? If there is a formula, the formula says to Conspire, to cooperate with the other prisoner.” His arm descends in a human exclamation mark. “But the formula only works if you know the formula, and if you know that your partner knows the formula, and if your partner knows that you know the formula.”
About a fourth of the faces in the class brighten immediately with understanding; others brighten more slowly as they grasp the concept. Hammond drawls, “So you and your partner must in some sense be superrational to succeed, for you must be not only rational enough to select rationally among your individual choices, you must also be rational enough to understand the meaning of rationality for the group.”
Hammond’s eyes shine with pleasure in revealing the key to the game. “So the big question is, how do you find out if the other guy is as superrational as you are? In the
Prisoners Dilemma, there is one way to find out.” He spreads his arms in a gesture of martyrdom. “Assume your partner knows the formula in the first round: Give him a Conspiracy. If he knows the formula, he will also give you a Conspiracy in that first round, and you will have found each other.
“But if he doesn’t give you a Conspiracy in that first round, you know that he doesn’t know the formula. He may be rational as an individual, but he hasn’t succeeded in looking outside his own viewpoint—he hasn’t achieved superrationality, so you have to treat him accordingly. In games where your partner is only rational, or worse yet, irrational, you must betray him, for he will betray you.”
Bill slides backward in his chair, amazed at the short yet devious flow of this logic.
“Consequently, the only way to make games like the Prisoners Dilemma safe is to educate all the people who might become your partners, so they can be as superra-tional as you are. Only superrational people working together can win the Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Hammond stands triumphant before his newly baptized members of the superrational. At least some of them are superrational, anyway; Bill sees doubt on many faces. From those expressions, he knows which ones he would prefer to have as partners.
Bill cheers for victorious superrational mind. He senses the same desire in other people around the room, but the thoughts are too deep to accept just yet. He, and the others, must chew on the idea of superrationality.
Hammond realizes this. “And with that, we’ll take a break. Think about situations in which this kind of thinking might affect your life. Well talk about applications in a few minutes—applications in areas as diverse as office politics and child-rearing.” He paused. “And then, we’ll show everyone how to engage in a decision duel.”
Jet lag gave Nathan a tremendous business advantage when he flew west. He noted this with little pleasure, sitting outside the Pelmour complex waiting for MDS Software Associates to open its doors. Here in Mountain View, California, it was not quite 8 a.m. His internal body clocks, still set on D.C. time, told him it was closer to 11 a.m. Everyone on this coast was still coping with morning, injecting fresh caffeine into their bloodstreams. Nathan, however, was almost ready for lunch.
The Pelmour complex was one of the dozens of office clusters designed for the unique requirements of upstart startup companies here in the heart of’Silicon Valley. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur could not begin life with merely a great idea, a reasonable product, a decent business plan, and a tight chunk of venture capital. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur had to initiate his future corporate empire with the right style.
Much of that style was embodied in the building where the entrepreneur began his life. He could not tool up in an old warehouse, tainted by vanished crates of fruit once plucked from orchard groves that blossomed in the days before silicon. No one would believe he could succeed from such a decrepit location; certainly, his business plan was inadequate in scope.
Nor could he start life in an opulent penthouse office overlooking the ocean. Such ostentation was allowed only to those who had succeeded. Anyone who started in this manner was just a pretender; his great new idea could only be vaporware.
The proper entrepreneur instinctively understood that proper businesses started in two-story buildings: Shipments came and went through the loading dock in back, on the bottom floor. Customers came and went through the door in front, on the top floor. Back in the ‘90s, construction crews had built miles of ridges here in Mountain View, to create enough cliff edges in which to embed such proper two-story buildings.
The Pelmour complex was a long chain of these startup company buildings, the entrepreneurial equivalent of a tenement row. Nathan couldn’t help chuckling as he squinted down the stretch of bland sandstone building fronts. Though he had started the Zetetic Corporation outside Seattle, not San Francisco, he too had worked out of one of these tenements for a time. Indeed, for Nathan, the move to a Seattle tenement had been a step up; he had written the first Personal Enhancement Program—the
Advertising Immunity PEP—in the spare bedroom of a friend in San Antonio. No real entrepreneur would have considered working under such conditions. Only his friends in San Antonio, and his sister Jan, had supported his efforts at the time. Jan had always believed in him.
The doors of MDS Software Associates opened. Delilah Lottspeich, the woman he had come to see, had a subcontract with MDS Software. He walked along the curved sidewalk to the front door. Few employees or subcontractors had arrived during the minutes before 8 o’clock; either they arrived enthusiastically early, or they started randomly late.
When he entered, he found people hurrying along behind the receptionist; evidently, enthusiasm was the driver here. Nathan held a brief negotiation with the receptionist before he persuaded one of the passing young men to escort him back to Delilah’s office.
Security was not as strict here as it usually was in fledgling companies: the man waved at Delilah’s office, then disappeared behind a labyrinth of room dividers. The whole office had the unnatural qu
iet that follows after the discussions have worn down, when everyone can strive toward well-understood goals. Only the soft click of keys, and the softer sound of mouse buttons, broke the stillness. A weak aroma of coffee came from the brewing station in the corner.
Nathan stepped across the threshold of Delilah’s office. He did not announce himself. The mental gymnastics of a programmer are too delicate to disturb lightly; he would wait for the right moment.
She sat facing away from the door, unmoving, absorbed in the computer display. Her hair spilled across her pale shoulders, then cascaded down her back in a golden wave—a frozen wave, like a waterfall turned to ice in mid-flight. Touch it, and it might break.
The golden wave shimmered. Delilah twisted in her seat, and Nathan knocked on the door. She swiveled to face him.
Nathan’s sense of watching a frozen waterfall did not diminish. Her arms and neck were long and thin and delicate. Her face held a cold, closed expression—the expression of someone who expects to be struck at any moment.
Nathan gave her his warmest smile. “Delilah Lottspeich? I’m Nathan Pilstrom. I called yesterday about a project we need you on.”
“I remember,” she snapped, her voice sharp with tension. “You wouldn’t tell me what it was over the phone.” She smiled, moderating her tone. “But I bet it’s something interesting. I’ve taken about half the Zetetic series on liars,”
“Oh, no!” Nathan exclaimed, slapping his forehead with mock dismay. ‘Then I don’t stand a chance of manipulating you—unless you missed the course on Lying at a Job Interview.”
She didn’t respond to the joke.
The Liars series included Lying with Statistics, a study of economists; Lying with Facts, a study of news reporters; Lying with Implications, covering advertising strategies; and Lying with Words, on the fine art of politics. She offered him the chair next to her work station. “Call me Lila.” As he sat down, she asked, “What’s the Institute working on?”
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