this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face

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David Rice, a disabled Army paratrooper who has been on probation since joining the U.S. Department of Energy in September, also learned Thursday night that he had lost his job.

Rice, who has been working as a foreign affairs specialist on health matters relating to radiation exposure, said he’d been led to believe that his job would likely be safe. But on Thursday night, when he logged into his computer for a meeting with Japanese representatives, he saw an email saying he’d been fired.

“It’s just been chaos,” said Rice, 50, who had just bought a house in Melbourne, Florida, after he got the job.

Rice said he agrees with the Trump administration’s goal of making the government more efficient, but objects to the random, scattershot approach being taken.

Originally linked here:

https://lemmy.wtf/post/16645266

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[–] j4k3 60 points 5 days ago (5 children)

They all fail at game theory. When being negative, everyone loses. Tit for Tat + 10% forgiveness is the most successful and highest growth potential. T4T means you are always nice, always positive, and when someone is negative, you respond in kind but randomly forgive 10% of the time to exit the stupidity spiral. Most world leaders know and operate under T4T now that it was established as the only path to maximal growth for everyone. Failing to apply this when everyone else is applying it will ALWAYS result in bringing everyone down but the most damage will ALWAYS occur to the perpetrating entity when all others are playing T4Tpt.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 days ago (4 children)

This is interesting, how did they get those calculations?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 days ago

The person you're replying to is describing (without giving proper context except for "game theory") an algorithm that's fairly successful at the "iterated prisoners dilemma": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago

I don't know where this particular graph came from, but Richard Dawkins has a whole chapter about strategies for the prisoner's dilemma in his book "The Selfish Gene".

[–] j4k3 13 points 5 days ago

Veritasium did a nice video covering the research and explaining the sources. It was an academic competition of sorts

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

There are a variety of ways. One way is to run a computer program that executes each strategy and then just have them all go against each other some number of times like a tournament, or sometimes just "random matchings". Super fast to do so it's easy to try different scenarios and make a lot of different strategies.

They've also done tournaments with actual people, and then compared the different people's behavior to the different "pure" strategies that they made. This helps them validate that the behaviors carry over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

It's worth noting that nation states don't always behave the same as individuals, but often closer to the game theory ideal. Additionally, there are circumstances where tit for tat isn't actually the dominant strategy, specifically when you know that the game is going to end.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Someone wanna tell this person what T4T actually means? It'll be funny.

[–] j4k3 7 points 5 days ago

I'm lazy. Sorry T's. May you always be positive and get your extra 10%

[–] leadore 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

So what I'm hearing is, we should forgive 10% of the magats?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I “forgive” them by not punching them in the face on sight.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Forgiveness is for you. Any benefit they get is a by-product.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I avoid getting sued, arrested, or fired by not punching them in the face.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You are arguing that you should forgive them, so that you are not at risk of punching them in the face.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That’s why I put “forgive” in quotes in my first post. I know I’m not using the word correctly. That’s the joke.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

But it's funny because it's true. You should, and you would be better off if you did. We hold onto anger feeling like we are contributing a good to the greater world by bearing that burden. But you can both forgive a person, and learn better for next time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

It’s not so much anger as it is pity and disgust… but now I’m splitting hairs. I see your point.

[–] Eheran 3 points 5 days ago

The graph only shows that eventually 15 % of the population do T4T, not that it is the best or whatever?