The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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### ### ### ### ### #### ### ### ### #### ### ### ##### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ##### ### ### ########## ### ### ########## ### ### ### ### Underground eXperts United Presents... ####### ## ## ####### # # ####### #### ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## #### ## ## #### # # ####### ## ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ## ####### ####### # # ####### ###### ####### [ The Voter's Paradox ] [ By Leon Falkins ] ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 6330 words First Serial Rights (c) Leon Felkins, 1994 THE VOTER'S PARADOX (The Conflict of Group Interest and Individual Rationality) by Leon Felkins leonf@nancy.msfc.nasa.gov Version: 6/18/94 [Note, this is an abbreviated version of a work now in progress to be published in the near future.] Introduction Diabolical Choices of the Individual in a Group Related Philosophical Dilemmas Definition of the Paradox Exploring all sides of the issue Public Vs Private Solutions The Paradox in other Dimensions Time Looking out for Future Generations The Classic Definition The Extended Definition Rational Behavior The Rationale for being Rational "Rational Behavior" defined Limited Resources and Tradeoffs Internal Programming The Perceived Environment Good feelings Is it a good thing? My Reputation The Motivating Forces behind Good Feelings The Programming - Genes and Memes The Current Environment Our Perceptions Ignorance ("extra rational") Detailed Analysis The Net Return BG Community Center built from Volunteer Contributions Volunteers save the Town by Sandbagging the Levee BI Contribution to Public Television C The "Holistic" effects Impact of Infinite Vs Finite payoff The impact of Discreet results "But my vote might break the tie" The Wasted Vote Myth The Impact of Large size with some randomness A change so small it cannot be detected Impact of group size The Size of the Group Anonymity The Psychological Cost/Benefits Behavior and the size of the group Freeloaders But what if everyone did that? Examples Cutting off my nose to spite my face Ramifications Crime Social acceptability of criminal activity Decrease in expected punishment Reduced expectation of actually being punished Sex Politics Government Ways to Remove the Paradox Directly tying the return to the cost Small Groups Coercion and other outside inducements Using the Government to do your dirty work Environmental Groups Funding of the arts Summary Societal Problems resulting from the VP Many do cooperate and that is enough for success in many situations References I. Introduction A. Diabolical Choices of the Individual in a Group When an individual has reason to contribute to what is basically a group activity in which the benefits of the group activity are shared by the group, certain puzzling phenomena are evident that can only be described as "diabolical". While there is no generally accepted terminology for these phenomena, various manifestations are often referred to as the "Voter's Paradox", the "Volunteer's Paradox", the "Tragedy of the Commons", and similar terms. The definition for "paradox" used in this essay is "a person, situation, act, etc. that seems to have contradictory or inconsistent qualities" from Webster's dictionary. Basically, what we have is two apparently contradictory truths in the same phenomena. Strangely, the "Voter's Paradox" manifestation seems to be a double paradox. The first can be expressed as, "while it is true that a particular endeavor would return a benefit to all members of the group where each individual would receive rewards that more than compensate for each individual's contribution, it is also true that any particular individual would receive an even greater net return by not contributing anything". I will call this the "freerider" aspect. The second paradox is that, "while it is true that the outcome of a group effort is made up of the sum of the individual efforts, in many cases a particular individual's contribution makes no significant and/or measurable impact on the outcome". I will call this the "my vote doesn't count" aspect. Let us make sure we have a clear understanding of what we are talking about as the insinuation that a paradox exists is a serious assertion. Utmost precision is required to insure that we are not just experiencing a problem of sloppy thinking here. The claim is that a situation can exist such that: (1); while everyone would be better off if everyone contributed (cooperating), a particular individual is always better off not contributing (defecting) and (2); the individual's contribution will not effect the outcome anyway. The reader should not be too quick to cynically regard this assertion as some academic pathological construct. On the contrary, I will attempt to show in this essay that the situation described is extremely common by providing examples occurring in all walks of life. B. Related Philosophical Dilemmas Some logical philosophers claim that the Voter's Paradox is a special case of another well known peculiar situation called the "Prisoner's Dilemma". In the Prisoner's Dilemma, a situation is described in which rewards are in amounts such that it would be in the long term best interests of the participants to cooperate but the short term best interests of an individual is to defect. That is, if you played the game over and over and you added up everyone's score, the total would be a maximum if everyone cooperated all the time. Yet a logical player is presented a payoff matrix that pays most for defection in every single play. The situation we want to discuss here, "The Voter's Paradox", is similar in the conflict in payoffs but otherwise is much different from "The Prisoner's Dilemma" - and is much more common in the real world. II. Definition of the Paradox A. Exploring all sides of the issue It is the rule rather than the exception that the contribution a person would make to some group activity will exceed the benefit that individual might receive in return from being a member of the group. The voting example is a particularly good example of this phenomena in that it can easily be shown that one vote is highly unlikely to do any good whatsoever while there is cost to the person making the vote (admittedly small, usually). The good news is that people do not always act "rationally" - in the sense just described. In fact, most of the time, enough people cooperate in these situations of public good such that the collective effort does not fail. In this article I will try to comprehensively explore these conflicts between the interests of the individual and the group. I will examine the question of why, in situations in which collective action is involved, do people cooperate when it is often not it their best interests to do so. Actually it is more difficult to explain why people cooperate rather than not. My attempt in this essay is to define the phenomena of the so-called "Voter's Paradox" (which I will abbreviate to "VP" for convenience) and related phenomena as clearly as possible. While it is recognized that the impact of the VP on our daily lives is enormous1. the primary purpose of this essay is to present the paradox itself in enough detail such that the phenomena can be clearly understood and evaluated. When the VP is presented to most people, the typical response is "But what if everyone did that"? Upon the most casual examination, the question turns out to be quite ridiculous. If everyone chose not to vote then the election would fail. That's the answer, but it has nothing to do with the VP. Let us examine the two cases: 1. Everyone behaves as usual. Result: my choice to not vote has no impact. 2. Everyone chooses not to vote. Result: my choice to not vote still doesn't do anything (Strangely, if I chose to vote, my vote might now be significant!) Is there a problem of my action of not voting influencing others to do the same? Not very likely. It is very difficult for the private citizen to influence others even if he or she tried. Practically speaking, my actions in any group large enough for anonymity, are not likely to have any impact on what others do. 1. Public Vs Private Solutions2 Many people that have the means to do so, accepting that an individual investment into the solution to a public problem nets a very minuscule return, take the matter in their own hands and sponsor a private solution. For example, if the community's public water supply is running low, rather than contributing to the public fund, a person may elect to put in his own pump. 2. The Paradox in other Dimensions a) Time The VP can be displayed in time as well as space. For example, in a long project in which the end date is subject to significant variability, what difference would taking a day off make? Most likely, it would make no difference at all. Most large projects have definate break points in time for the major milestones. If you miss the due date, the impact could be severe. But if you are early, a day one way or the other will make no difference in the final outcome. But what if I take lots of days off? There you go again. That is still a meaningless question since we were only talking about one day's impact on the final result. b) Looking out for Future Generations Why should I make significant sacrifices for the benefit of those yet to come? Even if I consume a great part of the Earth's resources and just leave garbage and contamination, I will likely not live to see the consequences. It is difficult for a rational person to give up very much for the generations that come after his or her death. There is the possibility that our actions today may spell the end of humanity. What if our selfish actions today results in the destruction of the survival resources of the earth? What if the war machines we build create a very high probability that the Earth will be destroyed? Should I sacrifice my safety and immediate financial rewards? Here we have a double whammy of the VP. First, will anything I do as an individual affect what the mass of humanity receives in rewards? No. Second will anything I do affect future generations to come? Possibly, but I will not be here. B. The Classic Definition Consider a group with two or more members and a situation in which the group as a whole would benefit from certain actions of the individuals in the group. While it is not necessary that the benefits be shared equally, we will assume that all members get some portion of the benefits and that a portion received by a member is not dependent on his/her contribution. The contribution of the individual is voluntary. Under these conditions, so common to modern society, the payoff to the individual (share of group benefit minus his/her cost) is usually optimum when the individual does nothing at all! Further, we can assume that if all or most of the members of the group contribute, all members of the group would benefit more than they would if there was not cooperation. That is, if most or all would contribute, the return for each individual is greater than it would be if each kept his or her contribution and proceeded alone. A valid assumption since otherwise there would be little reason to cooperate in the first place. In summary, in this classic "individuals may volunteer but everyone benefits" scenario, it is evident that the decision to do nothing is always the best strategy regardless of what the rest of the group does since the individual partakes of the benefits whether he or she contributes or not. C. The Extended Definition The classic definition, as described above, suffers from the criticisms that it is too general, leaves out some additional complicating details, and does not include real world secondary reactions that would impact a "rational" person's reasoning. An example of "complicating details" is the binary nature of elections. And many will suggest that secondary effects such as a person's reputation may completely override such "rational" decisions to be uncooperative. I will try to examine these additional details by extending the definition in several ways. D. Rational Behavior 1. The Rationale for being Rational The theme of this essay is based on the concept that a person should be rational. Rather complex philosophical arguments can be made that this may not always be the case. Some would argue that ignorance is best for most of humanity and evidence from recent history would seem to support this in that it appears that for much of the world, the loss of innocence seems to be closely correlated with diminished happiness. These arguments lead in to philosophical morass that any study of would be far outside of the scope of this article. Therefore, in this essay, we will assume that it is in the best interests of an individual to be rational. 2. "Rational Behavior" defined To make any progress in the study of this apparent dilemma, the concept of "rational behavior" has to be carefully defined. Unfortunately, that is extremely difficult. Reviewing references in support of this essay revealed that most authors avoid the subject alltogether. This essay places much emphasis on rational behavior. In particular, statements are made that supporting the group's interest over the individual's interest is most likely not "rational". So, when we say a person acts irrationally, what do we mean? Do we mean that the person had good information but ignored it or that the person had bad information,thought it was correct, and acted logically based on that information? For the purposes of this analaysis, "rational behavior" means that behavior that would actually provide a good return for the person's contribution - based on the currently available information whether that information is correct or not (an action can be rational even if the information available is faulty or erroneous). This does not require optimality but does require that the return to the individual be at least equal to the cost to the individual. When there are alternate paths to take and a choice must be made, a rational choice would be the one that would provide the best actual return to the individual making the choice (assuming correct information). It comes as no surprise that a person's perceptions and/or a person's internal programming can cause irrational behavior - based on the above definition. 3. Limited Resources and Tradeoffs The person having unlimited resources is a rarity. By far, most of us are burdened by the fact that every contribution of time and/or resource to any particular action is at the cost to all other actions we might take with that time and/or resource. That is, when we ponder whether we can contribute $10 to some particular activity that would result is some reward, a rational person must consider the impact of the loss of that ten bucks to all other potentially rewarding activities. 4. Internal Programming How a person reacts to the environment is determined by that person's internal programming. For the purpose of this analysis, that programming is considered to consist of two categories: genes and memes. An excellent discussion on both of these forces is contained in Dr. Dawkin's book, The Selfish Gene3. Also, see the essay by Henson4. For our purposes here it should be sufficient to say that "memes" are those psychological forces that become instilled in a person from learning and societal influences. 5. The Perceived Environment The individual must act in any situation on his or her perception of the environment and the expected results of whatever action might be taken. That these perceptions are likely to be in serious error in many situations, is no surprise to anyone. The available data is almost always incomplete and often contaminated by others who wish to control the individual's action. Further, the analysis of this data by the individual is usually flawed due to the confused and improper internal programming of the individual making the analysis. Of course, people don't act on just material rewards alone. The benefits that a person receives come in many forms, but the most common non-material benefit is likely to be "good feelings". a) Good feelings The good feelings that many get from making a contribution to the public welfare may be substantial and may exceed the cost considerably. (1) Is it a good thing? Many people are motivated to contribute to a group activity if they believe that the activity is honest and useful. (2) My Reputation "How will I be regarded by the rest of the community for the action I am about to take?" is a very powerful consideration for most people. Note, however, this powerful influence fades away when the community is large and my actions are unknown. b) The Motivating Forces behind Good Feelings (1) The Programming - Genes and Memes The good feeling we get from doing any particular thing comes from our programming by our genes and memes. (2) The Current Environment The psychological environment that a person is subject to has a great impact on the feelings that a person has about doing or not doing a specific act. For example, in World War II, a group of soldiers boarding a landing boat in preparation to attack a beach, knowing that there is little chance of survival, still do it. That is because that action is the only acceptable action in that current environment. But times change; in more recent wars, soldiers have refused to fight because the pressure to do so was not so great. (3) Our Perceptions Whether we take a particular action or not is determined by what we believe the values of the variables in the cost-return equation to be - not what they might actually turn out to be. Our beliefs can change the perceived values of these factors enormously. Much cooperative activity that would be deemed as irrational if all facts were known may be still carried out if the future result is not known for certain but only as a probability. While a person would most likely not bother to vote if he or she knew that the potential winner was thousands of votes ahead and he/she was the only one left to vote, that person would still vote if the election details were still unknown or in the future even though there was reliable information that one of the candidates is expected to win by thousands of votes. For much of the population, "as long as there is some chance" that their vote will "count", they vote without regard for the incredibly small probabilities involved. Some people apparently believe that their actions will encourage others to do the same. This belief greatly impacts the perceived value of the group benefit. c) Ignorance ("extra rational") If cooperating is more beneficial to the group, but cooperating is irrational for the individual, then ignorance can actually be best for the group - a concept well known by governments and religions. E. Detailed Analysis If we hope to understand this apparent paradox, we must examine each of its components very carefully. While the end result appears to be paradoxical, each component, under careful consideration, is quite straightforward. 1. The Net Return Let us define a few symbols to make the reasoning more concise and precise. Let C = The direct personal cost or contribution BG = Benefit derived from being a member of the group BI = Benefit derived directly to the individual R = Net return Then for any action taken, R = BG + BI - C Again, I must emphasize that the most important fact to recognize in understanding the VP is that the components of R can be, and usually are, quite independent. I believe that a misunderstanding of this fact is the reason that many people have a hard time accepting and understanding the VP. Further, since a person must act now on the basis of a future return, these variables represent perceived not actual values. Obviously, the individual acts on what he or she perceives the costs and benefits to be, not what they actually are. This is very significant and will be discussed further in the following pages. a) BG BG is the benefit to the individual derived from being a member of the group and the result of this particular action. BG could be a function of C but this article's purpose is to examine the case in which it is independent or nearly so. Societal benefits generally accrue to the individual whether the individual makes a contribution or not (unless no one or an insufficient number contributes). More examples will be presented in detail later but for now a couple will be provided to illustrate the independence. (1) Community Center built from Volunteer Contributions Our community wants to build a Community Center and to do it from contributions. I can contribute or not but in either case I still get to use the Center. Unless, of course, no one contributes (more precisely, the contributions are below some minimum value), in which case the community center will not be built. (2) Volunteers save the Town by Sandbagging the Levee I may volunteer or not but in either case, my home will be saved just like everyone else's. b) BI BI is the benefit that the individual receives directly from his action without regard to the group benefit. An example follows. (1) Contribution to Public Television A public spirited individual contributes $25 to Public Television and receives a Viewer's guide. The guide is an immediate and significant benefit above and independent of the group benefits received from being able to watch the station. c) C C is the cost to the individual for performing a particular action. For example, C would include the cost of driving to the polling booth for the voter. C can be quite small or even zero. Again, I must emphasize that BG usually has little or no dependence on C. C should always be evaluated in a marginal sense. That is, what additional return will I get for this additional contribution? For example, a minimum contribution of $25 may get me coverage from the local volunteer fire department - an excellent investment. An additional $25 contribution may provide for a very slight improvement to service but the return on this marginal investment is very poor. 2. The "Holistic" effects An aspect of the extended VP, more common than not, is the situation in which the return to the group exceeds the contribution of the sum of the individuals. Of course, this is the basis for the overwhelming desire of most responsible citizens to have individuals contribute to the common good. The return we get from everyone or nearly everyone voting far exceeds the cost of the sum of the individual efforts. So, while group efforts can and often do result in a return less than the investment, most reasonable group efforts are characterized by the holistic effect, creating the diabolical condition of the VP. 3. Impact of Infinite Vs Finite payoff Cooperative efforts can be classified into two distinct types: those that have finite return and therefore the return to an individual is diminished by the return given to other individuals and those in which the return to the individual is the same regardless of the benefits it provides to other individuals. And example of this type of reward would be the repair of the levee that saves the town. That my neighbor's house is saved does not impact my benefit of having my house saved. This is of significance since in the "infinite payoff" case, freeloaders present no cost to the contributors. If you contribute to Public Radio, it doesn't cost you anymore if I, a non-contributor, also listen to it. However, whether the payoff is infinite or not does not change the basic paradox. The contributor is still presented with the problem that the contribution exceeds the return. 4. The impact of Discreet results Many phenomena such as elections have a result that is binary in nature. The result is either true or false depending on a value reaching a minimum value. A politician is elected only if he receives a majority of the votes. This has particular impact on the phenomena of the VP in that it is highly unlikely that one vote will have any effect on the outcome. In fact, the number of votes can vary over a wide range without changing the outcome. This situation is best illustrated by a simple experiment. Suppose that you had a balance scale with the balance pans filled with marbles with a sensitivity such that a one marble difference caused the scale indicator to go against its stop. If an equal number of marbles is in each pan, then the scale indicator is at center. Otherwise, the pointer is either at the left or right stop. Suppose there are a few more marbles in one pan than the other (few being more than 2). I can remove a marble from either pan and nothing happens. Or I can transfer a marble from one pan to the other and still nothing happens. This example perfectly illustrates the VP for the situation where the results are binary. a) "But my vote might break the tie" It is difficult for people to understand what an incredibly small chance there is of a major election ending in a tie.5 The probability of a tie in a state election is infinitesimally small. And, if the election ends in a near tie, a recount will be called for anyway! National elections do not end in ties. b) The Wasted Vote Myth A better understanding of the VP might put to bed the specious argument heard so often in the last election that, "I really would like to vote for Perot, but I realize that my vote would be wasted (since he is not likely to get enough votes to win) so I will vote for Clinton". This bit of choice reasoning, apparently used by millions of voters, likely made a major impact on the vote count in the last election. Note the fallacies: (1) Since no particular individual's vote will impact the election results, that individual would receive greater satisfaction by voting their "conscience". (2) The fact that many people considered a vote for Perot as being wasted and therefore switched their vote to another candidate significantly impacted the vote count for Perot and conceivably caused him to lose. We will never know. 5. The Impact of Large size with some randomness In the real world, randomness is the rule rather than the exception. When the number of things in a collection is very large, the addition or removal of one of these things may be less than the random variation of the quantity. This would make it undetectable. There are situations in which the impact of one event is just insignificant compared to the normal random variations. The amount of water I use to take a shower is less than the normal variations of the volume of water in the reservoir. Therefore, my taking of a shower, practically, has no impact on the water situation. 6. A change so small it cannot be detected While random variations can make detection impossible for one event, another factor is involved in the detection: the sensitivity of the detector. Even if there was no random variation of the water volume in the reservoir, no means of measuring the volume is sensitive enough to detect the usage of one shower by one individual. But we are not in general talking about some device that does detection - we are talking about human beings. If the event is not detectable by humans, then it is likely of no practical significance. The rock star on the stage cannot detect whether I clap or not. Most humans cannot detect if I say "aye" or nothing in a voice vote of 50 or so people. 7. Impact of group size The Voter's Paradox seems to mostly occur when there are large numbers of anonymous members in a group. Those two factors -group size and anonymity - need to be examined more carefully. a) The Size of the Group A thoughtful person upon first examining the VP might speculate that the paradox results from the sheer size of the group. "My vote doesn't count because there are so many voters, the situation makes my vote insignificant". So, how many votes does it take to make your vote insignificant? Regardless of how small the number, your vote only counts when there is a tie, plus or minus one vote. Consider that there are 4 voters and you are one of them. If you did not vote and A got 2 votes and B got 1 then your vote could have caused a tie if you voted for B or done no good if you voted for A. If you didn't vote at all, then A wins. Regardless of the number of votes, this situation obviously prevails. b) Anonymity (1) The Psychological Cost/Benefits BI, the direct benefit to the individual and C, the cost to the individual contain components that we will call "psychological rewards" (BIP) or punishment (CP). For most individuals, BIP and/or CP are very powerful components in the cost/benefit equation. In fact, the factors account for most of the "irrational" but good behavior that civilization depends upon to exist! Let's look at an example. Suppose your church wants to add a new audio/video room that will provide free access to educational materials. They wish to do this by means of contributions. How do you think the results would compare between allowing the members to contribute anonymously or to contribute to a basket being passed while all are sitting in their pews? I'm afraid anonymous contributions would not do very well at all. Given that there are enormous social pressures to "do the right thing", what is the effect of anonymity in the group? It practically nullifies any "do-good" activity. If I contribute to a cause and the contribution is anonymous, then these psychological forces are not at play. Other factors, particularly guilt must account for this behavior. (2) Behavior and the size of the group The understanding that anonymity nullifies the psychological pressures to "do the right thing", then explains why people in small towns act in socially desirable ways and people in big cities typically do not. As long as most people in your group are fully aware of your actions, you will most likely act responsibly with regard to both personal and group activities.6 (3) Freeloaders If the logic presented so far in this essay is sound - especially the fact that a single individual's actions are of no consequence to the outcome and there is anonymity - then society will most likely have a problem with "free riders". And of course it does with enormous costs in money, time and security. While some actions are more sinister than others, we all freeload to some extent. We cheat Sears by taking back a product for exchange or refund when we did the damage. Why not? Sears is a big corporation and one return will not make any difference. Besides, they don't know me from Adam. Of course, I wouldn't even think of doing this to someone that knows me personally. We cheat the insurance companies and the health plans that our dollars collectively support. We take advantage of every benefit from the government that we can whether we are justified or not. In the view of some, more sinister examples are the cheating on welfare and the wasting of public funds and the goofing off by government employees. Freeriding is a rational action when the "benefit-cost" value is positive. Public programs provided by the government, insurance companies and health plans provide great benefits compared to the cost to the free rider. Society can increase the cost to the potential freerider by changing the mental make-up of the individuals or by increased controls and punishments. It is most important to realize that these increased costs to the freerider usually also greatly increase the cost of the benefits to everyone else. An interesting aspect of the freeloader phenomena is that the freeloader can not exist without the contributions of those who do not freeload. The hippie living on welfare and using the public medical facilities depends on the existence of the straight people that they hold in contempt. That is, "without the host, the parasite dies". 8. But what if everyone did that? When most people hear the argument for the VP the first time, the most common reaction is, "But what if everyone did that?". Obviously, if everyone declined to vote, democracy would fail. Still the argument is specious. The impact of "everyone doing it" would radically change the analysis of any logical discussion. What if everyone decided to withdrew their money from the bank? What if everyone decided to quit buying new cars? What if everyone decided to not go to work tomorrow? What if everyone decided to read this article? Thousands of examples can be given in which a certain action is harmless when committed by you and me but becomes a disaster if "everyone does it". Like I said, a specious argument. Consider another case: let us say the Red Cross broadcasts a mass appeal for more blood as a result of needs coming from some disaster. What if you didn't feel quite up to giving blood at this time? Would their appeal fail? Of course not. But what if everyone followed your example? While most people clearly understand the above arguments for the cases presented, they seem to have difficulty understanding the ramifications of other problems that are characterized by the same phenomena - the classic example being voting in a national election. Your vote in a national election has even less impact on the results of that election than the sale of one share of IBM stock would have on the price of IBM stock! And far less impact than your withholding of a pint of blood from the Red Cross. III. Examples A. Cutting off my nose to spite my face Should I refuse to buy shoes made in China that I can get much cheaper than USA manufactured shoes even though I dislike China's human rights policy? Should I avoid buying Willie Nelson's albums because he is an alleged tax cheat even though I really like his music? Should I avoid buying products at Walmart's, that save me a lot of money, because some clerk got nasty with me once? To take any of these actions causes me to lose the direct and substantial benefits while having no significant impact on the problems I dislike. I will keep buying Willie's albums. IV. Ramifications What are the consequences of the VP? How does it impact our daily lives? The impact is enormous. A. Crime If you have followed the above arguments and accept the logic, you should have no problem accepting the conclusion that most crime is a result of the VP as defined in this essay. That is, crime is usually committed based on the individual's assessment that the benefit will exceed the cost. It would seem reasonable that crime will increase if either the benefit is increased or the cost is decreased. Most likely, the large increase in crime our society is now experiencing is a result of the decrease in cost to the criminal. Some examples of the decreased cost are: 1. Social acceptability of criminal activity In the last few decades, in many communities, crime has become more socially acceptable - even "cool". As we have discussed earlier, social psychological pressures are very powerful (enough to cause a person to sacrifice their life rather than be seen as a coward, for instance). This psychological good feeling of being looked up to by the individual's peers far outweighs the potential future destruction to the community that all will suffer from - including the perpetrator. 2. Decrease in expected punishment 3. Reduced expectation of actually being punished B. Sex Socially unacceptable sexual activity is on the increase in spite of the widening of the definition of what is acceptable. In particular, sexual activity by the young and others in which the results present a burden to society are on the increase. Much of this is a result of the VP phenomena. C. Politics Politicians generally do what is in their own best interests with often disastrous impacts on society in general - even though they are a member of that society. D. Government Government burden and suppression of individual rights continues to increase since it benefits a few. Yet, we all suffer from these infringements, including those that benefit from it. Unfortunately, their direct reward exceeds their losses from being a member of society. V. Ways to Remove the Paradox A. Directly tying the return to the cost The paradox goes away when a person is directly rewarded or punished by their actions. For example, if a device was placed on the water meter that would report any use of the water during the times such use is prohibited, then that individual could be punished. B. Small Groups As discussed above, we have few problems with the freerider aspect of the VP when everyone in the group knows each other. C. Coercion and other outside inducements 1. Using the Government to do your dirty work Most activist groups use the government to enforce cooperation when it is obvious that voluntary cooperation will not do the job. a) Environmental Groups Environmental groups know that there is little chance of successful environmental voluntary action by the population due to the problem of the VP. So they have the government enforce their philosophy. b) Funding of the arts Those that would provide culture to the masses know that the masses would not support this by any voluntary sacrifice. So they use the force of law to give the masses what they "need". VI. Summary In this article, the phenomena of the so-called "Voter's Paradox" has been examined in detail. There are two major aspects to this paradox, both of which present enormous difficulties for a society based on social interaction. First there is the problem that it seems to be quite evident that certain scenarios requiring the cooperation of all or most of the individuals in a group would provide benefits for everyone far in excess of what they would be able to do privately. Good examples are elections, roads, water supplies, river levees and other large investments. Yet, at the same time, it is obvious that for a particular individual, his or her maximum return is obtained by making no contribution - that is, freeriding. For example, if the levee could possibly break, the individual would be best served by not contributing to the sandbagging at the main levee but instead working on defenses around his own home. The second major component of the "Voter's Paradox" is that the contribution of the individual in large groups may be absolutely or practically of no significance. On a national election, one vote cannot possibly determine the outcome of the election. If the levee broke because it was shy 100 sandbags and I could only do 50, then my effort was useless. If it didn't break because it had at least 50 more than it needed, my contribution was useless. A. Societal Problems resulting from the VP Most of the major problems facing large societies can be traced to the VP. Massive non-cooperation results in a breakdown of many group activities that would be useful. The massive growth of the welfare roles, crime, government spending, government waste, and etc. are examples of individuals maximizing their own return at the expense of the group. The paradox is that they are acting rationally! Solutions to these problems are difficult but possible. However, solutions are beyond the scope of this article which is devoted to explaining the theory of the paradox. B. Many do cooperate and that is enough for success in many situations That society functions at all is a testimony to the fact that a large part of society does "cooperate". According to Hardin7, some experimental data indicates that about one half of the participants cooperate. I suspect that more cooperated in the past and less will in the future. Another dilemma for society is that people are more likely to cooperate and not do what is in their personal best interest if they are ignorant and/or living lives controlled by myths. An educated person is more likely to be cognizant of the tradeoffs between self interest and group interest. Fortunately, it does not require 100 percent cooperation for most group efforts to succeed. Many public projects function with only a small percentage contributing. Voting is a good example. Success can also be achieved for group activities that would fail if based on voluntary cooperation by invoking the force of law. Environment groups have made much use of this approach. VII. References Hardin, Garrett, "The Tragedy of the Commons", Science, 162:1243-1248, 1968 Hardin, Russell, Collective Action, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1982. Dawkins, Richard; The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Axelrod, Robert; The Evolution of Cooperation. Basic Books, New York, 1984. Glance, Natalie and Huberman, Bernardo; Dynamics of social dilemmas. Scientific American. March, 1994 Diekmann, Andreas and Mitter, Petter, Editors; Paradoxical Effects of Social Behavior - Essays in Honor of Anatol Rapoport. Physica-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1986. Poundstone, William; Prisoner's Dilemma.Doubleday, New York, 1992 Glance, Natalie S.; Dynamics with Expectations , Doctoral Dissertation at Stanford University, June 1993. This paper and others related are located at the Internet site, parc.xerox.com. _______________________________ 1A discussion on the impact of the VP on society will be contained in another paper by this author, now in preparation. 2Hardin, Russell; Collective Action, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1982, Page 75 3Dawkins, Richard; The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. 4Henson, H. Keith; "Memes Meta-Memes and Politics", (An article available on the Internet. Use Archie to find.) 5Hardin, Russell, Page 60 6There are several papers located at the Internet site, parc.xerox.com by Dr. Benardo Huberman and Dr. Natalie Glance that discuss the effect of keeping organizational size small to improve cooperation. 7Hardin, Russell, Page 29 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- uXu #219 Underground eXperts United 1994 uXu #219 Call LHDM-2 -> +1-818-546-2332 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------