Poli Sci, Econ and Game Theory Are VERY clear

[superrific]

Very clear about what needs to be done. This is going to be another public service brought to you by superrific productions. It's going to be long and I will split it over multiple posts, because there is some background needed to grasp all the material. Let's start with democracy and game theory.

1. Game theory is what John Nash invented, as dramatized in A Beautiful Mind. It's not a special theory. It's simply a mathematical formulation of multi-actor competition. A "game" is simply a series of events in which the participants make repeated choices with knowledge of their payoffs and the payoffs of other actors. For instance, a simple game is husband-wife recreation. Husband likes football; wife likes opera. For them to stay happily married, husband has to do opera sometimes and wife has to do football (simple game so we're not thinking about external options). You can model the game mathematically and discover that it's impossible to predict what they will do on any weekend. They might be attending an opera or a football game. Both are solutions to the game.

But if the wife likes football somewhat, and the husband hates opera, the payoffs change. Now game theory tells you that they will end up focusing on football almost to the exclusion of opera. Wife's preferences get lost in the shuffle. Sound familiar?

2. A very important category of games are referred to under the umbrella term "Prisoner's Dilemma." Let me explain what that means, with two examples. The first and most famous example posits two prisoners being interrogated for a confession. The prosecution can nail them both for a lesser offense -- let's say something that gets them 2 years in jail. But he can't convict them of the serious crime (20 years, let's say) without a confession from one. So he offers each prisoner a deal: if you confess to the big crime, I'll drop that charge against you and let you plead to a lesser offense so you'll get only one year total, and the other guy gets 20. If you both confess, you'll each get 10 years. Usually the phrases are cooperate and defect. Cooperate in this case = not confess. Defect means take the deal.

Now, it's clearly best for the prisoners to not confess. But look at the payoffs. Let's call them Bob and Alice. If Alice confesses, she will either get 1 year or 10 years. Bob has the same payoff. But notice how the payoffs are distributed. If Alice confesses and Bob doesn't, she gets 1 year instead of 2. If she confesses and so does Bob, she gets 10 years instead of 20. So no matter what Bob does, it's in Alice's interest to confess. Well, Bob knows this. So even if Bob doesn't want to confess, he thinks Alice probably will because it's in her interest to do so. Note that the formalism usually posits no communication between Bob and Alice but that isn't a strict condition.

So, even though it is best for Alice and Bob to keep their mouths shut, they won't. They will end up getting 10 years each. That's the suboptimal equilibrium. Experiments have shown that people obey this logic in practice.

3. Democracy is a prisoners' dilemma game. It's better for us if we all cooperate: honest elections, respecting the outcome of elections, no propaganda or dirty tricks or lies. But the payoffs are such that every actor has an incentive to rig the game. If the other side is rigging, you have to rig. If the other side isn't, then you can gain by rigging. No matter what, rigging is the equilibrium.

This plays out in the gerrymandering fiascos. Why does California have to gerrymander? Because Texas will. No matter what California does, the people who rule Texas benefit from gerrymandering. And so too California. Not gerrymandering just allows Texas to gain influence. This is also why every state has winner-take-all assignment of electoral votes (well, almost every state and obviously the logic is pushing NE and ME to abandon their one at large vote). It makes no sense for a state like Wisconsin or North Carolina to assign EVs proportionately. The states are close enough that the EV will never differ by more than 1. NC has 16 EVs. If we did it proportionally, one party might get 9 EVs to the others' 7. Maybe 10-6. But the point is that NC will have gone from 16 net EVs to 4.

This is why the Supreme Court was so damn foolish to say gerrymandering was beyond the capacity of the federal courts, that the states could take care of it. The states cannot take care of it. Literally, the prisoners' dilemma structure (abbreviate to PD) makes it all but impossible. California and New York tried to lead the way on redistricting, and now they are backpedaling because the cooperate strategy is strictly dominated by defect. No matter what other states do, gerrymandering is always better for the party in charge.

Hopefully everyone is with me so far. The next post is where the rubber really hits the road.

 

[mpaer]

Very clear about what needs to be done. This is going to be another public service brought to you by superrific productions. It's going to be long and I will split it over multiple posts, because there is some background needed to grasp all the material. Let's start with democracy and game theory.

1. Game theory is what John Nash invented, as dramatized in A Beautiful Mind. It's not a special theory. It's simply a mathematical formulation of multi-actor competition. A "game" is simply a series of events in which the participants make repeated choices with knowledge of their payoffs and the payoffs of other actors. For instance, a simple game is husband-wife recreation. Husband likes football; wife likes opera. For them to stay happily married, husband has to do opera sometimes and wife has to do football (simple game so we're not thinking about external options). You can model the game mathematically and discover that it's impossible to predict what they will do on any weekend. They might be attending an opera or a football game. Both are solutions to the game.

But if the wife likes football somewhat, and the husband hates opera, the payoffs change. Now game theory tells you that they will end up focusing on football almost to the exclusion of opera. Wife's preferences get lost in the shuffle. Sound familiar?

2. A very important category of games are referred to under the umbrella term "Prisoner's Dilemma." Let me explain what that means, with two examples. The first and most famous example posits two prisoners being interrogated for a confession. The prosecution can nail them both for a lesser offense -- let's say something that gets them 2 years in jail. But he can't convict them of the serious crime (20 years, let's say) without a confession from one. So he offers each prisoner a deal: if you confess to the big crime, I'll drop that charge against you and let you plead to a lesser offense so you'll get only one year total, and the other guy gets 20. If you both confess, you'll each get 10 years. Usually the phrases are cooperate and defect. Cooperate in this case = not confess. Defect means take the deal.

Now, it's clearly best for the prisoners to not confess. But look at the payoffs. Let's call them Bob and Alice. If Alice confesses, she will either get 1 year or 10 years. Bob has the same payoff. But notice how the payoffs are distributed. If Alice confesses and Bob doesn't, she gets 1 year instead of 2. If she confesses and so does Bob, she gets 10 years instead of 20. So no matter what Bob does, it's in Alice's interest to confess. Well, Bob knows this. So even if Bob doesn't want to confess, he thinks Alice probably will because it's in her interest to do so. Note that the formalism usually posits no communication between Bob and Alice but that isn't a strict condition.

So, even though it is best for Alice and Bob to keep their mouths shut, they won't. They will end up getting 10 years each. That's the suboptimal equilibrium. Experiments have shown that people obey this logic in practice.

3. Democracy is a prisoners' dilemma game. It's better for us if we all cooperate: honest elections, respecting the outcome of elections, no propaganda or dirty tricks or lies. But the payoffs are such that every actor has an incentive to rig the game. If the other side is rigging, you have to rig. If the other side isn't, then you can gain by rigging. No matter what, rigging is the equilibrium.

This plays out in the gerrymandering fiascos. Why does California have to gerrymander? Because Texas will. No matter what California does, the people who rule Texas benefit from gerrymandering. And so too California. Not gerrymandering just allows Texas to gain influence. This is also why every state has winner-take-all assignment of electoral votes (well, almost every state and obviously the logic is pushing NE and ME to abandon their one at large vote). It makes no sense for a state like Wisconsin or North Carolina to assign EVs proportionately. The states are close enough that the EV will never differ by more than 1. NC has 16 EVs. If we did it proportionally, one party might get 9 EVs to the others' 7. Maybe 10-6. But the point is that NC will have gone from 16 net EVs to 4.

This is why the Supreme Court was so damn foolish to say gerrymandering was beyond the capacity of the federal courts, that the states could take care of it. The states cannot take care of it. Literally, the prisoners' dilemma structure (abbreviate to PD) makes it all but impossible. California and New York tried to lead the way on redistricting, and now they are backpedaling because the cooperate strategy is strictly dominated by defect. No matter what other states do, gerrymandering is always better for the party in charge.

Hopefully everyone is with me so far. The next post is where the rubber really hits the road.

I'm in
I am about Belichicked out Need diversion

 

[superrific]

4. It turns out that in a single period game -- that is, everyone gets to make one choice and then there's a result -- cannot be solved absent "external enforcement." That is, somebody external to the actors changes the payoffs and thus alters the incentives. In the case of drug dealers, the boss will kill anyone who talks. If anyone wants to know why all cartels behave like that, it's because it's necessary for survival. Otherwise, the entire organization will have an incentive to cooperate with law enforcement. The prospect of getting whacked means that "cooperate" is no longer strictly dominant.

In the case of democracy, we usually rely on law to be an external enforcer. That was the idea behind preclearance. We can't trust Texas to honor democracy because of their long historical pattern of race discrimination. And for white Texans, assuming they identify payoffs with race, the choice to discriminate strictly dominates non-discrimination. So requiring the DOJ to sign off on any voting changes was a form of external enforcement. As we have seen, the states cannot on their own police their own discrimination. The laws will be changed whenever possible.

And usually our external enforcer are the federal courts. This is why the various immunities doctrines -- both sovereign immunity and presidential immunity -- are so destructive. Basically, the courts said, "eh, we can't enforce the law against the president." So now the president has two choices: violate the law with impunity, and obey the law. For a self-interested actor like Trump or Nixon, that choice is clear: violate the law with impunity strictly dominates. This is why the pardon of Nixon was so horrible. It also, in its own way, destroyed external enforcement. We can ask why other presidents have not chosen violate + impunity; there are explanations and I can get to them if we want, but it's a bit far afield for now.

5. But all is not lost! Democracy is not a one-stage game. It's a multi-stage game. In fact, it has a very large number of periods. And it turns out that there is a strategy to deter defection in an multi-period game -- well, technically an infinite period game. And that strategy is basically what we would call punishment. That is, if everyone cooperates, then we go on as normal. But if one actor doesn't cooperate, the other actor defects forever. That is, if Texas subverts democracy now, California will subvert democracy forever. And in an infinite period game, you can show (at least under certain assumptions) that cooperation is a stable equilibrium.

But note that it only works in an infinite period game. In a finite game, it doesn't work. Let's suppose we're looking at 10 electoral cycles. In the 10th cycle, we can expect the parties to both defect (remember, that means subvert democracy) because once you are at the end, you're facing a one period game. So it's decided. Thus, the 9th cycle becomes the last period where the actors have any choice. Well, it's now a one-period game, and defect is the solution. Now the 8th . . . and you can see where this is headed.

So I guess it is lost after all . . .

6. No, wait! We have law. Law is a way of committing to an outcome in advance. If we pass a law requiring states not to gerrymander, then in the final period, the choice between defect and cooperate has been changed. So law allows us to essentially turn our finite-stage games into the equivalent of an infinite period game. We bind ourselves.

Ah, but if law fails, then we're back to square one. Guess who is making law fail? Right.

continued in part 3. You might see where this is going, but there are still a few wrinkles.

 

[superrific]

7. So without law and without consequences, we are left with punishment strategies for subverting democracy. The problem is that the punishment hits everyone. As described above, the punishment for one player defecting is that the other player will defect forever. But the other player is hurt as least as much by that self-immolation. It becomes mutual self-destruction.

This is why liberals are squeamish about doing what needs to be done. What does it get us to destroy democracy if that's what is needed to save it?

But that's not true if we can devise a punishment strategy that hits the bad actors harder than the good actors. So how do we do this? Let's look to the Civil War. Right, what happened to the Confederate states? They became ex-states. Unfortunately we let them back in before they were reformed, but the instinct was correct. That is an enforcement mechanism that is credible. A state that defects from democracy becomes an ex-state.

8. And that is what needs to happen. The proof is all here. These are well-established theories that are used literally by hundreds of thousands of people in many different contexts: academics, businesses use game theory, foreign policy experts use game theory. Nothing I've said departs from the standard theory.

States who send the national guard to police other states must be stripped of statehood.

9. But won't that be subject to abuse? Perhaps. But two things to be said. First, is it worse than what we have? Our democracy is, at the moment, basically confined to permanent dysfunction, as the gerrymandering fiasco proves. If we create a situation where democracy is undermined, we're not worse off. But since this strategy could work, what do we have to lose?

Second, the punishment has to be designed to have negative utility for the punisher. It has to be higher utility than just giving in, but there has to be some cost. I would argue that if one group of states starts expelling the other states, it works against those states' interests. For one thing, if you start expelling so casually, you might see yourself get expelled soon enough. The punishment has to be structured so that states can avoid that fate if they choose. So law abiding states aren't de-stated no matter what; it's the law-defying states who will be punished. That is a deterrent. We can query whether there's a prisoner's dilemma here in this solution, but I don't think there is. Not sure.

Third, the punishment should be tiered. De-stating is the extreme last case measure. We can have intermediate levels of punishment, like temporary loss of federal funding. Or preclearance (which states and localities sometimes opted into by virtue of racially exclusionary policies). Those are ways to deter states without blowing up the whole system. But, oh, preclearance is now illegal. Federal funding cannot be meaningfully denied. Thanks, SCOTUS. So SCOTUS has defeated all the intermediate tiers. SCOTUS has made it so the only effective remedy for subversion is the most extreme one.

Thus, the blame for our current predicament is the Supreme Court. I don't know if you can say the Supreme Court was responsible for the Civil War, but Dred Scott sure didn't help anything.

10. So, in conclusion: de-stating Texas and Florida solves our problems. No other state will have any incentive to subvert democracy. Not to mention, it just removes the votes of the insurrectionists from the government.

Is it illegal to do that? It is. Does that matter? It does not. As we have seen, law is no longer an impediment to authoritarian capture. Thus, the enforcement must be made endogenous to the system. The external enforcement mechanisms no longer exist. The only thing to fight power is power.

The de-stating doesn't have to be permanent to work, but it does require the violating state to reform before re-admittance.

11. This is the only solution.

 

[sringwal]

Precedence, in the forms of other democracy where this has been attempted, and it worked?

 

[superrific]

Precedence, in the forms of other democracy where this has been attempted, and it worked?

1. Reconstruction. Overall, if judged by the standards of morality, it was a failure. But as to the issues that the north really cared about -- slavery and secession -- it was worked perfectly. If the north didn't really care about racial equality (which it didn't, except for the progressives who quickly lost influence), then how could it have a punishment strategy to achieve that goal. Plus, we did some get some good statutes; it wasn't reconstruction's fault that the Supreme Court destroyed them.

2. WWII. We could have accepted conditional surrenders from both Germany and Japan. Especially Japan. It was contained, the Emperor was on shaky footing. We didn't need to invade and take over the whole island. We did anyway. We reconstructed it. Have we have had any problems with Japan since?

I don't know all the historical details about whether Germany or Japan would have accepted a conditional surrender, but the fact is that we were never going to offer it.

3. The EU has section 7, which allows it to suspend voting rights for any country that falls short of democratic norms. It hasn't been effective in Hungary because its procedural requirements are too onerous -- I think it requires unanimity, which isn't going to happen if there are two countries that kind of want to go fascist. But for the most part, the EU has not backslid on democracy.

 

[stankeylegjones]

Just a note: Game theory and ideas related to it were fleshed out by many mathematicians well before Nash's time working as a mathematician. von Neumann built the foundations of it in the early 20s.

 

[superrific]

Just a note: Game theory and ideas related to it were fleshed out by many mathematicians well before Nash's time working as a mathematician. von Neumann built the foundations of it in the early 20s.

Did they make a big Hollywood movie about von Neumann? Also, it is called a Nash equilibrium, is it not? Anyway, I understand that you're just poking a little and that's fine, but this isn't really about the history of game theory.

 

[BlooVooDoo]

Just a note: Game theory and ideas related to it were fleshed out by many mathematicians well before Nash's time working as a mathematician. von Neumann built the foundations of it in the early 20s.

But dat equilibrium, yo.

 

[sringwal]

1. Reconstruction. Overall, if judged by the standards of morality, it was a failure. But as to the issues that the north really cared about -- slavery and secession -- it was worked perfectly. If the north didn't really care about racial equality (which it didn't, except for the progressives who quickly lost influence), then how could it have a punishment strategy to achieve that goal. Plus, we did some get some good statutes; it wasn't reconstruction's fault that the Supreme Court destroyed them.

2. WWII. We could have accepted conditional surrenders from both Germany and Japan. Especially Japan. It was contained, the Emperor was on shaky footing. We didn't need to invade and take over the whole island. We did anyway. We reconstructed it. Have we have had any problems with Japan since?

I don't know all the historical details about whether Germany or Japan would have accepted a conditional surrender, but the fact is that we were never going to offer it.

3. The EU has section 7, which allows it to suspend voting rights for any country that falls short of democratic norms. It hasn't been effective in Hungary because its procedural requirements are too onerous -- I think it requires unanimity, which isn't going to happen if there are two countries that kind of want to go fascist. But for the most part, the EU has not backslid on democracy.

Sorry - wasn't clear. My question about precedence was in terms of forceful secession of Florida and Texas (by other democratic countries)

 

[SnoopRob]

Since I think super is done with his explanation after point 11, I have a few points...

1. De-stating is certainly subject to the prisoner's dilemma. If the Federal government (however the mechanism) de-states a couple of states without widespread consensus that doing so is legally and ethically correct, then the next time the current opposition party is in power they will be incentivized to de-state those states which disagree with them. You've simply created a new prisoner's dilemma with a much higher pain level for lack of cooperation.

(Note: This is also why the idea of "packing the court" under Biden wasn't a realistic solution. The next time Pubs won the WH and Senate, they'd simply pack the court again to "balance" out whatever previous actions had been taken and suddenly control of the court would be wholly dependent on control of the WH/Senate. And so SCOTUS would be "re-packed" every time the part that didn't control the court had both the WH and Senate.)

2. There is no current or even realistic imaginary process by which Texas and Florida can currently be de-stated to make this idea a reality. There is no broad consensus that these states have done anything that supports de-statehood and there is no way that any currently existent or even potentially imagined external enforcement party could realistically de-state Texas and Florida within our current system and balance of power. (To the contrary, given our current system and balance of power, the state most likely to be de-stated would be California.)

The reason that the US Civil War "allowed" (pragmatically, if not necessarily legally) for states to be de-stated is because those states chose de-statement. A country as divided as the US in either 1860 or 2025 does not have the ability to pragmatically de-state any specific state simply because there is not external enforcement body powerful enough to force de-statement to occur.

3. As you've indirectly pointed out, actions of this high level mean that punishments are both severe and are opposed with similarly severe tactics. Any attempt to de-state a US state without its permission and/or without the broad consensus of all of the other US states would inevitably lead to a greater use of power by those who will be disadvantaged by de-statement to prevent de-statement from occurring...in other words, you'd be creating a flash point that would almost inevitably lead to a second US Civil War centered around those states who are being de-stated.

For these reasons, I don't think that de-statement is a pragmatic option and it fails as a thought exercise because we see that the only realistic outcome is greater defection that leads almost inevitably to civil war.

 

[SnoopRob]

I'll add as a separate thought, I really appreciate this thread because it has pushed me to see our current governmental conflict in a way I had not previously considered, despite being fully aware of game theory. IMHO, a game theory perspective sheds light on why, beyond the basic ideologies of the parties, the Republicans are the ones pushing the violations of the rule of law as an external enforcement mechanism because they recognize that they have the better position if/once those external enforcement options are violated and are not longer operational.

 

[superrific]

Since I think super is done with his explanation after point 11, I have a few points...

1. De-stating is certainly subject to the prisoner's dilemma. If the Federal government (however the mechanism) de-states a couple of states without widespread consensus that doing so is legally and ethically correct, then the next time the current opposition party is in power they will be incentivized to de-state those states which disagree with them. You've simply created a new prisoner's dilemma with a much higher pain level for lack of cooperation.

(Note: This is also why the idea of "packing the court" under Biden wasn't a realistic solution. The next time Pubs won the WH and Senate, they'd simply pack the court again to "balance" out whatever previous actions had been taken and suddenly control of the court would be wholly dependent on control of the WH/Senate. And so SCOTUS would be "re-packed" every time the part that didn't control the court had both the WH and Senate.)

2. There is no current or even realistic imaginary process by which Texas and Florida can currently be de-stated to make this idea a reality. There is no broad consensus that these states have done anything that supports de-statehood and there is no way that any currently existent or even potentially imagined external enforcement party could realistically de-state Texas and Florida within our current system and balance of power. (To the contrary, given our current system and balance of power, the state most likely to be de-stated would be California.)

The reason that the US Civil War "allowed" (pragmatically, if not necessarily legally) for states to be de-stated is because those states chose de-statement. A country as divided as the US in either 1860 or 2025 does not have the ability to pragmatically de-state any specific state simply because there is not external enforcement body powerful enough to force de-statement to occur.

3. As you've indirectly pointed out, actions of this high level mean that punishments are both severe and are opposed with similarly severe tactics. Any attempt to de-state a US state without its permission and/or without the broad consensus of all of the other US states would inevitably lead to a greater use of power by those who will be disadvantaged by de-statement to prevent de-statement from occurring...in other words, you'd be creating a flash point that would almost inevitably lead to a second US Civil War centered around those states who are being de-stated.

For these reasons, I don't think that de-statement is a pragmatic option and it fails as a thought exercise because we see that the only realistic outcome is greater defection that leads almost inevitably to civil war.

Fair response.

1. For de-stating to be a prisoners' dilemma, defection has to be strictly dominant. Otherwise, it's just revenge.
2. There is no current process for a lot of shit that is happening. The constitution is not a suicide pact. Those who violate the constitution on a regular basis have no standing to hide behind its protections.
3. There isn't a broad consensus, which is why I'm bringing it up. I'm hoping to help forge that broad consensus. How about we start with: any state that mobilizes its national guard to effectuate the occupation of another state loses its privileges?
4. Your point in item #3 is not grounded. It's an empirical prediction without foundation. I mean, it might be true, but the game theory suggests that it's not. Which isn't exactly relativity theory level reliability but it's something.
5. Don't campaign on de-statement. I agree with you on that. Just do it.
6. We need a new constitution. I'm fine with excluding those states from participating and then they can have their votes back so long as they behave themselves.
7. Do you contest that the game theory aptly models our system? Basically, the southern states called the north's bluff and got treated harshly. Then we lived through a long period of mostly respectful co-existence. Not completely, but nothing like what we are seeing now.

The thing is, MAGA is essentially calling the bluff. Will we inflict the punishment that is necessary to make them adhere to the system? We didn't before. We should have punished the southern states for their recalcitrance during the Obama administration. Not with de-statehood, but with federal funding. Oh, right, we did and the Supreme Court said get bent. Turns out we should have done it anyway. We sure as hell should have punished the states who sent fake electors. We sure as hell should have punished Texas for defying federal law during the Biden administration. Now we are in this situation where extreme measures are warranted, because we failed to stand up in the past.

That is second-guessing with the benefit of hindsight and I won't criticize those who counseled less dramatic measures. Hell, I was probably one of them. I don't remember exactly. But the system is broken, is it not?

8. No, seriously -- the system is broken, is it not? If you don't like my remedy, fine. And I'm not going to demand of you a remedy, since this thread was my initiative and you're just responding. But can we agree that some sort of radical action is necessary? There is no going back to normal unless MAGA is punished. We tried defeating them and obeying the law. We see how well that worked.

 

[superrific]

Sorry - wasn't clear. My question about precedence was in terms of forceful secession of Florida and Texas (by other democratic countries)

Well, what other democratic countries have had occasion to try it? There is no precedent for the United States in 2025. We have to go with analogous experiments. No other well-established democracy has ever been undermined in such a short period of time. We've been doing this for over 200 years and now it's coming to an end? Or at least there's a serious threat to the Republic, which could develop further. There is no historical precedent at all, either way.

 

[stankeylegjones]

Did they make a big Hollywood movie about von Neumann? Also, it is called a Nash equilibrium, is it not? Anyway, I understand that you're just poking a little and that's fine, but this isn't really about the history of game theory.

Sorry for coming across as poking. I was pointing out that saying Nash invented game theory is not correct, for those who might be interested.

Not sure about a movie on von Neumann’s life.

 

[superrific]

Sorry for coming across as poking. I was pointing out that saying Nash invented game theory is not correct, for those who might be interested.

Not sure about a movie on von Neumann’s life.

I don't mind gentle poking. The reason that I chose Nash is because of the movie. It's hard to get peoples' attention for something like game theory, so telling them, "this is like what you saw in that cool film" helps. Well, that and Nash being generally credited for formulating it, right or wrong.

 

[SnoopRob]

Fair response.

1. For de-stating to be a prisoners' dilemma, defection has to be strictly dominant. Otherwise, it's just revenge.
2. There is no current process for a lot of shit that is happening. The constitution is not a suicide pact. Those who violate the constitution on a regular basis have no standing to hide behind its protections.
3. There isn't a broad consensus, which is why I'm bringing it up. I'm hoping to help forge that broad consensus. How about we start with: any state that mobilizes its national guard to effectuate the occupation of another state loses its privileges?
4. Your point in item #3 is not grounded. It's an empirical prediction without foundation. I mean, it might be true, but the game theory suggests that it's not. Which isn't exactly relativity theory level reliability but it's something.
5. Don't campaign on de-statement. I agree with you on that. Just do it.
6. We need a new constitution. I'm fine with excluding those states from participating and then they can have their votes back so long as they behave themselves.
7. Do you contest that the game theory aptly models our system? Basically, the southern states called the north's bluff and got treated harshly. Then we lived through a long period of mostly respectful co-existence. Not completely, but nothing like what we are seeing now.

The thing is, MAGA is essentially calling the bluff. Will we inflict the punishment that is necessary to make them adhere to the system? We didn't before. We should have punished the southern states for their recalcitrance during the Obama administration. Not with de-statehood, but with federal funding. Oh, right, we did and the Supreme Court said get bent. Turns out we should have done it anyway. We sure as hell should have punished the states who sent fake electors. We sure as hell should have punished Texas for defying federal law during the Biden administration. Now we are in this situation where extreme measures are warranted, because we failed to stand up in the past.

That is second-guessing with the benefit of hindsight and I won't criticize those who counseled less dramatic measures. Hell, I was probably one of them. I don't remember exactly. But the system is broken, is it not?

8. No, seriously -- the system is broken, is it not? If you don't like my remedy, fine. And I'm not going to demand of you a remedy, since this thread was my initiative and you're just responding. But can we agree that some sort of radical action is necessary? There is no going back to normal unless MAGA is punished. We tried defeating them and obeying the law. We see how well that worked.

A few replies...

1. Once de-stating is on the table as a realistic option, defection is dominant. Both sides are incentivized to "de-state others before they de-state you". The only thing that is currently holding de-statement back is there is no realistic external actor (or process) by which to complete said action.

2. The Constitution is not a suicide pact, but it's also not a homicide pact. Absent force (leading to armed conflict), there is no mechanism by which to force a state out of the union and we certainly don't have enough consensus to create that mechanism that would be universally accepted. So, the only way out would be voluntary secession by individual states from the union, not the union separating states from itself. (And I'm not sure that would even fly in today's milieu, can you imagine what kind of dissension there would be if California or Texas tried to leave and establish itself as an independent country?)

3. You're never going to get any consensus on this topic, the divide is already too deep. There are no criteria for de-statement that Pubs and Dems would be able to agree upon. For every idea that "we start with any state that mobilizes its national guard to effectuate the occupation of another state loses its privileges" there will be equal support for "we start with any state that allows its cities or counties to refuse to cooperate with the Federal government to enforce immigration laws loses its privileges". You'll simply never find sufficient common support for any criterion in today's divided political world.

4. I disagree that there is no foundation to state that a realistic attempt to de-state particular states wouldn't inherently lead to civil war. The only time in US history where states have been de-stated led directly to our first civil war. Game theory states that once mutual defection is the rational choice, that defection can be expected...and in this situation where states are being forcibly removed from the union without consensus, history tells us that such separations almost inevitably lead to armed conflict.

5. There's no mechanism by which to "just do it". That's the most basic failure of the entire idea.

6. I agree that we need a new Constitution, but I also believe we need a lot of things to be new. But there is no way that if current states are removed from the process that any new Constitution created would be viewed, by the whole, as legitimate. Pubs would not view a Constitution created by 48 blue-lean states (sans Texas and Florida) as any more legitimate than Dems would view one created by 48 red-lean states (sans, say, California and New York). The very absence of excluded states would call into question the validity of the resulting document by too great a portion of the population. And in our current balance, there is no way that a new document could be created and approved that would lead to consensus adoption.

7. I agree game theory has a lot to show us in this case. The issue here is that game theory requires some sort of external enforcement mechanism which are/have been breaking down/being undermined in our current time. In essence, we have 2 prisoners but no jailor and what we have is not a prison environment but a 2 party (or, really, a 50 state) "Mexican standoff" (no offense intended by the usage of the term) in which the only logical outcome is mutually assured destruction.

8. I agree the system is broken. Part of my current despair about our political system that I can identify no realistic remedy in the short or medium term. We've reached a point where defection is the only rational choice for one of the two major parties, which then makes it the only rational choice for both major parties. My personal opinion is that we're as close to civil war as we've been since the mid-to-late 1850s and we're out of real options to pull us off the path we're on minus some kind of extremely large outlier event that will be more luck than intentional art or science.

 

[rodoheel]

This thread just further enforces my big-picture belief that our politics and society are going to continue to degrade unless and until we face a major internal or external crisis. "De-stating," as snoop says ,is not something that will ever be remotely feasible or acceptable as anything other than a crisis accelerant (rather than a solution) unless or until we pass a Civil War-esque crisis point. Other radical proposed solutions that could be argued as necessary (new constitutional convention, stripping the appellate jurisdiction of the supreme court, abolishing the electoral college, etc) fall into a similar boat. Similarly, people are not going to turn away from our slide into fascism and authoritarianism unless and until those things precipitate a crisis. That should have been abundantly clear after J6, the most shocking and transgressive political moment in our country in at least 150 years or so, did not result in a mass national reckoning with our political discourse and trajectory.

Everything is broken, but not broken enough that individual people's lives are being ruined in mass numbers. Sure, Americans in general are tending towards being unhappier and less satisfied, and the institutions that support our society are slowly being degraded or eliminated, but that's without the material circumstances and quality of life of most of us being immediately impacted.

The Great Depression and WWII caused national reckonings in a variety of ways, one that created or inspired many of the institutions and "rules" that formed the bedrock of American life for 6-7 decades. I don't wish harm on anyone, least of all ourselves, but I'm more certain than ever that most Americans simply can't be convinced that a radical solution is necessary unless and until we collectively live through something that horrifies and scars us. And given the perverse incentives towards extremism that modern media/internet have created, it's unclear whether there even is anything that can bring us materially closer together as a nation. 9/11 wasn't enough. The 2008 financial crisis, which everyone agreed was precipitated by the exact sort of reregulation and capitalistic greed that we're doing again barely 15 years later, wasn't enough. J6 wasn't enough. Short of someone launching a nuke at an American city, a natural disaster of a scale we've never before comprehended, or 3 million Chinese troops headed across the Pacific, I don't honestly know what will be enough.

 

[SnoopRob]

This thread just further enforces my big-picture belief that our politics and society are going to continue to degrade unless and until we face a major internal or external crisis. "De-stating," as snoop says ,is not something that will ever be remotely feasible or acceptable as anything other than a crisis accelerant (rather than a solution) unless or until we pass a Civil War-esque crisis point. Other radical proposed solutions that could be argued as necessary (new constitutional convention, stripping the appellate jurisdiction of the supreme court, abolishing the electoral college, etc) fall into a similar boat. Similarly, people are not going to turn away from our slide into fascism and authoritarianism unless and until those things precipitate a crisis. That should have been abundantly clear after J6, the most shocking and transgressive political moment in our country in at least 150 years or so, did not result in a mass national reckoning with our political discourse and trajectory.

Everything is broken, but not broken enough that individual people's lives are being ruined in mass numbers. Sure, Americans in general are tending towards being unhappier and less satisfied, and the institutions that support our society are slowly being degraded or eliminated, but that's without the material circumstances and quality of life of most of us being immediately impacted.

The Great Depression and WWII caused national reckonings in a variety of ways, one that created or inspired many of the institutions and "rules" that formed the bedrock of American life for 6-7 decades. I don't wish harm on anyone, least of all ourselves, but I'm more certain than ever that most Americans simply can't be convinced that a radical solution is necessary unless and until we collectively live through something that horrifies and scars us. And given the perverse incentives towards extremism that modern media/internet have created, it's unclear whether there even is anything that can bring us materially closer together as a nation. 9/11 wasn't enough. The 2008 financial crisis, which everyone agreed was precipitated by the exact sort of reregulation and capitalistic greed that we're doing again barely 15 years later, wasn't enough. J6 wasn't enough. Short of someone launching a nuke at an American city, a natural disaster of a scale we've never before comprehended, or 3 million Chinese troops headed across the Pacific, I don't honestly know what will be enough.

I largely agree with this and think it is a great summation of where I end up, as well.

The only caveat I'd give is that I think that we have enough societal brokenness that we are seeing folks' lives significantly impacted in mass numbers, but that the distance between the causes of many of the problems and the effects people experience are long and obscure enough that (a) folks can't follow a clear path to see what those causes are & what change is actually needed and (b) the propaganda networks have convinced roughly a third of the country to live in an alternative reality about the causes (and some of the effects) to the extent that consensus on the necessary changes cannot occur.

I agree with you that, given where we are, it will likely take a fairly large exogenous event to bring us together with any hope of a solution, that that kind of event brings its own pain and suffering.

 

[stankeylegjones]

I don't mind gentle poking. The reason that I chose Nash is because of the movie. It's hard to get peoples' attention for something like game theory, so telling them, "this is like what you saw in that cool film" helps. Well, that and Nash being generally credited for formulating it, right or wrong.

Who credits him for inventing game theory?