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It makes sense though... if everyone puts down the black stone, everyone wins, but if you do that and just one other person decides to be a dick you loose. It's not a question of whether you want to help the minority but whether you can trust everyone else to do the same.
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Apr 15, 2016 16:03
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Except there's no benefit to betraying, you get an A either way. If everyone put down a black stone together and everyone got a B or a C, that would be a reason to betray. With the way its set up, there's no reason to put a white stone instead of a black one.
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Apr 15, 2016 16:27
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Serene Dragon posted:But don't the prisoner's dilemma experiments with real people show that people generally have a bias towards cooperative rather than shafting behaviour? Absolutely everyone else in this classroom has gone "gently caress you got mine" which is what the rational outcome is but not what actually tends to happen. At least some of the others would cooperate, it's very unlikely that Alison would be the only one to put up a black stone. Don't have a cite for this as it was from a radio program but the story there was John Nash attempted a few simple experiments along similar lines with a group of his university's secretaries. With the entirely unsurprising result for anyone who isn't an economist that rather than maximising their profit by acting as purely rational actors they preferred to share things equally and all just get along.
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Apr 15, 2016 16:29
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Piell posted:Except there's no benefit to betraying, you get an A either way. If everyone put down a black stone together and everyone got a B or a C, that would be a reason to betray. With the way its set up, there's no reason to put a white stone instead of a black one. Well, some schools have class rankings and are pretty cutthroat. The ability to make your competition fail a class is a pretty big benefit.
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Apr 15, 2016 16:30
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Piell posted:Except there's no benefit to betraying, you get an A either way. If everyone put down a black stone together and everyone got a B or a C, that would be a reason to betray. With the way its set up, there's no reason to put a white stone instead of a black one. That's what the prisoner's dilemma is though. There is a mutually beneficial scenario presented to all sides, but you can guarantee yourself a more positive outcome by acting in your own self interest and screwing over the other party. It also relies all groups involved not being able to communicate to each other to talk out a solution and come to an agreement. So even if logically everyone putting down a black stone would net the best overall result, you have to trust that everyone is on board with that idea. And I'm reminded that I still have to play VLR before Zero Time Dilemma comes out.
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Apr 15, 2016 16:34
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As presented it's not a Prisoner's Dilemma, because the reward for everyone staying is exactly the same as the reward for betraying. For the Prisoner's Dilemma to work the reward for betraying needs to be higher than the reward for everyone staying loyal.
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Apr 15, 2016 16:37
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Piell posted:Except there's no benefit to betraying, you get an A either way. If everyone put down a black stone together and everyone got a B or a C, that would be a reason to betray. With the way its set up, there's no reason to put a white stone instead of a black one. The point is you can't be sure everyone else will also put down a black stone so it's a risk. The reason to put down a white stone is that way you win regardless of what anyone else does with theirs.
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Apr 15, 2016 16:52
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Piell posted:As presented it's not a Prisoner's Dilemma, because the reward for everyone staying is exactly the same as the reward for betraying. For the Prisoner's Dilemma to work the reward for betraying needs to be higher than the reward for everyone staying loyal. The reward for everyone cooperating versus you defecting can be the same--all that's important is that defecting is a Nash equilibrium (which it is, for this situation). Calef fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Apr 15, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 16:53
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Piell posted:As presented it's not a Prisoner's Dilemma, because the reward for everyone staying is exactly the same as the reward for betraying. For the Prisoner's Dilemma to work the reward for betraying needs to be higher than the reward for everyone staying loyal.
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Apr 15, 2016 17:05
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And she doesn't understand that because there are no risks to her security.
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Apr 15, 2016 17:11
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All in all, this reads like more bullshit from the same bad writer who came up with superpowered moving crews/brute squads to deal with domestic violence and the whole invisible slasher story. It's inches from being one of those smug stories people tell about Psych 101 courses where the teacher totally gave a sick burn to a student, or vice versa. Next, Allison goes to a religion course and the ATHIEST instructor says "if God is real, let him stop this coin flip from being heads OR tails" and the coin lands on its edge!
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Apr 15, 2016 17:52
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It is awfully convenient that the professor happens to have his Go stones to do an effective prisoner's dilemma the day they discuss axioms and one of the students happens to say something like "we're all in this together"...
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Apr 16, 2016 02:45
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Axiem posted:It is awfully convenient that the professor happens to have his Go stones to do an effective prisoner's dilemma the day they discuss axioms and one of the students happens to say something like "we're all in this together"... Almost as if he's been teaching a long time and knows how this type of first day exercise sets the tone for a class (its me, im the one placing too much faith in the writer)
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Apr 16, 2016 03:09
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rotinaj posted:All in all, this reads like more bullshit from the same bad writer who came up with superpowered moving crews/brute squads to deal with domestic violence and the whole invisible slasher story. It's inches from being one of those smug stories people tell about Psych 101 courses where the teacher totally gave a sick burn to a student, or vice versa. I reserve my judgement until afterwards. But I do think it's lazy to recycle the "teacher shows the flaws in Allison's thought process" scenario for a second time. The first was pretty well done overall and it fit with Allison still not being able to grasp that she does have a fundamentaly different life experience than she does. The problem with this current example is that I have a hard time believing that Allison, who is a junior or senior credits wise, and who has been a professional hero for years, would believe that everyone would just go with the black stone. People are self interested; she knows this and experiences this daily. Hell the whole rooftop scene from the last chapter was a perfect reminder that unless you get people to care, nobody is going to notice or act in the best interest of someone in need. This would work better as a flashback to freshman Allison fresh off the Hero circuit.
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Apr 16, 2016 03:58
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Axiem posted:It is awfully convenient that the professor happens to have his Go stones to do an effective prisoner's dilemma the day they discuss axioms and one of the students happens to say something like "we're all in this together"... The teacher set up the conversation and drove it to axioms and then forced her to give a specific answer so that he could illustrate this point. It's a fairly common trick for Philosophy professors (again, particularly in intro). There's one in every department that loves puling stunts like this to make a point.
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Apr 16, 2016 04:47
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There you go, everyone other than Alison is either an idiot or an rear end in a top hat. And before someone goes I just didn't get it, yes, I understand just fine what the point of this is supposed to be. But by positioning Alison as the only person to put up a black stone like this, the writer is (probably unintentionally) once again having Alison as the only right and good person in the room. And I just don't believe that no one else would put up a black stone. One guy misheard the rules, so why wouldn't anyone mishear in the opposite direction? Is there no other person in the class who is optimistic or compassionate and would believe everyone else would choose black? Is no one in this class friends with this guy and willing to put up a black stone in solidarity, as I would for a friend? Is no one that rear end in a top hat willing to call his bluff? This page would work just as well if one or two other people put up black other than Alison, with the majority choosing white, and it wouldn't make me roll my eyes so drat hard.
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Apr 19, 2016 10:18
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Which sucks because there could have been some interesting commentary here. One guy didn't know all the rules, another student figured someone would gently caress it up and looked out for themselves. Both scenarios that impede the notion of a "perfect solution". And there are more that could have been shownbut I suspect we're about to launch back into the teacher digging back into allison. But by having literally no other student put down a black stone makes me feel like this class thought this was really going to happen and not just a thought exercise. And Allison's commentary on the failure to help one person as completely stupid makes me think the authors don't realize how normal that outcome should have been to any student in that classroom. Also why are comments still moderated? At this point there's nothing to get controversial over so it seems unnecessary.
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Apr 19, 2016 11:51
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Brought To You By posted:Also why are comments still moderated? At this point there's nothing to get controversial over so it seems unnecessary. Because the author is a special snowflake. If he got feedback like you just gave, he would be hurt. I've been writing for years. I've seen the whole journey someone takes, from promising up and comer to success at your thing to getting full of yourself and being unable to take criticism to realizing you don't know what you don't know to working to improve yourself. The author of SFP is stuck early on in the process, because he is still succeeding. Guaranteed he deals with any criticism by saying "I get thousands of page views, have a profitable patreon page, and am selling merchandise, don't tell me I'm not doing great". He hasn't managed to realize that everyone can improve, especially if they did multiple drafts and used editors and beta readers. He may never get it, because he is actually succeeding, but this comic will likely never improve because he had thousands of people to blow him and tell him how great he is. When he stops having that positive reinforcement, he will get bored with SFP and it will likely die, unable to improve or live up to the potential.
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Apr 19, 2016 11:58
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Lol they all failed sociology 101
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Apr 19, 2016 12:01
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I'm still not sure how this is tying into his "axiom of a tyrant" statement. I mean, the statement itself is a good one - if everyone pulling together is uncontrovertibly good then anyone being different is uncontrovertibly bad, and suddenly you're a fascist. But I don't see how this exercise is making that point.
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Apr 19, 2016 12:45
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everyone has to care as much as you do about the same problems, and understand the world the same way, not merely make the same choices about what they care about
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Apr 19, 2016 13:34
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Brought To You By posted:Also why are comments still moderated? At this point there's nothing to get controversial over so it seems unnecessary. Open Internet comments are a dumpster fire. Two of the smartest things they've done is kept the comments section moderated and hidden by default. Of course they probably should farm out the moderation to someone not on the creative team.
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Apr 19, 2016 13:46
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Tenebrais posted:I'm still not sure how this is tying into his "axiom of a tyrant" statement. Because Alison's solution to this particular "collective action problem" would be to take away people's white stones once she failed to convince literally everyone else in the class to put down a black stone for the sake of one guy in the class. I'm disappointed that the author chose to show two people not understanding the rules (as opposed to one acting according to game theory) because it makes it look like the solution to this sort of collective action problem is just more Awareness Raising and Teachable Moments. How Alison deals with the person who says "Placing a white stone guarantees me an A, placing a black stone requires that I risk failing the class on the chance everyone else cooperates all for the sake of some guy with no benefit for me. I'm placing the white stone, God Bless America" answers the question of if she's willing to be a tyrant to enforce her ideals. Also two people not understanding the rules of this simple exercise kinda makes me think this class is full of morons? Maybe?  "Why not just have everyone put down a white stone? Oh a guy doesn't have a white stone! That thing that happened less than a minute ago right in front of me. I'm sorry, Alison, I'm not as smart as you."
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Apr 19, 2016 13:55
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EndOfTheWorld posted:
A dude not processing anything the prof says other than "do this and get an A" is incredibly realistic. Having another black stone somewhere would have been better, but every reason given for white stoning was believable.
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Apr 19, 2016 14:24
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Flesh Forge posted:Academia is a strange world full of monster egos and legit nutters teaching classes, you would be amazed. This isn't limited to the faculty. There are a good number of students who could stand to lose a few inches of ego themselves, which I suspect is what Professor Assbag is trying to do here. Wittgen posted:A dude not processing anything the prof says other than "do this and get an A" is incredibly realistic. You've got asymmetric information and rational self interest right here, which are both awful to try and parse through for the kind of save-the-world policy Alison wants to do. Assbag is right and Alison is short sighted and hopelessly naive.
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Apr 19, 2016 15:37
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Serene Dragon posted:And before someone goes I just didn't get it, yes, I understand just fine what the point of this is supposed to be. But by positioning Alison as the only person to put up a black stone like this, the writer is (probably unintentionally) once again having Alison as the only right and good person in the room. This is accurate. It's an exaggeration for dramatic effect, but it would have been better to have 3-4 other people than Alison put down black stones to be a better reflection of how things actually go. (It needs to be more than one, because if it's one the author would be obligated to introduce that character by dramatic convention; even with two that drive would be pretty strong. Who are these two other good people in Alison's class? The reader wants to know! Once it gets up to three or four you don't care anymore, they're just faces in the crowd.) EndOfTheWorld posted:I'm disappointed that the author chose to show two people not understanding the rules (as opposed to one acting according to game theory) because it makes it look like the solution to this sort of collective action problem is just more Awareness Raising and Teachable Moments. Maybe I misread what you're saying here, but the actual tally is one person being self-interested to the point that they stopped paying attention as soon as they heard they could get an A by putting down a white stone, one person being so dumb that they misunderstood the instructions, and one person being smarter than Alison by realizing that someone else in the class would be dumb or self-interested and putting down a white stone as a defensive move against that inevitable idiot.
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Apr 19, 2016 15:51
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Yeah, the only person here who's comically stupid is Alison, for not seeing this coming. "We just met and we don't like each other and we're all tired and thinking about lunch, but we'll just perfectly coordinate this task with no warning for no benefit to ourselves!" thinks Alison.
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Apr 19, 2016 16:13
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I can't shake the feeling that the author recently watched God's Not Dead, with the comically antagonistic philosophy 101 prof who threatens to fail the christian protagonist unless he writes down GOD IS DEAD. I would put down the white stone because I would have refused to believe that the prof would get away with failing the guy with the black stone, just as I didn't buy the premise of God's Not Dead, but I would have been too lazy to put down black and be the guy to call the bluff  Let's hope this professor doesn't get hit by a car and dies for not agreeing with the protagonist, though.
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Apr 19, 2016 16:34
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even if you take it as given that a locum professor can't actually arbitrarily pass or fail students (no duh), putting down the black stone still saves you whatever rigmarole this tenured rear end has planned in order to amuse himself it's no great sorrow for mr davenport to spend his lunchbreak at the course registrar's office to readmit himself. That's, what, an hour? Less? Sucks for him, but big deal. There's still no call for you to join him
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Apr 19, 2016 16:41
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Can we just replace the OP with that last panel?
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Apr 19, 2016 16:50
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And here I was hoping someone would point out that the last professor that gave widdle Allison a bad grade got fired for it. Good luck with that, Prof! And agreed that last panel should be in the OP.
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Apr 19, 2016 18:16
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Tar_Squid posted:And here I was hoping someone would point out that the last professor that gave widdle Allison a bad grade got fired for it. Good luck with that, Prof! This new professor did that a few pages ago.
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Apr 19, 2016 18:18
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Has the author been to a college, ever? You'd basically be guaranteed to have someone put down a white stone, so the best course of action is for everyone who's able to put down a white stone. I knew a couple of people in college that would have put down a white stone just to be mean, not to mention the people who wouldn't pay attention, or the people who would just selfishly play it safe (this would have been me). If the next page is something about the system is flawed so you need to change the system instead of just trying to work within it I'll vomit
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Apr 19, 2016 18:35
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Elysiume posted:Has the author been to a college, ever? You'd basically be guaranteed to have someone put down a white stone, so the best course of action is for everyone who's able to put down a white stone. I knew a couple of people in college that would have put down a white stone just to be mean, not to mention the people who wouldn't pay attention, or the people who would just selfishly play it safe (this would have been me). If the next page is something about the system is flawed so you need to change the system instead of just trying to work within it I'll vomit On the other hand, I know people who would assume others would put a white stone, and still place a black one out of protest. If you abandon an axiom the moment it's inconvenient then it's not an axiom, and the corollary to "we're all in this together" is "nobody has to go through it alone." I think what the teacher is SAYING is fine, but something about how he's drawn makes me read it in a comic-book sinister, sarcastic tone. Like there's a constant smirk behind his beard or something. Bruceski fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 19:05
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Bruceski posted:On the other hand, I know people who would assume others would put a white stone, and still place a black one out of protest. If you abandon an axiom the moment it's inconvenient then it's not an axiom, and the corollary to "we're all in this together" is "nobody has to go through it alone."
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Apr 19, 2016 19:10
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That's because we've all had that teacher, and he is definitely smirking like a true rear end in a top hat.
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Apr 19, 2016 19:10
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Bruceski posted:Like there's a constant smirk behind his beard or something. It is a philosophy class.
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Apr 19, 2016 21:01
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Elysiume posted:I guess I'm saying that Allison is hopelessly idealistic; the fact that she's at all confused that people put down white stones makes me think she's somehow ignored everything that's happened in her life. She's spent the entire comic complaining about stuff like this, why is she so shocked that people are self-interested? It also feels like Allison should at least have developed some understanding as to why people are self-interested. Like, Allison doesn't appear to face any real risks in her life. She is apparently impervious to damage, Carver's giant murderblade just nicked her. Has she ever even been sick? She could become homeless or stranded in the jungle right now and, according to my understanding of the character, this would not diminish her life expectancy in any real way. Plus, if she was really desperate, she could take essentially anything she wanted/needed because no one could stop her. Real people who aren't both famous and invulnerable actually have to worry about the opportunity cost of doing the right thing over the selfish thing even if they're actually giving the issue thought. Yes the stakes in the provided example are small to non-existent but her confusion just makes her seem loving stupid and unobservant. Why aren't people improving the world? I don't know, maybe they're too busy worrying about problems that Allison will never have. Allison has a residence because she can keep her stuff there. Other people have residences so they don't die of exposure in winter/have to couchsurf. Allison could live in loving Mogadishu and it wouldn't be any more dangerous to her than literally any middle class suburb in the States. I mean yeah obviously she is culturally a US citizen with loving parents and friends and isn't Dr. Manhatten, but oh man does she look stupid right now. People want to feel secure in their life. This feeling is not guaranteed, it has to be achieved, sometimes this is done at cost to others and in ways that are morally questionable. Allison will always know that practically nothing can in any way threaten her. Things that are necessary for other people are luxuries to her, or only serve to make her look like a regular person instead of something Other. She should at least not call people stupid when they reflexively look out for themselves and stop listening after 'do this for A'. At this point in her life she has no excuse for not understanding why the things she complains about are the way they are. Sorry for the rambling. Edit: I miss pages like this http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-3/page-75/  (also she had empathy for loving Carver but doesn't understand why her fellow students don't do what she thinks they should?? )
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Apr 19, 2016 22:56
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Of course! The reason Allison acted different from everyone else isn't that she's to naive. No! Everyone else is just way less smart than her. Except the girl with glasses I guess. She actually acted rationally.
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Apr 19, 2016 23:07
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Psykmoe posted:Edit: I miss pages like this http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-3/page-75/ I think given that this storyline is treading on previously tilled ground, it bears mentioning that B&W Allison was a much more interesting character than the current model. Still reserving my judgement overall, but I liked the old professor even if his backstory was a little hammy; it drove home the point of Allison's stance on the human experience. Something that has unfortunately been so worn down that at this point I'm not sure why she hasn't gone all John Galt and just taken her ball and left.
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Apr 19, 2016 23:35
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