Wanna Know How I Won?

"So we identified two characteristics of winning strategies: niceness and forgiveness. This almost Utopian-sounding conclusion- that niceness and forgiveness pay- came as a surprise to many of the experts, who had been too cunning by submitting subtly nasty strategies." pg 213. This is a point of view that gives arguments that go against what normally happens. Normally when you try and do something, the person that ends up being victorious is that which did something different or better than its opponent. In other words, those that make a trick, or something we didn't expect, would end up being better than someone else. If one of the two beings that are competing is completely pure in the sense it will always forgive and will be nice, and the other is completely evil in the sense that it will always try and take advantage over the other, then it would be obvious the evil one would win. But in this case it is saying it won't. The one that shows purity will be the one to succeed. This idea brings immediately to your mind the picture of religion, and all the good deeds one must do in order to be successful. The three universalizing religions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam have the idea of values that involve making us better people as one of their priorities. They teach us to act in a better way, a way guided in the opposite direction of evil intentions. And religion begins to affect everything around us. We see heroes in story books, brave knights in their noble steeds, and the triumphs that have happened throughout history. All of these come together thanks to the teachings of religion to show the values of forgiveness, of purity. It's not always the case.

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Today in class there was a clear example. We played the game mentioned by Dawkins known as Prisoners dilema. Two of my classmates played against each other, trying to get as many points as they could. Obviously, the one who constantly used Defect, or in other words not help in any way, ended up winning. But the second round we played, we played to push a grade up, or pull it down, depending on who won. The attitude of the players changes completely. One of the players decided to begin the round by helping while the other didn't. Since that moment the one that didn't help was in advantage, and they continued to use Defect for the other rounds until the last round came. If the player that had always used Defect used it again, he would of definitely won the pull up on the grade, but since he knew his friend could lose and end up with a lower grade, he changed to helping him. The final result was a draw. What is going on here is how he used a helping attitude to help his friend. But isn't this in this particular case bad, since by not being nice he could have won a higher grade? It actually isn't. By helping his friend he is actually helping himself. If he would have won, great, he got a higher grade in just one occasion. Now, by actually being considerate to the other person, he is actually gaining his friendship, and could therefore get the help from him in other instances. And he doesn't only get a closer friendship with him, but by committing the action in which he showed compassion, everyone present at that moment actually felt closer to that person, so he is getting even a better deal then if he had gotten the higher grade. So forgiveness and niceness actually proves to be better with a group in which mutual help is active, rather than thinking in your own selfish intentions when in the group.