It's not crazy to make zero-cost transactions
Deconstructing the nihilism of an ex-girlfriend.
“Why would you even care about my future well-being? Why would you not just block me everywhere and pretend I no longer exist? My well-being has no benefit to you. I could die and it wouldn’t affect you.” This is an approximation of what my first girlfriend conveyed to me when I parted ways with her. It’d take me a year to unpack that response.
She was too upset for me to get my reasoning across to her, but since I adhere to the principle that closing a communication channel is always bad, I told her that I would always stay available to answer any questions she might come up with at a later time to gain closure. She responded with the above notion.
It has never sat well with me, and it’s time to write myself out of this nihilistic quicksand.
Let’s ask game theory
Caring about people as a matrix game
Imagine a game with two players. They both have an item the other wants more than they do, and can voluntarily choose to give their item to the other or not. The action of either is revealed to both players only after they have both decided.
This is a matrix game with 4 end states (nl. every variation of giving and keeping). The state where two parties make an exchange, making both better off than before by receiving what the other gives whilst sacrificing what they give themselves, is the net global optimum.
However, in this game, that state is generally not a Nash equilibrium – the attractive situation wherein neither party would ever change their action if they knew the other’s action.1 Presumably, that which you are giving is a product or a service, and it has non-zero cost to you. Giving without receiving is less favourable to you than not giving and not receiving. Giving and receiving has high benefit, but this is still less favourable than not giving and this time receiving. In short: the Nash is that you don’t give, because the reward of receiving does not change with your strategy, while the cost does.
Perhaps you will object that a matrix game is not a good model for a transaction, because of course, you only agree to exchange your goods if the other can guarantee something of equal value to you in return. Either both give or neither give, dependent on the other, and the anti-social outcomes (“sike, I’m just going to take your money”) never occur in practice.
I disagree. The devil is in this notion of “anti-social”: the players only make their decisions based on the outcomes in the matrix. By objecting that the players or the game are “in practice” or “by nature” biased against a particular action/outcome, we are really imposing an extra, hidden cost on top of the given one in the matrix, incurred for breaking the norms of polite society. Yet, rather than having to come up with an arbitrary cost of “reputational damage” to add to the given rewards, there is a nice extension of matrix games that already captures the true effect of anti-social behaviour much more elegantly: iterated matrix games, where players have a memory and a strategy that both influence their chosen actions over time. Indeed, when you don’t pay someone for a product, no immediate cost is incurred, but, in the future, nobody will risk offering you any other product, since you are known for not upholding your end of the deal. (Or, if you believe in authoritarian control rather than social repercussion: the government can force all players to effectively never choose to give to you again by incarcerating you for theft, preventing you from playing more games.)
So, if you are expecting to play this game with this other player many times, then you, being a true homo economicus, should follow a tit-for-tat strategy where you start giving (tit) the round after the other decides to give, and you stop giving (tat) the round after the other stops giving. In particular: if the other also plays a tit-for-tat strategy, then you will be rewarded by them in the next round for giving now, so you can “invest in reputation” and reap the benefits in subsequent rounds.
Is this an iterated game?
But the way my first girlfriend framed the situation, this was not an iterated game. It was a one-time game, after which at least one of the two players would be replaced. In such a setting, according to her conception of the situation, the only possible way a homo economicus would choose to give to the benefit of the other, would be if there was virtually no associated cost. Indeed, imagine for a moment that there is no cost to giving. This means that you are indifferent to which action you should choose. Your own outcome does not depend on your action anyway, while the outcome of the other does. Unfortunately, every act of giving has some cost in practice, so in her conception, it’d only be natural for me to choose to block her rather than keep a channel open, and to not concern myself with her future well-being.
There is a fallacy in the above line of reasoning. The matrix gives the net reward for each player given the actions taken by both. Yet, she drew her conclusion from considering only costs, implicitly assuming that the act of giving itself would have no value. (Perhaps this was a case of projection; a silent admission of not attributing any value to the act of giving to others.) But what if it did? What if the value of the mere act of giving actually exceeded the value that was given away? In other words: what if a player’s priority hierarchy was such that giving by itself was one of the higher goods? Even the self-interested homo economicus wouldn’t think twice in that case and always choose to give.
Value systems
Perhaps you think it sounds odd to attribute value to a choice, which isn’t a commodity. You have at least two reasons to think this is odd: it is not obvious that you could sum cash value and “philosophical” value (an apples-to-oranges problem), and it is not obvious that it should be allowed for someone to just decide subjectively how big the reward is that offsets the cost of giving (spawning more oranges), because then the value could vary from person to person and, moreover, it feels like we are creating monetary value out of thin air.
Yet, all of these concerns also apply to any form of speculation and even to the core functionality of a free market. It is a key feature of the free market that everyone has a different valuation for a certain good or service. Price it too high, and you’ll have a lack of demand and a surplus of supply; price it lower, and you’ll pass the threshold of some consumers who are now willing to purchase, whilst others are still unconvinced. Why would one person buy at a higher price than his neighbour? Because it means more to him and he is willing to outbid his neighbour; the product has more value even though it’s the same product. If a consumer is over-the-moon about buying a lemon, then it doesn’t matter that it’s a lemon. Game theory (and utilitarianism) has no problem concluding that the consumer’s outsized happiness offsets the cost of his purchase. It is the consumer’s valuation of the good, not the good itself nor its price, that determines the value to the consumer. This sounds obvious, but Marxists don’t get this.
It is hence entirely reasonable to assume that the act of giving has a variable value across people. It all depends on the moral priority structure they have for themselves: for example, one very common difference in priorities lies between people who value honesty versus people who value the prevention of anyone getting momentarily upset, which has a 1:1 mapping onto political affiliation.
Circling back to the beginning: I can’t remember the last time I said “no” to having a conversation about anything with anyone, especially when the conversation was about something that was bothering them. If I can help someone untangle their thoughts even just slightly by talking to them, I have made the world slightly better – even if the downstream rewards don’t flow directly to me – at the cost of a few hours of my time. While yes, it is true that you could use that time to generate wealth (earn money, or build/learn something that will earn you money), it’s not like it’s so extraordinary to spend your time differently. If it was, then you’d never visit your family, you’d never have movie nights with your girlfriend, etc … And besides, spending some time having difficult conversations may lead me to new wisdom about how to handle similar situations in the future or how to guide others through them, which is more payoff than you usually get for sacrificing your time for somebody else.
Why care?
Questioning the question
The above also applies to strangers. If someone just turns to me in public and strikes up a conversation, I’m happy to entertain it regardless of whether I will ever see them again (unless they are intoxicated or trying to sell me something). I’ll care about their case in the moment, like a paramedic provides care for people he’s unlikely to ever see again.
I say this because you may argue I’ve actually slightly dodged the questions at the start of this article: I’ve spoken to why it may be rational to take a seemingly low-reward action, like conversing with someone I’m not or no longer connected to. Meanwhile, the question was not “Why would you do something for someone you care about without reward for yourself?” but rather “Why would you care about someone else?” because again, “they could die and it wouldn’t affect you”. Why would the well-being of someone else cross your mind in the first place, long before deciding which actions you’d undertake based on that? Couldn’t you say that if you “keep caring about” someone, part of you is obsessively attached to them?
I think the root of this question is pointless. Essentially, it assumes that between two people, there is a boolean flag in each of their minds that indicates “I care about you” and that this flag being true/false somehow matters in a vacuum.
“Words speak, actions don’t.”
I am reminded of how this particular girl used to claim that “her feelings of love for me were very strong” but seldom showed it, or how a show of affection for her meant little to nothing without the words “I love you” attached explicitly. This is like the “actions speak louder than words” proverb, except in reverse and taken to the extreme: “words speak, actions don’t”. You can claim virtue without exercising it. It’s much like armchair activism: all that matters is that you express your support for a good cause. To actually have done anything practical to advance that good cause, is entirely irrelevant. You don’t have to prove the virtuous implications of your stance, and what’s more, those that have advanced the cause in practice but don’t support the activism, are labelled as worse than those who’ve merely put an insigne in their Twitter handle to proclaim they’re part of the good ones. Like a game of participation trophies where there are no other trophies, and you can actually lose the trophy by participating.
That then explains this fixation on some kind of “state of caring” and questioning what value it has to someone: if the proclamation of caring about someone’s fate is a grander act than any action that shows care, then of course someone with the intent to actually care will be scrutinised. The assumption is that they will never put their care into practice – Why would anyone? Practice doesn’t matter, after all! – and that the only reason to express this intent would be to reap virtue points with no further actions to be taken. Of course people will be suspicious of this. You could either say you care and not do anything, or say you don’t care and not do anything. That is the choice. The choice to do something is pointless because doing something is equivalent to not doing anything. So, why would you choose to say you care? What’s your hidden motive? What are you hiding?
Indeed, it may be hard for calibrated people to understand that somebody who asks the question “Why would you even care about me?” isn’t even speaking the same language as them. Their definitions of “care” couldn’t be further apart. One assumes that care is the impetus to take action and that those actions can be judged as good or bad and as a reflection of the care or not. The other assumes that care itself is the highest good and that actions are not to be judged. Translated, the question is really asking “What use do you have for the rewards you will receive by merely proclaiming to care about me, which has no further attending efforts?” It’s not just that the asker is doubting that the words will be joined by actions. It’s that the asker doesn’t believe in the value of actions, so they think it is unthinkable to take actions that prove the words. The words prove themselves, in postmodern fashion.
And indeed, these are the people for whom no gesture is ever enough, because solipsists don’t believe in practical proof. And indeed, you can’t lift a relationship off the ground if you always go back to the start of the runway.
It’s normal to care.
Is it wrong to mistreat all strangers whom you’ll certainly never meet again? Not everyone will agree with this statement. Those who don’t attribute any moral judgement to enacting mistreatment would say no. All others, and even the people I’ve written about above, would say yes.
Let’s change it up slightly. Is it wrong to ignore mistreatment of strangers whom you’ll certainly never meet again? You’re not the one causing the harm in this case. And, come to think of it, their future well-being has no effect on yours. They could die and you wouldn’t be affected. Why care?
The question cannot be dispelled with examples of people who have sworn an oath to care for people (e.g. medics), because it could be they don’t actually care but are merely enslaved by their oath. Convictionless cogs doing what the machine asks of them.
Why care? Because other humans, modulo the crimes they have committed, have just as much moral worth as the rest of us.
Granted, under this ethic, it is still possible to care less about suffering, namely when the other has done evil. Yet, clearly, this is not the ethic that inspired the question “Why care?” that was originally asked of me, because that would mean it was a recognition of wrongdoing (“Why care, given my wrongdoings against you?”) and then simply forgiving the person would clear up their suspicion (“Okay, given that you’ve forgiven me, I understand your care.”). That was not the case.
Let’s change up the thought experiment one more time. Let’s say it’s no longer about strangers, but about your spouse. And let’s say it’s no longer about harm – because it should be quite obvious that nobody wants their spouse hurt – but about optionally fulfilled desires. (For example: your husband or wife tells you that it puts their mind at ease when they come home to a bed that is nicely made, rather than to how it was left when you both got out of bed in the morning; now you have to decide what to do with that.)
Why would you fulfill desires your spouse has that anyone could live without? They may be disappointed if you don’t, but should adults not learn to cope with the reality of life that sometimes we don’t get the things that aren’t guaranteed? Why would it be required of you to guarantee anything that is objectively optional? And are they even allowed to be disappointed when you exercise your right to choose what you do with your energy (“your body, your choice”)?
Some may say the answer is obvious, but the reality of a gigantic amount of marriages tells a different story. Just “because that’s your spouse and you love them” doesn’t seem to cut it. In plenty of marriages, it’s not so obvious that asking for a hug (by husband or wife), even at a time of peace, is answered with a hug, and requests for sex (letalone particular sexual acts) may be entirely off the table.
And even if you could never see yourself in such a situation, you can see that it’s not indefensible. You can voluntarily decide to either oblige or not. If you don’t, does it mean you’re a bad spouse? “Do you even care about me” if you don’t give me everything I want?
Value systems, bis
I posed this question to my 85-year-old grandma, and she suggested that a spouse should probably acquiesce to the other’s optional preferences as long as they meet a certain threshold of reasonability and feasibility. She herself gave the example of a wife demanding that her husband be home at 7 PM to spend time with her when the husband is working 15-hour days to provide for his family. Her request is just not practically feasible and hence she must learn to live with it.
It’s very reasonable and feasible to want your spouse to give you a hug and a kiss when you come home. It’s also very reasonable, and usually feasible, to not want a sexless marriage with your spouse, considering you both vowed that the only release of your inevitable sexual urges would be with your spouse. It’s very reasonable, although slightly less feasible, to demand that your spouse give you a roadmap for things you could do to improve their relationship satisfaction. It’s reasonable, and more feasible than people allege, to stay about as attractive as you were when you started courting. It’s feasible, although a gray area w.r.t. reasonable, to shave your facial hair to the liking of your wife, just like pushing a certain hairstyle onto her won’t fly. However, as many things in marriage, loving reinforcement is more effective and much more reasonable than just making demands. She’s not forcing me to shave part of my beard; she tells me I look extra good whenever I do, and if I decide not to keep it that way, she’s fine surrendering her preference. I can buy her a dress I would love on her, and she gets to decide to wear it or not, but when she does, she certainly won’t forget it.
What about being nice to your spouse? There is no good reason this wouldn’t be feasible – if your objection boils down to your own resentment, then your ego has already murdered your marriage – and arguably, it is so feasible that it is also reasonable to ask for such treatment. Again, this may sound obvious, but like all the other actions I’ve mentioned, being nice to your spouse is theoretically optional too. Many people will actually stay in an emotionally abusive marriage, so chances are that a sadist isn’t met with any real cost for indulging in mistreating their spouse. So, what incentive is there to be nice, then?
The answer is that there isn’t any incentive in a vacuum, which is a problem in our age of nihilism and moral relativism: we are deathly afraid of roles/duties/responsibilities, and need a reason for everything we do rather than trusting that the tools that helped our ancestors thrive were passed on whilst their motivation was lost. As outlined above, in an iterative game, the better strategy is automatically reciprocation, whilst In a non-iterative game, you need a personal value/morality/ethics system. A couple years ago, to solve this exact problem, I came up with the notion of “relationship as sacred third entity”, the idea being that you should not be nice to your spouse to please your spouse – because they’re your equal, a human with human flaws that can frustrate you – but rather to not affront a third entity, floating above the couple, that should be nourished at all times, even when the humans involved are being human.
To bring it down to less spiritual language, imagine this third entity is a dog. One spouse is in charge of refilling the dog’s water bowl, the other of the food bowl. Now, clearly, both need to keep feeding the dog, or it will die. And moreover, just because your husband left his beard hairs in the sink, it isn’t justified to not feed the dog. And just because your wife left her shoes in the hallway causing you to trip over them, it still isn’t justified to not feed the dog. And it should go without saying that any ultimatum of the form “do this or I will shoot the dog” should be off the table.
As one example of a responsibility ethic, let me – despite being an atheist – point to 1 Cor 7:3-5 in the Bible, which effectively says that a husband should care for his body and use it to please his wife, because his body is in his wife’s possession and hence he should care for it like anything else you have on loan. (For completeness: the same responsibilities hold vice versa.) Just because you’re resentful of your wife for a while, that does not relieve you of the duty to stay in shape for her nor to deny her orgasms.
Conclusion
In sum, this article deconstructed the nihilism expressed by my first girlfriend, using game theory as a framework. As usual, questioning what usually isn’t questioned predictably led to a web of argumentations, with the crux being that unlike nihilists, I do attribute value to some things, among which making sure that the people whose life paths cross mine receive the most help I can give them.
Hope you’re okay, T.
Some games, like rock-paper-scissors, have no Nash equilibrium: if you chose paper and the opponent chose scissors, you would want to switch to rock, if the opponent chose rock, you would want to stay with paper, and if the opponent chose paper too, you’d want to switch to scissors. Switching to any of those has the same problem. ↩︎
