No sandbagging: It's the law

Chris, you are not only the role model swimmer for many of us, but the role model of logical argument, as well. As far as the morality of ToC-related arguments, perhaps I am speaking of utilitarianism of a sort, but more couched in evolutionary biology principles, which in my humble opinion is the true backdrop for all human moral concerns. In this, your willingness to provide a dollop of "altruistic punishment"--going to some personal risk of reputation to sanction those whose personal ambitions step on the toes of the group welfare--is itself yet another intriguing dimension, though perhaps not one which would lend itself to a Between the Lanes argument. Indulge two excerpts from a recent article of mine (excerpts that, for space reasons, failed to survive the editorial red pen): The game is deceptively simple: bring together a group of guys and give everybody a small sum of cash. Explain that each man can "invest" all, some, or none of his money in a common pool. As a powerful incentive for everyone to contribute, the moderator agrees to double the pot after each round of investing, at which point the total will be divided and redistributed equally. The benefits of "all for one, one for all" cooperation seem at first glance so obvious that during intial rounds, everyone typically maxes out their contribution. Alas, eventually somebody discovers the loophole: if you don't invest, not only do you get to keep the money you've already accumulated, but you still get an equal share of the common pot. Being a deadbeat, in other words, helps you prosper more than everybody else. Once deadbeating catches on, of course, even the most idealistic men begin to feel like suckers. Very quickly, cooperation disintegrates into mutual mistrust and "every man for himself" mentality. The scientific name for a deadbeat is a "free rider," and social psychologists have long used games like the "Commons Dilemma" and the "Unscrupulous Diner's Dilemma" to better understand how people balance their short-term self-interest with long-term group interest. Such tensions, of course, are ubiquitous within and between all human groups, and understanding how to juggle them have practical repercussions on everything from tax and social welfare policy, to military drafts and the hope for solutions to climate change..... Just as Commons Dilemma players can increase their personal wealth by taking advantage of cooperative suckers, so will genetically "selfish" humans outreproduce (and contribute more of their selftish genes to the next generation) than any altruists willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of their group. In the evolutionary sweepstakes, computer models seemed to show that nice guys do, indeed, finish last. Until quite recently, the only forms of "altruism" that researchers believed were truly rewarded by evolution were selfish ones: so-called "genetic altruism" --such as nepotism-- whereby we unconciously help our relatives in proportion to the percentage of genes we share; and "reciprocal altruism," AKA, the ***-for-tat approach where you scratch a friend's back only when you are convinced the favor will be returned. Such scenarios, however, failed to explain what we all know to be true: lots of people do, in fact, help total strangers, even when there is no chance the beneficiary will or even can reciprocate. In recent years, Darwin's notion of human group selection has reemerged, in part to explain seemingly unselfish altruism, and in part, because research has begun showing people do have ways of solving, or at least attenuating, the Free Rider problem. For championship teams and armies alike, a carrot-and-stick approach works effectively: rewarding "selfless" players with a reputation for being standup--while ostracizing, or even dumping, ball hogs, cowards, and assorted other deadbeats before bad apples have a chance to spoil the bunch. Human groups, it turns out, do this, too, regularly bestowing upon those who help their fellow members the most with a great reputation. But punishment for deadbeats, it turns out, might be even more effective--a point forcefully brought to home by an ingenious variation on the Commons Dilemma game. In a highly influential paper published in 2002 in the journal Nature, Swiss economics researchers Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter had volunteers go through six rounds of the game during which cooperation predictably declined to almost nothing. On the seventh round, however, they added a new twist: people could now target some of their own money--albeit at personal expense and with no short-term material gain--to punish free riders. "As soon as people learned about the punishment option," says Haidt, "cooperation shoots up and keeps on going." Fehr and Gächter dubbed the phenomenon "altruistic punishment" because those who did the punishing were actually sacrificing personal gain, at least over the short term, so that the group itself could prosper. The study showed experimentally that as long as thus option is allowed, cooperation levels rise to nearly 100 percent. When punishment is ruled out, cooperation breaks down entirely. In the wake of this and related findings, evolutionary and social psychologists have identified a host of ways in which different human social behaviors--from religious rites and fraternity hazing, to town gossip to public philanthropy--help curb free riders and balance out the competing interests of individuals and the groups upon whom they depend. It is against this backdrop of selfish genes and group selection that I think our discussion of sandbagging must be considered if we are, indeed, to reach the next level of enlightenment to which we all aspire!

Chris, you are not only the role model swimmer for many of us, but the role model of logical argument, as well. As far as the morality of ToC-related arguments, perhaps I am speaking of utilitarianism of a sort, but more couched in evolutionary biology principles, which in my humble opinion is the true backdrop for all human moral concerns. In this, your willingness to provide a dollop of "altruistic punishment"--going to some personal risk of reputation to sanction those whose personal ambitions step on the toes of the group welfare--is itself yet another intriguing dimension, though perhaps not one which would lend itself to a Between the Lanes argument. Indulge two excerpts from a recent article of mine (excerpts that, for space reasons, failed to survive the editorial red pen): The game is deceptively simple: bring together a group of guys and give everybody a small sum of cash. Explain that each man can "invest" all, some, or none of his money in a common pool. As a powerful incentive for everyone to contribute, the moderator agrees to double the pot after each round of investing, at which point the total will be divided and redistributed equally. The benefits of "all for one, one for all" cooperation seem at first glance so obvious that during intial rounds, everyone typically maxes out their contribution. Alas, eventually somebody discovers the loophole: if you don't invest, not only do you get to keep the money you've already accumulated, but you still get an equal share of the common pot. Being a deadbeat, in other words, helps you prosper more than everybody else. Once deadbeating catches on, of course, even the most idealistic men begin to feel like suckers. Very quickly, cooperation disintegrates into mutual mistrust and "every man for himself" mentality. The scientific name for a deadbeat is a "free rider," and social psychologists have long used games like the "Commons Dilemma" and the "Unscrupulous Diner's Dilemma" to better understand how people balance their short-term self-interest with long-term group interest. Such tensions, of course, are ubiquitous within and between all human groups, and understanding how to juggle them have practical repercussions on everything from tax and social welfare policy, to military drafts and the hope for solutions to climate change..... Just as Commons Dilemma players can increase their personal wealth by taking advantage of cooperative suckers, so will genetically "selfish" humans outreproduce (and contribute more of their selftish genes to the next generation) than any altruists willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of their group. In the evolutionary sweepstakes, computer models seemed to show that nice guys do, indeed, finish last. Until quite recently, the only forms of "altruism" that researchers believed were truly rewarded by evolution were selfish ones: so-called "genetic altruism" --such as nepotism-- whereby we unconciously help our relatives in proportion to the percentage of genes we share; and "reciprocal altruism," AKA, the ***-for-tat approach where you scratch a friend's back only when you are convinced the favor will be returned. Such scenarios, however, failed to explain what we all know to be true: lots of people do, in fact, help total strangers, even when there is no chance the beneficiary will or even can reciprocate. In recent years, Darwin's notion of human group selection has reemerged, in part to explain seemingly unselfish altruism, and in part, because research has begun showing people do have ways of solving, or at least attenuating, the Free Rider problem. For championship teams and armies alike, a carrot-and-stick approach works effectively: rewarding "selfless" players with a reputation for being standup--while ostracizing, or even dumping, ball hogs, cowards, and assorted other deadbeats before bad apples have a chance to spoil the bunch. Human groups, it turns out, do this, too, regularly bestowing upon those who help their fellow members the most with a great reputation. But punishment for deadbeats, it turns out, might be even more effective--a point forcefully brought to home by an ingenious variation on the Commons Dilemma game. In a highly influential paper published in 2002 in the journal Nature, Swiss economics researchers Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter had volunteers go through six rounds of the game during which cooperation predictably declined to almost nothing. On the seventh round, however, they added a new twist: people could now target some of their own money--albeit at personal expense and with no short-term material gain--to punish free riders. "As soon as people learned about the punishment option," says Haidt, "cooperation shoots up and keeps on going." Fehr and Gächter dubbed the phenomenon "altruistic punishment" because those who did the punishing were actually sacrificing personal gain, at least over the short term, so that the group itself could prosper. The study showed experimentally that as long as thus option is allowed, cooperation levels rise to nearly 100 percent. When punishment is ruled out, cooperation breaks down entirely. In the wake of this and related findings, evolutionary and social psychologists have identified a host of ways in which different human social behaviors--from religious rites and fraternity hazing, to town gossip to public philanthropy--help curb free riders and balance out the competing interests of individuals and the groups upon whom they depend. It is against this backdrop of selfish genes and group selection that I think our discussion of sandbagging must be considered if we are, indeed, to reach the next level of enlightenment to which we all aspire!