• perestroika@slrpnk.net
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    9 months ago

    An exercise in game theory:

    • first protester: blocks the road personally
    • state: sends the protester to jail
    • second protester: drops caltrops, hopefully on a slow-driving road
    • state: huffs and puffs, but won’t find the person

    That wouldn’t be a smart way to play this game. :( As long as civilized protest gets the goods (or has some effect), one should always prefer that. It’s short-sighted to remodel the playing field to make it dangerous.

    I hope the sentence will be something ridiculously small, because otherwise state is sending out a signal “you shouldn’t get caught, consider real sabotage instead of civilized protest”.

    • x_cell@slrpnk.net
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      9 months ago

      Since we’re talking game theory, a basic rule in any competitive game (from chess to League of Legends) is that focusing on loss prevention is a losing tactic.

      We’ve been doing peaceful protest since the beginning of the environmental movement. It’s not getting the goods and the earth is dying. What we need it’s a diversity of tactics.