Hobbesian trap

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

by Steven Pinker  · 24 Sep 2012  · 1,351pp  · 385,579 words

tempted to shoot the other to avoid being shot first. This paradox is sometimes called the Hobbesian trap or, in the arena of international relations, the security dilemma.8 How can intelligent agents extricate themselves from a Hobbesian trap? The most obvious way is through a policy of deterrence: Don’t strike first; be

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prowess, especially in societies where they are a prerequisite to attaining adult status. People in nonstate societies also invade for safety. The security dilemma or Hobbesian trap is very much on their minds, and they may form an alliance with nearby villages if they fear they are too small, or launch a

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worry about the other one attacking, neither will be tempted to attack the other in preemptive self-defense, and so on, freeing everyone from the Hobbesian trap. Today, for example, the Swedes don’t stay up at night worrying that their neighbors are hatching plans for Norway Über Alles, or vice versa

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of Mars: an ideological background of militarism and nationalism, a sudden contest of honor that threatened the credibility of each of the great powers, a Hobbesian trap that frightened leaders into attacking before they were attacked first, an overconfidence that deluded each of them into thinking that victory would come swiftly, military

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of a country with a free market economy can reassure its neighbors that it is not going on a war footing, which can defuse a Hobbesian trap and cramp a leader’s freedom to engage in risky bluffing and brinkmanship. And whether or not a leader’s power is constrained by the

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.’ It felt good to be wooed.”58 Even small missions can be effective at keeping a peace because they can free the adversaries from a Hobbesian trap in which each side is tempted to attack out of fear of being attacked first. The very act of accepting intrusive peacekeepers is a costly

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governments in Indonesia and Central America. When a dehumanized people is in a position to defend itself or turn the tables, it can set a Hobbesian trap of group-against-group fear. Either side may see the other as an existential threat that must be preemptively taken out. After the breakup of

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back, perhaps even threatening to destroy the predator preemptively, a kind of instrumental violence of their own that gives rise to a security dilemma or Hobbesian trap. In these cases the predator’s state of mind may shift from dispassionate means-ends analysis to disgust, hatred, and anger.86 As we have

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not to be a sitting duck for its adversary, and often the best defense is a good offense. The resulting mutual fear of attack—the Hobbesian trap or security dilemma—can escalate everyone’s belligerence (chapter 2). Even when the game is played repeatedly and the threat of reprisals can (in theory

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& McCauley, 2006; Goldhagen, 2009; Harff, 2003; Valentino, 2004. 99. Genocide for convenience: Goldhagen, 2009. 100. Roman massacre of Alexandrian Jews: Kiernan, 2007, p. 14. 101. Hobbesian trap in former Yugoslavia: Glover, 1999; Goldhagen, 2009. 102. Aristotle on hatred: Quoted in Chirot & McCauley, 2006, pp. 72–73. 103. Jivaro genocide: Quoted in Daly

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Hitchens, Christopher Hitler, Adolf Hoban, Jack Hobbes, Thomas and anarchy on causes of war and genocide influence of Leviathan on natural state and social contract Hobbesian trap Ho Chi Minh Hoffer, Eric Hoffman, Abbie Hoffman, Stanley Hofstadter, Douglas Hofstede, Geert Holiday, Billie Holmes, Oliver Wendell Holocaust: and evil homosexuals eliminated in and

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Schwerner, Michael science, value system of scientific reasoning; see also modernity Scientific Revolution Scotland Scott, Sir Walter Scully, Diana Seabrook, John security dilemma; see also Hobbesian trap Seeking system Seinfeld, Jerry self-control and Civilizing Process and counterculture and crime and ego depletion and etiquette and experience fatigue of heritability of and

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

by Steven Pinker  · 1 Jan 2002  · 901pp  · 234,905 words

compelling, which makes a preemptive strike all the more tempting, which makes a preemptive strike by them all the more tempting, and so on. This “Hobbesian trap,” as it is now called, is a ubiquitous cause of violent conflict.63 The political scientist Thomas Schelling offered the analogy of an armed homeowner

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who surprises an armed burglar. Each might be tempted to shoot first to avoid being shot, even if neither wanted to kill the other. A Hobbesian trap pitting one man against another is a recurring theme in fiction, such as the desperado in Hollywood westerns, spy-versus-spy plots in cold-war

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thrillers, and the lyrics to Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff.” But because we are a social species, Hobbesian traps more commonly pit groups against groups. There is safety in numbers, so humans, bound by shared genes or reciprocal promises, form coalitions for protection. Unfortunately

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, the logic of the Hobbesian trap means there is also danger in numbers, because neighbors may fear they are becoming outnumbered and form alliances in their turn to contain the growing

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. Our species’ vaunted ability to make tools is one of the reasons we are so good at killing one another. The vicious circle of a Hobbesian trap can help us understand why the escalation from friction to war (and occasionally, the de-escalation to detente) can happen so suddenly. Mathematicians and computer

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in the values of the parameters can have large and unpredictable consequences.66 As we can infer from Hobbes’s allusion to the Peloponnesian War, Hobbesian traps among groups are far from hypothetical. Chagnon describes how Yanomamö villages obsess over the danger of being massacred by other villages (with good reason) and

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machinations. In the past century, World War I, the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War, and the Yugoslavian wars in the 1990s arose in part from Hobbesian traps.68 The political scientist John Vasquez has made the point quantitatively. Using a database of hundreds of conflicts from the past two centuries, he concludes

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that the ingredients of a Hobbesian trap—concern with security, entangling alliances, and arms races—can statistically predict the escalation of friction into war.69 The most conscious playing-out of the

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logic of Hobbesian traps took place among nuclear strategists during the cold war, when the fate of the world literally hinged on it. The logic produced some of the

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to enforce property rights in the absence of legal recourse.”86 The emergence of violence within the new drug economy then set off the expected Hobbesian trap. As the criminologist Jeffrey Fagan noted, gun use spread contagiously as “young people who otherwise wouldn’t carry guns felt that they had to in

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Hobbes’s reasons for quarrel. By inflicting penalties on aggressors, the governing body eliminates the profitability of invading for gain. That in turn defuses the Hobbesian trap in which mutually distrustful peoples are each tempted to inflict a preemptive strike to avoid being invaded for gain. And a system of laws that

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. Worst of all, no one has yet figured out how to set up a worldwide democratic leviathan that would penalize the aggressive competition, defuse the Hobbesian traps, and eliminate the cultures of honor that hold between the most dangerous perpetrators of violence of all, nation-states. As Kant noted, “The depravity of

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world wars fought on his soil, Kennedy by a graphic briefing of the aftermath of an atomic bomb. And each understood they were in a Hobbesian trap. Kennedy had just read The Guns of August and saw how the leaders of great nations could blunder into a pointless war. Khrushchev wrote to

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adversaries to extricate themselves from a deadly game. They try to blunt competition by carefully fashioning compromises over the disputed resources. They try to defuse Hobbesian traps via “confidence-building measures” such as making military activities transparent and bringing in third parties as guarantors. And they try to bring the two sides

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

by David Graeber and David Wengrow  · 18 Oct 2021

of Napoleon Chagnon.22 The important point here is that, as a ‘non-state’ people, the Yanomami are supposed to exemplify what Pinker calls the ‘Hobbesian trap’, whereby individuals in tribal societies find themselves caught in repetitive cycles of raiding and warfare, living fraught and precarious lives, always just a few steps

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

by Steven Pinker  · 13 Feb 2018  · 1,034pp  · 241,773 words

mutual fear that unless a country attacks preemptively it will be annihilated by a preemptive attack (the game-theoretic scenario called a security dilemma or Hobbesian trap), the alighting of peace in a neighborhood, whatever its first cause, can be self-reinforcing. (Conversely, war can be contagious.)28 That helps explain the

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them. This deterrent is credible if only they advertise their resolve by retaliating against any affront and avenging any depredation, regardless of the cost. This “Hobbesian trap,” as it is sometimes called, can easily set off cycles of feuding and vendetta: you have to be at least as violent as your adversaries

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are like an armed homeowner confronting an armed burglar, each tempted to shoot first to avoid being shot.105 In theory this security dilemma or Hobbesian trap can be defused if each side has a second-strike capability, such as missiles in submarines or airborne bombers that can elude a first strike

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, 203 Furman, Jason, 117 Gaddafi, Muammar, 447 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 206 Galileo, 24 Galton, Francis, 399 Galtung, John, 41 game theory, 164, 386 See also Hobbesian trap (security dilemma); pacifist’s dilemma; Tragedy of the Commons Gandhi, Indira, 131 Gandhi, Mohandas, 405, 418. See also nonviolent resistance Gapminder (Web site), xviii, 52

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Development, 245–6, 246, 473n45, 483n42 Hitchens, Christopher, 430 Hitler, Adolf, 161, 314, 398, 430, 445 Hittites, 398 HIV/AIDS, 55, 66, 66, 67, 401 Hobbesian trap (security dilemma), 164, 173, 315 Hobbes, Thomas, 8–9, 22, 49, 173, 412, 414 Ho Chi Minh, 447 Hoffman, Peter, 61 Hofstadter, Richard, 486n36 Holan

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probability of nuclear war, 312–13 proliferation limited, 313 reduction of arsenal, 317–19, 318, 480nn113,117,121 second-strike capacity, 315, 319 security dilemma (Hobbesian trap) of, 315 Trump and, 336–7 nuclear weapons arms race during Cold War, 291, 308, 311 complacency about, 286 Hiroshima bombing, 305 Manhattan Project and

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of life and, 438–9, 490n84 United States and, 436, 437–8, 439, 489n75 voter turnout and, 438 secular stagnation. See economic stagnation security dilemma (Hobbesian trap), 164, 173, 315 Seinfeld, Jerry, 374 Selin, Ivan, 148 Semmelweis, Ignaz, 63 Sen, Amartya, 245, 248, 264, 265, 442 Senegal, 203 Sennett, Richard, 456n1 September

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, 168–9, 170 drugs and, 175–6 evidence-based approach to reducing, 176 focused deterrence and, 174 Great Depression of 1930s and decline in, 170 Hobbesian trap and, 173 homicide rates as reliable indicator of, 169 law enforcement as reducing, 168, 173–4, 176 legitimacy of authority and, 174 number of deaths

The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy: Superintelligent AI and the Geeks Who Are Trying to Save Humanity's Future

by Tom Chivers  · 12 Jun 2019  · 289pp  · 92,714 words

is a classic game-theory problem, known as the stag-hunt game, and related to the famous prisoners’ dilemma. It’s also known as the Hobbesian trap, after Thomas Hobbes, who said that greed, glory and fear are the three principal causes of war.5 You can model it with simple numbers