If you are just stating an axiom that is not an argument for anything. What is the point of the thread?

Actually, I pointed out where you had misunderstood game theory. You repeated yourself in the absence of any actual knowledge or understanding on the topic.

Explain why using game theory to show this is off topic?

You haven’t used game theory. You have quoted a book that you clearly don’t understand.

You say ‘tit for tat’ strategy is a selfish strategy but it is a ‘default co-operative’ strategy.

It is selfish in that it maximises personal gain. The ‘altruism’ that emerges is a side-effect of each player attempting to play the game using the best personal strategy. Co-operation can emerge from selfish motives. This is a point you fundamentally misunderstand, because you equate ‘selfish’ with ‘nasty’.

As Phil E points out, if you include co-operation and altruism as selfish behaviour (as you seem to do), your argument appears meaningless.

I am not making an argument. I am stating an axiom. You are assuming an argument.

Now, a final warning: this is off-topic. Take it to your own blog or I will have to close the comment thread. ‘Debating’ with you is utterly pointless, as you are incapable of reading what someone else has written and responding to the points they have actually made. Life would be far easier if you took your own special brand of logic elsewhere.

Your new tactic seems to be to refuse to address the valid points I made.

You say ‘tit for tat’ strategy is a selfish strategy but it is a ‘default co-operative’ strategy. It’s opening move is always co-operative, after which it just copies the other person’s previous move.

As Phil E points out, if you include co-operation and altruism as selfish behaviour (as you seem to do), your argument appears meaningless.

Explain why using game theory to show this is off topic?

I should also add that repeating yourself doesn’t make it any more true.

“Critics have occasionally misunderstood ‘The selfish gene’ to be advocating selfishness as a principle by which we should live!”

Which forgive me if I’m wrong, but that seems exactly what you are arguing.

It’s not me comparing selfish with nasty, it is Richard Dawkins;

“Others, perhaps because they read the book by title only or never made it past the first two pages, have thought that I was saying that, whether we like it or not, selfishness and other nasty ways are an inescapable part of our nature. This error is easy to fall into if you think, as many people unaccountably seem to, that genetic ‘determination’ is for keeps-absolute and irreversible…”

I’m afraid life IS exactly like the prisoners dilemma game. As Richard Dawkins puts it;

“many wild animals and plants are engaged in ceaseless games of prisoner’s dilemma, played out in evolutionary time.”

If selfishness is about a majority who perpetually co-operate as ‘tit for tat’ strategy tends towards, then I think it rather rends your idea of selfishness redundant. Like I argued before, if selfishness (in your terms) includes acts of altruism then what exactly are you arguing.

The Dawkins chapter covers the basic strategy of game theory that won Robert Axelrod (in collaboration with W.D Hamilton) a nobel prize in 1982. Life is a non-zero sum game. As Dawkins states;

“So, it is natural to ask whether his [Axelrod’s] optimistic conclusions-about the success of non-envious, forgiving, niceness-also apply in the world of nature. The answer is yes, of course they do.”

May I propose a couple of meta-axioms?

Edwards’ Meta-Axiom 1: Axioms are, well, axiomatic; debate doesn’t induce anyone to modify their starting axioms, only – very occasionally – to abandon them or adopt new ones.

EMA2: Axioms tend to provoke argument – but argument is not debate. Argument starts with the restatement of opposing axioms, then degenerates. Argument doesn’t change minds. (This is the point that Dawkins doesn’t get, of course. “You believe what? But that’s stupid! It’s obviously stupid! Can you hear me? I said it’s OBVIOUSLY STUPID!” And repeat.)

EMA3: The balance of a debate can (sometimes) reflect the merits of the ideas being discussed – but the balance of an argument around axioms tends to reflect the existing balance of adherence to those axioms.

You’ve started the bidding with “people are mostly selfish – except that they’re not sometimes, but they’re still selfish underneath”. Which, in this society, is about as controversial as “you should always wear trousers if you’re a bloke, unless you’re Scottish or something”. I’m an old hippie pinko, which means that the axioms on which my political beliefs are based are something of a minority taste in this society – even more so now than when I was growing up. (And I’m old enough to remember being told to go back to Russia.) Putting them up for debate would be little more than putting up a KICK ME sign – even here. So thanks, but no thanks.