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One thing which might be of interest to the inquisitive Satanist is this information on one of the central rules for social interaction in the Satanic Bible.
However, an initial word of warning might be appropriate. Several people have told me, by now, that this article is very difficult to grasp, especially the game theory referred to. Bluntly put you might not gain very much from this essay if you're not trained in game theoretics. Actually, you might have to play the game with a friend to really appreciate what's going on. A more easily read treatment of this subject can be found in Carnal Reality and Social Darwinism by Hr. Vad.
On p. 51 of The Satanic Bible Dr. LaVey describes his Modified Golden Rule. You may not know this, but there exists a lot of scientific research on this rule! However, this research is not to be found under the heading of Satanism. In the late 1970s an American political scientist named Robert Axelrod announced a computer tournament and he encouraged leading researchers to submit strategies which would play the game "iterated Prisoners' Dilemma."
The Prisoners' Dilemma is a general game, but it is sometimes described as follows. Two criminals have been caught by the police and are placed in isolation, each charged with a major crime they committed together. The police haven't enough proof to convict the criminals unless they confess, but they can get them on some very minor charges though; the criminals know this. The prisoners are both given a deal by the police which may lessen their punishment. "Betray your friend by confesssing, then we'll convict him of the crime, but you'll go free." Should the player confess or keep denying the crime? (Prisoners' Dilemma is more generalv than that: suppose you're a member of a group working on a project, should you choose to work hard (ie. cooperate with the group member, same as Deny in the above) or loaf (let the other guy do all the work, same as Confess in the above).
The player has two possible actions in this game: he can either Deny or Confess. His accomplice has the same options. This gives the following outcomes: (1) If they both Deny (D, D), ie. cooperate, they will both serve 1 year in prison; (2) if player 1 betrays his friend by Confessing, but player 2 Denies the crime (C, D), player 1 will go free, while player 2 gets 10 years in jail; (3) if they both confess (CC) they are both put away for 8 years! It is this last option that is tricky, because this is the outcome if they both agree to the "deal" the cops made them. As can be seen it is overall best for the players to cooperate as they will only serve 1 year in jail for a total of two years. However, from the individual player's point of view, assuming selfish players, there is an incentive to cheat the other player. If he cheats (Confesses), while the other player keeps his mouth shut (Denies), he'll go completely free, while the other one goes to prison for 10 years. See figure below.
PLAYER 2 P ------------------------------------- L | | Deny | Confess | A ------------------------------------ Y | Deny | (1,1) | (10,0) | E ------------------------------------ R | Confess | (0,10) | (8,8) | 1 ------------------------------------- Payoffs: (years in jail player1, years in jail player2)
If a person was only to play this game once and never
see
the other criminal again, what would be the best strategy to play? Here
rationality plays a cruel game. Assume that player 2 Denies the crime,
what would be the best response for player 1? There's no doubt that he
would do best by Confessing to the police which would keep him out of jail.
What if player 2 were to Confess? Again the best response for player 1
is to Confess, which will get him 8 years of imprisonment, but spare him
the 10 years. So no matter what he should Confess! This is, of course,
strongly counter-intuitive, but according to the rules Confession is
the
best strategy available.
However, in real life this game wouldn't hold up. The two criminals would normally meet again in real life, they would have friends on the "outside" which could punish the "rat," they might be able to make binding agreements that way (binding agreements in the one-shot game are impossible!). This is why the problem regarding the iterated Prisoners Dilemma is difficult to manage. What strategy would you adopt in this much more complicated game?
Remember, the informational structure of the game is radically altered,
and all sorts of arrangements are now possible. When would you Confess
or Deny the crime? What would you do when you met a new player in
the game? How do you get the two of you to cooperate? And so forth. This
is the problem Axelrod tried to solve. Furthermore Axelrod designed the
pay-offs in the game in this way: all pay-offs were translated into offspring
which
inherited its parent's strategy. (This could also be likened to an investment
game where the payoff is reinvested in the next round using the pre-specified
strategy.) In other words this game explores the complexities of evolution
and long-range planning.
One researcher, Anatol Rapoport, submitted a deceptively simple strategy to the computer contest. He called the program TIT-FOR-TAT, and it was characterized by always cooperating on the first round of the game with a new player, then in all following games with this particular other player TIT-FOR-TAT would do what that opponent did last round. So TIT-FOR-TAT starts by behaving nicely, and what it does on the next turn depends on the other player. If the opponent cooperates (Denies) TIT-FOR-TAT will cooperate in the second round too, but if the other player defects (Confesses), TIT-FOR-TAT will punish that player by defecting the next time the two meet. To everybody's surprise (there were no Satanists there!) this simple strategy beat all the other strategies, even very complicated ones. These results was published in 1981, and in 1984 Axelrod published his seminal work The Evolution of Co-operation, which ever since has set the standards in this field of research.
Only later has there been a modification to these results. A strategy
known as "Pavlov" seems to be slightly more succesful and stable than TIT-
FOR-TAT. TIT-FOR-TAT is unstable in the long run, because it allows "suckers"
to invade the population. "Suckers" will cooperate unconditionally, ie.
turn the other cheek, even when blatantly violated by other players. The
danger of players following this Golden Rule is that these Suckers open
up for an invasion of extremely exploitative, war-like players that will
unconditionally defect against other players, even when the other player
repeatedly show his goodwill by cooperating; these invaders are often called
"Hawks" -- or you could call them "Hobbesian". The bad thing here is not
the exploitation of the Golden Rulers, but the damage these invading, greedy
players can do to the population of Pavlovs (or TIT-FOR-TAT'ers, or Satanists).
always
having to fight like crazy decreases the living standard of the Pavlovs,
whereas in a population of only Pavlovs there would only be very limited
fighting: people would only fight in order to determine the other
person's type, the rest of the time they would cooperate.
The attentive reader may have noticed that TIT-FOR-TAT is exactly like
Dr. LaVey's Modified Golden Rule: Dr. LaVey explicitly says that cooperating
on the first round is what the Satanist would do, but should the other
person betray you, it is only natural to stop treating him nicely and smash
this enemy. Isn't that what Satanists do? Treat people nicely, but when
betrayed they go after them? I think so. I've seen it. Done it. However,
inherent in Satanism is also a tendency to work hard to separate a sucker
from his money, so in this respect Satanists are actually more like Pavlov
players!
The TIT-FOR-TAT strategy has also been named The Silver Rule by game
theorist Jack Hirshleifer in 1982 to distinguish it from The Golden Rule.
It has also been referred to as "Retaliator" by Richard Dawkins in The
Selfish Gene, 2nd Ed., 1989, which refers to work done by Maynard Smith.
However "Retaliator" is a slightly misleading phrase, because the Satanic
rule is a cooperative
strategy and not a strategy promising strife,
war and destruction. And not only is it a cooperative strategy, it is also
the strategy which is certain to bring you the most success in life!
The Golden Rule is the "Xtian rule" which says "always cooperate," always
treat others nicely, no matter what they do. The Xtian rule does not, ideally,
allow the Xtian to respond by revenge -- revenge is frowned upon within
that religion. The Xtians say "turn the other cheek." This rule, sometimes
referred to as Dove, has been demonstrated to be inferior to almost all
other strategies, and this attests to the ignorance and stupidity of the
Xtian religion. They worship incompetence.
However, I must hurry to disabuse you of the notion that any Xtians
actually follow the Golden Rule. The Satanic Bible, or your own Xtian upbringing,
may give you the impression that Xtians are very loving and cooperative
people, but this unfortunately has nothing to do with reality. In
truth Xtians are one of the least cooperative people on the earth.
On the surface it may appear as if Xtians never retaliate against those
who do them wrong, but if you take a careful look, you might discover that
Xtians somehow always manages to get back at their enemies. They just do
it indirectly (when they're not exactly on a Crusade or at the Witches'
Burning). This indirectness unfortunately does not discipline other
players in the Web of Life by making them more cooperative -- the Satanic
rules (Pavlov and TIT FOR TAT) do that. Xtians are at best inconsistent
when following the Golden Rule, and most often when you see them furthering
this principle it is in politics, where they are showing their Goodguy
Badges off. Hence the sorry state of all Xtian judicial systems.
Actually, Xtians seem to behave exactly the opposite of the dovish
Golden Rule. Rather they behave like the strategy called Hawk, which is
characterized by always defecting, fighting or betraying the other. Satanists
who have swallowed Xtian lies often state that "there's too much love in
the world" and they think it is this "love" which destroys our planet.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Xtians are most often not loving
creatures. They are often hateful and destructive, and you are a sucker
if
you believe anything else. Do you really think it is "love" you're seeing
among Xtians? The Xtians say they are loving and cooperating, but
they lie and behave just the opposite. Remember, when Xtians say
they "just wanna be good" it is usually because they're not already
good; their ideals mark the things they do not have. Their
Will is hate, strife and uncooperativeness. You can continue to mistake
their behavior as shoving "love" if you will, but the Xtian definition
of that word simply does not fit love as we Satanists know it. It is the
utter strife and war-like qualities in Xtianity which stands in the way
of a more cooperative, sane society which is able to solve our current
problems of over-population, environmental decay and senseless wars. If
all of this sounds unlikely I advice you do research on the Xtian cruelty
perpetrated upon millions of people since they got into power.
Scientific research in so varied fields as economics, game theory, political
science, biology and zoology indicates that Dr. LaVey's Modified Golden
Rule, with its important additions, is indeed a rule which Satanists are
wise to stick to. It will, of course, have to be translated into real life
by the practitioner. While it may be difficult in some respects, this is
not all that difficult, and many people do it instinctively; it is certainly
a good starting point if nothing else.
What you might as well get accustomed to is that the Modified Golden
Rule is a cooperative strategy, and this hints at something very
important: we Satanists should not let our interactions be infected by
senseless strife. The Xtians already have that in all their relationships,
where eustress is omnipresent. Consequently everything they do is
doomed from the beginning: most of them have hellish relationships and
marriages, real friendships are almost non-existant, the "sex thing" between
Xtian males and females is disastrous having spawned the feminist movement,
and it's more like a hate-fest whenever they have sex. Ballbusting and
poisonous, dripping sarcasm is their preferred way of communication, their
businesses are dysfunctional due to their inner strife...the list goes
on. I believe that Satanists have the potential to avoid this Xtoid hell,
and we should be quick to spot even declared "Satanists" who embody this
Xtian "strife ethic." I usually tell such people: "How Xtian of you." And
that is what it is.
Most Satanist have an affinity for the Modified Golden Rule and feel that it is "good" or "just." And as I have just shown, this is exactly the case. Anyone with good carnal instincts would feel that way.