I want to take some time to unpack Game Theory and how it applies to The Red Pill.

I'll start with a quick primer on the basic model of Game Theory. I'm going to demonstrate using the Hawk-Dove Game. This is glossing over dozens of hours you'd spend with a professor learning this material, so its quite a lot of info. Game Theory is a branch of Cognitive Science and Economics, and not directly related to video games/board games (a common misconception). It's a mathematical, technical way of looking at relationships and/or competitions.

Lets say that you have a partner, and you are in a relationship with them. One strategy is to be a 'dove', and not cheat on your partner, the other is to be a 'hawk'.

Player 2's choices
Strategies Dove Hawk
Player 1's choices Dove 3,3 0,6
Hawk 6,0 1,1

Player 1's utility (perceived satisfaction) in each box is the first number, and Player 2's utility is the second number. If we chose the set Dove-Dove, the outcome is that both players get 3,3. [As a note to anyone familiar with the subject already, this is also the egalitarian and a utilitarian equilibrium. It has no basin of attraction.]

Lets walk through the possible outcomes if this Game was played once.

  1. Dove-Dove: If both of you stick to the contract and do not cheat on your partners you'll have a healthy relationship. This is a egalitarian and utilitarian utopia. It does not occur in nature.

  2. Hawk-Dove: You cheat on your partner successfully, and receive a massive amount of satisfaction. They are devastated, and swear they'll never let that happen again.

  3. Dove-Hawk: Your partner cheats, and they receive a massive amount of satisfaction. You are devastated.

  4. Hawk-Hawk: Neither of you are happy, and you both cheat. The intimacy evaporates from your relationship. Believe it or not, this is the natural solution to this problem. If I applied a machine learning script called the Replicator Dynamic (a weighted best-response calculator of sorts) to this problem, and ran this against thousands and thousands of random combinations of strategies within this problem they'd all lead to Hawk-Hawk. Unless the person you're with never ever cheats, this is your best response, and its horribly suboptimal. But I digress.

Now, in the real world, this relationship Game isn't played just once - its played over and over again. This gives you the opportunity to anticipate your partner's moves, and select a best response to their strategy.

There are 5 primary strategies you (Player 1) can use in this game, assuming we are playing it multiple times. I'll walk through them quickly.

  1. The Dove: You always will stay with your partner, and always choose to not cheat on them no matter what. This strategy is extremely risky, and you are subject to a considerable amount of predation by hawks. If your partner cheats they have no incentive to ever change.

  2. The Hawk: You will always cheat on your partner. This strategy is fairly risky, because you can easily get trapped in a very bad outcome if your partners strategy is anything but Dove. Sadly, its what nature tells us to do. Its also where the expression 'can't turn a ho into a housewife' comes from, if your partner was unfaithful in the past she won't be able to resist cheating (even unprovoked). Many redpillers argue that this is what all women are like, deep down - its where the term AWALT comes from.

  3. GRIM: This strategy cooperates at first. On the face of it, it looks like Dove. This strategy is compatible with The Dove, and is also compatible with The Hawk. This strategy is very popular with a lot of people, it basically cooperate on the first turn. But if ever betrayed, this person will become a hawk permanently, to protect him/herself. They might also decide to just stop playing the game altogether, but if forced to continue would become hawks. This is where jaded people come from.

  4. GRIM with forgiveness: This strategy allows the player to forgive the other after 'penance' has been taken in the form of several Hawk-Dove outcomes. This is a little nuanced, but lets say you get cheated on by Player 2. You then say for 3 turns I'll cheat on you, but you cannot cheat on me. You're extracting punishment from the other player, and after a while you will switch back to both going Dove. I have never seen this happen in real life.

  5. Tit-For-Tat: This strategy is an almost-perfect counter to all of the other strategies. It basically says you start by selecting 'Dove', and on subsequent turns simply do what the other player did in the previous turn. This strategy was argued by Robert Axelrod as 'weakly dominant', in other words it was at least as good as most all other strategies. Not all game theorists believe that Tit-for-Tat is as good as it sounds, including my mentor, for technical reasons that aren't really relevant. In reality you're probably better off not playing with a player who isn't a Dove, or GRIM, but even then if you never find out about the cheating you are very exposed.

This model isn't quite what real life is like. In real life, hawks can conceal themselves, and pretend to be doves. This makes the game even more unfavorable to anyone who isn't a hawk, and you still suffer the consequences of receiving severely diminished affection from your cheating partner.

Lessons Learned

In essence, the game isn't worth playing. Being seriously invested in a relationship means that you have to choose an outcome that is very risky (a Dove or GRIM). People that have been unfaithful to their partners in the past are deeply suspicious of future partners and clingy. They realize just how easy it is to violate the relationship and fuck other people, then conceal it. They're terrified of that happening to them. People realize that if there are no consequences, then they can just do whatever they want to. I know so, so many people with no morals who will happily breach the terms of a relationship because why not? There's literally no reason in Game Theory why they shouldn't. There's an abundance of other people to go be with if you're caught cheating. This leads to deep spiritual dissatisfaction though, of course. You start eating fast food too much and your brain becomes rewired to crave those short bursts of flavor and fat.

I've thought about this model for a long time, and tested it against my close friends. I have one particular friend who has had at least 10 orbiters in the 2 years I've known her. I've watched guy after guy wait for their turn, completely oblivious to the fact that she was spinning them like a madman. I honestly think she might have it figured out, at least to her benefit. There are literally hundreds of men that are lining up on tinder, waiting for their chance with her. It makes perfect sense. She's a hawk, and if the other person becomes a hawk she can just leave and find another in like 2 hours, not counting those already on her phone. These poor oblivious men spinning in and out of her life.

We all want to be a dove. We all want to trust and love our partners. But without someone who is willing to truly fight their inner nature, this is impossible. And whats worse is that you could probably never tell the difference anyways.