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Skriven 2009-01-19 01:43:57 av FidoNews Robot (2:2/2.0)
Ärende: FidoNews 26:03 [02/05]: General Articles
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                        GENERAL ARTICLES
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                               tit for TAT
                       By Michiel van der Vlist, 2:280/5555


When a conflict between two parties is not resolved and results in
persistant violence there is often the tendency to blame it on who
first started it. In practice this attitude seldom leads to ending the
conflict, if only because the parties concerned almost never agree on
who is the aggressor. Ever so often the start of the conflict is so
deeply buried in the mist of the past and the prime incident so
insignificant that it is impossible to objectively establish who is
the prime offender.

Some conflicts end because one of the parties totally eliminates the
other. This does not happen very often as - history tells us - it is
very difficult to completely eliminate an enemy. Even with
overwhelming power it is nearly impossible to get them all. If even a
handful remain, the conflict will surface again sooner or later when
the handful of "renegades" have gained sufficient support to light the
fire again in their quest for revenge.

The need for revenge is a powerful emotion, but it is not very helpful
in resolving conflicts. An often heard expression is "an eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth". On the surface it sounds reasonable, but
the mathematician will point out that - unless the parties can agree
who started it - the end result will be a land full of mumbling blind.
Not satisfactory.

"Turning the other cheek" OTOH, is not satisfactory either. While it
will not make the conflict drag on forever, it will allow the
aggressor to inflict an arbitrary amount of damage without any
penalty.

So how do we prevent conflicts from escalating into total warfare
and/or dragging on forever? The answer lies in mathematics. Look at
this equation:


                 n=oo     n
            T =  SUM   ( X   )
                 n=0


This is a so called exponential series. It can be used to describe how
a colony of rabbits will grow in time, but it can also be used to
describe a conflict where parties are caught in an endless sequence of
mutual retaliation.

For rabbits X>1 is the normal situation. Each rabbit pair produces
more than two offspring and the colony grows exponentially until they
run out of food. it is also the situation of a conflict where each
party retaliates harder than they are hit themselves. The conflict
gets out of hand. Highly undesirable.

"An eye for an eye" is the situation for X=1. although the situation
does not escalate, it goes on forever and the total amount of damage
keeps growing. Not desirable either.

For X<1 however the situation will dampen out. If each party
retaliates in such a way that less damage is inflicted on each round,
then the conflict will die out. Also the total damage will be limited.
The mathematician tells us that the sum of such a converging series,
although having an infinite number of terms, will be finite.

So that is the advice to parties engaged in such a conflict: "you do
not have to turn the other cheek, but if you retaliate, do it in such
a way that the damage inflicted on the enemy is less than the damage
you received yourself". Not "tit for tat", and certainly not "TIT for
tat",  but "tit for TAT".

While in most cases it is hard if not impossible to see who started a
conflict, it is often very clearly to see who is responsible for
keeping it going: the one who uses TIT for tat, instead of tit for
TAT.


Michiel van der Vlist
18 Januari 2009





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