zlacker

this seems to be a common attitude in America. It’s game theory, but you should look more to the nash equilibrium than the prisoners dilemma. Unfortunately it must all start with trust, which seems like the fundamental scarcity in the US

>>lucass+(OP)
The problem is we have basically 2 "phenotypes" (gross oversimplification) with radically different risk tolerances, one "tribe" is okay with abstracting away their security/defense, the other wants granular control over it.

So there's 3 agents:

1. Government. Trustworthy, until it isnt.

2. "Union" - Trusts govt. Ok with "gun grabbing" because civians with guns make them feel safe.

3. "Rebels". doesn't trust government. Ok with guns - armed society is polite society.

So it's a very unstable dynamic. It's stable at the extreme ends - everybody has guns, or only government has guns - but the transitions are high activation energy states.