Being proven wrong once is worth being right a hundred times; it's only when we realize we're wrong that we learn anything useful. In this case, I was reminded of an evolutionary fact that I hadn't thought about in quite a long time, and that's fully worth being wrong.
What I've always wondered is which particular assumption of Aumann's agreement theorem is usually lacking on the Internet: honesty, rationality, common priors, or simply the willingness to continue the conversation long enough to resolve the disagreement.
I lean very much against the idea of rationality, in the precise economic sense used by Aumann and others. I find the work of the behavioral economists more believable. I believe there is some truth in the saying that the only people who make economically rational decisions are economists and sociopaths.
BTW, in this thread I learned that I need to be more careful about how I use the term "population." :)
In theory, agreements should be more common than they are (sadly) in practice: http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf
What I've always wondered is which particular assumption of Aumann's agreement theorem is usually lacking on the Internet: honesty, rationality, common priors, or simply the willingness to continue the conversation long enough to resolve the disagreement.