[mejutoco]

> There is no big sector-wide conspiracy. A sector-wide conspiracy would be massively illegal

The logic of this sentence is broken. As a thought exercise:

- There is no stealing, that would be illegal.

- There is no murdering, that would be illegal.

Clearly, something being illegal does not prevent it from existing. Otherwise it would not need to be made illegal in the first place.

Fact is, this has happened before with collusion, so there is no need to hypothesize. It is definitely possible.

[htag]

It is possible to kill without legally murder. It is possible to have your property taken without someone legally stealing. This is the point I was attempting to make with my rhetoric.

Put in game theory language, the optimal solution for the game includes a group of people cooperating when defecting amongst a population of defectors would be the optimal strategy.

From a communications point of view, players have limited communication channels, and must both explain the game and encourage cooperation without directly doing so. The players have similar cultural backgrounds, having read the same books and having overlapping social circles. When a player announces their agreement to cooperate they used clearly false reasons, implying there is much left unsaid. Maybe the stock bump that happens when a player cooperates is a positive reinforcement signal by people concerned about rising labor costs.