Baba Brinkman - The Planter's Dilemma lyrics

So you want hippies huh? Alright, I'll give you hippies Come to BC, meet some tree platners We'll teach you 'bout the prisoner's dilemma I was raised with a spade in my hand – ecosystem Restoration is the game that my fam plays Reforestation of our native land – pine, larch Spruce, fir – the species we mainly plant Rappers wanna brag about a seven figure salary I've planted seven figures worth of trees by hand With ten fingers in the dirt since the age of seventeen If you ask me, I'll be like, yeah, that's a G Planting trees is kinda like the game of life You get paid for your efforts and never paid for your time Yeah, it's piecework, so there's a rat-race side You gotta hustle if you wanna make your pay-cheque nice But it's team-work, 'cause you're workin' with a crew And you gotta coordinate with the person next to you 'Cause the decisions that you make affect them too And efficiency is created by collective rules See, you're following a line of trees on one side And there's another line of trees that you're leaving behind And the space between trees is three meters wide It's like watching a game of Pac-man played in rewind And the goal is to never have to cross over trees Just fill the open space on the block economically And never make another planter walk over trees 'Cause we go at different speeds, so don't cut me off please! If I cheat and you don't cheat then I profit If you cheat and I don't cheat then you profit So we both cheat, so we can each keep somethin' But where did all the non-cheaters go? If you don't cheat, and I don't, the team profits And people on teams can achieve some deep pockets The cheats won't beat us as long as we keep watchin' So if you cheat, we're gonna know It's like a sophisticated game of follow the leader Where the lead player changes every couple of meters And everybody's watching for cheaters, if you're awful eager To plant the soft easy ground, then we'll call you a "creamer" 'Cause there's rocks and fallen trees and piles of branches And swamps and weeds, and nice lines of trenches And it's easy for opportunists to try to take advantage Of co-operative units to advance their own interests So how do we regulate? Hmm, in several ways But reputation is the most effective way We swim in a sea of gossip, and we punish reprobates With the threat of the loss of their option to participate We got groups within groups, the truck is a six pack But a lot of people like to work in pairs so they can chit chat And we live in camps of several dozen who interact On a daily basis, yeah, it's quite a mish mash And sometimes we seem to move with a group mind Like a flock of birds, a school of fish, or a pride of lions But that's just the illusion of top-down design Welcome to sociobiology, the new science The coordination comes from simple local rules That combine to produce the most cogent moves At multiple levels, from genes to social groups The same way your neurons compose you If I cheat and you don't cheat then I profit If you cheat and I don't cheat then you profit So we both cheat, so we can each keep somethin' But where did all the non-cheaters go? If you don't cheat, and I don't, the team profits And people on teams can achieve some deep pockets The cheats won't beat us as long as we keep watchin' So if you cheat, we're gonna know It's the prisoner's dilemma, you've been charged with a crime But you get off scot free if you snitch and drop dime And if your partner snitches on you, you're knocked for life So you both snitch, and you both do hard time If only you had some kind of "code of the streets" Some way to punish cheats – you could both go free Ironically, the challenge is acting pro-socially So we probably shouldn't model it with cut-throat thieves The point is about where your interests lie If you're locked up, well then they're just outside But in modern society we live cooperative lives And cooperatives are the best place to catch free rides So who's "pimping the system" and who's snitchin'? In game theory terms, "snitchin'" means defection From a collective, along with the loss of its protection It's the "tragedy of the commons" the hip-hop edition 'Cause a gangster whose motto is "stop snitchin'" Is a snitch from the perspective of honest citizens And the Kyoto accord is a dilemma for prisoners Of this planet, and those who block it are snitches But the system only works if the members see an active Distribution of benefits, and graduated sanctions Just like the tree-planters, 'cause whatever the endeavor Life is just an iterated prisoner's dilemma If I cheat and you don't cheat then I profit If you cheat and I don't cheat then you profit So we both cheat, so we can each keep somethin' But where did all the non-cheaters go? If you don't cheat, and I don't, the team profits And people on teams can achieve some deep pockets The cheats won't beat us as long as we keep watchin' So if you cheat, we're gonna know The prisoner's dilemma is part cooperation And part competition, it's an elegant model For the evolution of social behaviour It's a cross between "turn the other cheek" And "an eye for an eye" And the better we understand it The better our chances of surviving So how do you punish cheats, huh? Oh, you don't punish cheats? Shame on you! Shame!