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| Game Theory and co-operation
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I doubt people will be able to fully care for the earth until we care fully for each other.
Unfortunately, Nash's game theory shows that with no communication, players in the game will choose the thing that will give them the best outcome regardless of the other players choices. The Prisoner's dilemma is an example of this game. Each prisoner has two choices, to either co-operate or defect. The best outcome for both prisoners is if both co-operate, but if one co-operates and the other defects, the one who tries to co-operate will lose the biggest and the one who tries to defect will win the most. The end result is that the "equilibrium" in this game is always a lose-lose situation, unless the players can communicate.
One form of communication is if multiple rounds of the game are played. In this way, if one defects they can face the punishment of the other player defecting the following round, and can eventually work out some kind of co-operation.
Game theory could potentially be applied to the human population as a whole. There are a bunch of people who want to co-operate, but the people who are always winning excess percentages are those who defect on the agreements.
This is a barrier I have thought about a lot. People in the developped world in general, such as us, enjoy our high standard of living and are fearful of having to give that up. In instances of co-operation, someone has to give something up or work harder than they have been, while someone else gets a better deal than they had previously. In order for us to be better off, the tradeoff is that other people have to be worse off.
When I was younger, my brother Andrew and I would take all of our money and put it all together, then split the pot equally between us. Consistently, Andrew would come into the dealings with more money than I had, but we would still go out with the same amount.
I think co-operation has such a bad rep because a lot of people are low on "trust".
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Posted by ramie on 2008-04-02 21:20:00 | Rating: | Views: 47
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