Now I understand why globalisation is dangerous; if people start to favor short term relationships (both personal and business) with many different partners (smaller number of rounds <interactions> per match <lifetime>), then society will evolve to become full of cheaters.
Interestingly enough, seemingly to compensate for this phenomenon, almost every new platform that requires people to interact with each other has a built in trust and reward system with ratings (e.g. Uber).
And for physical businesses, we have things like Yelp. We are effectively trying to anticipate our opponents behavior through a trusted intermediary.
There was a Black Mirror episode on giving every person on the globe their own rating. It seems that may be the actual destination that we're headed for.
There was a tremendous amount of social technology that had to be developed to allow people to regularly interact with strangers without trying to kill each other.
EDIT: Which is to say, a global community of 7 billion is absurd but not all that much more absurd than a city-state of 50 thousand.
Interpersonal trust can be replaced with trust in legal frameworks, rules and contracts. Well functioning rule-based society is important for globalization.
Countries where personal relations are important for business suffer from smaller number of opportunities because forming personal trust takes time.
Interestingly I had the opposite but complementary conclusion: if we end up forming many long term relationships through cooperation and maintain them we all are better off.
It's not clear that globalization will have this effect, though. For example, a study "In search of homo economicus: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies" found that individuals from cultures with more "market interaction" tended to make higher offers in an ultimatum game [http://authors.library.caltech.edu/11498/1/HENaer01.pdf].
(these studies are about market institutions, not explicitly globalization, but one could imagine that globalization could involve more market institutions; my point is just that globalization involves all sorts of factors, some of which are probably pro-cooperation and some of which are probably anti-cooperation, and it's not immediately clear whether the final outcome will be more cooperation or less)
Of course, this all breaks down when you have a cartel :) I recall in one of the major prisoners dilemma tournaments, the winning entry was actually a coalition of users who would use the first few moves to establish a code for membership in the cartel, and then one entry was the master while the others were slaves. The slaves always cooperated and the master always defected, to their victory.
Indeed, the major weakness of the linked piece is that it doesn't account for any kind of social structure or any class behaviour. Which, in my book, makes it fairly worthless as an analysis of actual social behaviour.
10 rounds with changed payoffs has some really interesting results.
Punishing cheating from both sides, regardless of how high, still leads to the cheaters taking over.
But if you increase the payoffs for both sides cooperating, even if it's just by +1, you already eliminate all the cheaters very quickly and even the copycats are gone pretty quick, leaving a population of only cooperate.
Sure that's for the 10 round game without any of the other players, it's still very interesting how even in that setting it seems more beneficial to reward good behavior vs punishing bad behavior.
The execution of this visualization was rather disappointing.
I didn’t like the overly cute text (the description of the Simpleton algorithm was almost incomprehensible), the low-contrast captions and colorblind-unfriendly color scheme, and the limited navigation (there was no way to go to the previous slide within a chapter, for example).
But more importantly: If you are going to design an entire interactive exercise like this, graphs are a much better way to explore the effects of varying different parameters. Trying to experiment (as instructed) with different parameters by watching animations in the various chapters and the "sandbox mode" included in this simulation was not only tedious, but prevented effective comparisons. If you just run each iterated tournament (from chapter 4 and onwards) by pressing the "Start" button, there is too much going on simultaneously at a high speed to follow along – I would recommend a sorted table or bar chart rather than many multi-digit numbers arranged in a circle – while stepping through is too slow to keep everything in your head.
I noticed that some of the other "explorable explanations" by the same creator include graphs; I think omitting them from this visualization was a mistake. http://explorableexplanations.com/
"So, it seems the math of game theory is telling us something: that Copycat's philosophy, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", may be not just a moral truth, but also a mathematical truth."
I also found it interesting how the success of cheaters requires a limited number of interactions (so their opponents don't catch on that they are cheaters). Perhaps that's why certain occupations such as used car salesmen have a reputation for being sleazy -- most people are not buying cars very often and so don't get the chance to get to know an individual seller over the course of many transactions. So while you might know that the corner-store merchant is screwing you and end up avoiding him, the used car salesman has a steady stream of suckers who don't know him.
More notable to me is the premise of the simulation that it is ok to kill off the poor to make room for the rich. Because using the simulation to justify moral/ethical/rational acceptability of cheating sometimes means accepting that premise.
> Despite strict orders not to chillax with the enemy, British
and German soldiers left their trenches, crossed No Man's Land,
and gathered to bury their dead, exchange gifts, and play games.
Is this actually true? I'd love to read more about it.
Essentially, the simpleton is treating your previous move as either a reward or punishment.
If you cooperated, then the simpleton thinks the thing it did last time must have been good and does it again. If you cheated, the simpleton thinks the thing it did last time must have been bad and does the opposite.
It follows these rules based on its last move even if that last move was flipped from what it should have been due to the chance of mistake.
The creator of this project has a really amazing talk about his work, including interactive explainers, narrative games and chaos theory. Really interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl9m0AQInBk
This is super impressive. I have been asking myself these questions for years, it is awesome to see such a nice visualization of the answers. The "30 minutes to play" almost made me click away but you got me hooked at the next screen.
One extension I'd like to see to this simulation is the exploration of group/tribe dynamics, as a way of exploring questions regarding in-group loyalty (anthropomorphized in as "ethnocentrism" or something analogous) vs egalitarianism. It seems like much of the success of these agents can depend on whether Agent A can determine what sort of actor Agent B is -- communication that can be conveyed beyond just the framework of actual transactions between A and B.
Are there any existing generic frameworks out there for testing out a wider range of agent/group-based game theory scenarios?
Another important missing factor here is the modeling of empathy and altruism. It can often simply feel good to help someone else, even if you get nothing tangible in return. This is a biological fact, as far as I'm aware.
Incredibly crude approximation: some situations that appear as [empathetic helper +0, receiver +3] on the surface, might in reality be [empathetic helper +1, receiver +3].
There is a ton of complexity in how this works in the real world. The magnitude or presence of the non-tangible reward may depend heavily on a certain aspects of one's value system. It may be heavily contextual -- only certain situations foster the non-tangible reward. Sometimes there is a potential tangible reward that may come much later, after some weeks, months, or years. And so on... I think this is barely scratching the surface.
Lastly, none of the people or dynamics in the system are static.
The linked interactive tool was very cool. However, I'm increasingly skeptical of these types of analyses as they generally are forced to ignore most of the complexity of the real world.
EDIT: I completely forgot about technology... things like the internet which completely change the nature of an interaction between people, or apps that mediate or flavor in-person interactions in ways that society has never seen before.
We like to think we are complex, free-will wielding creatures capable of doing complex and unpredictable things.
It's striking to see how simple we really are and honestly - how easy it is to explain how we behave. I get it - this is a simulation and it leaves out alot of colors to human behavior. But it is the essence of our value-oriented decision making and really quite sad that a better world is actually? quite easy to make.
I think software has the potential to create that world. I propose the creation of a formal group dedicated to exactly such a purpose.
[+] [-] cryptica|8 years ago|reply
Now I understand why globalisation is dangerous; if people start to favor short term relationships (both personal and business) with many different partners (smaller number of rounds <interactions> per match <lifetime>), then society will evolve to become full of cheaters.
[+] [-] sgk284|8 years ago|reply
And for physical businesses, we have things like Yelp. We are effectively trying to anticipate our opponents behavior through a trusted intermediary.
There was a Black Mirror episode on giving every person on the globe their own rating. It seems that may be the actual destination that we're headed for.
[+] [-] Symmetry|8 years ago|reply
EDIT: Which is to say, a global community of 7 billion is absurd but not all that much more absurd than a city-state of 50 thousand.
[+] [-] nabla9|8 years ago|reply
Countries where personal relations are important for business suffer from smaller number of opportunities because forming personal trust takes time.
[+] [-] sporkenfang|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bshanks|8 years ago|reply
Another study, [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....], contains a short literature review of "the effect of formal institutions–including markets–on trust" and concludes that existing evidence is inconclusive.
(these studies are about market institutions, not explicitly globalization, but one could imagine that globalization could involve more market institutions; my point is just that globalization involves all sorts of factors, some of which are probably pro-cooperation and some of which are probably anti-cooperation, and it's not immediately clear whether the final outcome will be more cooperation or less)
[+] [-] intended|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sfsylvester|8 years ago|reply
Informative, engaging and educational. Would be very keen to learn more subjects through this method.
[+] [-] conradev|8 years ago|reply
http://ncase.me
[+] [-] weinzierl|8 years ago|reply
https://github.com/ncase/trust/#play-it-here-httpncasemetrus...
[+] [-] j2kun|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_kilk|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dodorex|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alliao|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freeflight|8 years ago|reply
10 rounds with changed payoffs has some really interesting results. Punishing cheating from both sides, regardless of how high, still leads to the cheaters taking over. But if you increase the payoffs for both sides cooperating, even if it's just by +1, you already eliminate all the cheaters very quickly and even the copycats are gone pretty quick, leaving a population of only cooperate.
Sure that's for the 10 round game without any of the other players, it's still very interesting how even in that setting it seems more beneficial to reward good behavior vs punishing bad behavior.
[+] [-] hftf|8 years ago|reply
I didn’t like the overly cute text (the description of the Simpleton algorithm was almost incomprehensible), the low-contrast captions and colorblind-unfriendly color scheme, and the limited navigation (there was no way to go to the previous slide within a chapter, for example).
But more importantly: If you are going to design an entire interactive exercise like this, graphs are a much better way to explore the effects of varying different parameters. Trying to experiment (as instructed) with different parameters by watching animations in the various chapters and the "sandbox mode" included in this simulation was not only tedious, but prevented effective comparisons. If you just run each iterated tournament (from chapter 4 and onwards) by pressing the "Start" button, there is too much going on simultaneously at a high speed to follow along – I would recommend a sorted table or bar chart rather than many multi-digit numbers arranged in a circle – while stepping through is too slow to keep everything in your head.
I noticed that some of the other "explorable explanations" by the same creator include graphs; I think omitting them from this visualization was a mistake. http://explorableexplanations.com/
[+] [-] mLuby|8 years ago|reply
Would love to see it with inter-agent communication between rounds, where those you cooperate with tell you who cheated them.
[+] [-] arca_vorago|8 years ago|reply
"So, it seems the math of game theory is telling us something: that Copycat's philosophy, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", may be not just a moral truth, but also a mathematical truth."
Simpleton and copykitten for the win!
[+] [-] DanAndersen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rjevski|8 years ago|reply
Is this actually true? I'd love to read more about it.
[+] [-] clock_tower|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ybaumes|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rudism|8 years ago|reply
If you cooperated, then the simpleton thinks the thing it did last time must have been good and does it again. If you cheated, the simpleton thinks the thing it did last time must have been bad and does the opposite.
It follows these rules based on its last move even if that last move was flipped from what it should have been due to the chance of mistake.
[+] [-] JoshTriplett|8 years ago|reply
Also called win-stay-lose-switch or similar.
[+] [-] bmc7505|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egonschiele|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanAndersen|8 years ago|reply
Are there any existing generic frameworks out there for testing out a wider range of agent/group-based game theory scenarios?
[+] [-] dwaltrip|8 years ago|reply
Incredibly crude approximation: some situations that appear as [empathetic helper +0, receiver +3] on the surface, might in reality be [empathetic helper +1, receiver +3].
There is a ton of complexity in how this works in the real world. The magnitude or presence of the non-tangible reward may depend heavily on a certain aspects of one's value system. It may be heavily contextual -- only certain situations foster the non-tangible reward. Sometimes there is a potential tangible reward that may come much later, after some weeks, months, or years. And so on... I think this is barely scratching the surface.
Lastly, none of the people or dynamics in the system are static.
The linked interactive tool was very cool. However, I'm increasingly skeptical of these types of analyses as they generally are forced to ignore most of the complexity of the real world.
EDIT: I completely forgot about technology... things like the internet which completely change the nature of an interaction between people, or apps that mediate or flavor in-person interactions in ways that society has never seen before.
[+] [-] crawfordcomeaux|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trhway|8 years ago|reply
What is the advantage of the Homo Sapiens over the Homo Sensorium (the telepathic humans)?
Homo Sapiens is capable of lying.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] RonanTheGrey|8 years ago|reply
It's striking to see how simple we really are and honestly - how easy it is to explain how we behave. I get it - this is a simulation and it leaves out alot of colors to human behavior. But it is the essence of our value-oriented decision making and really quite sad that a better world is actually? quite easy to make.
I think software has the potential to create that world. I propose the creation of a formal group dedicated to exactly such a purpose.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] udkl|8 years ago|reply
Edit : to say - This site was a beautiful insightful experience.