this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
167 points (100.0% liked)

World News

38968 readers
2358 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

That simple thought experiment incentivizes bad actions from time to time.

The optimal strategy, in theory and practice, for the iterated prisoner's dilemma (unknown or infinite amounts of iterations) is some version of tit for tat, details depending on the exact rules (such as low information reliability needing increased forgiveness). The strategy involves punishing the other player for defecting but it will never defect first so two tit-for-tat players will play 100% cooperatively and the knives stay where they belong, behind their backs. Holistically speaking choosing to punish is not bad because it incentivise the other player to play cooperatively, leading to overall greater results for both.

Evolutionarily speaking: If cooperation did not give advantages, why the fuck did we become a social species? Going for anti-cooperative strategies only ever makes sense in zero-sum games and practically nothing in life is.

You have more to gain by acting selfishly.

That's capitalist propaganda with no basis in game theory.

Not every choice is a conscious decision in my eyes, but the vast majority are.

Oh my sweet summer child.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Evolutionarily speaking: If cooperation did not give advantages, why the fuck did we become a social species? Going for anti-cooperative strategies only ever makes sense in zero-sum games and practically nothing in life is.

In game theory cooperation does give advantages.

Both co-op: +1/+1 Both defect: 0/0 Defect/co-op: +3/0

That's just one interaction. When you expand the experiment, predictability becomes a positive trait and risk is avoided. So by more often choosing cooperation, you become more predictable, avoid the risk of not gaining any points through mutual defection, and more people are likely to interact with you. More interactions=higher potential for points. When you adjust the rules of the game to not define a set number of interactions with each player and you can choose the frequency of interactions with bad reputation players, cooperating is naturally selected for. Conversely, as the pool gets collectively nicer, defection will net more benefits and the pendulum will start to slowly swing the other way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

When you adjust the rules of the game to not define a set number of interactions with each player

Then being nasty wins out, no matter the length of the game as long as it's known (or at least an upper bound is known) But that's not the case in practice so it's irrelevant which is why I specified (yes I mentioned it) infinite or unknown amount of iterations.

That mark. That thing we consider good. The innate sense, what pretty much everyone agrees on. It is there because our ancestors were successful because all that game theory stuff happens to apply. If it didn't, then we would consider defecting good, not, to sum it up neatly, "never start a fight but always end it".