Prisoner’s dilemma is a problem commonly featured in game theory. Each player is given an option to be either nice or nasty. Each combination of player plays multiple number of rounds. When tested against different strategies, it is found that the best performing strategies are :
- nice first ( they don’t start the provoking),
- retaliatory (when opponent is nasty they also resond nasty),
- forgiving (they don’t hold grudges),
- clear (their strategies are clear for opponent to interpret) and
- generous (when the opponent has been nasty, they do not retaliate 10℅ of the time )
It explains why the most selfish people often lack foresight and are not smart outside of a very narrow focus.
Only works when there is a genuine risk of retaliation equal or worse than the damage done, i.e.:
- There are multiple rounds or each round is done is such a way that the second person has a real choice, or in other words people can’t just make a one-sided choice, cash their gains and dissapear but instead face consequences immediatelly or on subsequent rounds.
- Both sides have similar power to inflict hurt on the other side.
In fact various experiments from Behavioural Economics similar to these and done with conditions more like I describe show exactly that effect: far fewer behave nicelly and are generous and forgiving when others can’t meaningfully retaliate.
It’s not by chance that most situations in real life of somebody taking advantage of somebody else either involve a context where the abuser can just extract a gain and dissapear, escaping retaliation, or there is a massive power imballance so the victim can’t actually retaliate in any meaningfull way (say, the “boss” vs an employee that can easilly be fired or an elected politician making choices that hurt a minority of electors).
Correct, and all of this info is in the video as well.
That’s why I say we bring back dueling!
Also the results would be different for different betray and split values. The video is biased because it wanted to have a feel good message at the end. In real life, things are very different.
Finally, vindication muahahaha :)
How does this explain that the world is essentially ruled by ruthless billionnaires? The strategies referenced may be vindicated, but that doesn’t preclude them from being eclipsed by another, even greater strategy, that of total domination.
Or is anyone going to tell me straight-faced that all those people are great examples of our species and should be revered? None of them got where they are by playing nice.
Take away the power to tit for your tats, and now you can be almost as nasty as you want.
The prisoner’s dilemma is of course, a highly simplified model. If you could just submit a strategy like “my opponent doesn’t get to play, so I take all the points” then yeah, that would beat tit for tat.
So basically you can take advantage of the nice people in the first round of every game… Play multiple games with many people and become an evil billionaire.
There is a reason a lot of game theory breaks down, once you pass the Dunbar limit on group sizes. It allows for issues like this. This is where super-tribe and in-group vs out-group kicks in. It allows for larger scale cooperation, with less issues with parasitical behaviours.
This isn’t really about the current global economic situation, more about like human behaviour.
In the prisoner’s dilemma, aggressive options tend to do well only in the short term, so you could see ruthless billionaires as short-sighted, considering their reaping of the earth will end up destroying the ecosystems we live in.
Because they conform to the prisoners dilemma, they set up mutually beneficial relationships to get to where they are. That’s what jobs are. “wahh wahh they don’t pay enough” maybe not to what we would want, but obviously they’re not slaves, so it’s working to an extent. Business deals, collaboration, that’s how they scale their businesses for them to be valued so highly.
This is also how the West has largely operated their foreign policy and why that’s working pretty well too, with the EU, NATO and such. People are more often than not cooperating. Doomer online people are just blind to it.
Best take imo. Yes, the “bliss” is that we are ruled by ruthless billionnaires instead of cruel dictators. At least some of us.
As pointed out in my top level comment, the post is quite one-sided, omitting the dark truths. Cooperation is the overall best strategy, but so is to exploit as much as you can. Both are true, the combination is true.
I saw this and immediately thought about Nicky Case’s game on The Evolution of Trust. I was really glad to see it was referenced in the video as the main inspiration for it!
(https://ncase.me/trust) - Link because I think everyone should try it for themselves as well.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I wonder how well and broadly these truths are applied in human politics. And what are the best strategies to moving towards more success?
Yes, and no.
First and foremost, you need no “justification” for being a decent person. And there are other reasons to be that way, as arbitrary as “I like it this way”.
Game theory is strongly related to evolution. It is safe to assume that everything we can observe in nature is a successful strategy. So this confirms the statement: Cooperation is a successful strategy. But the other side of the picture also exists: Betrayal is as well.
What the excerpt omits about the Prisoner’s Dilemma (not sure wether it’s mentioned in the video, which I did not watch now): The Nash Equilibrium can be the overall worst outcome. What does that mean?
A Nash Equilibrium is a situation in which no player can improve their own position. It is therefore a stable state. Things will change until they have settled in a stable state. It can be shown for Prisoner’s Dilemma that the Nash Equilibrium can be the worst case, where each betrays the other. Yes, they would both score better if they cooperated, but the system will still tend towards the state where both play nasty.
When multiple iterations are played, this changes a bit. It seems, if you not just meet once in a lifetime, but can remember your past, and have a common future, it makes more sense to cooperate. But there is still a place for uncooperative exploitation.
So yes, it’s true what you say about “best performing strategies”, but it should be noted that “evil” strategies don’t go extinct either.
It should be questioned how much these theories can be applied to our lifes. I mean questioned, not implying an answer. Either way I find it interesting how behaviour which we associate with morals emerges in very simple and abstract games.
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