I thought this was worth a share:
The game is here, and is based on game theory.
It will make you think, if nothing else.
Hat tip to Nick Koronka.
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Haven’t posted before, but disappointed to see you accepting the tenets of game theory so unquestioningly. It’s is one of the underpinnings of neoliberalism (see Amadae et al).
It can be used as one of the underpinnings of neoliberalism
So too can the written word
Game theory can be used to justify almost anything but at least it teaches us that the rules of the game are everything. The part that is missing is that it is our job to make the rules.
Agreed although they do suggest it when they conclude:
” In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it’s us players who define the game.”
I thought the model rather successfully demonstrated that
There are numerous problems with the game from my point of view:
a) the game requires a magic money tree.
In the co-operation scenario the two players in aggregate put two coins in and six come out. Who provides the other four? What are those coins now worth in real rather than nominal terms?
b) assume that the payoffs are equally shared if both co-operate
Hardly reasonable!
c) assumes equality to start with?
Everyone has the same number of coins?
d) Ignores what happens to the losers.
In the real world they’ll still exist. Do you simply create grudgers and/or a class that can’t afford to pay to play? What does a civilised society with them? Even if they were cheaters to begin with?
e) assumes that a co-operator will never defect (rather than make an honest mistake).
As the payoffs are fixed law of diminishing returns to the winners.
In reality, stakes and payoffs generally get higher.
f) ignores human generations.
Do co-operators produce co-operators?
g) is a closed system.
What happens with, for example, inward migration if the set of players is a subset of all humanity?
Questions rather than answers, I’m afraid.
Did you play the game through?
It became an open game
I did play the game through to the sandbox mode where you could, within limits, change the parameters. Not what I meant.
I was thinking of a closed system as one isolated from its environment.
But there is no such thing
Which is why they relaxed the rules