The Parasite Dilemma

[Nicholasp27]

it's a game; the rules of the game don't say u have to follow what u said

that's not the same as multi-tabling a tourney, where the rules are that u may only enter under one name

[KipBond]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But let's look at the implications of your answer to question #2. You do non hesitate to break your word after giving it and essentially "cheat". Cheating is ok for you as long as you don't get caught or punished for it. ... Is this what you plan on teaching your kids as well? Cheating is ok, just don't get caught?

[/ QUOTE ]

What's wrong with cheating (or lying)?

[/ QUOTE ]

So you were not in the camp that condemned zeejustin for what he did? Your only criticism of him was his making the mistake of getting caught?

[/ QUOTE ]

I bet Justin would be glad we're still talking about him. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

But, your line of questioning brings me back to my original response to your game:

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
it isn't rational, super or otherwise, to contribute if u know that the rest will contribute

[/ QUOTE ]

By definition, it is Super-Rational. Being Super-Rational makes everybody money. That's what makes it Super-Rational.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the only way this can work, is if a player has some sort of utility outside of this one-time game. Perhaps "feeling good about not being a parasite" is worth more than he would gain if he were a parasite. Perhaps there is a meta-game where players learn about the other players' micro-game strategies, and adjust their behaviors accordingly. These sorts of things are what really happen in the real world.

My "Super Rational" strategy makes me feel good -- and when I talk to other people about their game strategies, if they aren't also a "super rational cooperator", then I don't trust them as much in other games.

[/ QUOTE ]

The condemnation of Justin was a meta-game; his getting caught had real consequences including those outside of the specific tournament he cheated in. All of these things are motivating factors that your OP game did not allow. It's now a completely different game: one that is not a "one-time, no-consequences" type.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
That remains to be seen.

[/ QUOTE ]

No it doesnt.

Discussing philosophical/moral ramifications are not relevant. They change the payoffs. If I attach some moral loss to "cheating" by decieiving my feloow players, then I am no longer receiving the utility of $194, I am receiving the utility of $194 - (cost of personal feelings of having cheated).

Once you change the payoffs, you change the game.

Since you are trying to change the game, I think my claim of "this is not relevant to the game in the OP" is very clearly correct.


If you want to get into the realm of morality, and start to look at how attaching values to honesty and deceit, thats totally OK. Obviously, we all add take into account morality when making our decisions. But it changes the game.


However, I would still like an answer to the questions that you seem to be unwilling to answer.


1) Does your decision affect the decisions of others playing the game. That is, if you choose to contribute rather than defect, does it have any affect on what the other 99 do.

2) Is it possible for the players in the game to play different strategies. For example, 80 choose to contribute and 20 choose to be a parasite.


If you are unwilling to answer these questions, I will take it as a sign that you feel they will lead to the destruction of your position in this thread.

[Silent A]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But let's look at the implications of your answer to question #2. You do non hesitate to break your word after giving it and essentially "cheat". Cheating is ok for you as long as you don't get caught or punished for it. ... Is this what you plan on teaching your kids as well? Cheating is ok, just don't get caught?

[/ QUOTE ]

What's wrong with cheating (or lying)?

[/ QUOTE ]

So you were not in the camp that condemned zeejustin for what he did? Your only criticism of him was his making the mistake of getting caught?

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you insist on going off on these irrelevent tangents? If you want to point out the benefits of "not cheating" (actually, "not lying" - the two are not the same) then all you have to do is put this game in an itterated environment (which, BTW, is far more relevent to practical applications).

It's true that a 100% contribute strategy is be best universal strategy, and it's the one the group would most want to approximate.

The lesson you want to draw from this, however, is not "therefore the best strategy is to contribute" but rather that it's in the group's interest to reconstruct the rules of the game such that contribution can be more heavily encouraged.

Perhaps the most effective way to do this is to allow for discussion and then change the "voting" procedure from secret to open and simultaneous (assuming the dollar values must stay fixed).

[Siegmund]

Fools rush in, etc etc... I'll take a stab at those two questions:

[ QUOTE ]

1) Does your decision affect the decisions of others playing the game. That is, if you choose to contribute rather than defect, does it have any affect on what the other 99 do.

2) Is it possible for the players in the game to play different strategies. For example, 80 choose to contribute and 20 choose to be a parasite.

[/ QUOTE ]

1) No. However, I have an awareness that whatever decision I am facing, the other players in the game are facing the same decision. My opponents have the same awareness. That is, if I am considering defecting, I know others are also considering defecting (and hoping for 99 people to cooperate while I defect is unrealistic.)

2) Ill-posed question: the first and second sentences use "strategy" differently. Here are three sub-answers:

2a) Trivially, yes, real-world players might make all sorts of stupid plays; but our interest is in sensible plays (where 'sensible' has not been firmly defined.)

2b) No; to answer your first sentence, for all sensible definitions of 'sensible', symmetric games have symmetric solutions. That is, everyone will play the same, possibly mixed, strategy.

2c) But 'playing the same (mixed) strategy' does not mean 'making the same move.' It's perfectly possible, for instance, for everyone to randomly choose parasite with probability .25 and cooperate with probability .75, and for this to result in 80 cooperators and 20 parasites.

The only dispute, really, is whether you are imagining each player optimizing only by partial derivatives, or imagining one big optimization where all the players' defection probabilities move at once. As we've seen, we arrive at different answers, both symmetric - a Nash solution of defection 31% of the time, or the superrational / "diagonally optimal" solution of defection 0% of the time.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
it's a game; the rules of the game don't say u have to follow what u said

that's not the same as multi-tabling a tourney, where the rules are that u may only enter under one name

[/ QUOTE ]

I contend that when you gave your word to Contribute you made a social contract with the other players by which you agreed to a new Rule. That new Rule being that everybody will Contribute.

This raises questions. Do you think people in general are incapable of entering into and honoring a social contract on bond of their word? Evidently you don't believe that or else you would not be so eager to take advantage of them when they do.

So, assuming you do believe people are capabable of entering into and honoring a social contract on bond of their word, why are you incapable of doing so as well? Is your incapacity due to superior rationality? Or is it in fact a sign that you suffer from a lack of rationality.

PairTheBoard

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
Fools rush in, etc etc... I'll take a stab at those two questions:

[ QUOTE ]

1) Does your decision affect the decisions of others playing the game. That is, if you choose to contribute rather than defect, does it have any affect on what the other 99 do.

2) Is it possible for the players in the game to play different strategies. For example, 80 choose to contribute and 20 choose to be a parasite.

[/ QUOTE ]

1) No. However, I have an awareness that whatever decision I am facing, the other players in the game are facing the same decision. My opponents have the same awareness. That is, if I am considering defecting, I know others are also considering defecting (and hoping for 99 people to cooperate while I defect is unrealistic.)

2) Ill-posed question: the first and second sentences use "strategy" differently. Here are three sub-answers:

2a) Trivially, yes, real-world players might make all sorts of stupid plays; but our interest is in sensible plays (where 'sensible' has not been firmly defined.)

2b) No; to answer your first sentence, for all sensible definitions of 'sensible', symmetric games have symmetric solutions. That is, everyone will play the same, possibly mixed, strategy.

2c) But 'playing the same (mixed) strategy' does not mean 'making the same move.' It's perfectly possible, for instance, for everyone to randomly choose parasite with probability .25 and cooperate with probability .75, and for this to result in 80 cooperators and 20 parasites.

The only dispute, really, is whether you are imagining each player optimizing only by partial derivatives, or imagining one big optimization where all the players' defection probabilities move at once. As we've seen, we arrive at different answers, both symmetric - a Nash solution of defection 31% of the time, or the superrational / "diagonally optimal" solution of defection 0% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is essentially what I have been trying to say as well. See also "Superrationality" here,

Wikipedia entry for Superrationality

as well as Douglas Hofstadter's compilation of his Scientific American Articles,

Metamagical Themas

PairTheBoard

[CallMeIshmael]

Your answer seems to be assuming that we are working in a situation where the assumption of common knowledge of rationality. This was never stated.



Also,

[ QUOTE ]
2) Ill-posed question: the first and second sentences use "strategy" differently.

[/ QUOTE ]

No they dont.

First part of the sentence: "Is it possible for the players in the game to play different strategies."

Here I use strategy to mean "decision doublet, which prepresents the players chance of playing P or C, (probs for each range from 0 to 1)"

Second part: For example, 80 choose to contribute and 20 choose to be a parasite

Here, contribute and parasite represent pure strategies (ie, prob = 1), which are of course, decision doublets [0 1] and [1 0]

(this, perhaps, would have been more clear if you had read the first and second times I asked PTB the question, since I, for the fun of it, made the group (70 people play P, 25 play C, and 5 play the nash mixed))

[Gregatron]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think the only way this can work, is if a player has some sort of utility outside of this one-time game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or if people just realize that the Smart thing to do is to be Super Rational so that everybody can make money.

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]
This is similar to points political sociologist Robert Putnam made in his book Making Democracy Work. He called norms of civic trust and horizontal social networks "social capital." Cliff notes: having mutual trust in people helps overcome collective action problems, be they group formation (Mancur Olson) or the tragedy of the commons (Elinor Ostrom). I would think it would work the same for this sort of altered prisoner's dilemma.

Knowing what I do about rational choice theory, aside from the super rationality being mentioned, I think the concept of minimaxing is relevant. That is where a rational actor does NOT seek to maximize his utility by maximizing his maximum gains, but rather minimizing his maximum losses. This would be a reason to choose to contribute.

[borisp]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If I feel everyone is going to contribute, why wouldnt I play parasite?


[/ QUOTE ]

Because of a reason you haven't thought of. A reason that depends on creative thinking. A reason that takes you outside your box of logic. A reason that the professional theoreticians are still working on formulating. A reason you will never discover unless you look for it.

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]
I haven't read the rest of the thread, but this occurs to me as some of the most truthful and insightful commentary I have seen on this forum.