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The Evolution of Trust

ncase.me

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Re: The Evolution of Trust

#71

Post by abakker »

carapace wrote: post #45
brudgers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of the replacement is that poorest adopt the strategy of the richest and is premised on this being the right thing to do even if the change is from always cooperating to always cheating. In some ways the description of replacement rather death is a more explicit example of the premise underlying the simulation that cheating is morally/ethically/rationally justifiable. The underlying moral/ethical theory b…

The "reward" is an unspecified scalar value. You are casting the terms of the model into "poor" and "rich". It's a mathematical model, not an ethical one.

Yes, and we are talking about strategies to win a "game" The game is not necessarily "the economy"

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#72

Post by carapace »

brudgers wrote: post #70
carapace wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "reward" is an unspecified scalar value. You are casting the terms of the model into "poor" and "rich". It's a mathematical model, not an ethical one.

'Cooperation' and 'cheating' and 'mistake' are not mathematical terms. They are part of moral/ethical/rational frameworks. The realm in which the simulation is supposed to provide insight is moral/ethical/rational. Moral/ethical/rational conclusions are the point of the website. If the point is just mathematical, then limiting interactions to one and cheating is the best strategy. The simulations assume autonomous de…

If you are complaining that the mathematical toys of Game Theory are inadequate for modeling human moral/ethical/rational behavior then I agree with you whole-heartedly.

I'm just insisting that we keep the math toy and the interpretation of the math toy on different "logical levels".

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#73

Post by brudgers »

carapace wrote: post #72
brudgers wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Cooperation' and 'cheating' and 'mistake' are not mathematical terms. They are part of moral/ethical/rational frameworks. The realm in which the simulation is supposed to provide insight is moral/ethical/rational. Moral/ethical/rational conclusions are the point of the website. If the point is just mathematical, then limiting interactions to one and cheating is the best strategy. The simulations assume autonomous de…

If you are complaining that the mathematical toys of Game Theory are inadequate for modeling human moral/ethical/rational behavior then I agree with you whole-heartedly. I'm just insisting that we keep the math toy and the interpretation of the math toy on different "logical levels".

If the presentation of the models was an academic paper filled with equations, I would not find the insistence unreasonable. In this case the context for The Evolution of Trust is alongside the Parable of the Polygons and parables are not mathematical or game theory.

At the mathematical level, if there is nothing moral/ethical/rational to draw from the simulation, then what's the point? If it's just math, then why is it only the least successful agents that switch to the most successful strategy and why are they able to switch to the most successful strategy before it is clear that that strategy is the most successful? Going further why don't moderately unsuccessful agents switch strategies? And since mistakes are part of the simulation, why don't agents mistakenly switch strategies? Why does the simulation maintain a constant number of agents rather than varying based on outcome?

The reason is that the goal of the presentation is to encourage people to be more open to the possibility of mistakes before retaliation. The presentation is trying to appeal to people using mathematics. My criticism is that the price of the mathematical model is too high: justifying cheating because it is best for the individual.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#75

Post by carapace »

brudgers wrote: post #73
carapace wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are complaining that the mathematical toys of Game Theory are inadequate for modeling human moral/ethical/rational behavior then I agree with you whole-heartedly. I'm just insisting that we keep the math toy and the interpretation of the math toy on different "logical levels".

If the presentation of the models was an academic paper filled with equations, I would not find the insistence unreasonable. In this case the context for The Evolution of Trust is alongside the Parable of the Polygons and parables are not mathematical or game theory. At the mathematical level, if there is nothing moral/ethical/rational to draw from the simulation, then what's the point? If it's just math, then why is…

I think I see what you're saying. The author is trying to use the Game Theory mathematical model to encourage a moral or ethical response, but the model itself is flawed for that purpose because it just as readily portrays a moral "poison", if you will: the idea that selfishness can justify cheating. Is that it?

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#76

Post by bshanks »

cryptica wrote: post #12

Wow that is extremely insightful. 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 per match ), then society will evolve to become full of cheaters.

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].

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)

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#78

Post by vivekd »

hyperpallium wrote: post #39
Symmetry wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's an intriguing but hard to prove theory that some popular religions (Christianity, Buddhism) arose as cities became more populous, and in response to that. Part of your "social technology". Perhaps we'll soon see a new religion?

but we know that's not true. In the case of Christianity it arose in rural areas and was opposed by urban governments. Also, it did not spread in conjunction with urbanization but instead spread suddenly.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#79

Post by ouid »

tgragnato wrote: post #56
ouid wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust yelp reviews ever since I learned that you can pay to remove bad ones.

A clear economic incentive to cheaters or a way to give a weight to mistakes? Does yelp use an algorithm to weight the thing or use the mechanism only as a source of income? > Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate The economic incentive to encourage cheaters is the reason why the "trusted intermediary" should always be verified.

are you quoting me? I don't speak latin.

Re: The Evolution of Trust

#80

Post by tgragnato »

ouid wrote: post #79
tgragnato wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A clear economic incentive to cheaters or a way to give a weight to mistakes? Does yelp use an algorithm to weight the thing or use the mechanism only as a source of income? > Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate The economic incentive to encourage cheaters is the reason why the "trusted intermediary" should always be verified.

are you quoting me? I don't speak latin.

No, I'm quoting Occam. The literal translation is "don't evaluate the possibilities if it's not necessary".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

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