Why cooperators always win in the long run | Hacker News Reader

Why cooperators always win in the long run

phys.org

This is an old idea, nice to see it get more mainstream visibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evoluti... (1902)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation (1981)

Yes, it is an old idea, but here they also reiterates that old conclusion by taking into account a new opposing researched idea - the "zero-determinant" selfish-play strategy.

I am not an expert in this field; but I don't see why ZD was seen so significantly (by the field, apparently) given the fact that ZD vs ZD does not work out so well (again, just going by that article), which fails one of the basic "robustness" tests arising out of this type of research.

The recent Adami/Hintze paper that is topic of this article is itself the paper that shows that the ZD strategy is not evolutionarily stable. The May 2012 Press/Dyson paper was what caused people to question what had been thought settled for 30 years, and Adami/Hintze paper pointed out mistakes/limitations of Press/Dyson's conclusion. Before Adami/Hintze paper is was not clear that ZD strategy "did not work out so well". You can download the Adami/Hintze paper here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.2666

Maybe it was notable enough by the way they came to their conclusions, and that it was an interdisciplinary team that worked on it? I'm not in the field but found the post interesting and from a new angle.

But yes, it's not radically new idea. In cash game poker (in situations where you that much better than your opponent), you don't necessary want to win a regular's money consistently all the time. Better to keep your customer returning by showing some vulnerability.

How is "keep your customer returning by showing some vulnerability" at all related to mutual aid / co-operation? In spirit it's still an aggressive strategy and relies on your customers being dumb enough not to notice.

It would be interesting to see the results of their model if it had included modern methods for selfish actors to create artificial scarcity, ala the copyright and patent systems that currently exist.

In fact, I wonder if they allowed for any "market" distorting (whatever that is in context) actions to take place, or if that was to complex.

Those selfish actors aren't working alone though, they work in the co-operation of others, governments in the main. That co-operation appears to pay dividends for both parties.

There is also the concept of Daisy World, which demonstrates that even when organisms are selfish, they can lead to mutual positive outcomes.

For those who don't know about Daisyworld-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gVERGAieng

But also there are conmen which will appear as cooperators until certain moment.

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