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Cooperation Works if Majority Can Punish Freeloaders
plasmid writes: "Some Swiss economists ran an investment game... they found that if the majority could punish freeloaders, cooperation flourished. I think this has implications for cooperative peer-to-peer systems and, to a lesser extent, for open source development. I'm so inspired I plan to go out an punish someone right now, as a matter of fact." I had just read this article the other day (go memepool), so this Nature piece seems oddly apropos.
I know its funny, but this actually applies.
Think about it. If you have one large server that everyone tries to download from without others participating, several problems emerge. First of all, you saturate the bandwidth on that connection. Secondly, with limited resources, it takes much longer for everyone to obtain what they're wanting. And when the server is located by authorities and shut down, a major resource is lost.
Now, have everyone serve. Anyone looking for something can always find it, because its everywhere. They can always get it, because no one server is oversaturated, as the load is spread out. If one or even several servers get shut down, the effect is minimal. Everyone benefits when everyone cooperates and nobody is hit too harshly.
Now we have another form of potential punishment in this case, not from those that participate, but from law enforcement. Law enforcement, unlike the traders, is more likely to go after those who DO participate, and the freeloaders will get off scott free.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Funny that Swiss Economists should come up with this conclusion.
Swiss - Sit back and watch the rest of the world fight tyranny and just rake the money in wherever and however it was attained
Economists - Earn money based on pseudo-science and predictions which are as reliable as those gained by examining chicken entrails.
Therefore should'nt we just punish Swiss Economists
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
I seem to remember a statistic back in the old napster days that the majority of the people were freeloaders e.g. they just downloaded without offering anything themselves.
Now if we apply this swiss theory to p2p applications you know what will happen?
1) if the majority of the users are freeloaders then there is little chance that they are going to kick other freeloading users off the service
2) assuming that only contributors to the community get a vote then they will be faced with a massive task of getting rid of the freeloaders
3) once you lose all the freeloaders you are left with the people who adopted early and helped the service become massive, but you will have lost the majority of the userbase
4) once a service gets a bad reputation it sticks, and since these services gain popularity through word of mouth rather than regular channels you lose a lot of the potential users
5) lastly a particular p2p service may be good but there are a large number of services which are just as good and which wouldn't support this concept of co-operation.
Just my 2c
A similar set of ideals has been previously applied in psychological and darwinian non-zero sum games where there is a reduced personal gain but higher group gain from cooperation. These games challenge participants in finding an optimal outcome for both in cases where there are multiple iterations of choices to cooperate or 'defect' from cooperation - the website details only a new variant of these.
One model is that of the cold war. If both countries cooperate in an arms reduction treaty, they both win some, but for the individual country, a win can be made if their competitor cooperates and they 'defect' and build more arsenal.
This game has a matrix of possible points scored by each side depending on their individual choices.
. . . . . coop . . defectcoop . . . 3,3 . . 5,0
defect . . 0,5 . . 1,1
In the above situation, the two scores delimited by commas indicate the score for each country. If the countries both cooperate, each receives three points. However, if they disagree, one country will win, but the sum score is less. The interesting situation is if both defect - the value placed on these scores may also determine how the game is played through multiple iterations by two players.
Another variant is the prisoner's dilemma game. Two criminals are captured, and the DA will cut one of them a deal if they squeal on the other. Of course, if both squeal on each other, both loose big. If both are quiet, they will get a lesser charge. The dilemma is that the best group outcome is that they will both fare better if they are both quiet, but they don't know what the other will do.
The article listed is similar to this, but different that there is a cost involved in punishing the 'bad' player that doesn't pay into the investment pot. Here the game asks you to punish the uncooperative player with costs now, but the punishment might make them more likely to contribute in future rounds of the game. Interesting.
People will pay to punish - suggesting that their
notions of fairness outweigh selfish considerations.
This quote reminds me of an experiment. It runs something like this: A group of people is divided into two groups of equal size. Then each group is asked this simple question: We will either give both groups $2 per person or we'll give each of you three bucks and each of them four bucks. What would you prefer?
85% of the participants go for the two bucks.
So next time I get moderation priveledges, I'm going to mod down people who haven't posted anything :)
A lighthouse is for the common good, but can't exist without being charged for. However, due to its nature (it just emits light), you cannot deny service to those who don't pay - they'll see light regardless of whether they've contributed.
The dilemma is - as a ship owner, you have no incentive to pay for upkeep as the service is delivered to you anyway. This works right up until the moment the lighthouse has to close, at which point it becomes in your best interest to ensure everyone pays. Note that - everyone, not just you. If only you pay, you're still at a disadvantage.
Can't remember the exact terminology they used - I think it's a form of 'free good', but I'm prepared to be corrected on that. Why these researchers felt the need to reprove a very old and established theory is beyond me.
Cheers,
Ian
PS: 'A'-Levels - the exams in the UK taken when you're about 18.
Punishment is a purely selfish strategy: spend money punishing someone, so they will invest more, so your profits increase.
Incorrect - In the actual experiment, if you chose to punish a `freeloader' then you paid out of your own profits, and no one else's. The games were not iterated (played repeatedly with the same cast of players), so any consequent change in the freeloader's behavior would not be to your benefit. Perhaps on the next time around, the freeloader would have a change of heart, but even if s/he did this was not likely to be to your own benefit.
Thus in the context of the game, choosing to punish was a very counter-selfish act - not selfish at all, but quite the opposite. That's what makes the research so interesting.
-Renard