7 ms·
Game theory illustrated by an animated cartoon game
- ChicagoBoy11 1y agoThe Evolution of Cooperation is one of the best non-fiction book I've ever read. Through basic algebra it lets you in on appreciating such a deep and profound idea.
- wrboyce 1y agoAnother great book on the subject is The Joy of Game Theory by Presh Talwalkar.
- adi_lancey 1y agothis is pretty cool, very nice explanation of concepts I hadn't touched since undergrad econ
- daveguy 1y agoThe simulation didn't cover the problem that the US is having right now -- intentional miscommunication. Unfortunately, there's a reason some countries employ warehouses full of trolls and propaganda spreaders. If you are losing the "game" spreading chaos will level the playing field. It will take the people of those countries to stop their leadership from acting in bad faith before things improve. This is also the reason some social media outlets have become dystopian hellscapes.
- gowld 1y agoThere's a ncase.me app for that! https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb "WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD a game about news cycles, vicious cycles, infinite cycles"
- felineflock 1y agoMade me find out I don't dislike the media enough.
- frollogaston 1y agohttps://ncase.me/crowds/ https://ncase.me/crowds/ is kinda about this. Not intentional misinformation exactly, just about how ideas like anger are amplified when you have an overly connected social network. There's supposedly a sweet spot. Also, that's one of my favorite websites ever.
- NullHypothesist 1y agoFound this ~10 years ago. Still one of the best things i've ever come across on the internet.
- gota 1y agoSimilar - this is where I found out about Komiku's music; I must've heard to thousands of hours of this while writing code
- clueless 1y agospoiler alert: is copycat strategy the reason united states feels like it's becoming more like the rest of the world, more authoritarian?
- yubblegum 1y agoThe implicit in your q is a negation of the notion of 'social classes'. If you accept the notion of social class (in the political/economical sense) the possibility remains that it is 'theatre' to hoist "authoritarianism" globally over the under classes.
- Planktonne 1y ago> more like the rest of the world, more authoritarian I don't think these are equivalent.
- gowld 1y agoplaying time: 30 min • by nicky case, july 2017
- netbioserror 1y agoI remember that in older formal game theory tournaments, a punish-once single-retaliation strategy won out. It was unconditional on copying, simply that if the opponent cheated, you cheat back once and then forgive until another cheat. Another form of Golden Rule approach. But I think those tournaments were under simpler conditions than the one here. I like the incorporation of miscommunication, and being able to change the parameters.
- dfltr 1y agoI remember that as well, but only because it's mentioned in book 8 of The Expanse.
- gowld 1y agoOnce weakness in those tournaments is that every interaction has the same stakes, so it doesn't model the possibility of "con artists" who behave generally at low stakes, but cheat at high stakes.
- xpe 1y agoVarying the stakes would be interesting. My understanding is this: in these computerized multi-player repeated games, each agent has no knowledge of previous games nor identities of other players. So every game a particular agent plays must follow the same algorithm. This means tournament results can easily be tabulated by tallying performance of each strategy type.
- itsthecourier 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14850880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14850880
- tiffanyh 1y agoVertasium has a great video talking how Tit-for-Tat (Copycat) wins as a strategy (and how there was a math competition that proved it as well) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScpHTIi-kM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScpHTIi-kM --- This seems like a nice rebuild of the math competition performed years ago (as talked about in the video link above). Direct link to that part of the video: https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM?si=yzZxyeYw4cJA-i37&t=583 https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM?si=yzZxyeYw4cJA-i37&t=583
- gowld 1y agoTit-for-Tat with occasional Forgiveness and occasional Defection (abuse of trust) often performs better than pure Tit-For-Tat, especially in the presence of random error. Tit-For-Tat falls into "permanent mutual Defection" tar-pit when playing against a Tit-for-Tat-like opponent that Defects once (perhaps in error) and is non-Forgiving. Humans are pretty good at repeated-game theory, intuitively.
- frollogaston 1y agoThe ncase.me game goes into the forgiveness part
- elliotto 1y agoThe success of tit-for-tat is a common misunderstanding; it is only the most successful within the makeup of Axelrod's tournament. The OP explains that the strategy is entirely dependent on the environment, and tit-for-tat may not always be the optimal strategy.
- xpe 1y agoIf you want the take-aways, click the next-to-last navigation circle on the bottom of the screen. I won't paste the spoilers here, because I think it would detract the experience.
- yubblegum 1y agoSo this little game actually amplifies the distinction between "game theory" and (let's call it) 'relationship theory'. In the former you rely on strategy. In the latter, you rely on established trust. You run the game once and at the end you are given 'character' headsup on the participants. Next time around playing the same game, you know who is who. p.s. In effect the distinction can be generalized as 'depth of priors' for the 'bayesian game'.
- gowld 1y agoAre you talking about "one-off games" vs "repeated games", or something else? Repeated games are part of "game theory"
- yubblegum 1y agoRepeated games. Think relationships. Once you have an accurate grasp of the 'character' of your playmate you can approach optimal results. For example, the character with the flower hat is a 'detective'. We can assume the initial encounter is a coin-toss choice for her and the rest of her choices determined by 'character'. Of course even her first choice is 'in character' (she is 'testing') but if you know her, even if she starts off with a 'cheat' on her first choice, you start off with a 'cooperate'. After that, there is little mystery as to her choices. Or consider the 'grudger'. If for whatever reason you end up choosing 'cheat' once, you know they will never 'forgive' you. etc.
- gametheory87 1y ago[dead]
- dfltr 1y agoI don't know if this is the official term for it, but that just sounds like metagaming[1], i.e. incorporating knowledge of the opposing player (or of trends among a group of opposing players) into how you play the game. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagame#Competitive_gaming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagame#Competitive_gaming
- searine 1y agoThis makes me think about The Dark Forest and the chain of distrust that results from lightspeed communications at stellar scale. The universe is harsh...
- ericrosedev 1y agoAnd the stakes are instant annihilation! so there is no room for mistakes, eliminating almost all other viable positions
- aeve890 1y agoHow the stakes are instant annihilation if the premise itself it's based on the delay of communication? Unless the attack is at the speed of light, you'll still have time to correct the message, right?
- ericrosedev 1y agoYou're right, I misspoke. I meant assured annihilation
- badmonster 1y agovery cute!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoRadiolab had a story about this idea that I enjoyed. https://radiolab.org/podcast/104010-one-good-deed-deserves-another https://radiolab.org/podcast/104010-one-good-deed-deserves-a...
- xpe 1y agoRadiolab's overdramatic style has the ability to ruin even my favorite topics.
- hayst4ck 1y agoThis is one of my favorite things on the internet, but it focuses on the positive side of the story which is that groups of people cooperating can defeat a bunch of people who cheat each other. That's a pleasant message. Unfortunately, I think the corollary is much more important. What this clearly shows is that on an extremely fundamental level, getting cheated or cooperating with people who act in bad faith is what creates the cheating. If you tolerate bad faith, you ask for more bad faith behavior. If you believe in personal agency and personal responsibility and don't believe in magical thinking, then it shows on a very mathematical level that your own weakness, the ability for someone to take advantage of you without consequences, is what creates defection rather than cooperation. The lesson is clear, that if you want a world you want to be a part of, then you must become powerful and choose to use that power for good.
- xp84 1y agoI feel like your comment sums up many life lessons. It's also the reason I stopped believing in extreme leftism as I matured. I think as young idealists we think "Surely if we just gave the government a lot more tax money, they'd solve the problems we all say we care about" and "Surely if you just give freely to whomever says they're in need, they won't cheat the system!" Later I started to see the patterns where government spends most of the money lining the pockets of the well-connected, and then on the micro level how many people take advantage of any method of unjust enrichment, given the chance, and you start to desire much more accountability from all parties. And yes, things like, say, exhaustive income verification to qualify for benefits definitely hurts those who are playing by the rules the whole time. It's the cost of having trashy individuals in society who exploit everyone relentlessly.
- ericrosedev 1y agoIt looks like Copykitten is the sweet spot to me, with a focus on keeping miscommunication to a minimum. I wonder where, between 0% and 1%, there is a noticeable deviation, because I find the idea of the Copykitten more nuanced than the copycat, but the copycat always wins somewhere between 0 and 1.
- 1y ago
- derbOac 1y agoNow add communication between players to repeated trials.
- gcanyon 1y agoNo conversation on game theory is complete until someone brings up Golden Balls, and in particular this amazing moment (warning: terrible audio quality). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8
- bjconlan 1y agoI must say this is amazing. The psychology and manipulation makes me realize how poor I am regarding trust even when the other side is pushing for some unconfirmed equilibrium. In the game I acknowledge that I was aligned to the "Simpleton" strategy (before it was outlined). Looks like simpleton might actually be applicable in a more general sense too which is a little disheartening.
- zharknado 1y agoFantastic! Top notch explainer and engaging game. To me it’s important to say that tit-for-tat and the Golden Rule are not the same. My understanding of the two are very different.
- fracus 1y agoThis web site was so enlightening. I imagine it could often be difficult to put theory to practice as in real life there are so many variables to consider and many of them we can't quantify. Some of the demos illustrated complete opposite results due to a 1% change in the miscommunication variable. But I will say the 3 main takeaways they give you were more general and certainly applicable to real life.
- pella 1y agohttps://ncase.me/trust/notes/ https://ncase.me/trust/notes/ ( NOTES: "The Evolution of Trust" )
- Nopoint2 1y agoI think that detective isn't the correct way to exploit copycat. A character which cooperates, but cheats at random, and keeps defecting if you retaliate, could push the balance towards cooperators. Grudgers, not forgivers, also win in high error scenarios for some reason, as long as enough rounds are played.
- Digit-Al 1y agoIf the creator is reading this, I was having problems with the viewport on my tablet. I can't scroll around the page and in portrait mode, stuff disappears off the side of the page, and in landscape mode stuff disappears off the top and bottom of the page.
- krisoft 1y agoI disagree with the phrasing right the first question it asks. It says "Let's say the other player cheats, and doesn't put in a coin. What should you do?" and the two buttons are "cheat" and "cooperate". But if the other player doesn't put a coin in then not putting in a coin is not "cheating". It is simply not playing the game with that person. Cheating would be where you say you will put in the coin (or have already put the coin in) but not doing so.
- Tsarp 1y agoThis is really the best ways to explain basic game theory to anyone. It wasn't until some excellent Profs in Grad school that I finally understand some of the most basic concepts, but would always find it hard to explain to friends and family. I also think game theory is one of the most important philosophies/life-lessons to understand as you go through life and this is an excellent resource to get people started on the basics.
- pmkary 1y agoOne of the most "old but golds". I smile every time this makes it into the top here.
- redbell 1y agoGame Theory is a vast concept and I believe this work would be better classified under Prisoner's Dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma), which is by definition: The prisoner's dilemma is a game theory thought experiment involving two rational agents, each of whom can either cooperate for mutual benefit or betray their partner ("defect") for individual gain. The dilemma arises from the fact that while defecting is rational for each agent, cooperation yields a higher payoff for each. Also, in the second game, it says: ..but if you cheat & they cooperate, you gain three coins at their cost of one. (score: +3 vs -1) Therefore: you "should" still CHEAT. Yes, technically and mathematically, it's 100% correct but morally, ethically and/or emotionally, it hurts.. a lot. Personally, I would never, ever do that!
- drdrek 1y agoOne of the things I take is that if you keep the game the same but turn the punishment for both cheating really high cooperation blossoms even with high degree of miscommunication. Bring back hanging and quartering for petty crimes! In all seriousness Game Theory fails in reality because it cannot account for the players changing the game.