The real-life cooperation game

The Wizard's ongoing cooperation game makes me think of analogues to it in real life. I was wondering whether our species contains enough selfish defectors so that any reasonably large cooperative group eventually falls apart. I'm thinking of disparate situations such as the EU (where selfish Britain is killing the game) and cocktail parties, where everyone talks louder and louder until everyone has to scream to be heard. In so many instances and so many contexts, we could achieve a desired outcome if everybody would just %^%$#$ cooperate. But the rewards (often illusory) from defecting are too tempting for some.

This can be writ large in the decision of some people to be evil. If you get away with it, you profit by it. Of course, society would be better off if no one made that decision. It can also be seen in the decision of countries to wage war rather than engage in diplomacy and trade.

Speaking of good and evil, let's take a look at conservatives vs. medical care. Conservatives don't want universal health care because it would cost them money and the benefits to them would be minimal (they can already afford health care). Those benefits, however, also include the overall well-being of society. So well-off conservatives who advocate for (for instance) canceling Obamacare are selfish; those who advocate for its continuation are cooperators.

The ultimate question for anyone in society is: which bothers you more, that your own personal EV isn't maximized, or that total societal EV is not maximized? If you would be willing to sacrifice some of your EV to add to that of society, you're an altruist; if not, you're selfish. I think the human experiment is showing that altruistic societies are happier AND more prosperous. The key concept is that you can have BOTH well-being and material wealth as a society. But I think that too many people view it all as a zero-sum game: if you get it, it has to be taken away from me.

Harking back to the Wizard's game for a moment, the key finding so far is that WE'VE IDENTIFIED AN OPTIMAL STRATEGY AND STILL CAN'T COOPERATE ENOUGH TO IMPLEMENT IT. That's kind of horrifying, if you think about it.

Quote: Joeshlabotnik

Harking back to the Wizard's game for a moment, the key finding so far is that WE'VE IDENTIFIED AN OPTIMAL STRATEGY AND STILL CAN'T COOPERATE ENOUGH TO IMPLEMENT IT. That's kind of horrifying, if you think about it.

There's too many factors (especially online anonymous people ) to maximize EV in his experiment. There's also not enough incentive for people to take it seriously.