

Rats Cooperate in Prisoners' Dilemma - mhb
http://blog.the-scientist.com/2010/03/25/amazing-rats/

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ekanes
"The authors of the PLoS study noted that when experimenters observed low
cooperation rates, the animals had been food deprived. Fully satiated rats, on
the other hand, freely cooperated and easily solved the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
These results show that the primordial drive for food in a hungry animal
simply clouds judgement."

Rather than say "hunger clouds judgement", it's more likely that hunger leads
to _short-term optimization_ , and the prisoner's dilemma is all about long-
term optimization where you will usually get another chance to cooperate or
not.

If you're hungry, and you cooperate and get chumped... well you may not eat
again. ;)

~~~
fnid2
Maybe this is why some people who are content with their lives, happy to not
constantly need more, feel like we should collaborate more than compete. Those
who are greedy and need more, more, more are more typically _hard_
capitalists. Those who have enough are more socialist.

I have more than I need and I don't mind sharing. Bill Gates doesn't mind
sharing. Warren Buffett doesn't mind sharing. But the bankers who are
continuing to take money even when they have billions in the bank lobby
congress to make it harder for credit card holders to escape debt with
bankruptcy.

We've replaced the food hunger with power hunger. There's plenty of food to go
around. Plenty of space. But our hunger for money, power, and fame causes
irrationally selfish behavior.

~~~
dantheman
I think this is completely wrong. Bill gates and warren buffet don't mind
sharing, but they do want you to honor your contracts with them and purchase
your goods. Just because they don't lend people money means that they those
who cannot afford their goods just don't purchase them. Whereas banks when
banks expect you to pay your debts they are "greedy and don't want to share".
Also don't forget Buffet is a banker too, how much of goldman sachs and other
banks does he own?

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jamesbressi
"Studies conducted in other labs previously concluded that rats didn’t grasp
how to succeed in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The authors of the PLoS study noted
that when experimenters observed low cooperation rates, the animals had been
food deprived. Fully satiated rats, on the other hand, freely cooperated and
easily solved the Prisoner’s Dilemma. These results show that the primordial
drive for food in a hungry animal simply clouds judgement."

The same goes for employees by either (1) feeding them or (2) making sure they
eat.

Either way, I consistently noticed a significant increase in cooperation for
tasks at hand when either (1) I fully paid for food--like pizza--to share with
the team, or (2) informed everyone I was ordering food and to tell me what
they want and collected money.

The only difference in behavior observed between the two examples above is
when I performed #1, there was always an increase in the number of "what else
can I do" or "do you need anything" and more frequent inquiries about the
nature of progress which would then lead to the "what else..." and "do you
need..."

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argv_empty
I was under the impression that in Prisoners' Dilemma, the punishment for the
"sucker" was supposed to be more extreme than the punishment if both prisoners
rat on each other.

~~~
araneae
Yeah, this is not the Prisoner's Dilemma! The way they described it the table
looks like this:

    
    
      Player 1, Player 2
    
         C     D
        ____ ____
      C|1, 1|0, 1|
      D|1, 0|0, 0|
    

In this case, both cooperate and defect are Nash equilibrium strategies, which
is NOT the case for a Prisoner's Dilemma.

In order for this to be the Prisoner's Dilemma, only defect must be in NE,
see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma>

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diN0bot
"Past experiments hinted that humans are the only species capable of figuring
out how to win the game"

What about flocks of birds and other cooperative groups?

~~~
praptak
I believe the key here is "figuring out" - choosing a particular behaviour in
a setup not found in natural setting. If a particular behaviour is hardcoded
in DNA (e.g. bees building hexagonal cells), you cannot say it's been figured
out.

Well, maybe by the evolution but not the animal.

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3pt14159
I'd really like to see some sort of setup where rat is pitted against man and
other species.

~~~
praptak
Why duplicate reality?

