I was surprised to find out about stotting being cooperation between cheetahs and gazelles. I was amused by the “rock-paper-scissors” common side blotched lizard.
Well, the superiority of Tit-for-Tat to most other Iterated PD strategies was discovered by evolutionary sims, and evidence has been found of its being used in nature. For instance, the behavior of WWI soldiers who stopped killing each other in the trenches by mutually choosing to only fire their artillery when fired upon first, and several instances in animals. I’m too lazy to look up the latter, but I’m pretty confident they’re in The Selfish Gene. I think lessdazed is asking if there are any other important game theory findings that don’t have that kind of real world support.
From memory of The Evolution of Cooperation—the soldiers didn’t refuse to fire their artillery. They aimed to miss.
Artillery truces drove the generals crazy, and they tried various solutions that I don’t remember. None of the solutions worked until they discovered by accident that frequently rotating the artillery crews meant that histories of trust couldn’t be developed.
Perhaps the generals could be viewed as building cooperation at their own level to maintain the killing.
The standard prisoner’s dilemma assumes a symmetrical grid, with both prisoners getting the same punishments under the same circumstances. I don’t know whether unequal power (access to rewards, risk and severity of punishment) has been explored.
This isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma. But the term ‘defection’ is not specific to the prisoner’s dilemma.
I don’t know whether unequal power (access to rewards, risk and severity of punishment) has been explored.
They have. Both with actual Prisoner’s Dilemmas with non-equivalent payoffs and in various other games which take similar forms. In the former case the guy with the lower payoff tends to defect more to try to get ‘equality’. But that is in a situation in which the subjects consider themselves of equal status (probably volunteer undergrads).
When two executives are each trying to get their organizations to defect first in a standard prisoner’s dilemma when the organizations both have impulses towards cooperation, the identical strategies among the executives do not constitute “cooperation” between them.
I agree each has motivations to see that their orders are followed regardless of what is good for the organizations, but this is not cooperation because both would have their organizations defect regardless of whether the other organization was inclined to cooperate or defect.
Cooperation between generals on two sides might look something like the Battle of Tannenberg, where each Russian general may have wanted the Germans to beat the other general before beating the Germans himself. That would be manifested as lack of conflict, such as the Russian First Army waiting for the German Eighth Army to beat the Russian Second Army before joining the battle.
Cooperation to induce fighting might be each HQ broadcasting vulnerable locations for the other artillerists to shoot at, or similar. I don’t know of any such cases, but then again, I wouldn’t necessarily know of them.
A lull in artillery fire would generally support one side or the other. I don’t think that generals’ interests systematically differed from those of their sides in such a way as to make it in both sides’ generals’ interests for their to be artillery fire rather than no artillery fire.
I think it is more likely that each was mistakenly overconfident that they could win with their strategy and tactics. WWI is replete with examples of generals’ overconfidence and I think that is a much better explanation of why each would prefer his orders followed than wanting to “maintain the killing”/”supposed to be fighting”, which seems like suggesting they are innately evil.
There are many examples of officers thinking the war would be best conducted under their offensive strategy when all were wrong and a defensive strategy would have been better.
They want their orders to be followed?
This is a very good point.
I still don’t see any sign of cooperation among generals across sides. I think it is more likely that each correctly thought the truces bad for morale, and the Central Powers were concerned their troops would cease to have the morale for offensive operations while the Entente was concerned that their troops would cease to have the morale necessary to fight at all. This would leave some wrong about who the truces favored.
I am under the anecdotal impression that this applied far more to explosives, particularly trench mortars, than it did to bullets, having read many more primary than secondary sources for the First World War.
If I recall correctly, German snipers were largely assigned to sections of front, while British and French snipers were assigned to regular units that rotated in and out of the front depending on casualties, strategic considerations, and the like (so “the Germans” wouldn’t be one entity to negotiate with). If true, this might partially explain why shooting truces were less common than mortar truces. This is in addition to the usual rotation of regular units on both sides that would prevent them from becoming too familiar with the enemy.
Another factor is that it is almost always plausible to refrain from firing artillery at targets due to supply concerns. This seems like it would make an artillery truce easier to de-escalate and maintain.
Do you have sources for (non-holiday, non-corpse collection) shooting truces?
Your point stands, obviously, regardless of the weapon types.
How common are game theory concepts that are not expressed in nature?
I don’t understand you, could you give an example?
I was surprised to find out about stotting being cooperation between cheetahs and gazelles. I was amused by the “rock-paper-scissors” common side blotched lizard.
In nature, is there a Rubinstein bargaining model or a game without a value, for example?
Well, the superiority of Tit-for-Tat to most other Iterated PD strategies was discovered by evolutionary sims, and evidence has been found of its being used in nature. For instance, the behavior of WWI soldiers who stopped killing each other in the trenches by mutually choosing to only fire their artillery when fired upon first, and several instances in animals. I’m too lazy to look up the latter, but I’m pretty confident they’re in The Selfish Gene. I think lessdazed is asking if there are any other important game theory findings that don’t have that kind of real world support.
From memory of The Evolution of Cooperation—the soldiers didn’t refuse to fire their artillery. They aimed to miss.
Artillery truces drove the generals crazy, and they tried various solutions that I don’t remember. None of the solutions worked until they discovered by accident that frequently rotating the artillery crews meant that histories of trust couldn’t be developed.
Perhaps the generals could be viewed as building cooperation at their own level to maintain the killing.
And as defectors against the soldiers. That sounds about right. If only soldiers were better at coordinating against their commanding officers!
The standard prisoner’s dilemma assumes a symmetrical grid, with both prisoners getting the same punishments under the same circumstances. I don’t know whether unequal power (access to rewards, risk and severity of punishment) has been explored.
This isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma. But the term ‘defection’ is not specific to the prisoner’s dilemma.
They have. Both with actual Prisoner’s Dilemmas with non-equivalent payoffs and in various other games which take similar forms. In the former case the guy with the lower payoff tends to defect more to try to get ‘equality’. But that is in a situation in which the subjects consider themselves of equal status (probably volunteer undergrads).
What would they be thinking? What would their goals be, and why?
Promotion and social esteem? The paths of glory lead but to the grave—for thems as do the actual fighting.
When two executives are each trying to get their organizations to defect first in a standard prisoner’s dilemma when the organizations both have impulses towards cooperation, the identical strategies among the executives do not constitute “cooperation” between them.
I agree each has motivations to see that their orders are followed regardless of what is good for the organizations, but this is not cooperation because both would have their organizations defect regardless of whether the other organization was inclined to cooperate or defect.
Cooperation between generals on two sides might look something like the Battle of Tannenberg, where each Russian general may have wanted the Germans to beat the other general before beating the Germans himself. That would be manifested as lack of conflict, such as the Russian First Army waiting for the German Eighth Army to beat the Russian Second Army before joining the battle.
Cooperation to induce fighting might be each HQ broadcasting vulnerable locations for the other artillerists to shoot at, or similar. I don’t know of any such cases, but then again, I wouldn’t necessarily know of them.
They want their side to win?
They’re caught up in being generals, so they think there’s supposed to be fighting?
They want their orders to be followed?
A lull in artillery fire would generally support one side or the other. I don’t think that generals’ interests systematically differed from those of their sides in such a way as to make it in both sides’ generals’ interests for their to be artillery fire rather than no artillery fire.
I think it is more likely that each was mistakenly overconfident that they could win with their strategy and tactics. WWI is replete with examples of generals’ overconfidence and I think that is a much better explanation of why each would prefer his orders followed than wanting to “maintain the killing”/”supposed to be fighting”, which seems like suggesting they are innately evil.
There are many examples of officers thinking the war would be best conducted under their offensive strategy when all were wrong and a defensive strategy would have been better.
This is a very good point.
I still don’t see any sign of cooperation among generals across sides. I think it is more likely that each correctly thought the truces bad for morale, and the Central Powers were concerned their troops would cease to have the morale for offensive operations while the Entente was concerned that their troops would cease to have the morale necessary to fight at all. This would leave some wrong about who the truces favored.
I am under the anecdotal impression that this applied far more to explosives, particularly trench mortars, than it did to bullets, having read many more primary than secondary sources for the First World War.
If I recall correctly, German snipers were largely assigned to sections of front, while British and French snipers were assigned to regular units that rotated in and out of the front depending on casualties, strategic considerations, and the like (so “the Germans” wouldn’t be one entity to negotiate with). If true, this might partially explain why shooting truces were less common than mortar truces. This is in addition to the usual rotation of regular units on both sides that would prevent them from becoming too familiar with the enemy.
Another factor is that it is almost always plausible to refrain from firing artillery at targets due to supply concerns. This seems like it would make an artillery truce easier to de-escalate and maintain.
Do you have sources for (non-holiday, non-corpse collection) shooting truces?
Your point stands, obviously, regardless of the weapon types.
I meant artillery truces, and I’ve fixed my last comment to be more clear. Sorry for the lack of precision.