PLEKTIX: Freedom and the Public Goods. Last post, I used the example of a protest against peanut allergy-related procedures to explore how the American conception of "rights" may be changing. In particular, I suggested that ideas of common or collective good were being displaced by an increasingly narrow and selfish definition of individual liberty.
A few friends pointed out that I may have unfairly maligned libertarians, anarchists, and others wary of government power. These people aren't necessarily opposed to volunteerism or helping others; they just don't want to be coerced into doing so (or have their money taken for these purposes). This is a fair point. However, it doesn't make me feel much better about the "leave me alone" political philosophy. I don't think this philosophy will ever be up to solving our common challenges. The Public Goods Game represents situations in which there is a common resource ("public good") that benefits all members of a group. Contributions decline over time to virtually nothing. Tyranny of small decisions. The tyranny of small decisions refers to a phenomenon explored in an essay by that name, published in 1966 by the American economist Alfred E.
Kahn.[1] The article describes a situation where a number of decisions, individually small in size and time perspective, cumulatively result in an outcome which is not optimal nor desired. It is a situation where a series of small, individually rational decisions can negatively change the context of subsequent choices, even to the point where desired alternatives are irreversibly destroyed. Kahn described the problem as a common issue in market economics which can lead to market failure.[1] The concept has since been extended to areas other than economic ones, such as environmental degradation,[2] political elections[3] and health outcomes.[4] A classic example of the tyranny of small decisions is the tragedy of the commons, described by Garrett Hardin in 1968[5] as a situation where a number of herders graze cows on a commons.
Counters[edit] Mamihlapinatapai. The word Mamihlapinatapai (sometimes spelled mamihlapinatapei) is derived from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "most succinct word", and is considered[by whom?] One of the hardest words to translate. It allegedly refers to "a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves.
"[1] A slightly different interpretation of the meaning also exists: "It is that look across the table when two people are sharing an unspoken but private moment. It is also referenced in Defining the World in a discussion of the difficulties facing Samuel Johnson in trying to arrive at succinct, yet accurate, definitions of words.[5] In popular culture[edit] The word and its definition was the title of a groundbreaking exhibition by Max Pinckers and Michiel Burger in Amsterdam's Flemish Cultural Centre De Brakke Grond in 2012. References[edit] Bystander effect. Social psychology research[edit] Variables affect bystanders[edit] Emergency versus non-emergency situations[edit] Latané and Darley performed three experiments to test bystander behavior in non-emergency situations[4] Their results indicated that the way in which the subjects were asked for help mattered.
In one condition, subjects asked a bystander for his or her name. According to Latané and Darley, there are five characteristics of emergencies that affect bystanders[4] Emergencies involve threat of harm or actual harmEmergencies are unusual and rareThe type of action required in an emergency differs from situation to situationEmergencies cannot be predicted or expectedEmergencies require immediate action Due to these five characteristics, bystanders go through cognitive and behavioural processes: Notice that something is going onInterpret the situation as being an emergencyDegree of Responsibility feltForm of AssistanceImplement the action choice In one study done by Abraham S. Laws[edit] Volunteer's dilemma. The volunteer's dilemma game models a situation in which each of X players faces the decision of either making a small sacrifice from which all will benefit, or freeriding.
One example is a scenario in which the electricity has gone out for an entire neighborhood. All inhabitants know that the electricity company will fix the problem as long as at least one person calls to notify them, at some cost. If no one volunteers, the worst possible outcome is obtained for all participants. If any one person elects to volunteer, the rest benefit by not doing so.[1] A public good is only produced if at least one person volunteers to pay an arbitrary cost. Payoff matrix[edit] The payoff matrix for the game is shown below: Examples in real life[edit] The story of Kitty Genovese is often used as a classic example of the volunteer's dilemma. The meerkat exhibits the volunteer's dilemma in nature. See also[edit] References[edit] ConG - Continuous Games: Open Source Software for Experimental Economics. ConG is a suite of programs for running experiments with human subjects who interact strategically in real time.
It uses graphics intensively to create a variety of strategic environments, and allows subjects to continuously change and adapt their strategies. ConG permits several different ways to specify payoff functions, including arbitrary symmetric bimatrix games. Innovative strategy selectors give the option to display a wide variety of information in a compact manner. Finally, ConG has support for running games in both continuous and discrete time, allowing a direct comparison between the two treatments. ConG is developed by the LEEPS Lab, and funded through NSF grant SES-0925039. The following are test experiments we invite you to run on a single (non-networked) computer.
Prisoner's Dilemma - A demonstration inspired by the paper "A Continuous Dilemma" (Friedman & Oprea 2012) - 2x2 Bi-Matrix Game, Heat Map, Continuous & Discrete Time Treatments. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them. Introduction JOANNE MYERS: Good morning. I'm Joanne Myers, and on behalf of the Carnegie Council, I would like to thank you for joining us. I promise that our discussion today will provide no leftover tricks from last night, but we do have some treats that we intend to nourish your brain with.
It's a pleasure to welcome Joshua Greene to this Public Affairs program. As director of the Moral Cognition Lab at Harvard University's Department of Psychology, Josh has said that the purpose of his research is to understand how moral judgments are made and shaped, whether by automatic processes such as emotional gut reactions or by controlled cognitive processes such as reasoning and self-control. Moral problems are not limited to any particular kind of situation nor to a special domain. While some progress has been made in getting individuals within a group to start cooperating, for some time now our speaker has been thinking about how to foster cooperation between groups. Remarks Two problems. The Public Goods Game. Cooperation in Public Goods Games. The evolution of cooperation among unrelated individuals in human and animal societies remains a challenging issue across disciplines. In this context, two models have attracted most attention: the prisoner’s dilemma for pairwise interactions and the public goods game for group interactions.
The two games share many features as demonstrated by the close linkage of their cores. In well-mixed populations with random encounters between individuals, cooperators are doomed and vanish quickly. However, in spatially structured populations with limited local interactions, cooperators are able to survive and co-exist with defectors in a stable equilibrium. Spatial extension enables cooperators to form clusters and thereby reduces exploitation by defectors. This tutorial complements several scientific articles co-authored with Györgi Szabó. Population structure In a typical setup in experimental economics an experimenter endows e.g. six players with $10 each. PD = (r nc c)/NPC = PD - c.