[ba-unrev-talk] Evolution, cooperation, and P2P
What I just found at slashDot goes like this:
": "Some Swiss economists ran an investment game... they found that if the
majority could punish freeloaders, cooperation flourished. I think this has
implications for cooperative peer-to-peer systems and, to a lesser extent,
for open source development. I'm so inspired I plan to go out an punish
someone right now, as a matter of fact." I had just read this article the
other day (go memepool), so this Nature piece seems oddly apropos." (01)
Following the links, one gets the following two hits, which, I think, offer
some useful insights. (02)
http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/Aggression.shtml Aggression in
multi-player games
"Imagine that you're playing a game of Settlers and you are the first
player. You roll a seven, where do you place the robber?
A couple of months ago several members of the Spielfrieks discussion group
argued that it was insanity to not use every opportunity to use the robber
to handicap opponents and steal their resources even at the start of the game.
At the early stages of the game I disagree. Here's why:" (03)
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020107/020107-6.html
"Cooperation can flourish if the public-spirited majority can punish
freeloaders, say Swiss economists. People will pay to punish - suggesting
that their notions of fairness outweigh selfish considerations. The work
may help explain why people cooperate in society.
In an investment game with shared profits, players punish those who do not
contribute to the group's good, despite the personal cost. The emotional
satisfaction of dispensing justice seems to spur them on: "People say, 'I
like to punish'," says Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich.
The fear of being fined keeps potential defectors in line, and the power to
punish gives willing cooperators a sense of security. These dynamics may
explain why early humans banded together into cooperative groups for
hunting or warfare. " (04)
I would like to suggest comparing these outcomes to the discussion in the
book _Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the
21st Century_ by Howard Bloom, a book that I am perhaps a third of the way
through now. Bloom argues that, in evolution, *individual selection*, as
advocated by neo Darwinists today, is wrong, and that *group selection* is
more strongly evidenced in the record. (05)
And why, you might ask, do I mention this here? Simply because the entire
OHS/DKR thesis is predicated on evolutionary thinking; evolution of both
the capabilities of collections of humans, and of the software
infrastructure to support those enhanced capabilities. The more points of
view we can access while thinking through OHS/DKR projects, the higher, I
think, our chances of measurable success (whatever that means). (06)
Jack (07)