It is unfortunately common to see collective action problems depicted as the social sciences equivalent of a dead end: Once you foresee “a tragedy of the commons situation” you have been defeated and you must immediately turn around and head the other way.
This. It’s like being the kind of person who at every opportunity screams: “hey people, this situation reminds me of Prisonner’s Dilemma, the only intelligent move is to defect!” and wondering why the world gets predictably worse in your presence, as people start defecting in situations where most of them used to cooperate in the past. (Hint: there was a social incentive favoring cooperation, where people who cooperated got labeled “good” and the people who defected got labeled “bad”. Now you replaced it with a different social incentive, where the people who defect get labeled “smart” and the people who cooperate get labeled “stupid”. The payout matrix is different now, and so is the outcome. How “smart”, indeed.)
That’s a great point. I still don’t know of a good single resource that can get people from zero knowledge of game theory, past this valley of bad game theory (if you will) and to a LessWrong style understanding of game theory that’s actually beneficial both to themselves and to society as whole. So whenever someone asks me for recommendations on learning game theory I don’t know where to point them.
I share the frustration at these over-simple responses, but these examples actually have well-understood and often-suggested solutions in economics discussions.
The solution to tragedies of the commons is often “enforce property rights”. Identify individuals (or sometimes institutions) who are explicitly benefiting, define their benefits, and let them optimize usage.
The solution to prisoner’s dilemma is to jump out of the system. Allow communication, negotiation, and enforceable contracts that turn it into a repeated game.
Ronald Coase and others worked this out many decades ago.
This. It’s like being the kind of person who at every opportunity screams: “hey people, this situation reminds me of Prisonner’s Dilemma, the only intelligent move is to defect!” and wondering why the world gets predictably worse in your presence, as people start defecting in situations where most of them used to cooperate in the past. (Hint: there was a social incentive favoring cooperation, where people who cooperated got labeled “good” and the people who defected got labeled “bad”. Now you replaced it with a different social incentive, where the people who defect get labeled “smart” and the people who cooperate get labeled “stupid”. The payout matrix is different now, and so is the outcome. How “smart”, indeed.)
That’s a great point. I still don’t know of a good single resource that can get people from zero knowledge of game theory, past this valley of bad game theory (if you will) and to a LessWrong style understanding of game theory that’s actually beneficial both to themselves and to society as whole. So whenever someone asks me for recommendations on learning game theory I don’t know where to point them.
I share the frustration at these over-simple responses, but these examples actually have well-understood and often-suggested solutions in economics discussions.
The solution to tragedies of the commons is often “enforce property rights”. Identify individuals (or sometimes institutions) who are explicitly benefiting, define their benefits, and let them optimize usage.
The solution to prisoner’s dilemma is to jump out of the system. Allow communication, negotiation, and enforceable contracts that turn it into a repeated game.
Ronald Coase and others worked this out many decades ago.
Could you please recommend a specific book on this topic, under Yoav Ravid’s comment?