Professionals VERBALIZED Proverbs

Winners play a tit-for-tat-like strategy, whereas losers use costly punishment. (Dreber et al. 2008)

Professionals VERBALIZED Proverbs

Dreber et. al.'s new Nature article (Dreber et al. 2008) is delicious. Delicious as Chinese dumpling: although relatively vapid in page 1 and page 4, the articles was extremely fascinating in two middle pages. The pages spoke proverbs. Proverbs were, are and shall be prevailing from East to West, from Old Testament to New Testament.

Queried how could dynamic science deemed as static proverbs, I would answer: it is science which revives and reactivate proverbs, which unveils the nature of FORCE. The professionals verbalized proverbs. I am looking forward to more of their proverbing.

Following in italic are some proverbs in the paper. In addition, page 4 is the end page and nearly blank.

Sometimes cooperation could be maintained by forgiving an opponent’s defection. At other times, defection in response to defection was able to restore cooperation. (So, both Old Testament and New Testament spoke the truth?)

Costly punishment did not re-establish cooperation.

Frequency of cooperation increases as the benefit-to-cost ratio increases.

Punishment increases the frequency of cooperation. ... however, does not increase the average payoff.

We find no correlation between the use of cooperation or defection and payoff, but a strong negative correlation between the use of punishment and payoff.

For maximizing the overall income it is best never to punish: winners don’t punish.

Winners tend to respond by using D(efection) against D(efection), whereas losers use P(unishment) against D(efection).

The response to another person’s defection is the only strategic feature that is clearly correlated with winning or losing the game. Winners play a tit-for-tat-like strategy, whereas losers use costly punishment.

The higher frequency of cooperation is usually offset by the cost of punishment, which affects both the punisher and the punished.

It is possible, however, that in longer experiments and for particular parameter values punishment might increase the average payoff.

Punishment might enable a group to exert control over individual behaviour. (...or, GOD over people?)

Costly punishment might force people to submit, but not to cooperate. (Maybe the submittal looks like cooperation, as long as it is fixed by sociological mechanisms: involuntary altruism?)

In the framework of direct reciprocity, winners do not use costly punishment, whereas losers punish and perish.

Seven patterns in the experiments: a, All-out cooperation between two top-ranked players. b, Punish and perish. c, Defection for defection can sometimes restore cooperation. d, Turning the other cheek can also restore cooperation. e, Mutual punishment is mutual destruction. f, Punishment does not restore cooperation. g, ‘‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.’’

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Dreber, Anna, David G. Rand, Drew Fudenberg, and Martin A. Nowak. 2008. Winners don't punish. Nature 452, no. 7185:348-351.