Because Eve is Eve, and a lot of what goes on in the game world has to do with trust, or the lack of it, I thought this might be of interest to the community.
The concepts, I feel, apply to the evolution of the Eve player base as the rules that govern our interactions have changed over the years. Though I will refrain from making specific observations or interpretations to avoid sparking arguments, I would like it if people used this perspective for their own thought experiments applicable to their own worlds, Eve or otherwise.
Thanks for sharing that link. It was interesting, and I enjoyed seeing how elements of game theory played out, while thinking about how people behave in this game.
I’ll check it out. Here’s an interesting game theory thing that won a guy a Nobel Prize.
A and B are volunteers for an experiment. They’re playing a game. Here are the rules:
a) If you both play fair, you both get $50.
b) If you cheat, you get $75, and the other guy gets $25.
c) If the other guy cheats, you can get your $25. Or you can get only $10, and the cheater will get only $25.
Conventional game theory said that in the c) situation, everyone would take the $25, because it maximizes their personal gain. But we all know what the real life volunteers did. The jabbed the cheater and took the $10. Because the emotional satisfaction of jabbing the jerk was worth it to them.
Amazingly, this revelation shocked the crap out of economists, around 2012 or so. And the new Irrationality Theory theory of Economics won a Nobel Prize. You mean, they really thought people always make the most rational decision to maximize their own benefit? I always thought that part of conventional economics game theory was bollocks. The economists had never heard of cigarettes, tequila, or sex without birth control before?
(Edit: Oops, a similar test, I should have played the linked game before posting. But maybe the post about a variation will trigger some discussion).
Irrational revenge is a motivation for taking action against the cheater. This behavior reminds me just as much of criminal justice, though.
We, as a society, pay a princely sum to bring people to justice even when we can not extract any monetary compensation from them. In the case of people who go to prison, we pay to feed and house them both because we are willing to inflict a loss of freedom on them in hopes that they will be better people for it, and/or have these people serve as examples for others so they learn to be better people without having to commit a crime themselves.
Ideally, people would be completely fair from the outset, but I see nothing inherently vindictive or irrational if someone chooses to make a sacrifice to teach another person that cheating doesn’t pay. Making people into better people is an investment in the future that could be worth $15.