[kashyapc]

To see Game Theory from a 'cooperation' point of view, check out the landmark book, The Evolution of Cooperation[1] by Robert Axelrod.

Axelrod's work was also summarized in The Selfish Gene. (And more recently, in Behave, by Sapolsky.)

From the abstract:

"We assume that, in a world ruled by natural selection, selfishness pays. So why cooperate? In The Evolution of Cooperation, political scientist Robert Axelrod seeks to answer this question. In 1980, he organized the famed Computer Prisoners Dilemma Tournament, which sought to find the optimal strategy for survival in a particular game. Over and over, the simplest strategy, a cooperative program called Tit for Tat, shut out the competition. In other words, cooperation, not unfettered competition, turns out to be our best chance for survival."

[1] https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/robert-axelrod/the-evoluti...

[quietthrow]

I would highly recommend watching the mathematician Hannah Frys documentary called the joy of winning (link below). It has interviews from a wide variety of academics and overall a fun way to understand game theory. The program you mentioned tit for tat is also mentioned in there as the optimal way to get what you want and why pure selfishness dosnt work. It’s a great investment of time. For less than a hour you get a lot and besides test the waters if you want to dive deeper.

https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Winning-Catherine-Gale/dp/B07XHPW...

[Frost1x]

>The program you mentioned tit for tat is also mentioned in there as the optimal way to get what you want and why pure selfishness dosnt work.

I've never been a fan of this framing. Cooperation can be viewed selfishly when the cooperation occurs because of well informed and strategic parties in the cooperation. A great example of this in real life are cartels. Cartels are only cooperative to the point where it optimizes a stable level/equilibrium of selfishness. Most cartels would happily disband and pull all the gains but the participants realize their minimal cooperation results in the best outcomes for themselves.

I guess the main issue I have with this boils down to the underlying intent and framing of intent. Ultimately, the intent is still driven entirely by selfishness, it's just selfishness with strategy and realizing that sometimes taking everything you can from everyone won't always navigate you to your selfish goal-state.

Perhaps that's what you mean here by "pure" selfishness not working. I'd argue that pure selfishness is the intent to only do what's minimally required for others for self-gain. You can be strategic or instrategic about it.

Something like "altruistic" cooperation on the other hand creates cooperation for the sake of cooperation alone (building trust, social cohesion, stability for more people). There may be little or nothing to gain for the cooperation for some participants, perhaps even some lose by participating (knowingly or unknowingly), but the cooperation as whole benefits and those benefits are worth the costs to the participants. The cooperation may exist to help some other party with no expectation of reciprocation. I think of it like a potluck dinner: everyone brings a dish and everyone gets to eat and have a good time. Some may not bring a dish and that's fine, they still eat and gain and others know that's the case, meanwhile some may fix elaborate dishes, expensive in terms of preparation time/complexity and/or ingredients and they do so knowing they're going over and above and won't necessarily be rewarded (perhaps a compliment) but they do so anyways because they wish to share the dish or experience with others.

[kamranjon]

Is this related in any way to the ideas Ayn Rand laid out with Objectivism?

[eru]

Not really. Perhaps if you squint really, really hard?

[protonfish]

No, not at all. It's about how it is strategically better for your own goals to work with others.

[kamranjon]

Though I got downvoted quite a bit I thought it was an interesting question about the relationship between Objectivism and Game Theory and found a couple links. Keep in mind that these are from the Atlas institute so they are surely very biased opinions, but I thought it was interesting to see the defense of Objectivism in regards to game theory questions.

One about game theory and its relation to Objectivism: https://www.atlassociety.org/post/game-theory-and-objectivis...

And another about the Prisoners Dilemma specifically and which touches on the Nash equilibria: https://www.atlassociety.org/post/prisoners-dilemma

And for people like me who are interested in the relationships between the two, here are some opinions of people from quora: https://www.quora.com/How-does-Objectivism-view-the-Nash-equ...

[thedudeabides5]

It's a fair question, but the whole point of Axelrod /The Selfish Gene / Cooperative Games is to call out how much a game theory approach would support strategies which are anti-Objectivist. Where contributing to the commons, investing in public good, cooperating, radically grows the pie to the point where it's in everyone's self interest to cooperate.

Basically, times in life where it's a 'positive sum' as opposed to 'zero-sum' game.

Non-zero by Robert Wright, is probably the best synthesis on this topic.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9526993-nonzero

[hntrader]

How is cooperation anti-Objectivist? If the cooperation is voluntary and within your self-interest then it isn't incompatible.

[protonfish]

Sorry for the downvote. It was a good question, but I did not want to encourage a link between game theory and objectivism to the casual observer because I seem them as complete opposites. Objectivism is, at best, short-sighted - screwing over the people around you because it is convenient in the moment and becoming indignant when the folks that were mistreated no longer want to be your friend. (At worst it is justification for people that enjoy inflicting cruelty on others.) Game theory can demonstrate how to be truly selfish, it is in our best interest to be kind, thoughtful, and good communicators and to cultivate strong and healthy relationships.

Objectivism is just toxic foolishness.

[kamranjon]

I actually think there are some parallels when you listen to Rand herself talk about cooperation in a selfish framework: https://youtu.be/CoAKer8lfds

I think she outlines cooperation as an intrinsic result when people are acting within their own self interests which I think was why I originally saw the relationship.