The Evolution of Co-Operation

Un fantástico libro, que de manera amena trata sobre el dilema del prisionero. En verdad da un brillo a las relaciones humanas y la comprensión de las mismas. Todo aquel que quiera entender cómo funcionan las relacione humanas debería darse un clavado

Fala sobre a história dos torneios de estratégias para o problema do dilema do prisioneiro e como a cooperação emerge mesmo com objetivos egoístas.

Um dos livros mais relevantes do século XX! Obrigatório para qualquer estudioso da mapa humana e suas inter relações. Recomendo.

If you're interested in co-operation, this should be an essential read.The book obsesses about tit-for-tat in the prisoner's dilemma and is a bit of a product of its time. There's no talk of Dyson's theory that any agent with a theory of mind can force a program like tit for tat to be extorted along the lines of the ultimatum game. Nor of how in some evolutionary set-ups, tit for tat is not stable. But that's not really the point Axelrod is making. Axelrod is interested in the prisoner's dilemma as a metaphor for something fundamental about how organisms interact with each other. In particular, he brilliantly shows how important the number of expected future interactions imparts onto the best strategy for agents to play each other and how this interacts with the pay-offs. He provides a mathematical theory linking these together with strategy. As you read, you immediately see countless examples of this in daily life: do you tip the waiter in a restaurant you will never go back to again, will you do the dirty on a client you won't see again, etc. The conclusion seems to be that people are nice to each other when they know they'll be future interactions and nasty otherwise. The lessons for business, daily life and running a society are obvious.While the field has significantly evolved from when the book was written, this book is a fascinating and brisk read in the terms that the viewer cannot help but see the concepts he is talking about in almost elemental terms of good, evil and so on. It's also somehow deeply reassuring on a human level that there is a mathematical basis for why and when "good" will triumph and under what circumstances.

Makes a lot of sense out of a lot of things.Very encouraging to see how cooperation can form without trust. Even between selfish/egoistic players.