RPS Chapters 4-5 (Jaclyn)

In chapter four, Fisher discusses the game theory behind the popular game rock-paper-scissors (otherwise known as bear-cowboy-ninja, which I’ve had the pleasure as using as a tie breaker during many soccer practices). He explains that rock-paper-scissors is intransitive game, meaning that their is no single option that out-wins the others. Thus, as long as each player of the game chooses their object in a randomized manner, the players should have a balance of victories and losses. Fisher suggests that this kind of balance amongst three options can be used to solve the Free Rider problem by creating a balance across all three options. In a free rider problem, a person’s three options are to cheat, cooperate, or “opt out,” which Fisher calls the Loner or Volunteer strategy. While I understand how the theory works in the experiments that Fisher provided, I’m not sure I understand how the volunteer strategy could easily be implemented into real life problems. I think that it’s rare for a person in a free rider scenario to recognize that he or she may have three options and that he or she will rarely considering the consequences of his or her actions on other people. The Truel that Fisher describes seems to be more prevalent in reality. I think that in conflicts across nations, the truel scenario definitely helps keep nations from making extreme actions against one another, yet increases tension and stress unnecessarily. Overall, chapter four left me mostly confused about how to effectively solve the free rider problem.

In chapter five, Fisher explains communication, negotiation, coalitions, and commitment. While it is easy enough to say that collaboration through communication is the key to solving many of the world’s problems, Fisher emphasizes that this is much easier said than done. One of the points that really stuck out me was that humans have the tendency to form cliques when they are apart of larger groups. Throughout middle school and high school, I’ve both been in cliques and excluded from cliques, and I think it’s unfortunate that this tendency continues into adulthood. I’ve seen cliques especially as a member of many sports teams, where the team as a whole is a family, but there are always smaller groups amongst the whole bunch who are a lot closer than the rest. The problem with cliques arises when people exclude others and talk badly about other groups. Within a team, this can be especially detrimental to a teams success and chemistry on the field, so I can see how cliquey-ness would harm the cooperation amongst members of a business. If only humans were genetically programmed to get along in big groups like animals are!

Another point that resonated with me was the fact that people usually cooperate with others only when they are guaranteed something in return, a concept which I follow all of the time. For example, when I go out to dinner with my family, I will sometimes trade some of my food for my brother’s food. I will go food shopping with friends but only if they come with me to the car wash. Little exchanges like this make it easy to cooperate with my friends and family, but I can see how it’d be harder to cooperate with those I don’t trust as much as my loved ones. I think reputation and history plays a big role in how much others trust a certain individual, company, or country. If a business is known for cheating others on deals in order to act in what they think is their best interest, then other businesses will be hesitant to cooperate with them in the future. Ultimately, this would be more costly than beneficial for the company, for if they cooperated on the initial deal, they would not have developed a bad reputation and would have many more opportunities to make deals in the future. I’m curious to see what Fisher has to say about how to build real trust in a real world in which people have so many differences in opinions and tendencies. I think that real trust could help solve a lot of the world’s issues, but I’m afraid trust may be extremely difficult to instill across such a diverse society.

 

Posted on by Jaclyn Kemly
Categories: Uncategorized

5 Responses

  1. James Bachmann says:
    September 16, 2018 at 3:41 pm

    You do speak true in that trust and communication play such vital roles, but another conflict arises, goals/ideologies. Even if people communicated and trusted one another to do the right thing, people would still come into conflict on how best to solve solutions. That is cliques form in the first place, not only is it people you trust, but most of the time similar goal focused people.

  2. Micaela Willoughby says:
    September 16, 2018 at 6:31 pm

    (In response to the third paragraph)
    I’m actually pretty excited about the next chapter concerning trust because nations are trying to cooperate on what’s usually very significant matters. Matters that will affect their citizens and they are not willing to take a risk and trust a country who has hurt them in the past. Because despite it being in the past, there’s a risk the tension is still there. Which is why they give and take, but if the only thing you’re willing to take is something they’re not willing to give, you’re at another standstill. Fisher talked about how a human’s ability to communicate is one of our greatest strengths; however, it’s much more difficult when there are processes to go through/hoops to jump through before saying a single word (as is probably the case with many international negotiations). So how can we build trust?

  3. Rachel Helbling says:
    September 16, 2018 at 8:44 pm

    I had many similar thoughts while reading these chapters and can relate to what you say. I agree with Fisher that the three options may begin to fix the free rider problem however I don’t think there is a way to completely solve this issue. There will always be people who don’t cooperate and if people learn to expect a reward after every little good thing that they do then they will never do something good just because they want to or should. This has potential for a large problem if they stop getting that reward because there is no longer an incentive. Regarding chapter 5, I have also seen first hand how the formation of cliques can be harmful to a groups overall success. But they don’t always have to be. It is unrealistic for a large group of people to all be super close and trusting with no conflict. It is inevitable that cliques will form but as long as they have enough trust for the whole group and don’t betray them then it can work out.

  4. Josephine Bossidy says:
    September 17, 2018 at 11:34 am

    When reading Fisher’s perspective on solving the Free Rider dilemma I had a similar first impression as you. When thinking of scenarios, I didn’t see how opting-out was ever really an option. But if you continued to read on in the chapter the classroom example provides some clarity. Fisher’s example of the preschool classroom explains a moment in reality where opting-out could be a solution. When the teacher addresses the class saying to put their toys they were only left with the cooperating option, to clean up, or the cheating option, to continue playing. A third option, Fisher suggested, to solve the issue of all the parents coming and their children still playing, was to use an opting out strategy. Fisher’s solution was to offer the children ice cream to distract them from the toys and furthermore to reward those who put their toys away. Although this temptation of ice cream may work for some of the students in the class, I’m not positive that it would always work. I think some students would ignore this third offer and continue to choose the cheating option and still play with their toys. Overall, I am still not convinced that the adding a third option could solve the Free Rider problem,

  5. Joseph Sterling says:
    September 17, 2018 at 12:49 pm

    In response to your comment on people not getting along like animals, many animals exhibit the same behaviors as humans. Just by looking at the examples of the animal kingdom given by Fisher, he lizards, herring, humpbacks, and I believe hippo’s at one point, but most importantly, bees. Insects like bees, ants, and termites do communicate among themselves for the good of the colony, but that is because they ARE the colony. The individual insects have no free will of their own, they are just drones used to nurture the queen and continue the species as a whole. Humans, and other animals, have some sense of individuality, which may be great in some aspects, is the keystone in the framework that causes humans to be selfish in the first place.