Other articles

1. Game Theory & The Occupy Movement

   The global Occupy Movement in its current incarnation can be characterised quite accurately in terms of a War of Attrition, to use evolutionary game theoretic terms.

   At the starting point of evolutionary game theory, the first game analysed by Maynard Smiths was called Hawk and Dove. In this game, two contestants vie over a sharable resource. The two correspondent strategies are that of Hawk and Dove. To play the Hawk is to display aggressive behaviours, then escalate the competition for the resource until either the Hawk wins or else is injured. Dove’s strategy in the game is to first make a show of aggression, but, when faced with escalation to physical violence, will turn heel and run away.

   Here is the payoff matrix for the Hawk / Dove game:

   	Hawk	Dove
   Hawk	(V−C)/2, (V−C)/2	V, 0
   Dove	0, V	V/2, V/2
   Fig. 1: Hawk-Dove game

   	Hawk	Dove
   Hawk	X, X	W, L
   Dove	L, W	T, T
   Fig. 2: General Hawk-Dove game (where W > T > X > L )

   So, War of Attrition — cool name, right? War of Attrition is identical to the Hawk and Dove scenario, albeit that the resource is deemed unsharable. So in the above scenario where either two Hawks or two Doves vie, the desired resource is divided in accordance with the payoff matrix. But in War of Attrition, this sharing or splitting of resources is no longer an option, and so the violently aggressive behaviours associated with the Hawk / Dove game are no longer effective strategies. Instead, in War of Attrition, two new strategies, known as Bluffer and Bourgeois emerge:

   A safer strategy of display, bluffing and waiting to win, then becomes viable – a Bluffer strategy. The game then becomes one of accumulating costs, either the costs of displaying or costs of prolonged unresolved engagement. It’s effectively an auction; the winner is the contestant who will swallow the greater cost while the loser gets, for all his pains, the same cost as the winner but NO resource. The resulting evolutionary game theory mathematics leads to an optimal strategy of timed bluffing, where any player backs off with equal probability at any time in the contest - unguessable by his opponent. This is exactly what is observed in nature for contests in a number of species, for example between male dung flies contesting for mating sites. The timing of disengagement in these contests follows the exact mathematical curve derived from the evolutionary theory mathematics.

   There is a mutant strategy which can better that of Bluffer in the War of Attrition Game. This is the Bourgeois strategy (Maynard Smith named the strategy Bourgeois, because with his background of communism he regarded it as “politically bourgeois” way to value ownership). Bourgeois uses an asymmetry of some sort to break the deadlock. In nature one such asymmetry is possession - which contestant has the prior possession of the resource. The strategy is to play a Hawk if in possession of the resource, but to display then …

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2. Science Without Hierarchy

   This is an interesting piece on what science might look like after an anarchist revolution.

   However, it is depressingly 1980s in its perceptions of developing action within modern scientific theory (specifically the section on Anarchist Epistemology, which states:

   Paul Feyerabend is the most prominent philosopher to champion a different philosophy of science. He criticises the positivist, dogmatic approach to knowledge that is common in establishment science, in which almost all resources are devoted to exploring the implications of the dominant theoretical framework. He supports, instead, investigation of a range of competing theories. This is called ‘anarchist’ because there is no central theoretical dogma that dictates scientific research.

   I’m sorry, and maybe it’s just within the physics community, but I would like to point out that General Relativity and the Standard Model are the currently accepted theories, while most papers I read are challenges or modifications to one or the other.

   The article also disappoints with its appeals to allow the opinions of non-scientists to have as much weight as those of scientists. Should the opinions of outside entities count? Yes. Of course. Everyone should have a say in the development of things which effect the community as a whole. But — and I’ll apologize again — sorry, hippie-bro-dude-number-387-who-smokes-too-much-DMT, you don’t fucking get to tell me about your theory of how Atlantean sacred geometry causes pressure to equal gravitation. Go sell Hollywood your idea, because I sure as hell am not interested.

   Ahem.

   There were some positive points, especially the author’s clear elucidation of the separation of society and the scientific communities, and how this ideological framework restricts positive change:

   This set of directions for an anarchist science policy implies a dramatic shift in the present social context of science: many research topics would be different, communities rather than powerful institutions would support and control the scientific enterprise, many more people would participate in research, and everyone could be involved in making science policy. Such a change is unlikely without similar changes in other aspects of society. Indeed, it has long been my opinion that science is one of the social institutions most resistant to popular participation and control.

   Even radical critics of science have seldom explored the implications of self-management. Critics of science are prone to reject science itself. Science is seen as either good, neutral or bad, in each case having an essence that is independent of society. A more useful perspective for radicals is to see science as a feature or aspect of society, currently mainly oriented to the requirements of elites but with potentials for development to be a useful part of a society without hierarchy.

   This is quite different from the idea that science is neutral and can be ‘used’ for good purposes or ‘abused’ for bad purposes. This is like saying that ‘the economy’ (that is, the current capitalist economy) can be used or abused, to produce food or weapons. This use-abuse model ignores the possibility of other economic systems or …

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