Sunday, December 15, 2013

game theory is powerful, but like anything else it depends on it's assumptions.

the idea that stealing something from a store is wrong follows only from the enforcement of hierarchical property rights. there's nothing organic about this. so, while they're presenting the results in terms of connection to a community, the analyses is skewed by the underlying assumption of a system of "ordered capitalism" that is enforced through violence; conversely, it could be argued that the results provide empirical data for hierarchical class relations - the closer you are to the inner circle of the bosses and property owners, the more likely you are to be a class traitor (or an owner or boss).

http://phys.org/news/2013-12-game-theory-evolution-party.html