The Climate Lottery
While reading an article on The Thirteen Tipping Points of global warming for my environmental studies class, I took notice of one hypothetical solution to make people more active in combating global warming: A public lottery.
The article starts by informing readers that democratic, cooperative species tend to survive through the millennium. This is contrary to some economic theory which suggests that humans will only ever act in their own self-interest.
It also cites a game theory experiment in which greater success is obtained by the group as a whole when all participants can see how much each player is contributing to the communal “pot”:
A recent study hints at the evolution of altruism. A team of Swiss and American mathematicians and population biologists ran a variant of game theory known as a public goods game, in which players contribute money to a common pot that an experimenter doubles, divides evenly, and returns to the players. In ordinary play, if all players contribute all their money, everyone wins big. If one player cheats, everyone wins small. If an altruist and a cheater go head-to-head, the cheater wins consistently. This paradox is known as the Tragedy of the Commons.
But in the new computer variant, population dynamics were introduced into the game. Players were divided into small groups that played among themselves. Each player eventually “reproduced” in proportion to the payoff received from play—thereby passing her cooperator or cheater strategy to her offspring. Mutations and dispersions were introduced, creating a shifting population of individuals divided into groups of changing sizes and allegiances.
After 100,000 generations, the results were surprising. Rather than succumbing to the cheaters, the
cooperators overwhelmed them.
Jeremy Blanchard: Student, Nerd, Enviro-geek
