In the Divide-the-Dollar (DD) game, two players simultaneously make demands to divide a dollar. Each player receives his demand if the sum of the demands does not exceed one, a payoff of zero otherwise. Note that, in the latter case, both parties are punished severely. A major setback of DD is that each division of the dollar is a Nash equilibrium outcome. Observe that, when the sum of the two demands x and y exceeds (...) one, it is as if Player 1's demand x (or his offer (1−x) to Player 2) suggests that Player 2 agrees to λx < 1 times his demand y so that Player 1's demand and Player 2's modified demand add up to exactly one; similarly, Player 2's demand y (or his offer (1−y) to Player 1) suggests that Player 1 agrees to λyx so that λyx+y = 1. Considering this fact, we change DD's payoff assignment rule when the sum of the demands exceeds one; here in this case, each player's payoff becomes his demand times his λ; i.e., each player has to make the sacrifice that he asks his opponent to make. We show that this modified version of DD has an iterated strict dominant strategy equilibrium in which each player makes the egalitarian demand 1/2. We also provide a natural N-person generalization of this procedure. (shrink)

We modify the payment rule of the standard divide the dollar (DD) game by introducing a second stage and thereby resolve the multiplicity problem and implement equal division of the dollar in equilibrium. In the standard DD game, if the sum of players’ demands is less than or equal to a dollar, each player receives what he demanded; if the sum of demands is greater than a dollar, all players receive zero. We modify (...) this second part, which involves a harsh punishment. In the modified game $(D\!D^{\prime })$ , if the demands are incompatible, then players have one more chance. In particular, they play an ultimatum game to avoid the excess. In the two-player version of this game, there is a unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium in which players demand (and receive) an equal share of the dollar. We also provide an $n$ -player extension of our mechanism. Finally, the mechanism we propose eliminates not only all pure strategy equilibria involving unequal divisions of the dollar, but also all equilibria where players mix over different demands in the first stage. (shrink)

In the Nash demand game n players announce utility demands, the demands are implemented if they are jointly feasible, and otherwise no one gets anything. If the utilities set is the simplex, the game is called “divide-the-dollar”. Brams and Taylor studied variants of divide-the-dollar, on which they imposed reasonableness conditions. I explore the implications of these conditions on general NDGs. In any reasonable NDG, the egalitarian demand profile cannot be obtained via iterated elimination of (...) weakly dominated strategies. Further, a reasonable NDG may fail to have a Nash equilibrium, even in mixed strategies. In the 2-person case, existence of pure strategy equilibrium is equivalent to the existence of a value, in the sense that each player can secure the egalitarian payoff level independent of his opponent’s play. This result does not extend to reasonable NDGs with more than two players. Interestingly, there are results for reasonable NDGs that hold for two and three players, but not for n≥4\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$n\ge 4$$\end{document} players. (shrink)

We add a stage to Nash’s demand game by allowing the greedier player to revise his demand if the demands are not jointly feasible. If he decides to stick to his initial demand, then the game ends and no one receives anything. If he decides to revise it down to 1-x\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$1-x$$\end{document}, where x is his initial demand, the revised demand is implemented with certainty. The implementation probability changes linearly between (...) these two extreme cases. We derive a condition on the feasible set under which the two-stage game has a unique subgame perfect equilibrium. In this equilibrium, there is first-stage agreement on the egalitarian demands. We also study two n-player versions of the game. In either version, if the underlying bargaining problem is “divide-the-dollar,” then equal division is sustainable in a subgame perfect equilibrium if and only if the number of players is at most four. (shrink)

This article provides a critique of the postmodernist notion that there has been of recent years a dissolution of the divide between aesthetics and practical activities, between Art and Life. It does so by considering the game of soccer from a phenomenological viewpoint, which shows that the game possesses intrinsically ‘aesthetic’ qualities. The conditions of possibility of such qualities are understood by introducing the idea of the ‘proto‐aesthetics’ of soccer and other mundane phenomena. By considering the proto‐aesthetics (...) of the quotidian we argue that recent changes in the nature of practical life should not be regarded as due to ‘aestheticisation’ but rather as springing from processes of commodification. (shrink)

In distributive bargaining, bargainers may have an impulse to bluff and thereby risk an impasse. The current paper does not explain bargaining impasses. For our purposes, it suffices to recognize that bargaining impasses may occur without assuming irrationality. The design problem is to ensure that impasses are avoided as often as possible. One possible solution is to allow for the formation of an agreement by “conduct”. The ‘agreement by conduct’ outcome as a commercial norm may coordinate bargainers’ expectations so as (...) to enable them to perform the same contract, even if they made written demands above ½ (as a bluff). The idea that the “deal-is-on” philosophy as expressed in the “agreement-by-conduct” rule affects and promotes economic exchange is probed in the context of a modified Divide-the-Dollar game. (shrink)

Cooperation and the allocation of common resources are core features of social behavior. Games idealizing both interactions have been studied separately. But here, rather than examining the dynamics of the individual games, the interactions are combined so that players first choose whether to cooperate, and then, if they jointly cooperate, they bargain over the fruits of their cooperation. It is shown that the dynamics of the combined game cannot simply be reduced to the dynamics of the individual games and (...) that both cooperation and fair division are more likely in the combined game than in the constituent games taken separately. (shrink)

Evolutionary game theoretic accounts of justice attempt to explain our willingness to follow certain principles of justice by appealing to robustness properties possessed by those principles. Skyrms (1996) offers one sketch of how such an account might go for divide-the-dollar, the simplest version of the Nash bargaining game, using the replicator dynamics of Taylor and Jonker (1978). In a recent article, D'Arms et al. (1998) criticize his account and describe a model which, they allege, undermines his (...) theory. I sketch a theory of evolutionary explanations of justice which avoids their methodological criticisms, and develop a spatial model of divide-the-dollar with more robust convergence properties than the models of Skyrms (1996) and D'Arms et al. (1998). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aesthetic Classroom and the Beautiful GameBradley Baurain (bio)IntroductionSoccer fans will not be surprised that understanding "the beautiful game" can contribute to understandings of teaching and learning. After all, at least one theorist sees "the nature of all social life" to be reflected in soccer: "The unfolding match between team-mates and opponents [illustrates] … the interdependency of human beings, and the 'flexible lattice-work of tensions' generated through their (...) social bonds. Power flows fluidly between players, jockeying for possession and moving between attack and defence."1 Another finds striking parallels between cultural history and tactics of play in soccer, including a "modernist" period emphasizing cautious ball control and defense-oriented player formations, and the current "postmodern" style emphasizing creativity and fluidity; he even identifies the history of the free kick as a microcosm of the whole.2The idea I explore in this essay is in a sense simply an extended analogy: A well-played soccer game has much in common with a well-taught lesson or course. Features of the one are set for comparison and discussion alongside features of the other. Yet, as with any good analogy, matters are not really so simple. One makes the comparison so that the juxtaposed items inform and illuminate one another—that is, one looks at a thing in order to see a different thing more clearly. So while I contend that soccer has much in common with teaching, the reverse is also true; I am not using soccer only as a "way through" to teaching. Neither of my terms of comparison are merely means to an end; instead both are ends in themselves. Reading the soccer parts of this essay will, I trust, inform and illuminate teaching and [End Page 50] curriculum, but at the same time my goal is for any soccer player who might read the teaching parts also to learn something about "the beautiful game."Soccer, "the beautiful game," is an apt comparison for the aesthetic classroom. My thoughts on what characterizes aesthetic teaching will emerge and take on flesh as this essay develops, but let me begin by describing it as "concerned for acts of mind as opposed to end products, fluidity and imagination rather than fixed sequence, judgment within learning experiences in contrast to deciding everything in advance, and dwelling with subject matter rather than merely covering subject matter."3 As Wanda May comments: "I suggest that when teaching is done well … it is a work of art because we reconfigure and decorate our spaces, make our marks, elevate ourselves and others above confinement, routine, and the mundane. We expand our capacity to see, hear, love, critique, and act on our possibilities in the world."4 I could as easily have applied both of these quotations to soccer. It is no accident that John Dewey links sports with the aesthetic: "Dance and sport are activities in which acts once performed spontaneously in separation are assembled and converted from raw, crude material into works of expressive art."5I anchor my discussion in four concepts foundational to the aesthetic classroom: play, relationality, process, and flow. My analysis of each of these key ideas moves back and forth among soccer, aesthetic and pedagogical theory, and classroom research and narratives. Examples, including those from my own experience, are drawn primarily from the related fields of language education and English as a Second Language (ESL). If soccer and the classroom can have much in common, another way of introducing this essay is to say that I spend it trying to see what takes place in the gaps, in the "muchness" that lies between the two terms of the analogy. I hope that readers will "make much" of this, too, for without them the seeing remains incomplete.The Concept of Play, Playing with ConceptsThough it has become a multibillion-dollar global business, at its best soccer is play: "We play sport, we don't work sport."6 Play means having fun and inspiring joy, but this sense of freedom does not mean play is unstructured. Games have rules, skills, procedures, and boundaries, and these features enable rather than constrain. From Dewey's point of view, they are... (shrink)

Through a phenomenological study of horse-human relations, this article explores the ways in which, as embodied beings, we live relationally, rather than as separate human identities. Conceptually this challenges oppositional logic and humanist assumptions, but where poststructuralist treatments of these issues tend to remain abstract, this article is concerned with an embodied demonstration of the ways in which we experience a relational or in-between logic in our everyday lives.

We argue that pedagogic authority relies on love, which is misunderstood if seen as a matter of actions and subjects. Love is based not on finite subjects and objects existing in Euclidean space and linear time, but, rather, on the non-finite ontology, space and time of relations. Loving authority is a matter of calling and vocation, arising from the spontaneous and simultaneous call-and-response of a lively relation. We make this argument through a reading of Buber’s I–You relation and Murdoch’ s (...) account of the responsiveness of ascetic discipline. In presenting this analysis, we draw upon a case study from a research project on Australian teachers and students. (shrink)

The paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, it provides what appears to be the first game-theoretic modeling of Napoleon’s last campaign, which ended dramatically on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo. It is specifically concerned with the decision Napoleon made on 17 June 1815 to detach part of his army against the Prussians he had defeated, though not destroyed, on 16 June at Ligny. Military historians agree that this decision was crucial but disagree about whether it was (...) rational. Hypothesizing a zero-sum game between Napoleon and Blücher, and computing its solution, we show that it could have been a cautious strategy on the former's part to divide his army, a conclusion which runs counter to the charges of misjudgement commonly heard since Clausewitz. On the other hand, the paper addresses methodological issues. We defend its case study against the objections of irrelevance that have been raised elsewhere against “analytic narratives”, and conclude that military campaigns provide an opportunity for successful application of the formal theories of rational choice. Generalizing the argument, we finally investigate the conflict between narrative accounts – the historians' standard mode of expression – and mathematical modeling. (shrink)

Prior research suggests brokers do not always act in the best interests of clients, although morally obligated to do so. We empirically investigated this issue focusing on trades executed at best execution price, before and after the introduction of electronic limit-order trading, on the London Stock Exchange. As a result of limit-order trading, the proportion of trades executed at the best execution price for the customer significantly increased. We attribute this to a sustained increase in the liquidity of stocks as (...) a result of limit-order trading, regardless of market capitalisation. We discuss the ethical implications of our findings and conclude that market structures that enhance market competitiveness may help reconcile broker and client interests. (shrink)

This study examined the link between employees’ adult attachment orientations and perceptions of line managers’ interpersonal justice behaviors, and the moderating effect of national culture. Participants from countries categorized as low collectivistic and high collectivistic completed an online survey. Attachment anxiety and avoidance were negatively related to interpersonal justice perceptions. Cultural differences did not moderate the effects of avoidance. However, the relationship between attachment anxiety and interpersonal justice was non-significant in the Southern Asia cultural cluster. Our findings indicate the importance (...) of ‘fit’ between cultural relational values and individual attachment orientations in shaping interpersonal justice perceptions, and highlight the need for more non-western organizational justice research. (shrink)

It is a truism that some industries are controversial either because the processes employed or the resulting products, for instance, can potentially harm the well-being of people. The controversy that surrounds certain industries can sharply polarise public opinion and debate. In this article, we employ legitimacy theory and morality policy to show how one industry sector (the electronic gaming machine sector as part of the wider gambling industry) is subject to this reaction. We suggest that the difficulty in establishing legitimacy (...) surrounding CSR practices in this sector is related to morality policy, whereby ideology and personal values play important roles in dividing opinion. Thus, gambling is often framed as an activity that is morally and ethically problematic. To show how this can manifest, we examine the veracity of two state-funded studies in Australia used in the development of gambling policy and their subsequent adoption in academic research. We highlight methodological, analytical and reporting issues in these studies that normally should be identified by those using such findings. The significance is that when morality policy and conflict surrounding legitimacy are involved, then it can explain why adherence to normative research standards is potentially lowered. Our theoretical posture leads us to further speculate that the adoption and communication of CSR in electronic gambling will be contested by opponents of the industry. (shrink)

In recent years, many qualitative sociologists, anthropologists, and social theorists have critiqued the use of algorithms and other automated processes involved in data science on both epistemological and political grounds. Yet, it has proven difficult to bring these important insights into the practice of data science itself. We suggest that part of this problem has to do with under-examined or unacknowledged assumptions about the relationship between the two fields—ideas about how data science and its critics can and should relate. Inspired (...) by recent work in Science and Technology Studies on interventions, we attempted to stage an encounter in which practicing data scientists were asked to analyze a corpus of critical social science literature about their work, using tools of textual analysis such as co-word and topic modelling. The idea was to provoke discussion both about the content of these texts and the possible limits of such analyses. In this commentary, we reflect on the planning stages of the experiment and how responses to the exercise, from both data scientists and qualitative social scientists, revealed some of the tensions and interactions between the normative positions of the different fields. We argue for further studies which can help us understand what these interdisciplinary tensions turn on—which do not paper over them but also do not take them as given. (shrink)

Nearly one in every 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison today. In a period dominated by calls to roll back the government in all areas of social and economic policy, we have witnessed its massive expansion in the realm of penal policy since the 1970s. The U.S. incarceration rate is now more than 737 per 100,000 people, or five to 12 times the rate of Western European countries and Japan . The reach of the U.S. (...) carceral state extends far beyond the 2.2 million men and women currently in prison or jail in the United States. On any given day, over 7 million people__or 1 in every 32 adults__are incarcerated or on probation or parole . This rate of state supervision is unparalleled in U.S. history.These overall figures on incarceration belie the enormous and disproportionate impact that this bold and unprecedented social experiment has had on certain groups in U.S. society. If current trends continue, one in three black men and one in six Hispanic men are expected to spend some time in jail or prison during their lives . The number of incarcerated African_American men has grown so rapidly over the past quarter_century that today more black men are behind bars than enrolled in colleges and universities .[1]Some contend that growing public dismay over the crushing economic burden of incarcerating and monitoring so many people heralds the beginning of the end of the prison boom . As evidence, they point to recent penal developments in the states. Severe budget deficits prompted by the 2001 recession forced some states to close prisons and lay off guards. Dozens of states experimented with new sentencing formulas, mostly directed at nonviolent offenders.[2] Fiscally conservative Republicans previously known for being penal hard_liners championed some of these recent relaxations in penal policy. This fueled speculation that law_and_order Republicans, troubled by mounting costs, are well poised to roll back the carceral state, much as red_baiter Richard Nixon was ideally situated to breach the great political wall with China.We should be cautious, however, about assuming that fiscal pressures and the recent softening of public opinion sparked by the plummeting crime rate over the past decade will automatically forge a durable consensus that will dismantle the carceral state.[3] It was mistakenly assumed three decades ago that shared disillusionment on the right and the left with the rehabilitative ideal would shrink the prison population. Instead, it exploded. Criminal justice policies often confound conventional distinctions between left and right, particularly on issues related to crime victims. The relationship between political leaders, social movements, interest groups, and governing institutions is highly contingent and volatile in the case of penal policy because the left_right divide is more blurred and because of certain institutional features of the U.S. criminal justice system and welfare state.[4]While economic arguments against the carceral state are important and compelling, they have their limitations. If properly pitched, they can help forge a consensus to reverse the prison boom. But they can also be used to propel mean_spirited budget cuts that do not significantly reduce the size of the prison population__or save much money__ but do render life in prison and life after prison leaner and meaner. Criminal justice reform to reverse the prison boom is a highly fragile project that cannot be underwritten primarily by fiscal concerns. Without some broader vision and movement for change, the U.S. carceral state, trimmed down a little by a few modest sentencing and drug law reforms, will be here to stay. Such a movement is beginning to coalesce in the United States. Opponents have begun to portray the carceral state not only as a financial liability but also as a moral liability and a pressing civil and human rights issue that perverts cherished democratic institutions, like the right to vote. They have also begun to focus public attention on how the prison boom has exacerbated economic and social inequalities and is a growing menace to public health. (shrink)

The stationary set splitting game is a game of perfect information of length ω1 between two players, unsplit and split, in which unsplit chooses stationarily many countable ordinals and split tries to continuously divide them into two stationary pieces. We show that it is possible in ZFC to force a winning strategy for either player, or for neither. This gives a new counterexample to Σ22 maximality with a predicate for the nonstationary ideal on ω1, and an example (...) of a consistently undetermined game of length ω1 with payoff de.nable in the second-order monadic logic of order. We also show that the determinacy of the game is consistent with Martin's Axiom but not Martin's Maximum. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss why in some circumstances people express their intentions indirectly: the use of Indirect Speech Acts. Based on Parikh’s games of partial information and Franke’s IBR model, I develop game-theoretic models of ISAs, which are divided into two categories, namely non-conventional ISAs and conventional ISAs. I assume that non-conventional ISAs involve two types of communication situations: communication under certain cooperation and that under uncertain cooperation. I will analyse the cases of ironical request and implicit (...) bribery as typical instances of non-conventional ISAs of each situation type, respectively. I then apply the models to analyse the use of conventional ISAs from an evolutionary perspective, which is inspired by Lewisian convention theory. The models yield the following predictions: the use of non-conventional ISAs under certain cooperation relies on the sympathy between interlocutors, which blocks their evolution towards conventional ISAs; in unc... (shrink)

In this article we present the bases for a computational theory of the cognitive processes underlying human communication. The core of the article is devoted to the analysis of the phases in which the process of comprehension of a communicative act can be logically divided: (1) literal meaning, where the reconstruction of the mental states literally expressed by the actor takes place: (2) speaker's meaning, where the partner reconstructs the communicative intentions of the actor; (3) communicative effect, where the partner (...) possibly modifies his own beliefs and intentions; (4) reaction, where the intentions for the generation of the response are produced; and (5) response, where an overt response is constructed. The model appears to be compatible with relevant facts about human behavior. Our hypothesis is that, through communication, an actor tries to exploit the motivational structures of a partner so that the desired goal is generated. A second point is that social behavior requires that cooperation be maintained at some level. In the case of communication, cooperation is, in general, pursued even when the partner does not adhere to the actor's goals, and therefore no cooperation occurs at the behavioral level. This important distinction is reflected in the two kinds of game we introduce to account for communication. The main concept implied in communication is that two agents overtly reach a situation of shared mental states. Our model deals with sharedness through two primitives: shared beliefs and communicative intentions. (shrink)

The aim of the series of the three articles entitled “Name game…” is to present the historical information about nomenclature history of every known chemical element. The process of naming each chemical element is analyzed, with particular emphasis on the first publication with a given name. It turned out that in many cases this information is not obvious and unambiguous, and the published data are even contradictory. In a few cases, the names of the elements were changed even several (...) times. Moreover, even when the author of a given element name is known, it is sometimes not entirely clear in which publication he/she first used it. Therefore, the series of three articles are an attempt to sort out the issue of first publishing of the names of all 118 chemical elements known so far, based on original source texts, available thanks to the digitization of a number of collections of scientific literature. The articles are divided according to the time of discoveries: (1) research till the end of the 18th century, (2) discoveries in the 19th century, (3) discoveries and syntheses of elements in the 20th and 21st centuries. This particular article presents the history of naming of the first 37 elements: known from antiquity, discovered in nature and named in 17th and 18th century. (shrink)

In numerous studies, experimental economists have documented the fact that people tend to propose that divisible goods be divided equally. It has often been proposed, most notably by the sociobiologists, that this tendency may have a biological basis, and might be the product of evolution and natural selection. ;My dissertation addresses methodological and philosophical problems that arise in the course of establishing this naturalistic claim. Specifically, the focus of this dissertation is on the project of using evolutionary game theory (...) to model the emergence of behavioral norms in a population. ;Chapter 1 briefly surveys the experimental economics literature that supports the existence of such behavioral propensities, and gives an overview of the dissertation. Chapter 2 introduces the fundamental concepts of game theory and evolutionary game theory. Chapter 3 argues that certain robustness failures may be overcome if group selection mechanisms are incorporated into the evolutionary models. Chapter 5 defends Peter Railton's causal theory of explanation, and argues that it best accommodates the dynamical models of evolutionary game theory. Chapter 6 addresses the question of whether a descriptive account of the origins of our moral intuitions is relevant to the normative project of identifying our moral obligations, and critiques arguments by Peter Singer and Peter Unger that our moral intuitions lack justification. (shrink)

In this paper we employ the χ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\chi $$\end{document} value : 49–61, 2009)—a coalition structure value—to analyse team games : 319–350, 2010). We answer two questions for two special cases: first, which components are stable and second, how is the worth of a component divided among the members of the component.

While 23andMe aspires to be “the world's trusted source of personal genetic information,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) believes that the company's advertising practices have been anything but trustworthy. Last November, a harshly worded FDA “warning letter” demanded that the direct‐to‐consumer genetic testing company immediately discontinue marketing its unapproved “medical device.” The tussle between 23andMe and the FDA has attracted more attention than a typical disagreement between a company and a government agency. Larry Downes and Paul Nunes identify (...) 23andMe as a “Big Bang Disruption”: an invention that revolutionizes the existing market, foiling both industry incumbents and unprepared regulators. The outcome of the FDA's current review to hold the answer to the million‐dollar question: how will DTC genetic testing be regulated in the future? Ideally, the FDA's regulations should not pose undue burdens on consumers seeking personal genetic information but, rather, help consumers make a transition out of the consumer setting and into the medical setting. (shrink)

This paper systematises the works of György Márkus into two or possibly three periods. These emphasise the underlying consistency of purpose and interpreting theoretical interests throughout the oeuvre. despite the changing and socio-political forms and language games, all three share common features. These stages move from this initial critique of Orthodox Marxism employing the intellectual rigor of analytical and a philosophical anthropology to an investigation of the internal contradictions in Marx’s mature economic writings. to a final post-marxist phase after he (...) left Hungary dominated by continual philosophical themes and a social democratic political perspective. (shrink)

Abstract:“Modern Sexual Organicity” (《现代性器》 Xiàndài Xìngqì) and “Super Killer” (《大杀器》 Dà Shaqì) by Han Bo, which I translate and discuss here, unfold around the poet’s playfully sustained series of observations of the irreconcilable gaps and irreducible dissonances between Western modernity and Chinese contemporaneity. Focusing on the (post)structural dimension of the extreme intricacy and intensity of Han’s language game that polysemically intersects with traditional Chinese poetic moves as well, which itself mirrors the structurally (bi)polarized and gendered social realities in China, (...) this essay highlights the unfused/able figure of the woman, a “farmwoman” on the train in particular, a moving image of precarious mobility, transience, and vitality. (shrink)

Public information is a social resource that connects all aspects of social life, regulates social activities and public behaviors, and plays a very important role in influencing public trust. Based on the perspective of communication, we divide the government into two ways to release public information, that is, mass communication and personalized recommendation. Moreover, the public can choose to acquire or not acquire a strategy. Then, this study conducts an evolutionary game between the government and the public to (...) analyze the influence of public information on the public in China. Our objective is to find how the evolutionary path changes between the two players when strategies are changing. Then, a simulation analysis is presented in six scenarios to illustrate the results. The results show that the two players can converge to different stable statuses under different situations. (shrink)

Abstract In this article we develop a relational understanding of sociality, that is, an account of social life that takes relation as primary. This stands in contrast to the common assumption that relations arise when subjects interact, an account that gives logical priority to separation. We will develop this relational understanding through a reading of the work of Martin Buber, a social philosopher primarily interested in dialogue, meeting, relationship, and the irreducibility and incomparability of reality. In particular, the article contrasts (...) Buber’s work with that of poststructuralist theorists who take as their starting point the deconstruction of the Hegelian logic of binary oppositions. Deconstruction understands difference as the excess that undoes the binary, but Buber, we argue, shows how difference derives from the primacy and ontological undefinability of relation. Relational logic does not exclude the logic of separations and oppositions: relation is the primal ground that makes separations possible. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11841-011-0278-9 Authors Andrew Metcalfe, School of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia Ann Game, School of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia Journal Sophia Online ISSN 1873-930X Print ISSN 0038-1527. (shrink)

We study repeated normal form games where the number of players is large. We argue that it is interesting to look at such games as being divided into subgames, each of which we call a neighbourhood. The structure of such a game is given by a graph G whose nodes are players and edges denote visibility. The neighbourhoods are maximal cliques in G. The game proceeds in rounds where in each round the players of every clique X of (...) G play a strategic form game among each other. A player at a node v strategises based on what she can observe, i.e., the strategies and the outcomes in the previous round of the players at vertices adjacent to v. Based on this, the player may switch strategies in the same neighbourhood, or migrate to another neighbourhood.We are interested in addressing questions regarding the eventual stability of such games. We incrementally impose constraints on the ‘types’ of the players. First, we look at players who are unconstrained in their strategising abilities, in that, players who may use unbounded memory. We then consider the case of memoryless players. We show that in both these cases the eventual stability of the game can be characterised in terms of potentials. We then introduce a simple modal logic in which the types of the players can be specified. We show that when the players play according to these specified types, it can be effectively decided whether the game stabilises. Finally, we look at the important heuristic of imitation. Simple imitative strategies can be specified in the logic introduced by us. We show that in a population of optimisers and imitators, we can decide how ‘worse-off’ the imitators are by playing imitative strategies rather than optimal ones. (shrink)

The mechanisms responsible for the fine tuning of development, where the wildtype phenotype is reproduced with high fidelity, are not well understood. The difficulty in approaching this problem is the identification of mutant phenotypes indicative of a defect in these fine‐tuning control mechanisms. Evolutionary biologists have used asymmetry as a measure of developmental homeostasis. The rationale for this was that, since the same genome controls the development of the left and right sides of a bilaterally symmetrical organism, departures from symmetry (...) can be used to measure genetic or environmental perturbations. This paper examines the relationship between asymmtry and resistance to organophosphorous insecticides in the Australian sheep blowfly, Lucilia cuprina. A resistance gene, Rop‐1, which encodes a carboxylesterase enzyme, also confers a significant increase in asymmetry. Continued exposure of resistant populations to insecticide has selected a dominant suppressor of the asymmetry phenotype. Genetic evidence indicates that the modifier is the L. cuprina Notch homologue. (shrink)

In this article, classic game theory and evolutionary game theory are used to explain how social norms might come into existence. The norm of distributive fairness is taken as a case in point, and illustrated by a simple example of dividing a cake.

‘Game’ means ‘play within the construction of rules’. The sub-category ‘sport’ considers play as competition where the rules are known to the audience, under the following divide: fundamental constructive rules about the game's structure and less important or flexible rules facilitating and monitoring play. These provide athletes and audience with stable knowledge. The excitement of play comes from the vagaries of the actual engagement of the rules in the action of play. The social order can use this (...) as a metaphor of its ideal of civil law in relation to the citizen. (shrink)

Metagames: Games About Games scrutinizes how various meta devices, such as breaking the fourth wall and unreliable narrator, change and adapt when translated into the uniquely interactive medium of digital games. Through its theoretical analyses and case studies, the book shows how metafictional experimentation can be used to both challenge and push the boundaries of what a game is and what a player's role is in play, and to raise more profound topics such as those describing experiences of people (...) of oppressed identities. The book is divided into six chapters that deal with the following meta devices: breaking the fourth wall, Hypermediation, unreliable narrator, abusive game design, fragmentation, and parody. The book will predominantly interest scholars and students of media studies and game studies as it continues discourses held in the discipline regarding the metareferential character of digital games. (shrink)

Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter. Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2009. 320pp. pbk. $19.95 ISBN-13: 978-0816666119. In Games of Empire , Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter expand an earlier study of “the video game industry as an aspect of an emerging postindustrial, post-Fordist capitalism” (xxix) to argue that videogames are “exemplary media of Empire” (xxix). Their notion of “Empire” is based on Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire (2000), (...) which characterizes the contemporary world order as a decentralized system of global economic, political, and economic power that transcends national boundaries. In the view of the authors, Hardt and Negri’s account sets itself apart from other analyses of international politics by offering a “comprehensive account of conditions of work, forms of subjectivity, and types of struggle in contemporary capital” (xx). Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter thus divide Games of Empire into three sections to reflect each of these aspects of Empire ’s argument, seeing their work as the first account to explore “virtual games within a system of global ownership, privatized property, coercive class relations, military operations, and radical struggle” (xxix). Books in the University of Minnesota Press’s Electronic Mediations series “explore the humanistic and social implications” of new technologies that spark “significant changes in society and culture, politics and economics, thinking and being.” That’s an abstract goal, and one that Games of Empire surely meets. Yet at times it can be difficult to understand exactly which specific intervention this book seeks to make. It is unclear whether the authors of Games of Empire see their work as an indictment of game scholars’ lack of attention to political economy, or whether it’s a work of political theory hoping to show that other disciplines should be paying more attention to the production and play of videogames. Because Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter don’t directly criticize previous political critiques of gaming—such as Edward Castronova’s exploration of the “porous membrane” allowing two-way traffic between virtual economies and those of the real world, or Alexander Galloway’s unraveling of control protocols in algorithmic design, or Ian Bogost’s idea of political procedural rhetoric—they sometimes leave the reader wondering how to situate the book in the broader discourse on games and politics, either separately or together. Thus, Games of Empire might best be seen as an introduction to the writings of Hardt and Negri for game players and designers, rather than as a text for communicating the basic concepts of game studies and design. It is neither a truly new theory of games or digital media, nor is it a new theory of Empire—and that’s not a criticism. It is instead an introduction to Empire through popular culture, as Zizek does for Lacan in Looking Awry . If one were teaching an introductory course on contemporary political theory, this book would offer obvious inroads into Negri and Hardt’s thinking for a number of reasons. Despite its radical ideological bent, the book isn’t off-putting to readers who don’t necessarily share the authors’ politics. It synthesizes complex ideas from difficult thinkers like Marx, Foucault, and Guattari while integrating modifications and critiques of Empire theory itself. And although the book is dense, sometimes feeling longer than it actually is (just over 200 pages), Games of Empire maintains a breezy readability by tightly coupling core concepts of Empire theory to well-known games and widely-publicized conflicts within the videogame industry. The first section of the book focuses on immaterial labor, the accumulation of “cognitive capital,” and the global process of manufacturing videogame consoles. It is significant for the authors that videogames began as hacker experiments within research institutes of the military industrial complex, programmed on stolen time, before becoming a commodity (7). This is the first in a string of examples showing how creative dissidence and conflict fuel the continuing evolution of Empire’s control. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter explain that the videogame industry now constitutes an international production apparatus dominating both creative work in developed nations and manual labor in developing ones. Because game industries in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan are predominately non-unionized, they serve as an exemplary system for analyzing how global capital exploits contemporary intellectual work—including an excellent analysis of the “EA Spouse” scandal of 2004. On the side of the consumer, the authors argue that rabid “console races” that drive the industry forward from a technological perspective serve to structure gamer identity and combat piracy; later in the book, these machines offer a window into the worlds of Congolese coltan mining and electronic waste (222-224). In the second section, Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter move on to deep case studies of individual games to show how the most popular game genres embed imperial assumptions about conflict, exchange, and urban life. First they argue that military training games such as Full Spectrum Warrior —co-developed by university researchers, industry developers, and military contractors—contribute to the “banalization” of war, a subjective state wherein perpetual preparedness for war is accepted as a part of everyday life (100). Chapter five covers Michel Foucalt’s notion of “biopower,” the extension of capital accumulation to life itself. The authors argue that virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft , which take market capitalism as a given and force players into essentialist roles and racial antagonisms, are organized to maximize control and profit (often on the backs of virtual currency “farmers” in China and southeast Asia). Finally, they criticize the naïve assumption that humor and cynicism in the popular sandbox game franchise Grand Theft Auto offer any remedy to its racialized, violent content. Instead, such games indulge and normalize the fantasy of getting rich at any cost by keeping the realities of contemporary urban life and corporate greed at a safe distance (181). Part three of Games of Empire focuses on “games of multitude,” a preliminary attempt to escape from Empire’s order through alternate modes of videogame development and play. Multitude is defined dialectically, as “the engine and the enemy” of Empire (187). This is the most important, yet also most contradictory section of the text. It lays bare the process by which Empire and its media feed our creative and intellectual development to overabundance. At a certain point, the force of the multitude reaches such a level that it threatens the stability of Empire; however, instead of following Hardt and Negri’s utopian assumptions about the radical potential of the multitude, the authors here follow Paolo Virno’s warning that Empire is “very good at adopting apparently iconoclastic practices and utopian ideas as management techniques and revenue sources” (188). At every turn, advances in player configurative power provide new sources of revenue and advertising angles for the game industry. A disappointing shortcoming of these latter pages is the lack of truly new examples for radical resistance within game development. Instead, it turns out that the radical left seems satisfied with the same mild successes that the left-of-center also has celebrated: artist’s mods, virtual world activism, and critical counterplay within strategy- and wargames. Having been frequently cited by many authors before Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter, this idea of subversion or resistance through play feels tired and unpersuasive. It is unclear if the authors believe it is possible to embrace game design itself as a way of pursuing what they call “exodus” from Empire, or if an all-too-fashionable subversion is the only workable strategy. While the book does explore how the earliest independent game studios were eventually subverted and incorporated into the game industry proper, it doesn’t affirm or critique more recent non-commercial, DIY game development projects such as Klik-of-the-Month Club and Ludum Dare. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter’s analysis of so-called “tactical games,” including the editorial works of La Molleindustria, leads to an even more ambivalent take on the contemporary design ecology. At the conclusion of his essay on “Countergaming,” Galloway asserts that avant-garde videogame artists “should create new grammars of action […] should create alternative algorithms” (Galloway 125). Yet Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter characterize works such as McDonald’s Video Game and Oiligarchy as didactic, suggesting that the role of radical political games might be “limited to that of agitprop” (199). They are concerned that games like those of Molleindustria rigidly structure the activities of their players in order to prove a point. Yet, despite their repeated assertion that the equation of greater interactivity with democratic digital liberation is flawed, the authors see potential in policy simulators that “allow players to edit or tweak” (202) their parameters in response to what Bogost has called simulation fever , the simultaneous drive toward and fear of simulation (Bogost 108). The possibility of practicing radical design is bucked, and early attempts at critical game development like those of Molleindustria’s seem to be relegated to the status of exceptions that prove the rule for player-centered exodus. Overall, there is one glaring question Games of Empire leaves unanswered: how exactly are videogames the “exemplary media” of Empire, and what are the implications of videogames being exemplary in this way? Presumably Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter want to avoid essentialist claims, so they’re not keen on following Wark’s desire to mark “the game’s difference from [legacy media] as something that speaks to changes in the overall structure of social and technical relations” (Wark 225). It is also unclear how the production apparatuses, labor standards, and subjectivizing processes involved in the creation and use of other any other kind of digital media would fail to justify their equally exemplary status. Even the book’s concluding paragraph holds that virtual games “are one molecular component of this undecidable collective mutation” (Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter 229) of intellect, labor, and daily life. In the end, the authors seem to back away from their focus on games as exemplary to bring their work in line with broader theories of the gradual digitization of the everyday, in line with Galloway and Manovich. Despite these flaws, there is an undeniable elegance to Games of Empire ’s contrasting of gaming’s overwhelmingly imperial content with its multitudinous form . And its ambivalence about the potential of independent or political game development might be seen by scholars of Empire as a strength rather than a weakness, an acceptance that every new expression of multitude offers another opportunity for the expansion of Empire. The book also functions as a strong, all-encompassing call to greater responsibility on the part of mainstream game developers to be more conscious of the ideologies they embed in their work, of the way their intellectual property is used and manipulated by those who employ them, and of the material impact their industry has on the world at large. For players it offers a toolbox of concepts for radical examinations of their own play activities, asking them to be more cognizant of the consequences of their consumption of digital media and the ways in which their virtual lives interface with the real. REFERENCES Bogost, Ian. Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. Castranova, Edward. Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games . Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Dyer-Witheford, Nick and de Peuter, Greig. Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games . Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Galloway, Alexander. Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture . Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2006). Wark, McKenzie. Gamer Theory . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007. (shrink)

Purpose The digital divide has persisted in California and the USA as a whole at approximately the same level for the past decade. This is despite multiple programs being created and billions of dollars being spent to close it. This paper examines why the efforts to date have been ineffective and to offers policy alternatives that might be more successful. Design/methodology/approach Using data from three, variable constrained projects in California, this paper examines the effectiveness of information-based outreach efforts at (...) closing the digital divide. The projects tested various outreach and enrollment methods to see which, if any, could increase broadband adoption in low-income households. Findings This project found that providing low-income households’ information about low-cost broadband offerings was ineffective at closing the digital divide. The findings in this paper were similar to those of two other works that examined the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Practical implications The findings of this paper along with the works cited that evaluated the BTOP program should be enough to change public policy. For the past ten years, efforts to close the digital divide have focused on providing information to low-income households. However, two independent surveys show broadband adoption has remained virtually flat during that period. Social implications The digital divide brings concomitant economic and education harms and challenges that plague those unable to access information, services, educational and employment opportunities with the same ease, speed and sufficiency as their connected peers and neighbors. Those harms exacerbate the already existing education and income divides. This paper shows that without a change in strategy, those harms will persist. Originality/value This paper breaks new ground and addresses one of the weaknesses identified in existing research. To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first paper of its type to use programs designed to generate data that can be empirically evaluated for effectiveness. Prior studies attempted to assess program effectiveness by using data generated from fully implemented government programs. However, those programs contained a vast number of unidentified variables and insufficient data collection. They were not designed to facilitate academic evaluation, and as such made a true effectiveness evaluation challenging. (shrink)

Unlike other creatures, humans developed the ability to cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers and a tendency to comply with social norms. However, humans deviate from social norms in various situations. This study used the modified ultimatum game to explore why humans deviate from social norms and how their prosocial behavior can be promoted. In Study 1, participants were asked to imagine working with an anonymous counterpart to complete a task and obtain a certain amount of money (e.g., ¥10). The (...) computer divided the money randomly in favor of the participant (e.g., 9:1 or 8:2). Participants should decide whether to accept or reject such a self-benefiting division. In the non-risk condition, an absolutely fair redivision of money would take place if participants reject self-benefiting division (e.g. 5:5 or 6:4). By contrast, in the risk condition, other-benefiting redivision of money (e.g., 1:9 or 2:8) would take place if participants rejected the self-benefiting division. Results involving 40 college students showed the main effect of condition. The frequency of accepting self-benefiting division in the risk condition was higher than that in the non-risk condition. As such, compliance with social norms is based on the preservation of material resources. In Study 2, we used economic or moral rewards to compensate for economic loss following compliance with the norm. Results involving 28 college students revealed a significant effect of compensation. The rewards, including moral praise, effectively decreased selfish choices. These findings extend previous studies on social norm compliance by emphasizing the importance of internal, fairness-based balance between material and moral needs, as well as the role of moral praise in promoting prosocial behavior. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Nature of Gaming What Are the Rules of This Game? Playing, Cheating, Fragging, and Griefing.

A centipede can walk until it thinks about howit does so. Thereafter it stumbles, over thesheer impossibility of the information andcoordination required. Life in the economy islittle different. Those engaged in productionand exchange discover, pragmatically, ways tomake them work. Those observing the processsee, realistically, the immense improbabilitythat it should do so. That most economies workin practice, but must pass such toughteleological tests to succeed in theory,highlights a difference between players' andspectators' outlook which may help to explainwhy the game has (...) repeatedly been thrown wideopen just when conclusive results seemed withinreach.Section 1 of this paper identifies the fourforms of realism which economists have tendedto adopt. Section 2 considers the pragmatism ofeconomic agents, when observed in action bypsychologists and management scholars notoverly steeped in economic theory. Theconcluding section reviews the ways in whicheconomists have tried to blur the distinction,by reclassifying agents as realistic or theirown views as pragmatic, and suggests that amore pragmatic economics might bridge thedivide. (shrink)

The present study develops an artificial agent that plays the iterative chicken game based on a computational model that describes human behavior in competitive social interactions in terms of fairness. The computational model we adopted in this study, named as the self-concept fairness model, decides the agent’s action according to the evaluation of fairness of both opponent and self. We implemented the artificial agent in a computer program with a set of parameters adjustable by researchers. These parameters allow researchers (...) to determine the extent to which the agent behaves aggressively or cooperatively. To demonstrate the use of the proposed method for the investigation of human behavior, we performed an experiment in which human participants played the iterative chicken game against the artificial agent. Participants were divided into two groups, each being informed to play with either a person or the computer. The behavioral analysis results showed that the proposed method can induce changes in the behavioral pattern of human players by changing the agent’s behavioral pattern. Also, we found that participants tended to be more sensitive to fairness when they played with a human opponent than with a computer opponent. These results support that the artificial agent developed in this study will be useful to investigate human behavior in competitive social interactions. (shrink)

Ethics in video gaming is broad topic that extends beyond the familiar instances of “moral panics”. This chapter will first divide ethical issues into internal and external moral questions. Roughly, this equates to a distinction between the ethics in games and the ethics of games. The ethical issues internal to video games arise due to both their status as fictions and their status as games. Many games afford players the opportunity to perform violent and vicious acts; however, these are (...) of course fictional actions and are often contextualized as part of the game’s competitive play. This raises the general question whether it can ever be morally wrong to perform some fictional action in a video game. To approach this question, this section will first consider how moral values are inherent within games. Players engage with the embedded moral values of games both at the level of their narratives and their rules. Games become objects for moral reflection, not only through the stories that they tell, but also through the ways in which players are invited to engage actively with those stories. Next, external ethical issues are those that focus on the nature of the gaming industry and gaming cultures. The gaming industry has notoriously struggled with representations of gender and race, both in their workforce and in the games that they produce. Turning to the ecological impacts, the gaming industry is a major source of e-waste through the production of gaming technologies. The hardware used in gaming has a lifecycle that begins with the exploitation of resource-rich developing countries that produce the precious materials used in computer screens and processing chips and ends with those same products being dumped in toxic landfills in other developing countries. Additionally, gaming is a major source of energy consumption, particularly as cloud gaming servers are required to run continuously. When considering the ethics of games, such social and ecological concerns must surely figure in one’s moral calculation. Finally, some moral issues straddle the line between the above distinction between internal and external due to the porous nature of virtual interactivity, particularly regarding multiplayer games. Various gaming cultures struggle with their own ethical issues—from the failure to promote sportsmanship in e-sports to the widespread harassment of players in online platforms. This final section will briefly consider problems with multiplayer games, harassment, and trolling. (shrink)

As a primary symptom defining Internet gaming disorder, preoccupation indicates a mind state in which gamers think about a gaming activity so much that other things appear less important and/or interesting to them. Previous studies have examined the negative impacts of IGD on both cognitive and affective functions, yet no study has investigated the influence of IGD on daily mind state changes that interfere with ongoing tasks. The current study hypothesized that more IGD symptoms lead to a higher frequency of (...) mind state shift in terms of mind-wandering. As social anxiety is related to both IGD and mind-wandering, we further hypothesized that social anxiety would partially contribute to the relationship. Survey data were collected from 632 young adults who were divided into two groups based on whether they reported playing games or not. In the player group, the number of IGD symptoms present was positively related to mind-wandering and social anxiety, with the latter two showing a positive correlation in both players and non-players. A mediation analysis for the players showed a partial mediation effect of social anxiety on the relationship between IGD and mind-wandering, and the model was replicated in an independent sample. This study suggests that excessive gaming behavior may increase mind-wandering and a shift towards such a non-productive mind state could exert long-term detrimental effects in adolescents and young adults. (shrink)

Group dynamics play an important role in the social interactions of both children and adults. A large amount of research has shown that merely being allocated to arbitrarily defined groups can evoke disproportionately positive attitudes toward one’s in-group and negative attitudes toward out-groups, and that these biases emerge in early childhood. This prompts important empirical questions with far-reaching theoretical and applied significance. How robust are these inter-group biases? Can biases be mitigated by behaviors known to bond individuals and groups together? (...) How can bonds be forged across existing group divides? To explore these questions, we examined the bonding effects of interpersonal synchrony on minimally constructed groups in a controlled experiment. In-group and out-group bonding were assessed using questionnaires administered before and after a task in which groups performed movements either synchronously or non-synchronously in a between-participants design. We also developed an implicit behavioral measure, the Island Game, in which physical proximity was used as an indirect measure of interpersonal closeness. Self-report and behavioral measures showed increased bonding between groups after synchronous movement. Bonding with the out-group was significantly higher in the condition in which movements were performed synchronously than when movements were performed non-synchronously between groups. The findings are discussed in terms of their importance for the developmental social psychology of group dynamics as well as their implications for applied intervention programs. (shrink)