Category Archives: Ethics

Tragedy of the Commons – Part 2

Tragedy of the Commons is the natural extension of the Prisoner’s Dilemma to an arbitrary number of players. Just as we used Prisoner’s Dilemma as a model to understand the limitations of pairwise cooperation1, so too Tragedy of the Commons is an essential model for understanding the limitations of group cooperation. Continue reading

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Tragedy of the Commons – Part 1

‘Tragedy of the commons’, and it’s special two player case which is known as ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’, is a game (or class of game) in game theory; which is interesting, both in it’s own right as a mathematical concept because it is so simple and yet has a surprising – even paradoxical feeling – result, but also because it is such a useful and natural model in evolution, economics and ethics, for understanding the limits of cooperation.1 Continue reading

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