From: burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Jonathan Burns)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.misc
Subject: Interstellar Games Theory (was Re: Denial of Humanity)
Date: 14 Apr 92 07:37:21 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

In article <1992Apr13.223040.15421@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
 jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins) writes:

> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:

>>> Why are you assuming the ability to successfully wage war is a 
>>> trait which would be selected against? Perhaps pre-emptive genocidal
>>> attacks are a very successful method of suvival on the galactic
>>> stage; if so, we could expect warmongers to persist longer than
>>> their victims.

>> Let me speculate here...

>> I suggest that unless the galaxy is sparsely populated, warfighting
>> ability should be quite common.  A galaxy of defenseless populations
>> is unstable to takeover by aggressors.  Once aggressors dominate,
>> loss of warfighting ability is also selected against.

>> The stable equilibrium is a dense population of fiercely territorial
>> civilizations, since attacking a competent defender is likely to be
>> unprofitable.  However, that defensive ability could be easily turned
>> to offense against a civilization such as ours.

> An interesting lesson can be learned from a computer programming
> exercise I once read about.  A group of students each wrote a computer
> program that used any method desired to react in the following situation:
> two computers would pair off, and have the option of 'trading' with each
> other a certain number of times.  The catch was that you don't know whether
> your partner has given you anything yet when you make the decision to
> hand over your goods.  So you can either trust it, and give, or not trust
> it (or try to get the advantage) and not give your goods.  Naturally,
> there were many differnt types of programs.  However, when they were
> paired off repetitively, the more 'agressive' ones (more likely to try
> to trick their opponent) weren't necessarily the most succesfull.
> Their prey (more trusting programs) were out competed, leaving mostly
> untrusting programs to pair off.  However, these obviously only worked
> well when paired against a trusting program, because they
> couldn't get anything out of an untrusting one.  The most succesfull
> programs were those that treated others fine _unless they were betrayed
> first_.

> If we think this is a good analogy for alien civilizations, perhaps we
> sould assume that the 'stable equilibrium' will include mostly civilizations
> that do not attack others, only defend themselves.


(Whew. It's politer to insert line breaks, friend; otherwise your text
becomes hard to include.)

The Straight Poop on this can be found in Douglas Hofstadter, 
_Metamagical Themas_. The researcher of this 'Prisoners' Dilemma
Tournament' was (A.?) Rappaport. Hofstadter's conclusion was that
the most survivable programs on average were the best able _to
elicit communication_ from others. I don't know where the research
has gone from there. 

Speculating galactically, I note that communication is faster than
transport. There is also a strong home-ground advantage, in resources
and preparation time. If I were gaming this, I'd dictate that near-C
blitzkreig gets ONE good chance at destroying its target, and then
the target if surviving gets an appropriate chance to deploy Brilliant
Strange Blobs or something, while the attacker is digesting the post-
strike intelligence.

The best defense is of course to have no potential enemies, and to
that end destroy everyone in sight. But if civilizations are dense,
you will presently come up against the Arisian Defense, in which
an advanced civ begins to educate clients in large numbers, around
your perimeter.

I would guess there would be stability, but only at the hegemony
level. Scant comfort.


At another level, cooperate/default games are an issue when there
is only communication. Suppose we discovered a Site Guide for the
Galaxy, and were suddenly able to communicate with hundreds of
civs. We could enter into agreements for exchange of information,
genetic codes, etc, beyond our ability to produce. What is the
best bet for a civ that finds we've cheated it, five hundred years
later? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jonathan Burns        |  They finally discovered that the ONE thing
burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au|  they just could not _STAND_ was a smartass
Computer Science Dept |  commenting decompiler ...
La Trobe University   |
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