Hi Earl, Welcome! You have fascinating questions. Perhaps I may offer an example from the tiny red dot of Singapore, although this may not be purely a case of a wrong game.
Singapore is an island limited by a lack of natural resources (including land area) and challenges of a growing population. So in order to control the number of cars and traffic the government established a system known as the car ownership scheme, where one would have to purchase a certificate of entitlement - COE (like a license) to drive a car for 10 years. These licenses are given out every month of course, and people can also renew their licenses if they wish to. However to get a license one will have to bid for them, and it can be any amount. The interesting bit lies in the bidding wars that people engage in, thereby driving the prices of COEs much higher than they should be. People are playing the prisoner's dilemma - they have no idea what others are bidding so they put in bids as high as they could afford in the attempt to secure them. As I write, the latest price of a COE to own a car in the large-car category is now more than S$45k, whereas in the past it had costed as low as S$2. Although the objective of controlling the number of cars seems to be addressed, no one really benefit from this, because everyone is doing the same thing and it affects the motor industry as a whole. At the same time, there have been reports of car owners wanting to drive their cars as much as possible, since they paid so much for them. While this may not be purely a case of a wrong game (since the perception of COEs is that they're scarce, and in reality it is based on how many the government wishes to release into the market), I wonder if there is a certain critical threshold by which it becomes a wrong game. My two cents. Regards, Natalie Sent from my iPhone. On Sep 2, 2010, at 9:48 PM, Earl Vickers <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Howard and all, > > Glad to find this group! > > I'm finishing up a paper for the Audio Engineering Society that analyzes the > "loudness war" in terms of game theory and cooperation theory. Basically, the > loudness war involves the fact that record companies are applying more and > more dynamic range compression to CDs to try to make each one louder than all > the others. As a result, CDs now have less dynamic range than a 1909 Edison > cylinder (!), and people end up tuning out because of listening fatigue and > lack of dynamics and excitement. (This has nothing to do with the final > playback volume - listeners have their own volume controls and can turn it up > as loud as they want - it just relates to producers squashing the dynamics.) > > So the idea is that each company tries to make their CDs the loudest, but > since everyone is doing that, they end up with no real advantage, and it may > be adversely affecting the overall industry - a typical social dilemma. Among > other things, I'm presenting some studies showing that we may have gone to > loudness war based on a lie: while listeners do prefer the louder of two > otherwise identical recordings, loudness appears to have an insignificant > effect when choosing between two different songs. Also, there appears to be > no significant correlation between loudness and sales rankings. It looks like > people may buy music primarily because they like it, not because it's louder > than other music. > > I'm looking for a real-world example of people playing the wrong game based > on false assumptions - for example, playing a non-(prisoner's)-dilemma as if > it were a dilemma, or playing a non-zero-sum game as if it were zero-sum. Any > ideas? > > Earl > http://www.sfxmachine.com > > >> Thanks for nudging us awake again, Robert. I know that several people have >> joined in recent weeks. I am still interested in the subject and I use >> http://cooperationcommons.com -- especially the summaries -- all the time. >> >> >> Howard Rheingold [email protected] http://twitter.com/hrheingold >> http://www.rheingold.com http://www.smartmobs.com >> http://vlog.rheingold.com >> what it is ---> is --->up to us >> >> >> >> On Sep 1, 2010, at 9:16 AM, Robert Link wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> CoCos, >>> >>> We've been quiet quite a while. What are folks up to? I have added a >>> handful of new names to the list today, and hope they will each >>> introduce themselves to the group. Likewise, it would be great to hear >>> from each and everyone one of you. Does CoCo still represent a resource >>> to you? How best can we reactivate you? You, personally, as an >>> individual? >>> >>> As for me, I've taken the California Bar a 3rd time since my last post, >>> and am currently working on setting up a drupal site for a local >>> volunteer board. This put me on the #drupal-support channel in freenode, >>> where I spotted one of our own. >>> >>> Peace, >>> >>> rl >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "CooperationCommons" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> [email protected]. >>> For more options, visit this group at >>> http://groups.google.com/group/cooperationcommons?hl=en. >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "CooperationCommons" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/cooperationcommons?hl=en. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "CooperationCommons" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/cooperationcommons?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CooperationCommons" group. 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