Climate Change Games


Climate change games are being played for very high stakes. With Arctic ice shrinking, sea levels rising, weather patterns changing leading to greater storm activity in some places and prolonged droughts in others, the threshold for serious change appears close.

The price to cut back on pollution is high and our politicians are representing our interests if I may put that politely. Clearly with my thin wallet, my interests aren’t as exciting as some with much thicker wallets, but when push comes to shove, we would all like our wallets to grow plumper rather than slimmer. Slimming is for our belly in the gym so we can fit into our fat cat suits more easily.

Nevertheless we recognize that the issue is important and many of us thought that in 1997 when the Kyoto Protocol was announced that we had had serious negotiations leading to a serious action plan. But the game goes on.

 In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Barrett and Dannenberg have had a look at the business of climate negotiations from a Games Theory perspective and an uncomfortable perspective it is (1). It is a serious multiplayer game in which a dangerous change threshold could be reached if the players don’t cooperate.

Games theory is a fun activity of many psychologists who set up lab experiments around cooperative games. The ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ game is a classic (2).  Recall that cooperation means a light sentence (cost) for both players while betrayal means that the betrayer goes free (rewarded) and the betrayed gets a heavy sentence (pays a big cost). Mathematical analysis shows that on repeat plays with a group, the player who betrays does best. (Psychologist don’t send anyone to jail, they pay out cash in various amounts.)

When there is a big gain by cooperating (see the stag hunting game of Rousseau or just the Battle of the Sexes Game (2)) that is the stable equilibrium setting. That is, the best thing is cooperation and everybody wins.

 Climate change should fit that cooperation scenario as there is a big gain and a serious loss at that dangerous threshold. The problem comes into these climate change games as the threshold for disaster become less well defined. Barrett and Dannenberg crunched numbers and found that when the dangerous threshold of the games was uncertain, the game switched from a cooperative win type of game to a Prisoner’s Dilemma result where betrayal (self-interest) is the winning strategy.

A disappointing result, but a rationalization for why so many politicians say one thing and do another over this issue.

  1. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/09/1208417109.abstract
  2. http://www.econ.uzh.ch/faculty/jgoeree/publications/CG.pdf

Nice Or Nasty – I Bark As I Find


Being nice or nasty to a strange dog is going to fix its opinion of you in short order. But that is direct experience. Now the big question is do our doggy friends decide on your reputation by watching your behavior to others?

We take a lot of effort to establish and maintain our reputations. Apparently chimpanzees can make judgments on people’s reputations depending on if they are willing to give a grape to a fellow (1).

Chimpanzees, though, are not close companions for most of us, so we won’t normally be worried about what the chimp down the road thinks of us. Dogs, on the other hand, abound and are treated as least as well as many of our children are treated. So when you venture out of your front door and all those attentive ears pick up the sound of your key in the lock and those noses start misting up the windows as pairs of eyes follow you down the driveway and along the sidewalk, noting that you ignore that hydrant which is the neighborhood message board, do they think nice or nasty?

This is clearly too good a question for any dyed-in-the-wool psychologist to leave on their lab bench.  Nitzschner et al of Leipzig’s Max Planck have risen to the challenge with interrogating 32 mature dogs after their lab experiments (1). The experimenters were matched women in terms of clothing, hairstyle and glasses so the dogs wouldn't be distracted by different physical attributes. Perfume wasn’t mentioned, so sniff tests were discounted.

The experimenters sat on the floor and each dog was shoved into the lab. In one case  (nice) the experimenter made a fuss of the dog. With the other case, the nasty, the experimenter ignored the dog. Of course the dogs liked being interacted with and spent a lot of time communicating with the experimenter.

The second experiment was the key one. The dog under study watched the experimenter with another dog, either fussing and cuddling it or ignoring it. Afterward they were allowed to interact with the experimenter directly. The result was that they spent as much time trying to discuss their affairs of the day with Ms. Nasty as with Ms. Nice; reputation was of no importance.

It seems that dogs decide about people by direct contact and don’t come to a relationship with a lot of prejudged baggage.

  1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0046880

3–D Printers Are Mainstream


3–D printers are now mainstream after they have been around for two or three decades. The big ones at about $20k are out of reach for most of us, but people like J. Leno, car collector and comedian or perhaps I should say comedian and car collector, who is printing out car parts that aren’t manufactured any more (1, 2) can afford to have one tucked away. Or Disney, who are printing toys with light guides and led lights embedded which can respond to stimuli from outside (3), are becoming innovators.

Smaller ones that cost $2k or less are available for the dedicated technophilic geek (3, 4, 5, 6, 7) who may want an absorbing hobby or may be trying to start a business. For example, the entrepreneurs who came up with the idea of printing guns (8) but got shut down, as it seems to require a license to do that. Would that also be true of replica guns or some wild new design reminiscent of a Sci-Fi weapon?

Reprap (4) had a great idea in that their first printer was designed in such a way that it could print out parts to make another one. The prototype couldn’t do it all, but they are getting to that stage and they hope to be able to include their printed circuits in the print run. So we are seeing machines that can clone themselves ad lib and the growth could be exponential.

The vision of the brave new world of all robots coming along with their personal 3–D printers so that they can not only repair themselves, but get busy and assemble their clones is very definitely not just the figment of one’s imagination after too many hours in the bar.

So now that we are able to say “Have printer, will travel” as a promise to arrive on someone’s doorstep and spend an afternoon printing the Christmas presents for the kids is fine, but there is a snag. It’s all in the software. Not necessarily in the difficulty of any coding – easy for a technophilic geek – but in the scanned in details of the objects for the delight on Christmas morning around the tree.

Those files are where the income streams will come from. Sites could be set up where we could pay a fee and use them for a specified number of runs, or time, or for a higher fee purchase them. The BBC report (3) indicates that files are already showing up on Pirate Bay.

  1. http://www.webpronews.com/the-3d-printed-car-may-not-be-too-far-off-2012-08
  2. http://www.stratasys.com/Products/Overview.aspx 
  3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19818815
  4. http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
  5. http://deezmaker.com/bukobot/
  6. http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html
  7. http://www.webpronews.com/another-cheap-3d-printer-looks-to-kickstarter-for-funding-2012-10
  8. http://www.webpronews.com/diy-gun-project-put-on-hold-as-creators-have-their-3d-printer-seized-2012-10