Topic: The Ultimatum Game (Read 17565 times)

It is not important what's the positive speculation is, people should take into account today's price level because waiting for the aim for a while can ruin the whole strategy.

Imagine a website or a mobile app where people played this game with each other. People would be able to play many times and their ranking would be displayed publicly. For example a man who managed on average to get people to accept 1% to themselves and 99% to himself, would be ranked very high. But people would see that so they may stop choosing to play the game with him and instead play against other players who gave a higher percentage to them. The ranking score should be adjusted with for example the factor 1 / (1 + 1/n) where n is the number of times played to prevent people who have played only one or two times from being ranked too high.

EDIT: Unfortunately it would be too easy to cheat in the game, such as registering two accounts or letting friends accept outrageous deals. Otherwise it would be a fun game I think. By letting each user create several personalities such as GreedyBill, AverageJoe and CompassionateLama they will be able to try different strategies. Pretty cool service if cheating can be prevented.

I guess they lost the game ¬.¬

Yes I agree, with respect to the original post, this game was invalid.

I still found it interesting though.

Write a HowTo or show them a tutorial video?

Ha ha. I'm just trying to get a larger perspective on it. Behavior is related to our own level of development. An extreme example is a bunch of baboons at a birthday party. The baboons would make a dash to reach the birthday cake and they would try to grab as big piece of the cake as possible, ripping both the cake and themselves into pieces. How would you explain to the baboons that there is another way to behave in such situation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

So, in this case,

I reject all proposals, where I get (50% - x), if x > 10% of total sum, i.e. if can't call a proposal to be roughly honest (50x50).

Note, if you select another strategy, it simply designates that you are in need of money, i.e. you feel some kind of poverty.
If you live in sufficiency, you will focus upon justice only.

Rejecting when everyone knows the result might be perfectly rational, especially for this small sum.  It shows people won't want to mess with you.  But why not take it to the extreme, and say you'll reject anything less than .90 BTC?  If you play the game over and over, you keep rejecting, and people will either keep offering you garbage to punish you or will give in.  Reputation is key.

fadisaaida listed this as one of his reasons for not taking the 0.35 BTC. But in the true experiment, he would not have taken a stance and could not be seen as a hypocrite for taking the low-ball offer.

Just some food for thought.

Ken Wilber has an interesting explanation of how people act differently depending on what stage of development a person is at. He often uses the Spiral Dynamics model:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt5k8cmrtQc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA7g0iCue9w

Ken Wilber talking about the integral leap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xujy3qcSphI

Put both of them in the same game, same positions,  at least two more times to get an idea of how this works out long term with two people that have played the game

Also, would the outcome of this game change the way you would play the game in the future?

Wow, you have foregone 0.35 BTC from a complete stranger, just so that another complete stranger doesn't get 0.65 BTC.

Very interesting indeed.

@bituser, how do you feel about missing out on 0.5 BTC?

One way to think of this is that you had a sure (almost) 0.5 in your hand, but then you gambled it all in order to get 0.65 (you gambled 100% to get a 30% return).

Money is important, yes, but wouldn't it be liberating to say: "This game sucks. I'm out of here."  Cash is king, they say. But do you really want to kneel before some king? Are you a free individual or a fricken' slave licking the boots of your precious master called money?

In a real situation it may be very complicated. For example who is the person, organization or company supplying the money? Is the activity legal? Would I want to receive money from the giver?

On a second thought, I would probably say no to any kind of sum offered. Ha! Because I play it safe. And I'm too lazy to check all the circumstances. How's that for controversial, eh?

Well it would depend on how well I knew you. It didn't say if you and I are strangers. If I knew you needed an operation that cost $4,990 and we were friends then this deal would be considered a windfall and I'd agree to it.

If you and I are strangers, then considering we know nothing about each other, I would say no because all else being equal, why should we get unequal amounts?

This reminded me of an article on why psychopathy still exists in the world and how to reduce it. Basically it comes down to it making sense in game theory unless mitigated by reputation. Psychopaths get away with stuff by papering their reputation and smearing others'. If people don't reduce the psychopath's reputation, they will get away with anything.

In this case I wouldn't want to give myself the reputation of accepting less than half with strangers, in case I needed more in the future, unless I was very secure knowing that I wouldn't ever need more. Also I wouldn't want to give the stranger the sense that they can take more than half with strangers, because maybe my friend or family member in need will be in the same transaction in the future? If this person has a bad reputation then absolutely we will neither get any money. If this person has a great reputation then I would assume they possibly made a more well-informed decision, an error or were joking, and we could come to a mutually satisfying understanding after the deal. (See why it's important to reduce a psychopath's reputation? If they don't have a reduced reputation they will get away with anything. Also they smear others' reputations to leave less for others and more for themselves.) If we're strangers maybe this person is a psychopath or has a bad reputation that I don't know about and I wouldn't want to reward them. Beside all this it's basically a chance for each to gather information of the part and whole.

49/51 to be absolutely sure to get some free $

That's an interesting variant. Another would be: will there be a difference between people who know each other? Would people make different deals with friends and 'loved ones' compared to with strangers? I would NOT. Then again, I'm not your ordinary person. He he.

Didn't read all yet, but I think it depends.
If we were the only 2 people in the world, no way Jose.