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#gametheory#prisoner'sdilemma#axelrod'stournament

Once you understand game theory, you understand the world.

Veritasium

21M subscribers • 25 videos on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 10 people: 10 on Hacker News.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

26M views2 years ago10 recommendations

Computer scienceComputation and complexity

How the Prisoner's Dilemma and Axelrod's tournaments show that simple, forgiving strategies naturally foster cooperation in repeated games.

This is a video about the most famous problem in Game Theory, the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Head to brilliant.org/veritasium to start your free 30-day trial, and the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription. In 2025, we launched the Elements of Truth game on Kickstarter and were thrilled by the response. We’re now in the final stages of production, with Kickstarter rewards shipping soon. If you missed the campaign, you can now pre-order the retail edition through our new website here -ve42.co/GameTheoryDesc Special thanks to our Patreon supporters! Join the community to help us keep our videos free, forever: ve42.co/PatreonDEB If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms – a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically – ve42.co/SnatomsV ▀▀▀ A massive thank you to Prof. Robert Axelrod and Prof. Steven Strogatz for their expertise and time. To read more about Prof. Axelrod’s Passion for Cooperation visit: ve42.co/Axelrod2023 A massive thanks to the wonderful Nicky Case. Nicky’s “The Evolution of Trust” game was a huge inspiration for this video. We highly recommend you play this excellent game yourself, over at: ncase.me/trust/ A huge thank you to those who helped us understand and fact check different parts of this topic - Dr. Christian Hilbe, Dr. Vincent Knight, Dr. Jelena Grujic, Prof. Andreas Diekmann, and Dr. Alexander Stewart. ▀▀▀ References: Excellent game on the evolution of trust by Nicky Case - ve42.co/Case2023 Summary of Axelrod’s work by This Place - youtube.com/watch?v=BOvAbjfJ0x0 How to outsmart the Prisoner’s Dilemma by TED-Ed - youtube.com/watch?v=emyi4z-O0ls&pp=ygUScHJpc29uZXIncyBkaWxlb… Tit for Tat by radiolab - ve42.co/T4T The Golden Rule by radiolab - ve42.co/GoldenRule Axelrod, R. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. Dawkins, R. (2016). The selfish gene. Oxford university press. Poundstone, W. (1992). Prisoner's Dilemma. William Poundstone. Nowak, M. A., & Highfield, R. (2011). Supercooperators. Edinburgh: Canongate. Binmore, K. (2007). Game theory: a very short introduction. OUP Oxford. Northrup, L. & Rock, D. (1966). The Detection of Joe I. - ve42.co/JOE1 Prisoner’s dilemma, Wikipedia - ve42.co/WikiPD Prisoner’s Dilemma, Stanford - ve42.co/StanfordPD Flood, M. M. (1952). Some experimental games. - ve42.co/Flood1952 Historical nuclear weapons stockpiles, Wikipedia - ve42.co/WikiNWS Goodwin, I. (1998). The Price of Victory in Cold War - ve42.co/Goodwin1998 Cold war: How it happened. - ve42.co/CW2014 Axelrod, R. (1980). Effective choice in the prisoner's dilemma. Journal of conflict resolution, 24(1), 3-25. - ve42.co/Axelrod1980a Axelrod, R. (1980). More effective choice in the prisoner's dilemma. Journal of conflict resolution, 24(3), 379-403. - ve42.co/Axelrod1980b Axelrod, R., & Ha

Why it's here

10 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an approachable and excellent explanation of the Prisoner's Dilemma, game theory, and how cooperation mathematically emerges.

hughesjjon Hacker News • Recommends

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Veratasium just made an approachable video on this subject recently, I definitely recommend. It rebukes the whole 'oh no I just heard what a Nash equilibrium is and now I'm worried cooperation is impossible long term' fears some people interpret his thought experiment (prisoners dillema) to have. Tldr it's rare that you can't coordinate, communicate, or have exactly one trial. link to this video
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This Veritasium video is excellent, and makes the argument that there is something intrinsic in mathematics (game theory) that encourages prosocial behavior. link to this video
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ninkendoon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Crown shyness”

…or shyness. It’s similar to the prisoner’s dilemma, with shyness being “cooperate” and non-shyness being “defect”. Groups of trees with cooperative strategies would do better collectively (and win out), even if a non-cooperative individual can beat a cooperative individual every time. Veritasium had a great video on this very topic today, in fact: link to this video…
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aeonikon Hacker News • Recommends

On “You've just been fucked by psyops [video]”

After watching this video, Veratasium's video brings me some modicum of hope at least: "What The Prisoner's Dilemma Reveals About Life, The Universe, and Everything" link to this video Practice spotting those cognitive biases. Your Wikipedia rabbit hole may start here: link
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0wison Hacker News • Recommends

On “Fairness and kindness are not weaknesses”

According to game theory, you should have empathy but not too much. Its such a powerful theoretical finding for every aspect of life. I found it best explained in the Veritasium video on game theory 1 1: link to this video
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travisgriggson Hacker News • Recommends

On “The Forgiver's Dilemma: Can Letting Go Set You Free?”

To start with, I really enjoyed Veritaseum’s recent take on the “Prisoners Dillema” and Game Theory ( link to this video ). It seems appropriate to mention since it circles around this same “dillema” and even places a numerical value on the value of forgiving in game theory simulations. The historical part and layman’s reduction is good to. I think THIS article undersells the “Hold a Grudge” payoff: > David feels justified but might damage the relationship and stop Samantha from learning from her mistake. Most relationships have an ongoing bargaining element to them. Exchange of services, tit for tat, quid pro quo, pay each others backs, etc. Even when we pretend they don’t, or obscure them by wrapping…
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Tik for tat exists, but only when you can have a clear communication about it. Veritasium did a piece about it for explaining for layman. link to this video
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On “Game theory illustrated by an animated cartoon game”

Vertasium has a great video talking how Tit-for-Tat (Copycat) wins as a strategy (and how there was a math competition that proved it as well) link to this video --- This seems like a nice rebuild of the math competition performed years ago (as talked about in the video link above). Direct link to that part of the video: link to this video
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Sammion Hacker News • Recommends

On “I was wrong about robots.txt”

You don't have to go as far as to straight up "trust by default". You can instead "give a chance" by default, which is the middle path. Actually Veritasium has a great video about this. It's proven as the most effective strategy in monte carlo simulation. EDIT: This one: link to this video
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trinsic2on Hacker News • Recommends

On “We Will Not Be Divided”

> it's no longer a matter of choice, you have to do it too You know, there are plenty of examples where people in positions of power choose different paths of escalation. I doesn't always need to be liner tit for tat. Some times you need to step back and look at the larger picture and decide of the escalation is worth the risk for all of humanity. There is a video about game theory 0 that describes this problem very clearly. You have better outcomes when you make decisions outside the direct course of escalation. Please don't talk in absolutes about these things, you have an opinion. I accept that, but its not as black and white as you think 0: link to this video
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rockbrunoon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Boeing whistleblower found dead in US”

Humanity has had people who did not care about doing the right thing since forever, and still we thrived. As long as someone is doing the right thing, we're on the right track. Relevant video: link to this video
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passion__desireon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Finding Nash equilibria through simulation”

Can you ask the agents to be lenient, or stringent or forgetful or forgiving ? And then have one group who participate in decision play against other group. The groups will have distribution of the properties I laid out before or other interesting properties. I have been desiring to know what would human like features do to prisoners dilemma strategies after watching veritasium video. What Game Theory Reveals About Life, The Universe, and Everything link to this video
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rramadasson Hacker News • Mentions

On “Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'”

…The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority - link Nassim Taleb & Naval Ravikant video on The Minority Rule - link 2) Also see Game Theory( link ) and the books The Evolution of Cooperation ( link ), The Complexity of Cooperation( link ) by Robert Axelrod Veritasium's video on Game Theory and Axelrod's tournaments - link to this video Influence decision models: From cooperative game theory to social network analysis - link A Survey of Game Theory as Applied to Social Networks - link…
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conartist6on Hacker News • Mentions

On “There's no emotion we ought to think harder about than anger”

> The central puzzle is this: the payback idea does not make sense. Whatever the wrongful act was – a murder, a rape, a betrayal – inflicting pain on the wrongdoer does not help restore the thing that was lost. My understanding is that the "tit for tat" algorithm explains why anger can make sense as a game theory strategy. link to this video
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babyon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law”

The US is lying about tiktok, the only reason is to mirror China's strategy towards American app. After watching the tit-for-tat video of Veritasum1 I agree with America's strategy of banning Chinese apps until China allows American apps. That being said, I wish the US was more transparent about why they're doing this instead of lying. I'm guessing the reason why they're lying is that they don't want to scare ALL Chinese companies. 1: link to this video
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ptrhvnson Hacker News • Mentions

On “The Rule of Law Is Dead in the US”

If Veritasium ( link to this video ) is right, tit-for-tat with a little extra forgiveness to break downward spirals is a little better.
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