Hobbes's State of Nature: A Modern Bayesian Game-Theoretic Analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
HUN CHUNG
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Bayesian Game ◽  
Game Theoretic Analysis ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model

ABSTRACT:Hobbes's own justification for the existence of governments relies on the assumption that without a government our lives in the state of nature would result in a state of war of every man against every man. Many contemporary scholars have tried to explain why universal war is unavoidable in Hobbes's state of nature by utilizing modern game theory. However, most game-theoretic models that have been presented so far do not accurately capture what Hobbes deems to be the primary cause of conflict in the state of nature—namely, uncertainty, rather than people's egoistic psychology. Therefore, I claim that any game-theoretic model that does not incorporate uncertainty into the picture is the wrong model. In this paper, I use Bayesian game theory to show how universal conflict can break out in the state of nature—even when the majority of the population would strictly prefer to cooperate and seek peace with other people—due to uncertainty about what type of person the other player is. Along the way, I show that the valuation of one's own life is one of the central mechanisms that drives Hobbes's pessimistic conclusion.

scholarly journals Game theoretic analysis of ideologically biased clickbait or fake news and real news

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjell Hausken
Keyword(s):  
Production Efficiency ◽  
Unit Cost ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Game Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Unit Effort ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model

A decision and game theoretic model is developed for how one and two news organisations strike balances between producing clickbait or fake news, and real news. Each news organisation seeks to attract gullible consumers who consume more clickbait or fake news than real news, and non-gullible consumers who conscientiously consume only real news. Increasing a news organisation budget results in obtaining both more clickbait or fake news, and more real news. More clickbait or fake news is produced if the news organisation’s unit cost of effort to produce real news, the production efficiency for clickbait or fake news, and the fraction of consumers consuming clickbait or fake news, increase. In contrast, less clickbait or fake news is produced if a news organisation’s unit cost of effort to produce clickbait or fake news, and the production efficiency for real news, increase, and the gullible consumers consume real news with a higher frequency. Lower unit effort costs and higher budget and production efficiencies cause higher utility for a news organisation and lower utility for the competing news organisation. Higher weight assigned to the contest over clickbait or fake news induces both news organ-isations to exert higher effort to produce clickbait or fake news. When the gullible consumers of a news organisation consume a relatively large amount of real news in comparison to the consumers of another news organisation, then the first news organisation exerts higher effort to produce real news and obtains higher utility than the other news organisation.

scholarly journals A Game-Theoretic Analysis for Distributed Honeypots

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Li ◽  
Leyi Shi ◽  
Haijie Feng
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Network Security ◽  
Dynamic Properties ◽  
System Configuration ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Property A ◽  
Game Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Innovative System ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Simulation Results

A honeypot is a decoy tool for luring an attacker and interacting with it, further consuming its resources. Due to its fake property, a honeypot can be recognized by the adversary and loses its value. Honeypots equipped with dynamic characteristics are capable of deceiving intruders. However, most of their dynamic properties are reflected in the system configuration, rather than the location. Dynamic honeypots are faced with the risk of being identified and avoided. In this paper, we focus on the dynamic locations of honeypots and propose a distributed honeypot scheme. By periodically changing the services, the attacker cannot distinguish the real services from honeypots, and the illegal attack flow can be recognized. We adopt game theory to illustrate the effectiveness of our system. Gambit simulations are conducted to validate our proposed scheme. The game-theoretic reasoning shows that our system comprises an innovative system defense. Further simulation results prove that the proposed scheme improves the server’s payoff and that the attacker tends to abandon launching attacks. Therefore, the proposed distributed honeypot scheme is effective for network security.

Accessing the state: Executive constraints and credible commitment in dictatorship

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Meng
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Credible Commitment ◽  
The Future ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Commitment Problems

When do executive constraints provide credible commitment power in dictatorships, and under what conditions do leaders establish such constraints? This article argues that institutions successfully constrain autocrats only when elites are given real access to state power, such as appointments to key governmental positions. I present a game theoretic model in which an autocratic leader decides whether to establish binding constraints at the start of her rule. Doing so shifts the future distribution of power in favor of elites, alleviating commitment problems in bargaining. I show that leaders are likely to place constraints on their own authority when they enter power especially weak, and these initial decisions shape the rest of their rule. Even if a leader enters power in a uniquely weak position vis-á-vis other elites, and is on average, quite strong, the need to alleviate commitment problems in the first period swamps expectations about the future distribution of power. I illustrate the model’s findings through case studies of Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.

The Impact of Ideology on Disinvestment Decisions of a Coalition

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 821-849
Author(s):  
Ritika Jain ◽  
Shubhro Sarkar
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Stage Game ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Ideological Difference

We build a two-stage game theoretic model to capture the effect of ideologies of parties in a coalition on disinvestment decisions. We focus on three specific aspects of ideology—ideology score of the coalition, ideology dispersion of the coalition, and ideology difference between the center and the state where the enterprise is located. The benchmark two-party coalition predicts that a left government prefers less disinvestment than a right one more often than not. However, there may be a case where moving toward the left end of the ideology spectrum may raise disinvestment incidence. Similarly, a coalition with ideologically similar parties favors privatization more frequently than one in which parties are more diverse. However, for a narrow parametric range, the effect may be reversed. Low ideological difference between the center and the state in which the enterprise is located improves disinvestment incidence. Finally, we extend the model to three-party coalitions.

Frenemies in Platform Markets: Heterogeneous Profit Foci as Drivers of Compatibility Decisions

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (6) ◽  
pp. 2432-2451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Adner ◽  
Jianqing Chen ◽  
Feng Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
The Difference

We study compatibility decisions of two competing platform owners that generate profits through both hardware sales and royalties from content sales. We consider a game-theoretic model in which two platforms offer different standalone utilities to users. We find that incentives to establish one-way compatibility—the platform owner with smaller standalone value grants access to its proprietary content application to users of the competing platform—can arise from the difference in their profit foci. As the difference in the standalone utilities increases, royalties from content sales become less important to the platform owner with greater standalone value, but more important to the other platform owner. One-way compatibility can thus increase asymmetry between the platform owners’ profit foci and, given a sufficiently large difference in the standalone utilities, yields greater profits for both platform owners. We further show that social welfare is greater under one-way compatibility than under incompatibility. We also investigate how factors such as exclusive content and hardware-only adopters affect compatibility incentives. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.

Research on Organization Tacit Knowledge Transferring: An Evolutionary Game Theoretic Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 756-759 ◽  
pp. 2597-2601
Author(s):  
Dan Li
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
Evolutionary Game Theory ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Evolutionary Game ◽  
Dynamic Game ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Game Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
The Stability

The transfer and the management of the tacit knowledge is one of the most important issues in the knowledge transferring context to create organizational competitive advantage in the fast growing competitive world. As we know, organization tacit knowledge transferring is a dynamic game process, this research applies evolutionary game theory to analyze the tacit knowledge transferring activities among organizations and the stability balance issue in organization knowledge transferring. Based on the theory of games, this paper constructs the evolutionary game process model for organization tacit knowledge transferring. And through the equilibrium point of the model, the different knowledge transferring bodies game replicated dynamics and stability are analyzed. With this model, the reason why tacit knowledge is hard to be transferred and the path of tacit knowledge transferring is analyzed.

Why Hobbes' State of Nature is Best Modeled by an Assurance Game

Utilitas ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL MOEHLER
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
The State ◽  
The Third ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Assurance Game ◽  
Third Law

In this article, I argue that if one closely follows Hobbes' line of reasoning in Leviathan, in particular his distinction between the second and the third law of nature, and the logic of his contractarian theory, then Hobbes' state of nature is best translated into the language of game theory by an assurance game, and not by a one-shot or iterated prisoner's dilemma game, nor by an assurance dilemma game. Further, I support Hobbes' conclusion that the sovereign must always punish the Foole, and even exclude her from the cooperative framework or take her life, if she defects once society is established, which is best expressed in the language of game theory by a grim strategy. That is, compared to existing game-theoretic interpretations of Hobbes, I argue that the sovereign plays a grim strategy with the citizens once society is established, and not the individuals with one another in the state of nature.

Social Support among Heterogeneous Partners

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Vogt ◽  
Jeroen Weesie
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Optimal Condition ◽  
Time Preferences ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Heterogeneous Distribution ◽  
Game Theoretic Analysis ◽  
The Third ◽  
Game Theoretic

AbstractThis paper derives hypotheses on how dyadic social support is affected by heterogeneity of the actors. We distinguish heterogeneity with respect to three parameters. First, the likelihood of needing support; second, the benefits from support relative to the costs for providing support; and, third, time preferences. The hypotheses are based on a game theoretic analysis of an iterated Support Game. We predict that, given homogeneity in two of these parameters, the prospect for mutual support is optimal if actors are homogeneous with respect to the third parameter as well. Second, under heterogeneity with respect to two of the parameters, support is most likely if there is a specific heterogeneous distribution with respect to the other parameter that ‘compensates’ for the original heterogeneity. Third, under weak conditions, the overall optimal condition for mutual support is full homogeneity of the actors.

scholarly journals A game theoretic analysis of resource mining in blockchain

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 2035-2046 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajani Singh ◽  
Ashutosh Dhar Dwivedi ◽  
Gautam Srivastava ◽  
Agnieszka Wiszniewska-Matyszkiel ◽  
Xiaochun Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Nash Equilibrium ◽  
Dynamic Game ◽  
Social Optimum ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Mining System ◽  
Game Theoretic Analysis ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
Dynamic Game Model

Abstract Blockchain and cryptocurrency are a hot topic in today’s digital world. In this paper, we create a game theoretic model in continuous time. We consider a dynamic game model of the bitcoin market, where miners or players use mining systems to mine bitcoin by investing electricity into the mining system. Although this work is motivated by BTC, the work presented can be applicable to other mining systems similar to BTC. We propose three concepts of dynamic game theoretic solutions to the model: Social optimum, Nash equilibrium and myopic Nash equilibrium. Using the model that a player represents a single “miner” or a “mining pool”, we develop novel and interesting results for the cryptocurrency world.

Optimal Strategies in Best-Choice Game with Incomplete Information — The Voice Show

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (02) ◽  
pp. 1640001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir V. Mazalov ◽  
Anna A. Ivashko ◽  
Elena N. Konovalchikova
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Optimal Strategies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
The Voice

This paper studies a game-theoretic model of best choice with incomplete information. In this model, players observe a sequence of incoming objects each described by two random quality components. The first component is announced to players and the other one is hidden. Players choose an object based on known information about it. The winner is the player having a higher sum of the quality components than the opponents do. The optimal strategies of the players and their payoffs in the game are derived.

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