Can/does the study of role and game playing explain how people regard what works and does not work in an economy? What people should be free to do in their lives and what the state should regulate? Why does the typical democrat concern themselves so much with the earnings of others? Why do democrat voters sit idly by as government wastes increasing amounts of money and grows the national debt to a national economy crippling level? The democrat ruling class is imposing more and more mandates and regulations on the public at large. Each incremental increase in rules and regulations strangles the economy a bit more, sucks some more from the free spirit of their subject populace. Is science able to tell us at what point the democrat street will conclude they have gone too far? That they have to question all of their economic assumptions and beliefs, do the opposite of their instinctive approach to governing?

On a scale of 1 to 5 Behes, where 1 is Sean Carroll incomprehensible or Carl Zimmer irrelevant and uninteresting and 5 is Michael Behe like knowledgable, fascinating and understandable, I rate this diavlog a 2. The game itself was well described, and the first half of the discussion I heard was interesting. But how does it all relate to the real world? Do different ethnic groups or age groups respond differently? What about republicans and democrats? Are democrats more petty and nasty towards the other players than regular people? Is the democrat's psychotic inability to recognize that their mega deficits and multiple restrictions on commercial transactions are devastating the economy better understood by studying the game behavior described by the professors?

Re: conspiracy theories - I don't think it's necessarily surprising that there are few "positive conspiracy theories", as most would assume that the perpetrators would have no reason to conceal such deeds from the public eye. It is interesting though that there is little debate amongst conspiracy theorists about whether or not the government or secret organisations may conspire for the "greater good" - that perhaps they may do things in secret that may benefit the country, but that those things would be politically unpalatable. Or even that they may decide that whilst a certain covert action might be a good thing to do in the "right hands" that it would be dangerous for them to publicly say it's ok to do this sort of thing as a general rule.

Quoting dSquib: Re: conspiracy theories - I don't think it's necessarily surprising that there are few "positive conspiracy theories", as most would assume that the perpetrators would have no reason to conceal such deeds from the public eye. It is interesting though that there is little debate amongst conspiracy theorists about whether or not the government or secret organisations may conspire for the "greater good" - that perhaps they may do things in secret that may benefit the country, but that those things would be politically unpalatable. Or even that they may decide that whilst a certain covert action might be a good thing to do in the "right hands" that it would be dangerous for them to publicly say it's ok to do this sort of thing as a general rule.

This is a good point, dSquib.

I thought there were a lot of positive conspiracies out there. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, for example. Also, angels and fairies. The birth of Jesus is the positive conspiracy par excellence. God plots to send his son into the world to save souls, raise the dead, cure the sick and perform sundry miracles. He continues to conspire to send Him back. Political conspiracies may be positive or negative, depending on whether or not you identify with the principles. For example, many Bush supporters assumed that Cheney and Bush were in fact conspiring to torture people and wage a dirty war on terrorists. Some folks liked that idea. It was a good conspiracy, done to protect us. Or take the American revolution (or any other revolution). From the Brit point of view, traitors, anarchists, libertines and subversives were conspiring against the king. From the point of view of the anti-England settlers, however, the revolutionary conspiracy was a good and its principles were Freedom Fighters (and subsequently revered as Founding Fathers).

Carey's experiments showing that people are more likely to attribute negative results to a person than a computer made me think of the outsourcing issue,
where people are so worried about losing there job to another person, when machines account for many more job losses, and yet are less demonized (well, the Luddites case is an exception). Also reminded me of this funny video from another Carey (Drew):
http://reason.tv/video/show/mexicans-and-machines

Quoting Wonderment: I thought there were a lot of positive conspiracies out there. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, for example. Also, angels and fairies. The birth of Jesus is the positive conspiracy par excellence. God plots to send his son into the world to save souls, raise the dead, cure the sick and perform sundry miracles. He continues to conspire to send Him back.

Political conspiracies may be positive or negative, depending on whether or not you identify with the principles. For example, many Bush supporters assumed that Cheney and Bush were in fact conspiring to torture people and wage a dirty war on terrorists. Some folks liked that idea. It was a good conspiracy, done to protect us.

Or take the American revolution (or any other revolution). From the Brit point of view, traitors, anarchists, libertines and subversives were conspiring against the king. From the point of view of the anti-England settlers, however, the revolutionary conspiracy was a good and its principles were Freedom Fighters (and subsequently revered as Founding Fathers).

But the dictionary definition of conspiracy is "An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act." "Good conspiracy" is therefore a bit of an oxymoron.

But the dictionary definition of conspiracy is "An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act." "Good conspiracy" is therefore a bit of an oxymoron.

Yes, technically true. The etymology is to "breathe together." But Josh's point was that people could attribute good secret workings or bad secret workings to Invisible Hands. I suppose also that God cannot conspire, since He is by monotheistic definition alone, and a conspiracy requires at least two plotters. He couldn't even conspire with Jesus, since they are One and The Same.

Quoting Wonderment: I suppose also that God cannot conspire, since He is by monotheistic definition alone, and a conspiracy requires at least two plotters.

How about God and Bob?

The game makes sense as a one-off event, though they don't quite say that explicitly. If it was a repeating event, game theory would lead to a very different result that that described as the rational behavior for a responder, i.e. that the responder achieves the best result in terms of self interest by accepting any offer. Refusal of "poor" offers then implies the alternative (to immediate self interest) motivations they suggested, most likely an evolutionary predisposition to punish the unfair offeror in line with the behavior exhibited by other primates described in earlier diavlog that described experiments involving trading food for tokens with chimps or monkeys: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/10783 If the case involved repeated "ultimatum" negotiation, game theory would probably lead to changing strategy in which the "best" response for any given offer would depend on the number of repeat offers remaining in the game. Given infinite repeats, optimal strategy likely leads to 50% as an equilibrium point. That is, any offer below 50% would be rejected by the responder and the other player would refuse to offer more than 50%. With only one iteration, there is effectively no negotiation, no ability to change

Here in Illinois, instead of the Red Sox "curse of the Bambino" we think of the Cubs cursed by the Billy Goat Tavern. That is supposed to have been an explicit curse made by the owner against the Cubs as retribution for his goat being kicked out. It wouldn't make sense for the Armenians to conspire and not tell anyone about the good things they do. They'd be rewarded with good credit if they made it known, so there's no incentive not to. The only examples I can think of are supernatural beings who want to hide their existence. Might Santa Clause be an analogue? Or maybe guardian angels. Michael Shermer recently had a piece on conspiracy theories here.

Quoting T.G.G.P:
It wouldn't make sense for the Armenians to conspire and not tell anyone about the good things they do. They'd be rewarded with good credit if they made it known, so there's no incentive not to.

Unless they were Christians who were scrupulous about following the instruction not to let the right hand know what the left is doing; i.e. to do their charitable works in secret so that they would receive a heavenly reward rather than an earthly one. Somebody call Dan Brown. I think there's a cheap novel in there somewhere.

Quoting Wonderment: Yes, technically true. The etymology is to "breathe together." But Josh's point was that people could attribute good secret workings or bad secret workings to Invisible Hands.

I suppose also that God cannot conspire, since He is by monotheistic definition alone, and a conspiracy requires at least two plotters. He couldn't even conspire with Jesus, since they are One and The Same.

A conspiracy also denotes "secret workings", as you put it. None of the supernatural examples you gave have any secrecy about them. We may never see Santa or the Easter Bunny, but there's no secret that they're the ones bringing the gifts. Quite the opposite.

Quoting Ray: A conspiracy also denotes "secret workings", as you put it. None of the supernatural examples you gave have any secrecy about them. We may never see Santa or the Easter Bunny, but there's no secret that they're the ones bringing the gifts. Quite the opposite.

Isn't there a "conspiracy" among the adults perpetuating the myths?

This question may be way, way outfield: Would there be any application of this "Ultimatum Game" research in the current health care insurance issues? The community can make the decision for dividing the health care dollars through the lawmakers, and ultimately the decisions will affect us all. What would be greed? What is a fair allocation of resources? Would it be ethical to leave the "status quo" unchanged if we don't like the new distribution of resources, whatever that may be?

A conspiracy also denotes "secret workings", as you put it. None of the supernatural examples you gave have any secrecy about them. We may never see Santa or the Easter Bunny, but there's no secret that they're the ones bringing the gifts. Quite the opposite.

Are you kidding? Santa has minions of secret agents (elves) running around the entire planet checking to see if you are naughty of nice. Your parents also are co-conspirators in providing intelligence about your behavior (how GOOD you are, presumably, compared to other bad kids, including all non-Christians, who will get ashes or zilch).

Quoting SkepticDoc: This question may be way, way outfield:

Would there be any application of this "Ultimatum Game" research in the current health care insurance issues?

Not outfield at all, in my opinion. In fact, I am wondering if the reason people who like the free market, the unseen hand, do so because they see the market as inherently more 'fair' than a system which is manipulated by people such as legislators. Even with the history of robber barons and debacles like Enron, people who like the market may think of it as the computer in the scenarios described in the diavlog. As for God being regarded as more benevolent. I have read in one account that the idea of God's benevolence is fairly recent and emerged during the enlightenment. Until then God was much more malevolent and had not bestowed the inherent rights we hold so dear today.

Quoting AemJeff: Isn't there a "conspiracy" among the adults perpetuating the myths?

No! Santa and the Easter Bunny have no authours. No one, no group of people decided to invent them for any reason, never mind the specific reason (Wonderment) of keeping kids in line. There's neither any secrecy, nor any intent, behind the tales. Now, particular parents may use these figures as a means of getting vegetables off their children's plates, but we have another word for that: lying. There was never any secret meeting, held by the entire society--more than the entire society: several societies! over centuries!--to conspire together in a plot to overcome the bad behavior of children.