kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT) (03/15/86)
Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to me the outcome is generally Lose/Lose? Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose partner? --Barry Kort ...ihnp4!hounx!kort
dsn@umcp-cs.UUCP (Dana S. Nau) (03/17/86)
In article <698@hounx.UUCP> kort@hounx.UUCP writes: >Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win >and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to me the outcome is generally >Lose/Lose? Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose >partner? > >--Barry Kort ...ihnp4!hounx!kort It sounds to me like you might be interested in reading Axelrod's book, "The Evolution of Cooperation," which studies the iterated prisoner's dilemma. It doesn't *directly* answer your questions above--but some of it is relevant. Also, it's a pretty interesting book! -- Dana S. Nau, Comp. Sci. Dept., U. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 dsn@maryland seismo!umcp-cs!dsn (301) 454-7932
rb@ccivax.UUCP (03/18/86)
Path:rouhplabs!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccivax!rb In article <698@hounx.UUCP> kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT) writes: >Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win >and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to meethe outcome is generally >Lose/Lose? Does anyoneehaveea strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose >partner? Yes, the author of "(I can't remember the name, but itrwas the book that studied management techniques of the 100 most successful companies, had a chapter called "stick to knitting", and changed the way managers view business)" who originally identified this tendancy, did propose several solutions on an NPR broadcast. Theeexample given was a man (using win/lose) and a woman(using win/win) strategy. They were bargaining over advertising rates for a show whos ratings had climbed. Both had a liberal bargaining margin. She was the buyer,rouhe was the seller. Herwants to raise theeprice 20%. Approach #1: Attempt to determine what itrwill take for the "adversary" to feel that he has won. If possible, try to show him that you both can win. If the opponant is willing to deal in a win/win situation, then you can deal with him fairly. Approach #2: Appear to surrender. The opponant does not have to know that you've only used half your bargaining margin. You simply get him to go as low as he feels he can. You can gain leverage byrsetting your "surrender point" well aboveeyour "top price". When you go aboveewhat you have set as your surrender point, theeopponant feelsrouhe has won. The interesting thing here is that the woman actually has the advantage. Because theeopponant is in win/lose mode, he is risking the possibility that she could simply terminateethe contract. Herknows that a new account would beeharder to find. Since the woman is simply trying to get the best buy for her company's money, she has a number of options available. Both parties know that his price is toorouhigh, and that her priceeis too low. Even "splitting the difference" may result in a price that is wrong. If she considers this account to beeimportant, sheecan let him win byrdetermining with him what theereal value should be and giving him a little bit more. She also wins because sheenow has better relations with the other negotiator who will see her first if a really hot new product becomes available. Interestingly, many of the most successful companies not only prefer win/win negotiators but also use win/win in such things as "Brainstorming Sessions", tactical and strategic planning, and management decision making. Since women have more experience at this than men, they are often
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (03/19/86)
In article <698@hounx.UUCP> kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT) writes: >Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win >and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to me the outcome is generally >Lose/Lose? Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose >partner? There was an interesting article in Scientific American about a computer simulation of various strategies. The most generally successful strategy was one called "tit for tat". You assume cooperation until proved otherwise, but you remember the bad guys and treat them according. A population of such players would take over a population of bad guys if introduced and would dominate if contaminated with bad guys. It's a satisfying result, I think. -- "We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will become the present, and respect the past, knowing that once it was all that was humanly possible." Phil Ngai +1 408 749 5720 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.com
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (03/20/86)
> Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win > and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to me the outcome is generally > Lose/Lose? Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose > partner? Could someone translate this into ordinary English? It sounds very interesting, but the only place I have heard of these nouns with slashes in the middle is in the pep-talk brochures the folks over in Sales write for each other. Seriously, no ":-)", the above sounds like something you'd read in the "Bridge" column of the newspaper, not something you'd read involving the nature of interpersonal relationships... "player"? "Win"? "Lose"? "Strategy"? I am sure glad I have never encountered an SO who subscribed to this philosophy! It appears to be a very weak one, where contamination by a "lose" in the ratio of 3:1 converts the whole thing to "lose". -- E. Roskos
rb@ccivax.UUCP (rex ballard) (03/20/86)
In article <487@ccivax.UUCP> rb@ccivax.UUCP (What's in a name ?) writes: >Yes, the author of "(I can't remember the name, but it was the book that >studied management techniques of the 100 most successful companies, had >a chapter called "stick to knitting", and changed the way managers view >business)" The book was "In Search of Excellence", sorry for the mental block:-)
chk@purdue.UUCP (Chuck Koelbel) (03/20/86)
The article in Scientific American about "tit for tat" beating other strategies was one of Douglas Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas" columns. (If you're interested, the column and some followup material appears in his book _Metamagical_Themas_.) What I wanted to point out is that "playing nice" like "tit for tat" does is not always the best strategy. In a replay of the computer simulation with different (sometimes more complicated) strategies, "tit for tat" did not win - a program that "probed" its opponents to see their reactions did better. The conclusion is that no one strategy is best. Your reactions should be based on your environment. (For the win/win players out there I should point out that not attacking until provoked does seem a robust strategy, i.e. it does well in most environments.) Chuck
jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) (03/22/86)
> > In article <698@hounx.UUCP> kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT) writes: >>Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win >>and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to me the outcome is generally >>Lose/Lose? Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose >>partner? > > There was an interesting article in Scientific American about a > computer simulation of various strategies. The most generally > successful strategy was one called "tit for tat". You assume > cooperation until proved otherwise, but you remember the bad guys and > treat them according. A population of such players would take over a > population of bad guys if introduced and would dominate if > contaminated with bad guys. > > It's a satisfying result, I think. > -- > Phil Ngai +1 408 749 5720 The tit-for-tat strategy works as follows: start out cooperating. If, on a particular turn, the opponent competes (i.e. does the opposite of cooperation), then compete on the next turn and go back to cooperating. The only thing one has to remember is what the opponent did the last time around. The Scientific American article described an elimination tournament in which the worst player would be dropped every n rounds. The article said that "tit-for-tat" was the best strategy; that is, it would end up surviving the longest, even when competing with much more complicated strategies. One of the conclusions of the article was that keys to longterm survival were non-aggression (never hitting first) and forgiveness (not carrying a grudge; hitting back if hit but then forgetting that it ever happened). I wrote a program to run a similar tournament. My brother and I played around with strategies, and found one that worked better than "tit-for-tat" in the mix of strategies we were using. We called it "progressive punishment". It would never hit first, just like "tit-for-tat". It differed from "tit-for-tat" in that it would hit back once the first time a particular opponent hit it, twice the second time, thrice the third time, and so on. It should be noted that the results of such a simulation depend entirely on the mix of strategies; it's possible that "progressive punishment" would do very badly under some circumstances. -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..." {amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff {ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff
lee@dsi1.UUCP (Lee Hagerty) (03/22/86)
In article <2037@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes: >> Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win >> and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to me the outcome is generally >> Lose/Lose? Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose >> partner? > >Seriously, no ":-)", the above sounds like something you'd read in the >"Bridge" column of the newspaper, not something you'd read involving the >nature of interpersonal relationships... "player"? "Win"? "Lose"? >"Strategy"? I am sure glad I have never encountered an SO who subscribed >to this philosophy! It appears to be a very weak one, where contamination >by a "lose" in the ratio of 3:1 converts the whole thing to "lose". The Win/Lose player says, "I have to win even if I'm wrong." The Win/Win says, "We both have to win even if one of us is wrong." It seems to me that both types of players are telling a lot of lies. Lee
weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) (03/23/86)
In article <536@mordred.purdue.UUCP> chk@purdue.UUCP (Chuck Koelbel) writes: >What I wanted to point out is that "playing nice" like "tit for tat" does >is not always the best strategy. In a replay of the computer simulation >with different (sometimes more complicated) strategies, "tit for tat" did >not win - a program that "probed" its opponents to see their reactions >did better. The conclusion is that no one strategy is best. Your reactions >should be based on your environment. (For the win/win players out there >I should point out that not attacking until provoked does seem a robust >strategy, i.e. it does well in most environments.) What do you mean by "best strategy"? "tit for tat" is best against ALL the competition. In other words, it can be beaten, but only barely. The other known strategies, including the "prober", will lose spectactularly against certain other strategies, and so on average, do worse than "tit for tat". ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
mxp9040@ritcv.UUCP (03/26/86)
In article <12588@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener) writes: > >What do you mean by "best strategy"? "tit for tat" is best against ALL >the competition. In other words, it can be beaten, but only barely. The >other known strategies, including the "prober", will lose spectactularly >against certain other strategies, and so on average, do worse than "tit for >tat". yes, "tit for tat" would be best if one was considering 'on average', but what if one was just interested in winning percentage? The point I make is that there is not necessarily just one way to test for the "best strategy." By the way, what does this have to do with net.singles and net.women?
chk@purdue.UUCP (Chuck Koelbel) (03/28/86)
In article <12588@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) writes: > In article <536@mordred.purdue.UUCP> chk@purdue.UUCP (Chuck Koelbel) writes: > >What I wanted to point out is that "playing nice" like "tit for tat" does > >is not always the best strategy. In a replay of the computer simulation > >with different (sometimes more complicated) strategies, "tit for tat" did > >not win - a program that "probed" its opponents to see their reactions > >did better. The conclusion is that no one strategy is best. > > What do you mean by "best strategy"? "tit for tat" is best against ALL > the competition. In other words, it can be beaten, but only barely. The > other known strategies, including the "prober", will lose spectactularly > against certain other strategies, and so on average, do worse than "tit for > tat". > I meant "best" in the sense that no strategy always has the highest total at the end of the tournament. (I believe this was what the original message meant, as well as the way the tournament was judged. But it's been a while since I read the article, so I may be wrong.) So the "win/lose" players out there may not want to use tit-for-tat. For us "win/win" players, it is still a good option. Chuck Koelbel
linda@amdcad.UUCP (Linda Seltzer) (03/29/86)
> >> Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win > >> and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to me the outcome is generally > >> Lose/Lose? Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose > >> partner? My answer is not to play manipulative games. I have my own philosophy of life, which is spiritual. If someone is being dishonest with me, I confront that person directly. In some situations I have done this in writing. If someone is acting like a cutthroat I either tell them I don't like it or I find another, less direct way to let them know that. I am not about to waste my intellectual energy on keeping track of who did what to me and who slighted me. I would never get anything done and wouldn't progress at all to any meaningful levels of life experience and inspiration, such as artistic or scientific creativity. There are all kinds of people walking around who will try to play all sorts of win-lose games, and you can't lose if you don't play. I consider these people's actions to be like random noise. I just ignore it like the static on the radio, and go about whatever positive thing I am doing. That's part of what you learn in a practice like meditation or playing the shakuhachi. You just concentrate on your life (breathing) and block out junk and noise.
paul@axiom.UUCP (Paul O`Shaughnessy) (03/31/86)
>Has anyone worked out the dynamics where one player is using Win/Win >and the other is using Win/Lose? Seems to me the outcome is generally >Lose/Lose? Does anyone have a strategy for dealing with a Win/Lose >partner? >--Barry Kort ...ihnp4!hounx!kort Leave/Leave. **************** Paul O'Shaughnessy @ Axiom Technology, Newton MA Home of the 'Management Team' {decvax,ihnp4,utzoo}!linus!axiom!paul or {bellcore!topaz,seismo}!harvard!axiom!paul on UUCP