Talk:Nice Guys Finish First

Hi everyone. I translated the Dutch version of this page.

Untitled
Nice Guys Finish First is an approximately 45 minute long documentary made by Richard Dawkins for the BBC television series Horizon. In it he argues that animal species that have a good mutual social scheme have as a species the best chances for survival in evolution.

Dawkins argument in Nice Guys Finish First is based on game theory, particularly the Prisoner's dilemma. His thesis is that egoism (not sharing, keeping everything yourself) is the best for the individual on the short term, but on the long term leads to its demise.

Theory
Dawkins starts in his explanation from three groups that go after food: the 'egoists', the 'sharers' and the 'critical sharers'.
 * The sharers become extinct. They share when they have something, but never get anything back from the egoists when they have catch. On the long term their group grows smaller and smaller relative to the egoists and the critical sharers.
 * The egoists die next. If they can't acquire something themselves, they die because other egoists keep everything for themselves as well. From the selective sharers they no longer get anything on the slightly longer term. Because:
 * The critical sharers survive. They can always eat. When they have something, they eat what remains after sharing. When they have nothing themselves, they get food from those they have given out previously (reciprocity). Because they are critical, they only share with those that after earlier sharing paid back (tit for tat). Because they shared earlier themselves (or not yet refused), they occur at the same time in the the mental 'sharing list' of other selective types. In the beginning they make the mistake of sharing with egoists, but because they learn from those mistakes, over a period of time they exclude that group.

Demonstration
Dawkins demonstrates the working of this system by putting two humans opposite one another at a table. They aren't informed about game theory beforehand and are separated by a vertical board in the middle, so they can't see each other. Next, time and time again, they have to 'blindly' make a choice between 'choose' and 'share'. Choosing when the other shares, yields 4 point. The sharer gets 1. Both choosing yields 2 points. Both sharing yields 3 points.

The result of this is that those who always choose, never get beaten by the other. For: where he to chose while the other shares, he wins. Where he to chose and the other did the same, it's a draw. Speaking individually, choosing is always the best choice. Might makes right (survival of the fittest) seems to count.

In groups working as a team however it turns out to be different. When an x amount of different couples do this experiment, a couple of which at least one person often chooses, always loses against a couple which often shares. After all a couple where one person chooses can together score at best 4+1=5 points, in that round. A couple that shares together scores at the same time, 3+3=6 points. Consequently, the couple that in a game over several rounds is the quickest in realizing that they have to share as much as possible, wins from the couples that find it out later. Translated to animal species and food: the species that shares with other sharers - without getting outwitted by the eternal choosers - has an advantage over the eternal choosers as well as the eternal sharers. In the long term that species has insofar as food goes the best chances for survival: Nice Guys Finish First.

Wouter Drucker (talk) 14:12, 19 February 2014 (UTC)