Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Obscuring the truth can promote cooperation
phys.org ^ | 07/09/2021 | University of Pennsylvania

Posted on 07/09/2021 5:17:36 AM PDT by devane617

Remember Napster? The peer-to-peer file sharing company, popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, depended on users sharing their music files. To promote cooperation, such software "could mislead its users," says Bryce Morsky, a postdoc in Penn's School of Arts & Sciences.

Some file-sharing companies falsely asserted that all of their users were sharing. Or, they displayed the mean number of files shared per user, hiding the fact that some users were sharing a great deal and many others were not. Related online forums promoted the idea that sharing was both ethical and the norm. These tactics were effective in getting users to share because they tapped into innate human social norms of fairness.

That got Morsky thinking. "Commonly in the literature on cooperation, you need reciprocity to get cooperation, and you need to know the reputations of those you're interacting with," he says. "But Napster users were anonymous, and so there should have been widespread 'cheating'—people taking files without sharing—and yet cooperation still occurred. Evidently, obscuring the degree of cheating worked for Napster, but is this true more generally and is it sustainable?"

In a new paper in the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences, Morsky and Erol Akçay, an associate professor in the School of Arts & Sciences' Department of Biology, looked at this scenario: Could a cooperative community form and stabilize if the community's behaviors were masked? And would things change if the community members' true behaviors were eventually revealed?


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: culture
I'm by nature a cynic and all I see in this study is a group trying to figure out how to make socialism work.
1 posted on 07/09/2021 5:17:36 AM PDT by devane617
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: devane617

The BiXiden Crime Family needs to spread their wealth around to actual net taxpayers.


2 posted on 07/09/2021 5:21:45 AM PDT by Paladin2 (Critical Marx Theory is The SOLUTION....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: devane617; Jane Long
We are seeing this in action today.

"Typically when we and others have considered how to maintain cooperation, it's been thought that it's important to punish cheaters and to make that public to encourage others to cooperate," Morsky says. "But our study suggests that a side effect of public punishment is that it reveals how much or how little people are cooperating, so conditional cooperators may stop cooperating. You might be better off hiding the cheaters."

CDC Director Shames Unvaccinated Americans: Normalcy Requires ‘All of Us to Do Our Part’ and ‘Get Vaccinated’

3 posted on 07/09/2021 5:31:38 AM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleBob

Ok, you get it. Was this study really necessary? Don’t we already know the outcome?


4 posted on 07/09/2021 5:46:30 AM PDT by devane617 (RUN FOR LOCAL ELECTED OFFICE! COUNCIL,SCHOOL BOARD, ETC.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: devane617

Not every response to capitalisms is socialism. Street gangs are not socialists when they wave shop lift, or recycle man hole covers, they are criminal. File Sharing is about the same but for most the crime was not considered a crime as mix tape was never really thought of as a crime. Sometimes people give the middle finger to the state, whatever the economic theory is of the regulatory state.


5 posted on 07/09/2021 6:21:11 AM PDT by protoconservative (Been Conservative Before You Were Born )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: protoconservative

If by “mix tape” you mean downloading and making a copy of music, then, yes, it was most certainly thought a crime. Since it was and is. If we are talking about commercially created music it is copyrighted when created, by the musician. He, in order to make money, gives his right to some outfit. That music is still copyrighted and owned only by that outfit. Yes, the usual defense was: “This is not theft since the owner still has his copy.” Slimy defense since making extra copies dilutes the market — stealing profit from the organization. In previous career doing deals with any Chinese company was always a problem since the CCP does not recognize copyright since communism does not recognize private property. Same mechanism operating here.


6 posted on 07/09/2021 6:59:12 AM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: bobbo666

Once it hit the airwaves it is was also free to record in the FM Stero Reel to Reel era. The airplay was encourged and paid for by the rights holder. What is legal and what is common practice are two different things.

The transition to electronic distrobution of music two decades post has not hurt the industry despite the cries.

As for China, take that up with China.


7 posted on 07/09/2021 7:18:47 AM PDT by protoconservative (Been Conservative Before You Were Born )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: bobbo666

Once it hit the airwaves it is was also free to record in the FM Stero Reel to Reel era. The airplay was encourged and paid for by the rights holder. What is legal and what is common practice are two different things.

The transition to electronic distrobution of music two decades post has not hurt the industry despite the cries.

As for China, take that up with China. If a bit of Garth Brooks make some rice farmers or some transistor placers day a bit better, Amerika, never really paid its musicians well in anything other than 200 gigs a year.


8 posted on 07/09/2021 7:24:52 AM PDT by protoconservative (Been Conservative Before You Were Born )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson