Let's see how smart is Veeky Forums

Let's see how smart is Veeky Forums.
Imagine that you and another guy are playing a game. The rules are very simple:
> you have to choose a number between 2 and 100
> if both of you choose the same number both of you will get the same amount of money (equal to the number you have chosen)
> if you choose different number the one who chosen the smaller number will get that amount (equal to the smaller number) of money plus 2 dollars, the one who chosen the bigger number will get the value of the smaller number minus 2 dollars. (Es: if the choice are 80 and 56 who has chosen 56 will get 58 $ the other one 54$)
What number would you choose?

Other urls found in this thread:

cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/div-classtitlethe-emergence-of-cooperation-among-egoistsdiv/EEAB3C6460F5BC63A4DE813E1B010B21
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022002795039001008
pokertips.org/glossary/w/IMPLICIT COLLUSION
amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.pl?s=wpd&c=dsp&k=implicit collusion
twitter.com/AnonBabble

* obviously you cannot know what number the other guy will choose

game is not zero sum. if my opponent isn't a microbrain we both get $100

even if he's a dick and chooses 99, I still get $97.

69

Both 99 and 100 have the same average results (average of 99 across all possibilities), so it's just a matter of taste. I would pick 99 for the chance at getting 101.

OP here..obviously there is a choice that is mathematically correct.

Wrong.

You never said that the other person is a perfect logician, so actually there is not a perfect mathematical answer.

If you want to change the question to include "the other person is a perfect logician" then there could be a perfect answer, but you didn't, so there is no perfect answer. You would need to take into account human psycology and how much people tend to value small differences in large money amounts.

OP here..To solve this game is not necessary to be a perfect logician..is a simple game. Obviously the aim of this game is.to get more or at least the same amount of money of the other guy.

This should be Veeky Forums, not /b/, right? So I suppose you here like to think..

Pick 2, easiest soda of your life.

Finally a brain! This is the only correct answer
Cit. J. Nash

>being this much of an asshole

I tell the other person that I'll give him $2 after the game is over if he picks 100, and then pick $99

anyone who studied economics knew the answer.
Veeky Forumscucks are too aloof brainlets to grasp incentives and such

If you don't know math it's not my problem..

>not bribing other other player
>not lobbying congress to change the laws so the other person has to pick 100
>not buying out the other guys company so you get both the of the choices yourself

this is real economics

Could you explain why 2 is the best answer? It is because it's the only answer that you are guaranteed to be a winner, while any other answer can lead for you to be left with nothing?

100 ez pz

>inb4 why not 99
yeah because the other guy would think the same and now we get 2 dollaronis less in total

>willfully takes the two dollar loss himself like an idiot

It's quite simple..imagine you think the other guy will choose 100, obviously you will choose 99..you will get 101 and the other guy 97..now, if the other guy is smart he will do the same reasoning and so he (imagine the other guy is a man) will choose 98 and not 100..and so on....the point is that if you want to be sure to win you have to choose the smallest number 2..in this case any number the other guy will choose (except 2) you will get 4 and he 0..if both of you will choose 2, both of you will get 2..2 is the only number that assure.you to win
..this is a simple concept of the games theory.

Wrong.

If you only play once, you both pick 100 to each get 100.

If you pick 100 and they pick 99, you still get 97

If you pick 2, you get at most 4
Seems pretty shitty to give up 93 dollars

OK..and if he will choose 2? Even if you have chosen 99 you will get 0..think!

so it's true. nerds can't into economics. that's why you're all pinko socialists here eh?

Economy is a not science..only because you work with numbers it doesn't mean economy is a sort of science..

the idiot is you

>picking 2
>willfully contributing to a system that results in everybody being worse off because you have fantasies about screwing over other people

Lets take a look at two hypothetical realities.

2 liberals play the game: They both pick 100 because they are generous and want to contribute to a good society. Both walk away with $100.

2 republicans play the game: They both pick 2 because they're selfish and shortsighted. Both walk away with $2. Overall both of them are worse off than if they just both picked 100

Do you understand that the aim of this game is to win? You live in a fantasy world..2 democratics, 2 republicans..think about 2 human being with a brain! Math is not based on opinion..this is probably the worst comment I've ever read on Veeky Forums..get off form Veeky Forums and came back to /pol/..politic is the anti science

how much did you get paid for that post?

pretty much this

in some games, both teams can win. This can be one of those games. Hence "not zero sum"

The fatal flaw in your logic is that if both players had "a brain", as you put it, they would be worse off than two players who you consider to be idiots, who are willing to make a leap of faith and trust that the other person will be wise enough to perform the action in which both players benefit.

>You never said that the other person is a perfect logician, so actually there is not a perfect mathematical answer.

>To solve this game is not necessary to be a perfect logician

Brainlet dectected.

>proceeds to describe the opponent as a logician thinking 99 steps ahead..

and /thread

There is a name for people like you: naive.

>proceeds to describe the opponent as a quazi-algorithmic program
>suggests the most successful play is to act like a quazi-algorithimic program yourself instead of walking away with 97+ dollars

At least this thread is more exciting than what Axelrod has been doing for decades, even if it proves your narrow scenario incorrect

cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/div-classtitlethe-emergence-of-cooperation-among-egoistsdiv/EEAB3C6460F5BC63A4DE813E1B010B21

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022002795039001008

There's a name for people who can't do that too: niggers.

98 ofc

He picks 97 or any number lower. Checkmate

You may as well pick 99 in that case to go for the $101

>t. nerd who can't into economics
game theory is science and it is a fundamental part of economics, brainlet

since your too much of brainlet to realize this on your own, what you're seeing in thread is nothing but a reinterpretation of the prisoner's dilemma and no you picking 100 only ends up with you getting 0$

>in some games, both teams can win. This can be one of those games. Hence "not zero sum"
this is a prisoner's dilemma. both can only win or be better off if cooperation is allowed which it isn't in this example

>opponent picks 0
>you have to pay 2 dollars out of your pocket

>you have to choose a number between 2 and 100

But the payoffs are completely different and that absolutely matters in determining the optimum strategy.

If you're a prisoner and you're wagering the remainder of your life, it makes a lot more sense to play like a sociopath.

What the fuck are you talking about
'Winning' and maximising your gain are completely decoupled in this game. You can easily win but still make a tiny fraction of the money you'd make by losing. Therefore $100 or $99 are the only possible logical choices.

>Therefore $100 or $99 are the only possible illogical choices.
FTFY

98

it would never make sense to choose a number < 97. meaning, he would choose 98 or 99.

so either 1) he picks 99 thinking i'll do the same. then i get an extra two dollars to make $100, or two, he picks 98, and we both get $98 dollars. so yes, you would take a possible 1 dollar penalty by picking 98 over a possible two dollar penalty by picking 99

you're retarded bro

Let's say there's a game with you and another guy, let's say Putin. Whoever kills themselves first wins. Are you going to kill yourself?

is this your way to tell us you're a brainlet?

The assumption that your opponent is perfectly rational is an irrational assumption.

Only a brainlet would choose being dead over being a brainlet.

this is a standard necessary assumption to come to any conclusion. we analyze and try to understand rational behavior as it is somewhat predictable rather than assume the opponent is insane and inane and therefore utterly unpredictable and we wouldn't get nothing out of that.
so it's true Veeky Forums autists are too autistic for rational thinking

He's making the valid point that win or loss is defined by net utility of the outcomes in game's payoff matrix not by some arbitrary boolean "win" variable

not a valid point at all. his/your example is retarded.

If chaos is predictable, why would you think insanity wouldn't be?

>retarded
I'm not him, but solid argument there broseph. Clearly not a brainlet

Why should he? This has an opportunity cost of 98 dollars. In return, he gets to let you have nothing (yippee).

That's a false dichotomy between perfectly rational and completely irrational. Economists have understood for decades that you can't assume people are perfectly rational and they try to study human rationality, not perfect rationality. For example it is "human rational" to value 2 dollars the same as zero when the maximum potential payoff dwarfs 2 dollars. I'd bet that among the human population choosing 100 would be the winning strategy.

>need someone to explain to him how it's retarded
Confirmed retard

I just realized that this game is a great example of implicit collusion. Normal humans don't even have to communicate directly to realize that it is better to bet high and get rich.

Economist/game theorists can't properly account for implicit collusion and deny that cartels should even form under these circumstances. But cartels *do* form from implicit collusion all the time. And the participants typically get filthy rich. (while the economists go home with $4)

>thinking the ass backwards argument existing in his mangled brainlet is understood by people who disagree with him

permaNEET detected.

wouldn't get anything significant out of it

you're taking this too literally. this is a basic study into human decision making.
let's make it simpler on you the payoffs are in millions. how many rational people would risk going out with 0 when they have the certainty to win 2 millions?

the fact that people make different decisions based on the magnitude of the payoff is a sign that the theory is incomplete, not that the people are wrong

>certainty
This thread shows that a great deal of people would screw over someone else, even if it means screwing over yourself.

Humans are villains, man.

You know when you're too lazy to change the default choice for something even though it would benefit you? This is irrational behavior. Yet lobbyists and lawmakers jostle to make this behavior work for them. Clearly they're getting something significant out of insane, irrational behavior.

this isn't a theory at all it's just a simple rudimentary game. read up on game theory before making ignorant remarks

>this isn't a theory
next sentence
>read game theory
brainlet detected

it'd be like reading the first page of a physics book and go "mmh interesting but clearly incomplete"
keep on reading

nice irrelevant analogy

I've got a more germane one:

It's like contradicting yourself completely and then changing the subject to an irrelevant analogy

>insane, irrational behavior.
this isn't insane or irrational is the result of a cost benefit analysis whereby lazy people value sitting on their ass more than the possible reward they expect to get out of getting up

i have to break this to you: game theory is not just this one game and one game is not the whole game theory
i hope it's dumbed down enough for you now

But the solution that game theorists are suggesting is the obviously correct one to this problem is clearly inconsistent with actual, successful real world game players. Thus the theory is incomplete in its inability to properly capture the correct strategy of this particular game.

It that simple enough for you?

It is like in mathematics. You don't need to assess the entire field, sometimes a single counterexample is sufficient.

This thread is really embarrassing, why can't you autists recognize that you're getting trolled?

>But the solution that game theorists are suggesting is the obviously correct one to this problem is clearly inconsistent with actual, successful real world game players.
really? where did you get from?

pokertips.org/glossary/w/IMPLICIT COLLUSION

amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.pl?s=wpd&c=dsp&k=implicit collusion

picking 99/100 is just implicit collusion

probably. explain why though

>what's a one shot game
>what's a repeated game
again you're mashing different topic together. believe when i tell you it feels like "debating" climate science with a denier. very smart people have worked on this and have already thought of and figured out your "issues" in the theory long long ago

>very smart people have worked on this
>appeal to authority


then you agree that the correct answer is 99/100?

oh, nvm, i misread the problem. thought that you'd always get your own number +- 2, depending on the other player's number.

98 is probably still a good choice though.

If you pick 100 and he picks 100 then you get 100

If you pick 100 and he picks 99 then you get 98 - therefore everything that always grants below 98 is irrational.

For psychological reasons I'd pick 97 - I am very likely to get 99 in that case. Most people would only consider 100 and 99, fewer 98, even less 97, and everything less than 97 is irrational.

So in your eyes, winning is just getting more money that your opponent? Enjoy your wins poorfag. I'll be happy with my $97+ Unless of course I'm up against a faggot like you

That just proves my point that the winning strategy is based on human rationality and utility function.

only if you like losing

Globally, do we expect the strategy of the other player to differ from our own? From everything OP has posted, it appears not. Let the strategy of both players, then, be probability distribution over the 99 possible choices {p_a, p_b, p_c, ...,} where obviously the sum over p is one. Your expected pay off is given:

[eqn]p^2_a * 100 + p_b^2 * 99 + ...
+ p_b*(p_a) * (101+99)
+ p_c*(p_a+p_b) * (100+98)
+ p_d*(p_a+p_b+p_c) * (99+97)
+ ...
[/eqn]

Which is pretty trivially maximized (subject to our condition of unity) when p_a=1

The payout on losses is higher than the guaranteed "win", by a huge margin, it's dumb to focus on "winning."

That being said, magnitude matters, so different people would have different responses. If you played this game with 2 to 100 pennies vs 2 to 100 billion dollars, people would trivially risk the 100 pennies, but would almost all take the guaranteed 2 billion. Risk profiles differ between people, and even in the same person with differing amounts of money.

Have brainlet economists really not figured that last part out yet?

what was it suppose to be based on?

Yeaaaaaaa even after reading through all the retarded reasoning behind choosing 2 I don't see how gaining at most 4 dollars is a win lol

In this game, poker, and business cartels the payoff is essentially the same. In each case you lose a small amount of relative payout in exchange for a large absolute payout. In each case, the smart and winning game players choose to collude implicitly.

The game theorists and dindus walk away poorfags.

...

>Globally, do we expect the strategy of the other player to differ from our own? From everything OP has posted, it appears not.

If I don't expect the strategy of the other player to differ from my own and I plan to bet $100. Then I'll expect the other player to play the same and we both go home with $100.

>linking appeal to authority
>implying poker players & businesses wouldn't go the same thing if you only let them play one hand/fiscal quarter

It is just smart strategy.

everyone got that figured out. seems like you just came to that epiphany

Nash equilibrium.

Smart strategy would be looking at the other player and giving a nod hoping to receive a nod and a slight smile back then both choosing $100 and both walking away $100 dollars richer.

Choosing 2 dollars in an attempt to "win" the game would simply be foolish and disadvantageous for both players.

$4 at most or $97 at least in your pocket? ($100 if the other player isn't a stingy bastard)

It's totally illogical in this day and age to assume that gaining $4 over the other player's $0 is winning this game when there could easily be two true winners.

Gullible tard answer: 100 and win nothing
Smart skeptical rational player: 2 and win the game

Let's change the person to a computer which choses a number at random.
Now tell your answer

Gullible idiot who thinks winning a game is more important than gaining extra money's answer: 2
Intelligent person who knows what winning really entails's answer: 100

2>0 dumbass