The Evolution of Cooperation Quotes

“Based upon the tournament results and the formal propositions, four simple suggestions are offered for individual choice: do not be envious of the other player’s success; do not be the first to defect; reciprocate both cooperation and defection; and do not be too clever.”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation

“What makes it possible for cooperation to emerge is the fact that the players might meet again”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition

“Reciprocity is certainly not a good basis for a morality of aspiration. Yet it is more than just the morality of egoism. It”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation

“When the players will never meet again, the strategy of defection is the only stable strategy.”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation

“What accounts for TIT FOR TAT’s robust success is its combination of being nice, retaliatory, forgiving, and clear. Its”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation

“The great enforcer of morality in commerce is the continuing relationship, the”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition

“The conditions for the evolution of cooperation tell what is necessary, but do not, by themselves, tell what strategies will be most successful. For this question, the tournament approach has offered striking evidence in favor of the robust success of the simplest of all discriminating strategies: TIT FOR TAT. By cooperating on the first move, and then doing whatever the other player did on the previous move, TIT FOR TAT managed to do well with a wide variety of more or less sophisticated decision rules. It not only won the first round of the Computer Prisoner’s Dilemma Tournament when facing entries submitted by professional game theorists, but it also won the second round which included over sixty entries designed by people who were able to take the results of the first round into account. It was also the winner in five of the six major variants of the second round (and second in the sixth variant). And most impressive, its success was not based only upon its ability to do well with strategies which scored poorly for themselves. This was shown by an ecological analysis of hypothetical future rounds of the tournament. In this simulation of hundreds of rounds of the tournament, TIT FOR TAT again was the most successful rule, indicating that it can do well with good and bad rules alike. TIT FOR TAT’s robust success is due to being nice, provocable, forgiving, and clear. Its niceness means that it is never the first to defect, and this property prevents it from getting into unnecessary trouble. Its retaliation discourages the other side from persisting whenever defection is tried. Its forgiveness helps restore mutual cooperation. And its clarity makes its behavioral pattern easy to recognize; and once recognized, it is easy to perceive that the best way of dealing with TIT FOR TAT is to cooperate with it.”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition

“under suitable conditions, cooperation can indeed emerge in a world of egoists without central authority. To”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation

“The Cooperation Theory that is presented in this book is based upon an investigation of individuals who pursue their own self-interest without the aid of a central authority to force them to cooperate with each other.”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation

“Cooperation in biological systems can occur even when the participants are not related, and even when they are unable to appreciate the consequences of their own behavior. What makes this possible are the evolutionary mechanisms of genetics and survival of the fittest. An individual able to achieve a beneficial response from another is more likely to have offspring that survive and that continue the pattern of behavior which elicited beneficial responses from others”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation

“Lesson One was: “Be nice and forgiving.” Lesson Two was more exploitative: “If others are going to be nice and forgiving, it pays to try to take advantage of them.”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition

“The discrimination of others may be among the most important of abilities because it allows one to handle interactions with many individuals without having to treat them all the same, thus making possible the rewarding of cooperation from one individual and the punishing of defection from another.”
― Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation