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A comment on 'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining cooperation (2007). Parent comment

Re:'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining ... by jmull on Monday August 28, 2017 @01:34PM (#15118434)
> However, if the idea is that a model is good at "explaining" cooperation by setting up a hypothetical where people choose it a lot...

I don't think that's the point. I think the point is that SD is closer to the average case for cooperation than the PD, so it might be a better tool, in general, for talking about and reasoning about cooperation. (Both PD and SD have the nice property that they are simple and straightforward, and both have the problem that they are only approximations.)

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Re:'Snowdrift' game tops 'Prisoner's Dilemma' in explaining ... by glenstein on Monday August 28, 2017 @02:23PM (#15118856)
The article suggests that a higher percentage of people choosing the "cooperate" option means that the model in question does a better job explaining. Explaining is the article author's chosen word. But maybe you are right that the author is missing the point, I'm not sure.

But even that's a tough sell for me, since the ideas you suggest as substitutes for the term "explain" are things I would put under the umbrella of what is meant by explaining.

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