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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Isolated cooperators and small groups of cooperators (fewer than four) face extinction in a spatial prisoner's dilemma

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Nowak and May (1992) demonstrated that spatial structure itself generates cooperator clustering that violates the assumption of random neighborhood composition underlying extinction thresholds.
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    • 2.When cooperators preferentially cluster through kin selection or assortment, the 50% interaction probability premise dissolves, as Hamilton's inclusive fitness framework predicts stable cooperation below the four-agent threshold.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.The 'unstable equilibrium' characterization of three-cooperator groups assumes a static spatial lattice, but Axelrod's iterated tournament results show that small cooperative clusters stabilize through reciprocal interaction history rather than instantaneous fitness comparisons.
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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Treating extinction probability as equivalent to expansion probability at the three-agent threshold conflates single-round payoff structure with iterated game dynamics, a category error Skyrms explicitly warns against in 'Evolution of the Social Contract'.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Isolated cooperators have lower expected fitness than surrounding defectors
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    • 2.Groups of two cooperators each have only a 50% probability of interacting with another cooperator, leaving their average expected fitness below that of neighbouring defectors
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    • 3.Groups of three cooperators form an unstable point from which extinction and expansion are equally likely
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