anonymous cooperation is stable if opting out possible

[Major Variola (ret)]

>Subject: anonymous cooperation is stable if opting out possible
>
>Volunteering as Red Queen Mechanism for Cooperation in Public Goods
Games
>        Christoph Hauert, Silvia De Monte, Josef Hofbauer, and Karl
Sigmund
>        Science May 10 2002: 1129-1132.
>
>
>Volunteering as Red Queen Mechanism for Cooperation in Public Goods
> Games
>
> Christoph Hauert,12 Silvia De Monte,13 Josef Hofbauer,1 Karl
Sigmund14*
>
> The evolution of cooperation among nonrelated individuals is one of
the fundamental problems in biology and social sciences.
> Reciprocal altruism fails to provide a solution if interactions are
not repeated often enough or groups are too large. Punishment
> and reward can be very effective but require that defectors can be
traced and identified. Here we present a simple but effective
> mechanism operating under full anonymity. Optional participation can
foil exploiters and overcome the social dilemma. In
> voluntary public goods interactions, cooperators and defectors will
coexist. We show that this result holds under very diverse
> assumptions on population structure and adaptation mechanisms, leading
usually not to an equilibrium but to an unending cycle of
> adjustments (a Red Queen type of evolution). Thus, voluntary
participation offers an escape hatch out of some social traps.
> Cooperation can subsist in sizable groups even if interactions are not
repeated, defectors remain anonymous, players have no
> memory, and assortment is purely random.
>
> 1 Institute for Mathematics, University of Vienna, Strudlhofgasse 4,
A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
> 2 Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, 6270
University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4.
> 3 Department of Physics, Danish Technical University, DK-2800 Kgs.
Lyngby, Denmark.
> 4 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), A-2361
Laxenburg, Austria.
> *   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
karl.sigmund at univie.ac.at