This is a summary of a video done by veritasium called What Game Theory reveals about life, the universe and everything.
Except for zero-sum game, which usually happen for a predictable, short period of time i.e poker,…, the game of life we play is considered perpetual. And if I may, let’s assume the interactions you have with other people in life is not predictable and not set to a concrete number of times. According to studies and strategy simulation experiments by Alezort, the best strategy to win the most points in these games are:
- Be nice. vs retaliate. Meaning your strategy should always aim for collaboration. Do not intend to do harm. But do retaliate when the opponent retaliate aka copy the exact last move of your opponent.
- Be forgiving. If your opponent revert back to being nice, you do the same the next round. In reality, there is usually “noise”, meaning you might misjudge the situation out of nice vs not nice. So the worst case scenario both sides will retaliate forever. Hence, act with +10% forgiveness to break out of this cycle.
- Don’t be a pushover. Emphasizing the above “tit for tat” philosophy. Some of the aggressive strategies take advantages of this weakness by testing the opponent to see if they react to retaliation. If not, they will keep pushing further.
- Being clear about your strategy with your opponent. Let them know the rules.
The tricky part is however if you can predict the actual number of interactions/games, there is less motivation for your opponent or you to be cooperative because they can always win by retaliating at the last round. That said, if you really think about it, in reality you will never stop playing games with different opponents.