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05 September 2017

'Limited' Cooperation

Came across a weird article trying to explain the process of increasing cooperation and decreasing non-cooperation (leading to destruction), using mathematical language.  Well, know not about the mathematical implications, given the author's acknowledgement that some facts look great on paper but prove an utter failure in practice.  However, the main point of the article does make some sense.  The author seems to suggest that cooperation when reciprocal between like-minded individuals is more influential than cooperation across everyone in the society.
Cooperation flourishes best when each individual has strong, reciprocated connections to a small number of others. In this case, cooperation spreads locally, along these connections, leading to clusters of cooperators who share benefits with each other. In contrast, if all individuals are equally connected to all others, the benefits of cooperation become diluted in the sea of non-cooperators, and the behaviour cannot spread. Thus, for cooperation to thrive, a few strong ties are better than a myriad weak ones.
Read the full article on Aeon.
C standing for cooperation and N for non-cooperation

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