Yes.  You are correct.  That’s why the use of stupid names is so stupid.  We 
could have used abbreviations such as UnconAltConAss (Moth) and UnconDefConAss 
(NasMoth), ConAltUnconAss (Tit for tat), etc.  Mostly I think we should obey 
our nursery school teacher and “use our words”.  There was a kid at one of my 
kid’s nursery school who used this strategy very consistently.  He would always 
ask politely for the toy the other kid was playing with, BEFORE he hit him with 
a block.  Redundancy in scientific writing is not such a bad thing.  

 

What I would like to remind you is that this thing we created was a platform 
that could have been used to rip off half a dozen publishable “experiments.”  
Nobody has ever exploited it for that purpose, which is sad.  We only got the 
one publication out of it.  We needed graduate students. 

 

Why is this coming up now??

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
Sent: Sunday, November 1, 2020 12:22 PM
To: Stephen Guerin <[email protected]>
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What's in a name? MOTH to a Flame

 

And as I look at it more closely, Nasty Moth isn't actually "MOTH" in the 
meaning of "My Way or Highway" as it leaves when the other agent does "My way" 
which is defecting also.

 




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z <http://zoom.com/j/5055775828> oom.simtable.com <http://oom.simtable.com> 

 

 

On Sun, Nov 1, 2020 at 11:17 AM Stephen Guerin <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

> I think the proper name is Conditional Association Strategy

 

Yes, I think of Conditional Association Strategy as its "genus". There's an 
unspecified bit in the "genome" on the conditional behavior in that name that 
needs to be more specific to make it a species which could be either cooperate 
or defect. In the table from the paper, For example, there's three strategies 
of the "conditional association strategies" genus. Arguably the name MOTH is a 
name for the genus not the particular species. Note how NasMoth (NastyMoth) has 
that bit specified in the negative direction. We'd like the "dual" in the 
positive direction.

 

A more particular name for the MOTH strategy might be something like a 
"HippieMoth" ethic where it seeks reciprocity in ooperative relationships and 
leaves when reciprocity is absent. Another name might be "Hippy-Dippy" which 
gives the sense of flightiness too. But I'm wondering if there's a better 
character analogue. It is a kind of golden rule for dynamic networks.

 



 

As we're writing some software and related whitepapers I want input/blessing as 
we consider tightening up the naming. Note how google's naming of PageRank 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank>  was helpful to communicate their 
approach.

 

_______________________________________________________________________
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> 

CEO, Simtable  http://www.simtable.com <http://www.simtable.com/> 

1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505

office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828

twitter: @simtable

z <http://zoom.com/j/5055775828> oom.simtable.com <http://oom.simtable.com> 

 

 

On Sun, Nov 1, 2020 at 10:14 AM <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

I think the proper name is Conditional Association Strategy (as opposed to a 
Condition Altruism Strategy.  

 

My original impulse was not .. um … prosocial.  I was pissed by the extent to 
which the entire literature had gone down the Axelrod rat hole with its totally 
unnatural assumptions and annoyed at my colleagues for giving things cute 
names.  So, I thought, I can play this stupid game, too.  And,  indeed, I 
could.  And SURPRISE! it’s still a stupid game, even though I can play it.  

 

Nick 

 

 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On 
Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
Sent: Sunday, November 1, 2020 11:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Subject: [FRIAM] What's in a name? MOTH to a Flame

 

Nick,

 

On a recent FRIAM you expressed mild regret on your naming of MOTH (My Way or 
the Highway)
  http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/9/2/4.html

 

Given a chance to rename it what were some of the options over the years?  Does 
the list have better suggestions?

 

Naming may seem trivial and arbitrary but it is important as this CS aphorism 
attests <https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html> .
      "There are 2 hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, 
naming things, and off-by-1 errors."

 

For the list, MOTH is a winning strategy in an expanded Iterated Prisoners 
Dilemma game where agents can leave a relationship during a round in the 
tournament and be randomly assigned another unassociated agent. They always 
cooperate and then leave if defected against. MOTH agents unconditionally 
cooperate and conditionally associate.

 

An example of an expanded TIT-FOR-TAT strategy in this game might be to 
conditionally cooperate and unconditionally associate. ie cooperate until 
defected against then switch to always defect and  stay in the association. 
(think of a bad marriage without divorce). 

 

We continue to think MOTH remains an important simple heuristic for link 
formation/maintenance in trust networks / decentralized systems. And naming is 
important.

 

-Stephen

 

 

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