I just submitted a paper for publication that deals a bit with mathematical models of altruism.
The spoiler: many game theoretic models show this paradox where looking out for others actually makes things worse for society. I should probably write a post on it...
Interesting. Please send me that your paper... Would like to know your parameters....
I just uploaded the initial draft to my website. It's at the top of my conference proceedings list as "Fundamental Limits of Locally-Computed Incentives in Network Routing."
Enjoy!
Thanks!
I'd very much like to read that post. Following you.
I hope you do write a post on that, and I enjoyed this one by @nulliusinverba, too. Stuart Kauffman at the Santa Fe Institute, wrote something along the same lines in his book At Home in the Universe: "The results hint at something deep and simple about why flatter, decentralized organizations may function well: contrary to intuition, breaking an organization into "patches" where each patch attempts to optimize for its own selfish benefit, even if that is harmful to the whole, can lead, as if by an invisible hand, to the welfare of the whole organization..."
However, just because game theory says it's so doesn't mean it's so. Always good to keep that in mind :)
You definitely should! Looking forward to reading it