Week VI · 21 plates
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The Five Rules of Cooperation

Nowak's mathematics of working together

The big idea

A cooperative act costs C to its performer and yields B to its recipient. Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics has shown five conditions under which cooperation beats defection — and each maps onto win-win public policy.

By the end of this week you can
  • —State all five rules and what each variable means.
  • —Identify which rule a given policy is using.
  • —Explain why cooperation needs a mechanism, not an appeal.
Opening the lecture hall…