The evolution of cooperation hinges on whether cheaters are detectable

Evidence

Frank’s model of trustworthiness is merely his model of cooperativeness more generally. (Indeed, experimental work that not long ago was characterized as being about cooperation is increasingly described as being about trust. Unfortunately, this move sometimes conflates data on what is to be explained—cooperation—with data on what is to explain it—trust.) Frank’s model yields four conclusions. First, if cooperators and defectors look alike, then cooperators will be extinguished. Second, if cooperators and defectors are easily identified, defectors will be extinguished. Third, if mimicry has no cost or delay, cooperators will be extinguished. Fourth, if mimicry entails fixed costs of detection, there will be a stable mix of cooperators and defectors. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 621

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s Hardin–Luhmann–Saramago synthesis: when blindness makes defectors undetectable (all look alike), the four-conclusion model predicts cooperators will be extinguished — exactly the Hobbesian collapse Saramago depicts. — connects to: Communication models must include eavesdroppers as evolutionary actors — Almo Farina, Soundscape Ecology: Principles,…, 540
• SEED: Potential essay angle: ‘When defectors can’t be identified’ — using Frank’s four conclusions as a lens on the social collapse in Blindness, where blindness is the ultimate mimicry cost-free environment.