The game theory behind the nature of destructive parasitism
I was sent a link to a podcast discussing how a victory of a social justice movement in video gaming would be ruinous to the video game culture.
From a purely economics point of view, social justice is not an inherent agent of production in the sense that it does not produce or help produce a marketable good or service. However, from a networks point of view, social justice provides value by spreading information and rallying up communities for a common cause.
Davis Aurini argues that the people behind the GamerGate scandal [now referred to as GGG] are being parasitical to the gaming community. A parasite is defined as an entity that benefits from a host while the host is adversely affected by the parasite — in terms of a community or a network, a network would be better off if they cut off a parasitical member who is profiting from the network.
In terms of network game theory, the inevitable and continued presence of parasites comes from the problem of the tragedy of the commons. The parasites have a high incentive to suckle off as many nodes as possible, since they have a sizeable reward if they reach out far enough — typically through viral marketing. Other members of the network have very little incentive to remove the parasite, because what they would gain from removing the parasite would typically not be enough to merit the effort required to counter such a member of a network. More influential members of the community may either try to placate the parasite, or in some cases play the parasite to their own agenda, perhaps even being an inadvertent victim. However, the parasite is vulnerable to making itself particularly vulnerable. Since it is collecting small amounts each from a very large group, the parasites can be seduced by the relative ease of their work, oftentimes leading to them ending up to be metaphorically, sitting ducks for vigilantes.
The seduction as talked about leads to a vulnerability within the parasite. In the gaming community, as Davis chronicles, Anita Sarkeesian and Gamergate have achieved enough exposure that some members of the gaming community see something that is off and decide to play vigilante (as described above, not a dominant strategy nor part of the equilibrium), leading to some strong comments from both sides. In Davis’s planned documentary, he plans to expose the GGG and discredit them as parasites, and the GGG have done their best to make sure that the documentary isn’t funded. This raises a red flag — if the relationship between the gaming community and GGG is truly symbiotic, would they not support the documentary as an opportunity to justify themselves?