In order to investigate the conditions that lead to the emergence of different levels and types of exploitation, it’s necessary to come up with a concrete, operationalized definition of exploitation – Otherwise it’s going to be difficult to measure exploitation in the Islands Game. Consequently, work to operationalize exploitation is proceeding in parallel with the development of the game. This parallel activity has been helpful, because the Islands Game usefully provides a very concrete platform for the more conceptual discussion.
I should say that, coming from a background in cognitive science, I didn’t have too many preconceived notions about how to define exploitation. I picked it because I’m interested in modeling social dynamics more broadly, and exploitation seems very fundamental to human behavior. Discussions with other researchers in other disciplines – sociology, digital humanities, biology – have been very helpful in getting a sense of how exploitation is viewed in other areas of research. Coming out of these discussions my current goal is not to capture the one true definition of ‘exploitation’. Rather it is to come up with one or more concrete (operationalized) measures in my simulation that I can clearly relate to one or more existing definitions of the term.
One of the more interesting, and at times entertaining, outcomes of these discussions have been a slew of ‘exploitation thought experiments’, provided by people during conversations surrounding my efforts to operationalize exploitation. People have been very good at suggesting situations which allow me to consider what does and does not fall within a particular definition, and, more broadly what factors are necessary or sufficient for exploitation. More on this later.