Ranking: The Unwritten Rules of the Social Game We All Play

265 Pages·2020·2.878 MB·English

by  Péter Érdi

Ranking

Ranking
The Unwritten Rules of
the Social Game We All Play
PÉTER ÉRDI
Kalamazoo College
Wigner Research Centre for Physics of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest
1
3
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For my children, Gábor and Zsuzsi

Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xiii
1. Prologue: My early encounters with ranking 1
2. Comparison, ranking, rating, and lists 7
3. Social ranking in animal and human societies 42
4. Choices, games, laws, and the Web 65
5. The ignorant, the manipulative, and the difficulties
of measuring society 99
6. Ranking games 127
7. The struggle for reputation 160
8. Inspired by your wish list: How (not to) buy a
new lawnmower 197
9. Epilogue: Rules of the ranking game—
where are we now? 207
Notes 215
Index 233

Foreword
In this brilliant, wide- ranging book, Péter Érdi, an award- winning
teacher and scholar, takes up the phenomena of rankings and
ratings (I’ll get to the difference in a moment). A computational
scientist, Érdi proves equally skilled as a social observer, revealing
deep implications of the ubiquitous rankings and ratings created
by social and mainstream media. We assign far too much credi-
bility to numerical rankings that may, at their core, be subjective
impressions. Even more troubling, as we change our behavior to
move up those lists, we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the
rankings.
Rankings and these behavioral responses to them occur across
the socio- technical landscape. To grasp the breadth of his in-
quiry, take a moment and leaf through the index. Here’s one sam-
pling taken back to front: the Wong-B aker pain scale, U.S. News &
World Report university rankings, Scar (yes, from The Lion King),
recommendation letters, the illusion of objectivity, the Hungarian
national soccer team, Erdős numbers, Elo chess ratings, and
Campbell’s law. The A’s alone include Jane Austen, Aristotle, and
Arrow’s impossibility theorem.
That sampling of topics only hints at the fun in store for you.
Throughout, Péter’s fertile, lively mind is on full display. You are in
for a treat. Though the book takes up technical topics, Péter’s writing
manages to be bright, funny, and clear. By book’s end, many readers
may contemplate catching the train to Kalamazoo or Budapest with
the hopes of meeting up with Péter to learn more about preferen-
tial attachment mechanisms, bounded rationality, social neurosci-
ence, the psychology of list making, or the applications of network
statistics. For those of you who know Péter, particularly his former