This is a blog I started writing about six months ago. It’s based on a game theory situation that has real world implications. Despite the simplicity of the game, there are computer programs written to play the game, and tournaments and strategies invented to excel at it. The blog wasn’t going very smoothly and I feel that the point I was trying to make is bigger than the sum of my explanation and examples. I have thought about this idea every day, and I have kept trying to edit it and dress it up in my head ever since. Time has expired, and now I will toss it out, three quarters baked, but at least out of my hair for now.
Prisoner’s Dilemma is a very simple game. The idea is that two gangsters (or better yet, petty criminals who won’t have to fear being a snitch) have been arrested and put in separate rooms where they can’t communicate with each other. The cops are pretty sure they did a big robbery (or any crime, doesn’t matter) but they can’t prove it. Without a confession or one gangster testifying against his accomplice, the cops can only implicate them with a smaller crime. The first gangster can either keep quiet and maintain his innocence or tell the police it was all the other guy’s doing. The other criminal has the same two options. So if the first criminal says he’s innocent while his accomplish tells the cops criminal #1 did the crime, then criminal #1 goes to jail for 20 years and the second criminal goes free. If the exact opposite is true, criminal #2 goes to jail for 20 years and the first guy goes home. If they both finger each other, they will both go to jail for 10 years. And if they both keep quiet and claim innocence, they both get charged with the lesser crime and go to jail for two years.
The main point of this scenario is that, while cooperation seems like the right idea, no matter what the other guy tells the cops, each criminal gets a shorter sentence by ratting his buddy out.
You rat, your friend keeps quiet: go free
You rat, your friend rats: 10 years
You keep quiet, your friend keeps quiet: 2 years
Sexologist encourages communication so that couples can viagra order online enjoy great sex life. Another treatment which is commonly used is to provide person with certain medicine or substance which cause severe and unpleasant reaction to alcohol. http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/coffee/ generic cialis Lacking of blood order generic levitra availability is stops you achieving healthy erections needed for satisfactory physical intimacy. Exercises and viagra online in india workouts are not only beneficial for shedding those extra calories but they are just awesome for your sex life.
You keep quiet, your friend rats: 20 years
Where Prisoner’s Dilemma gets interesting is in its real world applications. Nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the USA was one example. Neither side could start a nuclear war because they had to fear their enemy would live and retaliate. If either side could have guaranteed they would destroy the other, they would have done it, but they both kept missiles in hidden, untraceable places the other couldn’t be sure they’d hit. So they spent 40 years or so cooperating.
Another example where it is better to cheat, a la PD, is steroid use in sports. If you take steroids you will either be superior to your honest opponent, or even with a dishonest one. Not taking steroids will assure you will not be superior, regardless of whether your opponent cheats or not.
In some cases, it’s better to be bad as long as you are in the minority. Aggressive, impatient drivers will get where they’re going faster than most people, but only as long as only a few people drive that way. They say if everyone shopped at Walmart, all the local stores in your town would go bankrupt, and service workers would all get minimum wage. But you go there to save a few bucks and hope that enough other people are willing to shop elsewhere to keep the local economy moving along.
In these examples and many more, cooperating is the most common result, but cheating or choosing the non-cooperative option gets you farther ahead, just like Prisoner’s Dilemma. Another bonus for the selective cheat is that women prefer liars and cheats to honest people, on a primitive level, because it is seen as a survival trait to be passed on to their offspring. Being a poor schmuck stuck in traffic is appealing to no one.