The beauty of the prisoners dilemma is that it’s ALWAYS in your advantage to sell out the other prisoner. In this case it’s not in your advantage to pull the lever if the other person might have pulled the lever. This misses the key part of the prisoners dilemma.
The setup is usually if you both shut up you both get 1 year. If one of you snitches you walk free and the other guy gets 10 years. If you both snitch you both get 5 years.
So if the other guy snitches you’re gonna get 10 years if you don’t and 5 if you do so you “should” snitch.
If the other guy says nothing you get 1 year if you say nothing, but if you snitch you walk free. So you “should” snitch.
The prisoners dilemma exists because if you both behave in your “rational” self interest you both get a higher jail sentence than if you both keep your mouth shut.
It’s a great counter example to the “rational” consumer in a free market, you also start to see it everywhere. It’s the main thing that stops strikes and political activism in real life. If you participate you always take a risk. If you stay home you take no risk and still reap all the rewards of successful activism… EXCEPT if everyone behaves like that no activism will ever be successful and everyone loses.
The beauty of the prisoners dilemma is that it’s ALWAYS in your advantage to sell out the other prisoner. In this case it’s not in your advantage to pull the lever if the other person might have pulled the lever. This misses the key part of the prisoners dilemma.
Pretty cool remix though.
Always to your advantage? How do you figure?
The setup is usually if you both shut up you both get 1 year. If one of you snitches you walk free and the other guy gets 10 years. If you both snitch you both get 5 years.
So if the other guy snitches you’re gonna get 10 years if you don’t and 5 if you do so you “should” snitch.
If the other guy says nothing you get 1 year if you say nothing, but if you snitch you walk free. So you “should” snitch.
The prisoners dilemma exists because if you both behave in your “rational” self interest you both get a higher jail sentence than if you both keep your mouth shut.
It’s a great counter example to the “rational” consumer in a free market, you also start to see it everywhere. It’s the main thing that stops strikes and political activism in real life. If you participate you always take a risk. If you stay home you take no risk and still reap all the rewards of successful activism… EXCEPT if everyone behaves like that no activism will ever be successful and everyone loses.
In this form I know it under the name “paradox of the voter”
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