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maliha's picture

The Prisoner's Dilemma

Submitted by maliha on Thu, 11/12/2009 - 9:47am.

    

  My first exposure to the Prisoner's Dilemma was in a computer science class in high school. We had to come up with a strategy for winning the game and then the teacher ran all the strategies against each other to see who ended up with the most points. My strategy was to start out cooperating, but then switch to competing, if the other person did, which actually failed miserably. I didn't understand how to win the Prisoner's Dilemma then, and I still don't. My first instinct is always to cooperate because it gives the greatest return to both players. If you compete, that might give you a larger gain, but only once, and then the other player will wise up and compete too, which is bad for both of you.

      I guess that's the part of the game that doesn't apply in real life; you don't get to redo things over and over again. You only have one chance, and if you compete while the other person cooperates, you win. That's why people are more drawn towards competing, when it would be better for the group, as a whole, if they cooperated. I mean, I can be competitive too, but I don’t really see life as a win-lose situation, where if one person wins, another has to lose.


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