Imagine two prisoners, each one placed in solitary confinement. The police offer a deal: if each betrays the other, theyโll both get five years in prison. If one betrays the other but the other keeps quiet, the betrayer will walk free and the betrayed will serve ten years. If neither say anything, theyโll both be locked up, but only for two years. Unable coordinate, both prisoners will likely betray each other in order to secure the best individual outcome, despite the fact that it would be better on the whole for both to keep their mouths shut. This is the โprisonerโs dilemma,โ a thought experiment much-cited in game theory and economics since the middle of the twentieth century.
Though the situation the prisonerโs dilemma describes may sound quite specific, its general form actually conforms to that of a variety of problems that arise throughout the modern world, in politics, trade, interpersonal relations, and a great many others besides.
Blogger Scott Alexander describes the prisonerโs dilemmas as one manifestation of what Allen Ginsberg called Moloch, the relentless unseen force that drives societies toward misery. Moloch โalways and everywhere offers the same deal: throw what you love most into the flames, and I can grant you power.โ Or, as heโd put it to Chewy the gingerbread man, โBetray your friend Crispy, and Iโll make a fox eat only three of your limbs.โ
Such is the situation animated in gloriously woolly stop-motion by Ivana Boลกnjak and Thomas Johnson in the TED-Ed video at the top of the post, which replaces the prisoners with โsentient baked goods,โ the jailer with a hungry woodland predator, and years of imprisonment with bitten-off arms and legs. After explaining the prisonerโs dilemma in a whimsical manner, it presents one proposed solution: the โinfinite prisonerโs dilemma,โ in which the participants decide not just once but over and over again. Such a setup would allow them to โuse their future decisions as bargaining chips for the present one,โ and eventually (depending upon how heavily they value future outcomes in the present) to settle upon repeating the outcome that would let both of them walk free โ as free as they can walk on one gingerbread leg, at any rate.
Related content:
An Introduction to Game Theory & Strategic Thinking: A Free Course from Yale University
The Famous Schrรถdingerโs Cat Thought Experiment Comes Back to Life in an Off-Kilter Animation
Watch a 2-Year-Old Solve Philosophyโs Famous Ethical โTrolley Problemโ (It Doesnโt End Well)
Based in Seoul,ย Colin Marshallย writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletterย Books on Cities,ย the bookย The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angelesย and the video seriesย The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter atย @colinmarshallย or onย Facebook.