Week 10: Solving the Prisoner's Dilemma?

 I played the game twice, using different combinations of choices; however I always ended up with the same amount of coins (23). 

After playing the game I realized that since I was unable to judge exactly how my opponent would react,  I would try and balance out both my actions (compete and cooperate) and this happened both the times that I played. I did so possibly because I was actually concerned about what my opponent would “think” of me, even though I knew it really did not matter what it thought of me. The other possible explanation was that since I did not know my opponent's moves I did not want it to be able to make any sort of strategy or be able to predict my moves. Hence, I tried to make my moves as unpredictable as possible.

 I didn't quite get how the game really worked at first, because every time I played I won by five points. I think I cooperated three times, then competed a bunch of times, then cooperated then competed. I know the point of playing this game wasn't just "to win"; it was to make us think about the next (last) section of the course we're moving into, which is group work and negotiation in a large context that needs creating (BMC's curriculum/creating a college curriculum). Essentially, everyone has an idea of what they want a school to look like, but we don't have the resources to accomedate each and every one of our visions for the school... this should sound familiar (the Tragedy of the Commons). Our "Common" is the one single school we have to develop, and the tragedy is that we simply can't have everything we want. That's where negotiation comes in. In the Prisoner's dilemma, you had to realize that there is no winning... I mean, not really. What is winning anyway? I could get a higher score, which was satisfying, sure... what matters is that you couldn't "win" if you only "competed"-- and if you only cooperated, you'd be even (that isn't such a bad thing, is it...? Do hierarchies naturally exist?). This game is an interesting interactive metaphor for balance of considering cooperation/communal needs and individual drive, which we can apply to the curriculum conversations we'll be having and then also to the world at large.

 I am a diehard fan of Law & Order (the original only, of course), and this game plays out basically every episode, to some respect.  Theirs is a one-shot, however, so it's different from playing the game, where you have to have one-ups on the computer with successive rounds.  The way to win against the computer is just to take advantage of the cooperation until the last minute, then compete when the computer has no hope of retaliation.  That seems to me to be the way to do it, anyway.... 

Every battle I have had with my darling brother has played out in this way.  For instance, if I throw away my mother's work by mistake (hypothetical, of course), and she is ready to murder whoever done it, there is a very real crisis at hand.  If my brother and I both remain silent, we will both endure her anger and move on.  If, however, I blame my brother for the whole thing I will be free from blame, and my brother will be grounded.  Hahahaaha-I think I would be advised to do this, since the one-time shot says I should maximize my own profit and completely disregard his.  This usually works extremely well for me, because even if my brother competes against me, tells on me and gets me grounded I will still be able to beat him up afterwards, which would successfully deteriorate both our profits...

Ever since I could talk, I don't play games if I can help it. Games just don't attract me at all. It was no different when I played Prisoner's Dilemma. It seems pointless. I cooperated a few rounds and got the same points as Serendip. When I compete with it for once, I would get higher points. However, if I get back to cooperating, it would get the same points as I do again. It is just so random, that I don't really want to think about how it works! Or maybe it's just because I don't like figuring out how to play games in the first place. It seems unattactive to me, and I feel like games are just a waste of time.

A typical prisoner's dilemma in my life would be when I cooperate with a classmate on an exam or school work when we both are actually competing with each other in the class. It is just so frustrating knowing that your "study buddy" is in fact your competitor. When we are working together to help each other, it is just so ill-minded to think that there is a sort of "underground competition" going on behind the working together. I mean, where is the limit? Where do you draw the line to think that, hey, maybe I should stop working with her at some point when she isn't paying attention so that I can get a better grade? Where do you put your comforts and confidence in the other person knowing that s/he might be planning the same strategy as you? It really makes me sick to think about it every time I meet this problem. But then again, c'est la vie, this kind of problem exists in life all the time whether I like it or not, and there really isn't a way out. My best strategy is to just let it go, not think too hard so that I'll be in peace during most of the process, but will think eventually, when the time is right, to win in the end. After all, survival of the fittest requires competition, life is just a game, and whether I like games or not,  there's no where to hide.

I was not very serious while playing the game. At first, I attempted pressing only cooperate for an entire game, and then the next time I tried to do the opposite and simply push compete for the majority of the game. It seemed rather random to me and so the next time I tried to do a combination of compete and cooperate, with more compete than cooperate to be honest. I thought it seemed odd that I had read several things on the Prisoner's Dilemma before playing the game and yet I found that it was still hard for me to cooperate because all I was concentrating on was the number of points I had as compared to serendip. Had this been something that had more consequence in my day-to-day life, I think I would have taken it a lot more seriously and I probably would have tried to cooperate to a greater extent. 

In my life, an example of a zero-sum game/prisoner's dilemma comes with traffic and driving. When people on the road cooperate (for example, when there are two lanes going down to one) there can be a smooth and quick movement of traffic around the obstacle. On the other hand, if one person chooses to be aggressive and cut someone else off, then they may get around the obstacle a lot faster than the other person. What can happen though is that there can be two very aggressive drivers who decide to compete and the result is a crash and a bad day for both of the drivers. This type of situation appeared a great deal in my school parking lot after school because there was only one exit/entrance and no organization while at the same time there were a great deal of people eager to leave for the day. 

 I tried playing Prisoner’s Dilemma a couple of times and I always ended with around 30 points. I just randomly choose between compete and cooperate without knowing the strategy to win. I did not choose based on patterns or whatsoever. My pick was totally random. There was nothing that nudge me to choose a particular option over the other one.

Personally, I don’t think that Prisoner’s Dilemma can be used to best describe how we choose in our life. Prisoner’s Dilemma is limited to only 2 options, compete or cooperate. Besides that, there are more external and internal factors that do play part in nudging us to make a decision. In Prisoner’s Dilemma, our goal is just to get as many coins as possible, but there is not any particular circumstances that nudge us to choose either cooperate or compete. In real life, it is more complex than just randomly choose to compete or cooperate. Prisoner’s Dilemma may involve choosing an option and such, but in my opinion, it cannot be associated with choices in real life.

Win-win solution is an agreement between two parties where it is the option that may benefit both parties, or at least both gain the same amount of loss/benefit (fair trade). In a win-win solution, both parties have to sacrifice something in order to reach a mutual agreement.  One party has to give up something to gain something else from the other party and vice versa. In this case, our life always revolves around choice. Win-win solution seems to be the best answer for every choice that we want to make because we do not only gain benefit for ourselves, but also for people around us. Whenever I am faced with two difficult options and other people, I always try to find the win-win solution for me as well as the other people who are involved.

I agree with Maiya about our paper not being graded. It is actually a win-win solution where both the students and the professor may gain benefit. The students can improve their writing through the instructor’s feedback without having to worry about their grades while the professor can help the students with their writing without having to grade them (just commenting on them). Isn’t it the real purpose of having the seminar? To help the students develop critical thinking and get used to college writing? And I believe that developing critical thinking and getting used to college writing is all about how much effort you put in, not about grades.

After reading the instructions of Prisoner’s dilemma, I tried to calculate the expected values of both choices, as I always do as a math person. The expected value for cooperating is -2 (the other one also cooperate, +3; the other one competes, -5). On the other hand, the expected value for competing is +6 (the other one cooperates, +5; the other one competes, +1). According to the rationally calculated result, the best strategy for this game is always competing. I did that, and I did earn more coins than Serendip did. But it popped out a hilarious but pretty true line, saying : BUT you were flirting with an Inconceivably Foul Fate the whole time! Sometimes, we win but we are not happy because we play foully, or at least ungracefully which makes our conscience suffer. In prisoner's dilemma, we try to get as many coins as possible at the cost some on else's loss. Especially, when I choose to compete and the other one chooses to cooperate, I get the coins but transfer the pain to the other one. When you thinking it on bigger scale, the possible coin to gain in total is always zero, as we know. Moreover, in this case, the possibility is not always equal. It is not always a 50-50 chance. Instead, people tend to trust and depend on each other when both of them are in trouble. Therefore, the chance that people will choose to cooperate is higher than to compete. It is the emotional way to think about this problem rather than simply counting the expected value in a mathematical way.

It somehow reminds me of playing pair sports. Usually, the pair is supposed to trust each other because they are partners. However, when one person doesn't trust another as much as the other one trusts her/ him, he/she alway wants to do all the work her/himself. The possible result is that he/she will win big acclaim. The other person losses the chance to show what he/she actually can do. The world is developing so fast that it seems impossible for any individual to complete a mission independently. We need to learn how to cooperate and live better off with other's help. (I don't mean taking advantage of others here). The prisoner's dilemma teaches us once again that sometimes, we have to make a decision emotionally and morally.

What is completely frustrating for me about this game is that you don't know when it ends. At first, I thought it had a definitive amount of times it ended at every time but I just didn't know what it was so I competed the whole time so I could always be ahead of serendip. When Rachel said in class she got 69, I was shocked because I thought my score of 19 was high. I was just happy that I had won. After class I played with it more, and I decided that cooperation got you going the longest, and there was still a away to win if you always pressed competition. However, that doesn't get you the highest amount of points. I'm not sure there is a strategy, unless you decide what your objective is. If you want to last the longest, you cooperate the whole time. If you want to win, you compete the whole time and win.

I think this applies to friendship. If you cooperate with your friend the whole time and get along, your relationship will last longer.  If you compete all the time, you have a greater chance of winning if you are the one that initiates the competition, but you will lose friends quickly. The most frustrating this though, is you can have strategies to predict when it will end but in reality you can never pinpoint when it will exactly end. 

I think that the Prisoner's Dilemma is an interesting concept to apply to my own life.  I think that some of the hardest decisions we face involve the Prisoner's Dilemma.  I like to find a balance between cooperating and competing and often times such compromise does not exist and I'm torn.  When playing the game, I tried everything and since it always worked out I got bored- something I think can be a metaphor for bigger things in life.  When everything works out, people fall in the same habits, get bored, and either give up or just keep doing the same thing but no longer get enjoyment out of it.  That's why it is important to find a balance and understand that one cannot always win and it's not necessarily a bad thing.  

 I think that in order to create a "win-win situation" in our class, it is possible but will be difficult to achieve because you have to find that balance between competitors and cooperators that makes everyone happy and still completes the other goals of the class.

I was messing around with the game a bit trying to figure out how I could beat my previous scores. Solely cooperating put me at 35, solely competing at 16 and 47 when cooperating until 27 and then alternating. I failed to see a pattern in my more logical attempts and so i just starting messing around: my only reccuring trend was cooperating until 27.

And then I got 66. This score far surpassed my others and I was left riding my adrenaline rush wondering how this happened.

In some way, I feel this is a good metaphor for group work. When I begin a project, I kind of test the tide and lead at points and hang back and listen at others. But once I'm, say two days into a five day project, there are moments of personal inspiration that compel me to speak more. Or sometimes, I'm just completely indifferent to the conversation and tune out. But there's no predetermined pattern. Just like in Prisoner's Dilemma.

 At first I didn't really understand the purpose of Prisoner's dilemma. I wasn't quite sure of how I was gaining more coins and what was the difference between cooperating and competing. After playing a couple of times,I noticed that the more I competed, the more payoff I would get. I would end up with more coins than Serendip at the end. However, my gains were a payoff from being devious. I was told I had was "flirting with an Inconceivable Foul Fate." On the other hand, if I would randomly choose to cooperate then have random times to compete, I would end with the most coins, but with the result that I "could do better."

 After having played Prisoner's Dilemma, I found that in order to maximize your payoff or benefits and minimize punishments, there has to be some sort of agreement involved. I agree with Katie that it is definitely easier cooperate with one another. In that sense, cooperation is a win-win situation. It is definitely possible to have cooperation. However, at times more people are willing to cooperate more than others. It may be that they're more confident, prepared and potentially more trusting. Our class discussions are cooperative for the most part. However, I feel that at times I'm not cooperating as much as I should be for a number of reasons. In a way, I'm the person that is getting more from my classmates when I'm not saying much in return. As far as grades go, the ones that are willing to cooperate more in class and thinking aloud are the ones that are rewarded, not the ones that allow for deception. I have come to the conclusion that deviance isn't the right way to go. You may gain something temporarily. However, it isn't just your peers that lose in the end, the person not cooperating will lose as well. 

 In the game, I was able to get the highest average amount of coins when I cooperated with Serendip.  When I tried to compete with it, it would compete with me, and we would both lose the potential to gain the most coins possible.  I believe that it makes sense for the computer to keep cooperating with me if I keep cooperating with it, but does this type of cooperation really happen in real life?  Looking at the overall picture, it makes sense to cooperate with people.  But what if people are used to always competing rather than working together?  For example, if an actual prisoner and his partner were held in different interrogation rooms and told that the first person who gives the other one up will get no jail time.  Then they were told if the other person chose first, they would get thrown into jail for many years.  If they both told on each other, however, they would only get a few years in jail.  It would make sense to cooperate so both of you get the same amount of time, but are these prisoners really going to care what happens to their accomplace?  Cooperation does not matter to criminals at all.

            Bryn Mawrters, however, are no criminals, and the group of women that I learn with are all very willing to cooperate.  We all realize that if we do our part of the work and attempt to contribute an equal share to discussions, we get the most out of our learning.  Everyone is willing to create a win-win situation.  This cooperation also plays a part in the grading scale.  We as students are able to play a large role in the grade we think we deserve.  If we know we have worked very hard and can convey that to the professors, I am sure we will be satisfied with our grades. 

            Equal cooperation will be especially important in the group papers that we will be writing.  If we don’t already see how equal cooperation can benefit both parties, we will experience this through writing with others.  When both people put in the same effort, a better relationship sprouts between the writers, making it easier to talk about ideas and write an actually interesting paper.  So even though people in our future work places may not see the value of cooperation, I have found that Bryn Mawr's community thrives with cooperation between one-another.