Pretty much every situation in real life involves some variant on the prisoner’s dilemma, almost always with etiquette, ethical, or legal prohibitions against defection.
Chicken comes up fairly often and there mutual defection is by far the worst outcome for either party (i.e. if you knew the other guy wanted to defect, you’d cooperate).
True. But challenging somebody to a Chicken-like game in the first place can be modeled as a Defection in a prisoner’s dilemma; you win if they Cooperate and refuse, and both of you are worse off if they also Defect, and agree to the game.
can be modeled as a Defection in a prisoner’s dilemma
No, it can not—in a PD you make your decision not knowing the other party’s decision. Here if you challenge, the other party already knows your choice before having to make its own.
You’ve Defected, and they’ve Cooperated, the moment you issued your challenge, and they didn’t. They’re now in a disadvantageous position, and you’re in an advantageous position; their subsequent Defection is in a different game with altered payoffs, but it also qualifies as a PD. (You could, after all, Cooperate in the subsequent game, and retract your challenge.)
Prisoner’s Dilemma is generally iterative in real life.
Chicken comes up fairly often and there mutual defection is by far the worst outcome for either party (i.e. if you knew the other guy wanted to defect, you’d cooperate).
In an even simpler case, if you are a business, trying to cooperate instead of “defecting” will get you charged with anti-trust violations.
True. But challenging somebody to a Chicken-like game in the first place can be modeled as a Defection in a prisoner’s dilemma; you win if they Cooperate and refuse, and both of you are worse off if they also Defect, and agree to the game.
No, it can not—in a PD you make your decision not knowing the other party’s decision. Here if you challenge, the other party already knows your choice before having to make its own.
So get a reputation for being revengeBot?
You’ve Defected, and they’ve Cooperated, the moment you issued your challenge, and they didn’t. They’re now in a disadvantageous position, and you’re in an advantageous position; their subsequent Defection is in a different game with altered payoffs, but it also qualifies as a PD. (You could, after all, Cooperate in the subsequent game, and retract your challenge.)
Prisoner’s Dilemma is generally iterative in real life.