Theme and Variations on the Prisoner’s Dilemma
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- 26 April 2025, 2:00 pm
- 199 Harvard Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
What: Running through the famous game theory dilemma, with some variations.
When: 2pm, Saturday April 26th
Where: 199 Harvard St, Cambridge
Run by: Ben Thompson
The Prisoner’s Dilemma is familiar to us all, or ought to be. It has been discussed to death, yet never entirely resolved. There are several popular “best” strategies, and different reasons for favoring one or another. We will play a couple of variants of this game, and perhaps get some new insight into—or at least new appreciation for—
the dilemma.
Attendees should be familiar with the basic problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma), but I will not reveal the variants until we are ready to play, on the theory that intuitive first reactions are worth exploring.
I made these variants up, I have not tested them, and I don’t know whether anyone has tried them before, so whether they will be interesting, illuminating and/or fun is anyone’s guess.
HI Everyone. I’m a psychology professor and have been thinking about the prisoners’ dilemma since I read Axelrod’s book, The Evolution of Cooperation, in the 1990s. Axelrod appeared to have the last word on strategies back then (cooperate on the first move, then tit-for-tat plus occasional forgiveness to avoid getting off track if a partner makes a mistake). I do not know too much about variations, although the TV show Friend or Foe made some waves 20+ years ago. In the few excerpts I’ve seen of that show, the naked manipulation made my skin crawl. I just checked the wiki for the show and it turns out there have been at least 3 other games shows that involve a cooperate vs. defect component. This will be my first time attend a LessWrong event, and I’m interested in the variations Ben Thompson has developed and learning from all of you.