I found this reading to be really interesting. I am familiar with the Prisoners Dilemma scenario from my Econ and Poly-Sci classes, but was less familiar with the other ‘deadly dilemmas.’ I really liked how the author started off by stating that while there are various dilemmas, they all lead to the same non-optimal ending if the members cannot trust one another. While in theory, these issues seem so easy to irradicate, in real-life, there are so many variables at play that the costs of investing full trust in another individual are incredibly expensive. Additionally, I found the examples in historical context to be very useful.
In particular, I found the Volunteer’s DIlemma to be particularly interesting. While I appreciate learning about the extremer examples posed by the author in the readings, I found there are less extreme examples that arise on campus on a daily basis. In many classes, especially where participation is not a part of the grade, it is difficult to spark thought-provoking comments from students. A clear example of this is in my Business Ethics class. The class meets once a week on Wednesday nights from 4:30-5:45, where many students are tired from their long day or the whole week. Our participation grade is based solely on our homework responses, so there are seemingly few incentives to be an active participant. On top of there not being credit for participating. the professor asks a lot of difficult ethical follow-up questions to the initial question, so the minimal motivation there is to participate regularly is dwindled as many students do not like being put on the spot in front of the rest of the group. As there are little seen benefits to participating for most of the students, everyone in the class hopes someone else will participate whenever the professor asks a question. When one student participates, the student suffers from being put on the spot to answer the difficult questions, but the others gain security from having to answer the other follow up questions. However, if no one were to participate, the professor would ask questions to students at random, in which everyone is in constant fear of being called on. All in all, I find Game Theory to be a fascinating topic and I am excited to learn more in the coming classes and readings.
I like how you said that this has a lot to do with cold calling. I think that cold calling may work for some people but not for others. It really puts people on the spot and can cause stress and anxiety if they don’t know the answer.
To me, what you said about your business ethics class exemplifies exactly why professors need to incentivize participation in class. In general, I think people try to avoid putting themselves in a position in which they are looking for a volunteer and rather force the hands of the people around them to act.
I hadn’t thought about Volunteer’s Dilemma in terms of a class before, but you’re completely right. My 101 class was MW at 4:30 last semester, and at that point I had already had two classes throughout the day and felt too tired to do anything but piggyback off of other people’s responses. I see this even in my German class; it’s a 300 level class, so all of it is in German, and when the professor asks a question, we definitely all look at each other waiting for someone to break the silence, even if it means sounding dumb because we’re not quite sure how to answer in German.