I’m kind of a fan of game theory. I remember first learning about Prisoner’s Dilemma when reading “The Mysterious Benedict Society” when I was younger and then learning about a few of the other dilemmas during my Intro to Comparative Politics course freshman year. Each time I hear more about it, I find the new information fascinating. From this reading, I had never heard of Chicken or Stag Hunt.

In learning about Prisoner’s Dilemma, I have always thought that I would be the person to choose the cooperative option. I would rather believe that the other person would also choose the cooperative option rather than choosing the cheating option and possibly getting stuck with the extra years or screwing over the other person. However, as the options are presented in the model dilemma, I do not know if I would choose the cooperative option in the Stag Hunt because I would be worried about the possibility of the both of us not catching the stag and being stuck with nothing given the higher levels of risk in Stag Hunt. However, when the stacks were changed to the freedom of speech in Tibet, I completely understood (and agreed with) why people would choose to chase the stag. I think that it is interesting how my thought of what I would do changes between the model and the example. It shows how important context is, especially when discussing game theory and the actions you would take in the situations.