I had heard of some of these social dilemmas before, but I had heard them outside of game theory. I learned about the Tragedy of the Commons in a high school environmental science class because it relates to overfishing, and I learned about the Prisoner’s Dilemma in Econ. (Although somehow this book explained it better than a whole semester of Econ.) I knew of the concept of Chicken because it was a game we played at recess in elementary school, where two people would hang from the monkey bars and kick at each other until one gave up and jumped off.
It’s interesting that dilemmas like these can apply to very small situations, like a roommate not doing the dishes and getting their frustrated roommates to do it for them, or to large scale situations, like thousands of young people free riding on social welfare. Whatever the scale, the solutions seem to apply either way, like threats vs negotiation. Since we can recognize these dilemmas, I think it would be valuable to know ways in which to nullify these situations, especially since all of us are in a setting where we often have to work collaboratively with people, and will likely need to do so when we first get jobs or internships.
Do you really think that nullifying these situations is the best solution? I think that regardless of how we try to combat them, they will still appear, as it would be impossible to get everyone to work collaboratively. I think the best solution is to play into these theories and try to win.
In line with Leah’s response, do you think that nullifying these situations is possible? Given my own outlook on human nature, I think that it is impossible to ensure cooperation from a large enough portion of the public to nullify the situations. Rather, I think that understanding them gives people a greater understanding of how to manipulate the situations to try to achieve cooperation without getting rid of them completely.
I also think that nullifying the situation would be very hard. But I also think that it would be interesting to see if it is possible. I wonder what we would have to do to make that possible or if it would be better to simply educate everyone. Educating people can only do so much but it may be able to do enough