The sucker's payoff

TWO prisoners, FOUR possible outcomes, a dilemma, a paradox.

TWO suspects were accused of having jointly committed a crime. Let’s call them Henry and Dave.. Police is aware that it doesn’t have strong evidence against them and plans to request one year in prison for both.

They are put into separate cells and cannot communicate with each other.

In questioning the suspects, Police decides to offer each one of them a deal:

- “If you testify against your partner, then you will go free and your mate will get 3 years in prison. But there is a catch, if you testify against each other, both will be sentenced to two years”.

So there are FOUR possible outcomes:

If both stay silent, each one will get 2 years, if both accuse the other, each one will get 3 years, but if one testifies against the other and this one remains silent, the accuser will get 1 year and the other will get 5 years (the sucker 's payoff).

In such situation, what would you do, defect o cooperate? You’d probably reason the following way:

-       If the other remains silent, by accusing him, I will get 1 year. I WILL ACCUSE HIM.

-       If the other accuses me and I remain silent, I will get 5 years. I WILL ACCUSE HIM (I don’t wanna get the sucker’s payoff).

-       But if the other accuses me and I accuse him, both will get 3 years which is better than 5. I WILL ACCUSE HIM.

-       Of course we’ll be better off if we both remain silent, but I cannot run that risk.

So, no matter what the other guy does, it is better to defect. This is the “rational” conduct. And this applies to the other guy too.

So there is a DILEMA and a PARADOX.

A DILEMA, because the situation offers them two possibilities (to cooperate or to defect), neither being comfortable.

And a PARADOX, because there is a contradiction: they can be better off by cooperating, but looking for their self-interest and acting “rationally”, they have no option but to defect.

Any two party relationship --employer-employee, priest-penitent, lawyer-client—and many situations in life, imply a prisoner's dilemma.

For instance,

LOVE

Love implies sacrifices. Making a sacrifice for someone you love is playing the cooperation card. A failure to make a sacrifice in return, a dishonesty or infidelity, is a defection. Sucker's payoffs in relationships include being left alone to raise the children while the ex-spouse goes off to marry someone younger.

ECONOMY

The current crisis would alleviate if, instead of saving, we would spend more: the economy would revitalise and the crisis would disappear. But people don’t cooperate; they prefer to keep their money to preserve their own security. This way they only aggravate the crisis against the interest of us all.

TOASTMASTERS

Toastmasters is about acquiring public speaking abilities and about cooperation between club members. If you don’t cooperate with Club activities: accepting roles, being part of management team, helping organise events, bringing guests, in sum, letting the others organise the things, you are losing.

Moral: what, apparently, is best for each person individually, leads to mutual defection, whereas everyone would have been better using mutual cooperation.

If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.