How To Solve The Prisoner's Dilemma
We all know the story of the prisoner’s dilemma. Where if you shoot someone first they die and you get a sentence, but a lighter one than if you don’t shoot someone hoping that they don’t shoot you. Let me tell you, it doesn’t have to be so complicated.
When the prisoner's dilemma was invented, it made such an uproar that today we still talk about it in psychology class and economics class. It’s like this problem was so damn complicated that it required everyone to know about it. Plus, the whole field of game theory was invented based on problems just like the prisoner's dilemma.
The truth is, the prisoner's dilemma is just a game of wits. If you have no problem throwing the other person under the bus, you’re basically telling yourself that you’re okay with having a sentence, no matter what.
But if you don’t throw the other person under the bus, then you’re telling yourself that you’re ready to risk a harsher sentence with the chance of getting out of it with nothing.
The prisoner's dilemma is interesting because it depends on two people making decisions. In reality, there is no way to know what the other person is going to choose, so the other person in essence has all the power over your predicament.
Because you can’t really make another person choose one answer or the other, whatever you choose doesn’t really matter, because you’re going to get your predicament anyway.
So how do you choose?
Before getting into that, I’d like to take your attention away from the game itself and think of it in terms of a real-world situation.
According to the game, the situation involves the two prisoners being held hostage by the law and the law wants to get a confession out of the prisoners.
There is a major flaw with the problem here because the game assumes that there is more than one answer to the problem.
Since the law wants ultimately wants to know who the real culprit is, then what they are really asking for is the truth.
The truth is only withheld by someone who is lysing, someone who has something to hide, someone who is guilty.
So the law knows that the person who is lying is guilty.
If you’re interested in getting out of there, staying on the right side of the coin, and getting out of the prisoner’s dilemma without getting the harshest sentence, then the only thing you must do is to give the answer that will make sure that you get out of the problem altogether.
So, what is the right answer?
There is none. Since I don’t know who the culprit actually is. In a real-world situation where things are what they are, the culprit can either lie or tell the truth.
What is more likely? That the culprit lies and blames the other person, or that the culprit tells the truth and blames themselves?
From the answer to that question, you can determine whether or not the other person, assuming the first person isn’t guilty, is going to go with confessing or blaming the first person.
That is how you know who is going to say what.
And that is how you solve the prisoner's dilemma.
The person who is guilty is either going to confess or not, and the other person is either going to confess or not. The answer lies in who will say what depends on if the person is actually guilty or not, and whether or not that person is likely or not to blame themselves or the other person.
In other words, the only way to truly solve the prisoner’s dilemma is to know people, how they think, and whether or not they act in a way that is consistent with how they think or not.
This is why the prisoner’s dilemma is such a fascinating problem. It truly only depends on how well you know people, and where you find yourself in the situation.
It’s only relevant if you’re not in the problem. If you’re not in the situation. It’s the scariest problem there is because if you were really experiencing it, there would be no way to really know what to do.
So instead, people study this game, get jitters at the thought of it, and begin to solve it in their minds. Making every move about the prisoner’s dilemma. Wondering if someone would shoot first, worrying about if people trust them and if they can trust people.
Since there is no end to this problem, there is no end to the problem it causes in real life. It is a basic human driver, and a terrifying one at that.
For people who help people, for marketers, for entrepreneurs and influencers, it means that we can use this problem and mitigate it as much as possible so that people can forget about it altogether and it can cease to exist.
People who bring problems like this back, again and again, are making it more difficult for all of us to actually focus on what is important.
Sometimes selling someone on a good idea, like solving the prisoner’s dilemma for them, is the best service you can ever do.
That’s why I make sure to keep such a perspective on what I do when I do it.
I need to make sure that my clients and customers are happy not only with their purchase decision but that it makes sense for them in the grand scheme of things.
Instead of asking people to trust me, or creating a mirage of trust around me, my name or my brand, I make sure that the trust people have in me is genuine and that they can rely on it on a level that is unquestionable.
I hope you do too because when I buy from you, I want to be sure that nothing ever happens between us.
