Super Cooperators narration
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EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General) North American (US General American - GenAM)Transcript
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Super Cooperators by Martin Nowak, read by Graham Vic. Carl Sigmund, a mathematician from the University of Vienna, gave a talk on the prisoner's dilemma on intriguing game that was first devised in 1950. He was excited about the dilemma because it is a powerful mathematical cartoon of a struggle that is central to life, one between conflict and cooperation between the individual and the collective good. It considers the following scenario. Imagine that you and your accomplice are both charged with a serious crime. The prosecutor interrogates you separately and offers each of you a deal. It goes as follows. If one of you, the defector, incriminates the other while the partner remains silent, then the defector will be sentenced to one year for providing enough information to jail his partner. Meanwhile, his silent Confederate will be burdened with a four year sentence. If you both remain silent, there will be insufficient evidence to convict either view of the more serious crime, and you will each receive a sentence of two years for a lesser offense. If, on the other hand, you both defect by incriminating each other, you will both be convicted of the more serious crime but given reduced sentences of three years for being willing to provide information. Whatever the formulation, a table of options known as a payoff matrix can sum of all four possible outcomes of the game. Let's begin. You both cooperate. That means a sentence of two years each. You cooperate and your partner defects. Four years for you, one for him. You defect and your partner cooperates one for you, four for him. You both defect three years each. The best outcome for you is the third option for your Confederate. The second is the best option. What should you do? Well, your partner will either defect or cooperate. If he defects, you should, too, to avoid the worst possible outcome for you. If he cooperates, then you should defect as you will get the smallest possible sentence. Thus, no matter what your partner does, it is best for you to defect. Defecting is called a dominant strategy in the game with this payoff matrix. This means that the strategy is always the best one to adopt, regardless of what strategy is used by the other player. This is why if you both cooperate, you get two years in prison but you only get one year in prison if you defect. If the other person defects and you hold your tongue, then you get four years in prison. But you only get three years if you both defect. Thus, no matter what the other person does, it is better for you to defect. But there's a problem with this. Your Confederate is reaching exactly the same conclusion. As a consequence, you both defect spending three years in jail. The dilemma comes because the most rational, dominant strategy leaves both of you worse off than if you had both remain silent. You both end up with the third best outcome, whereas if you had both cooperated, you'd have both enjoyed the second best outcome. That is the prisoner's dilemma. If only you had trusted each other by cooperating, you would both be better off