4/15/2005

Prisoner’s Dilemma Made for TV.

I found a great article that told about a new television show aired in Great Britain. The show’s name is "Shafted” and it is a fitting name. In the game players accrue money like any other game show. At the end of the show the two contestants have an accumulated sum of money and they have to decide if to share the money or to try and get all the money for themselves. Their decision is made without the knowledge of what the other person has decided to do. If both contestants cooperate then they share the money. If they both defect then they both receive nothing. If one cooperates and the other defects, the one that defected gets all the money and the contestant that cooperated gets nothing. This is a great modern example for the prisoner’s dilemma.

2 comments:

Spencer said...

These sound like great examples of the prisoner's dilemma. The sad part of all of this is that when we are learning economics from the local gameshow I think we have failed ourselves as a society. Other than that they must be pretty fun to watch.

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 on Ralph's post for a grammatical error.

What a riot! I may have to link to this post from my personal blog.

I will be you that most people end up losing the money.