Vincent

M: (60)16 358 2486 | T: (60)3 7966 0721

Or you can leave a message at their facebook page. The link is in my post above.

While I agree with the message you’re trying to convey. Still I do not see it fitting to use the dilemma as an analogy for life. There are selfish people who simply don’t give a damn about the world outside their bubble.

I may have caused you to misunderstand what I meant with ‘reporting the person’. I had the problem of littering in my mind in which the dilemma isn’t “betray or not to betray” but to “litter/not litter/pick up the rubbish/report/tell him off”.

1. I do not intend to potray that everyone is ‘evil’, but merely that it is too optimistic to say no one is ‘evil’

2. The ‘logical’ solution to reduce sentence, will be a bad move in the long run. In a lab, where the game theory is applied to the same partner’s repeatedly, it will result with the partners losing trust in each other, betraying each other and they both get more punishment in sum.

3. My point is life is a game of repeated ‘prisoner’s dilemma’, not with 1 static partner but a large number of partners who might betray you.

4. This article is meant to be simplistic to understand the challenges of life in manageable chunks.

5. Even to choose a strategy of ‘reporting a person’, the betrayal have happened. The emotional, monetary & time cost have been incurred. And to ‘report a person’ would acquire additional costs which is irrelevant as even that, on it’s on can be another ‘prisonner’s dilemma’ with another ‘partner’.

6. The conclusion that I wish too get across is that even with the risk of being betrayed, it is much better to do good first…

In the dilemma, one prisoner does not know whether his accomplice would betray him. His decision would ultimately depend on how much he trusts his accomplice. However, in the argument the author presents, it is clear that others are doing evil. It is analogous to knowing that your accomplice is betraying you, the logical consequence is to betray him as well to reduce your sentence. Hence the author’s argument is a non-sequitur.

It is also too simplistic. Real life isn’t as simple as “betray or not to betray”. What about other options like reporting the person? Even if doing good is the better choice, you can never expect everyone to do good and play by the rules.