Friday, January 18, 2008
prisoners' dilema
The classical prisoner's dilemma (PD) is as follows:
Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act?
The extract above was taken from wikepedia.
I copied and paste the extract so people can have a rough idea on what the prisoners' dilema was about. Anyway, i have a slightly modified of this theory.
One day, in a place called wussyland, a bunch of wussies were detained by the police on suspicion of murdering a man. They were all grilled individually, and forced to admit that they were the murderer. But sad to say, none of them admitted. According to wussy law, if none of the wussies admit to the crime, all of them will be charged with murder and will be hanged. But if one wussy admits to the crime, the person who admits will be charged with murder, and he himself will be hanged. After that, they were all placed in the same cell. Naturally, they got together to discuss what to do. Wussy Sari suggested to get 1 person to own up, so that only he will get charged, while the rest(including the real murderer) would be released. Some wussies were agreeable to the idea, while others were'nt. So wussy Sari got together wif those wussies who were agreeable to the idea, and wanted the other wussies to take the rap. He went around persuading these other wussies that he will engage the best lawyers to fight the case, and help acquit the scapegoat. Rather than all the wussy suspects die, one wussy decided to take the rap after much persuasion from wussy Sari. After all Sari did promise him to get him out free. So this wussy(not the real murderer) took the rap, and had to go to court. True to his promise, wussy Sari did help the wussy who took the rap to engage the best lawyers, but were only able to help reduce the charge to manslaughter, while the real murderer got away scotsfree.
In my opinion, justice was not done. An innocent wussy was being punished for doing something he did not do. Also some other wussies instead of helping to find out the real murdererer, joined in to coerce this wussy to take the rap, so that they would not be hanged, while they themselves were not willing to take the rap.
What a long and boring story.
iduntellu at 10:45 PM