Always Cooperate

In class today we exemplified the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, as Dawkins explains in his book. More than just a game of trust, he uses it to explain genes selfishness and attitude to betray other for their success. The game shows us how betrayal if the competitor is loyal is great. But if both betray each other they will slowly fail. Below a diagram that explains the dilemma and how we played it in class will be explained further on. In Dawkins way of playing the game, if both persons cooperate they will win three points. If one cooperates and the other defects, the later will win five points, whilst the one that chose to cooperate will not win points. If both chose to defect they will only win one point each.

With genes the rules vary a little bit. Some genes develop to be cheats which means they are able to govern around the suckers. Without receiving anything in return the suckers will work for the cheats just to survive. If the both decide to neglect each other non will develop and succeed as the strongest species. Lastly if both genes chose to cooperate with each other success! They will both fight for survival but if helping each other ensure the success of both alleles.

In class rough feelings emerged due to the game. When humans play it they have the power to choose to betray someone. If they did so the other person might not like the decision. It was also a disadvantage for those that were not chosen to play the game, because even though if you played you might lose some points at one point in the game. No one ended up losing points from their grade; instead the two that played received a better score. It was played the following way in class: if you won you would win 0.5 points into your grade over a four, if tied defecting both would lose 0.01 points, if you lost you would lose 0.1 points and if you both tied cooperating both would win 0.3 points.

After reading Dawkins solutions for the game, and the classes feelings towards it, it was obvious that if you always cooperated it would be the best for your grade. Not only that but as well with genes and everything you can “prisoner dilemma”.