Edit: Yes, I misread. The numbers represent payoff, not number of years in prison, which is what my brain tends to auto-fill in for numbers when encountering the prisoner’s dilemma. I followed the rest, and your bit describing the common-knowledge generating feature of religion lit the bulb over my head, I enjoyed that part! It really threw into sharp relief how and why religion has been so strong and effective for thousands of years.
A couple nitpicks of the Prisoner’s Dilemma illustrated matrix (assuming C refers to being silent, and D to snitching):
C/C, at 3⁄3, seems worse for both than D/D at 1⁄1, when it’s stated that both cooperating is better than both defecting.
In the respective C/D and D/C boxes (assuming that the format is Anne/Bob), the numbers seem backward to me: if Anne cooperates and Bob defects, then Bob should get off free (4/0) -- but the matrix has that outcome labelled as (0/4).
I stared at it for a few minutes, and I’ll feel silly just for a bit if it turns out that I just kept misreading it, but better that than continuing to be confused, so let me know if I just read it wrong!
Edit: Yes, I misread. The numbers represent payoff, not number of years in prison, which is what my brain tends to auto-fill in for numbers when encountering the prisoner’s dilemma. I followed the rest, and your bit describing the common-knowledge generating feature of religion lit the bulb over my head, I enjoyed that part! It really threw into sharp relief how and why religion has been so strong and effective for thousands of years.