Possible Survey Spoiler. You may want to take the survey before reading this.
I’m not sure if monetary prize question was intended to serve as a reimagining of the prisoner’s dilemma, but that seems to be the way people are interpreting it in these comments. I would like to point out that the cooperate/defect question is fundamentally different from the original Prisoner’s Dilemma because the total amount of prison time in the original scenario actually is dependent on your cooperation or defection. In this game, the total amount of money is unchanged by our actions.
Defecting reassigns more money to yourself and Yvain (or whoever is paying for the prize.) Cooperating assigns more money to other survey takers. I don’t really see why anyone should prefer giving money to random other survey takers rather than themselves or Yvain.
In future surveys, this could be corrected for (assuming this is intended to serve as a prisoner’s dilemma) by promising to burn the portion of the prize money that is defected away.
In future surveys, this could be corrected for (assuming this is intended to serve as a prisoner’s dilemma) by promising to burn the portion of the prize money that is defected away.
Nah, that would just slightly increase the value of the US dollar, and be equivalent to reassigning more money to anyone who’s holding any US dollars. You’d have to destroy intrinsically valuable resources instead.
Nah, that would just slightly increase the value of the US dollar, and be equivalent to reassigning more money to anyone who’s holding any US dollars. You’d have to destroy intrinsically valuable resources instead.
Dump some mass into a very large black hole. (Note: Please don’t do this, I consider this to be one of the worst possible crimes against sentient life.)
It might just as well be intended to establish how many people are so entrained on “cooperating is virtuous in PD-like problems” that we choose cooperation-like choices without actually thinking through the consequences.
I wonder, now, what a typical audience would select if offered a standard PD problem with the labels swapped.
I don’t really see why anyone should prefer giving money to random other survey takers rather than themselves or Yvain.
I’m unable to take the money, but think that there is value toward incentivizing both high survey returns and people taking the monetary prize question seriously, so cooperating was strongly more valuable.
It seems to me that Yvain keeping money which he himself arranged to give away should not necessarily be considered to have positive utility. That leaves self-interest. But whether self-interest can/should motivate cooperation is the fundamental question of PD in the first place, isn’t it?
I assume the 60 dollars still has value to Yvain even though he was willing to spend some fraction of it. I don’t see any reason to assume this money is less valuable to Yvain than to the generic survey taker.
Possible Survey Spoiler. You may want to take the survey before reading this.
I’m not sure if monetary prize question was intended to serve as a reimagining of the prisoner’s dilemma, but that seems to be the way people are interpreting it in these comments. I would like to point out that the cooperate/defect question is fundamentally different from the original Prisoner’s Dilemma because the total amount of prison time in the original scenario actually is dependent on your cooperation or defection. In this game, the total amount of money is unchanged by our actions.
Defecting reassigns more money to yourself and Yvain (or whoever is paying for the prize.) Cooperating assigns more money to other survey takers. I don’t really see why anyone should prefer giving money to random other survey takers rather than themselves or Yvain.
In future surveys, this could be corrected for (assuming this is intended to serve as a prisoner’s dilemma) by promising to burn the portion of the prize money that is defected away.
Nah, that would just slightly increase the value of the US dollar, and be equivalent to reassigning more money to anyone who’s holding any US dollars. You’d have to destroy intrinsically valuable resources instead.
Dump some mass into a very large black hole. (Note: Please don’t do this, I consider this to be one of the worst possible crimes against sentient life.)
It might just as well be intended to establish how many people are so entrained on “cooperating is virtuous in PD-like problems” that we choose cooperation-like choices without actually thinking through the consequences.
I wonder, now, what a typical audience would select if offered a standard PD problem with the labels swapped.
I actually wonder if Yvain might be playing at something else beyond the obvious Prisoner’s Dilemma interpretation.
I’m unable to take the money, but think that there is value toward incentivizing both high survey returns and people taking the monetary prize question seriously, so cooperating was strongly more valuable.
Your cooperation doesn’t actually incentivize high survey returns since no one knows whether you cooperate or defect.
It seems to me that Yvain keeping money which he himself arranged to give away should not necessarily be considered to have positive utility. That leaves self-interest. But whether self-interest can/should motivate cooperation is the fundamental question of PD in the first place, isn’t it?
I assume the 60 dollars still has value to Yvain even though he was willing to spend some fraction of it. I don’t see any reason to assume this money is less valuable to Yvain than to the generic survey taker.