Eliezer once pointed out that our intuitions on most formulations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma are skewed by our notions of fairness, and a more outlandish example might serve better to illustrate how a genuine PD really feels.
It might also help to consider examples in which “cooperation” doesn’t give warm fuzzy feelings and “defection” the opposite. Businessmen forming a cartel are also in a PD situation. Do we want businessmen to gang up against their customers?
This may be culturally specific, though. It’s interesting that in the standard PD, we’re supposed to be rooting for the prisoners to go free. Is that how it’s viewed in other countries?
Businessmen forming a cartel are also in a PD situation. Do we want businessmen to gang up against their customers?
It probably depends on how you frame the game—are businessmen the only players, or are their customers players too? In this model, only players have utilons, there are no utilons for the “environment”. Or perhaps the well-being of general population could also be a part of businessman’s utility function.
If customers are not players, and their well-being does not affect businessmen’s utility function (in other words, we talk about psychopathic businessmen), then it is a classical PD.
But it is good to note than in reality “warm fuzzy feelings” are part of the human utility function, whether the model acknowledges it or not, so some our intuitions may be wrong.
It might also help to consider examples in which “cooperation” doesn’t give warm fuzzy feelings and “defection” the opposite. Businessmen forming a cartel are also in a PD situation. Do we want businessmen to gang up against their customers?
This may be culturally specific, though. It’s interesting that in the standard PD, we’re supposed to be rooting for the prisoners to go free. Is that how it’s viewed in other countries?
I think in PD we are rooting that it doesn’t happen so that the worse prisoner goes free and the more honourable one sits in jail.
It probably depends on how you frame the game—are businessmen the only players, or are their customers players too? In this model, only players have utilons, there are no utilons for the “environment”. Or perhaps the well-being of general population could also be a part of businessman’s utility function.
If customers are not players, and their well-being does not affect businessmen’s utility function (in other words, we talk about psychopathic businessmen), then it is a classical PD.
But it is good to note than in reality “warm fuzzy feelings” are part of the human utility function, whether the model acknowledges it or not, so some our intuitions may be wrong.